Sorry it’s been so long! How is every­one?

For my first post of June, I would like to share with you the skin care and beauty prod­ucts that I’m lov­ing for summer.

1. Trop­i­cal Tra­di­tions Gold Stan­dard Vir­gin Coconut Oil. This is my sta­ple, but I use it a lot more in sum­mer than I do in win­ter. If I go out and wear eye make-up, I use this to gen­tly remove it with­out sting­ing my eyes. I also use it to pre­vent black­heads and blem­ishes, since coconut oil con­tains lau­ric acid, which is a pow­er­ful non-toxic fun­gus and bac­te­ria fighter. I just keep a jar of this in my cup­board, and in the sum­mer it stays in a soft, semi-liquidy state so it’s easy to use a cos­metic spat­ula, spoon, cot­ton bud, or cot­ton swab to scoop out some coconut oil. Then you just put it on your skin wher­ever you want. Some peo­ple use it in their hair, but for my fine, curly hair, I pre­fer to use purely mois­tur­iz­ing oils (I list one below).

2. Best Bath Store Acne Treat­ment Gel. This stuff is amaz­ing. You can dab this on at night and it dra­mat­i­cally reduces any pim­ple (and red­ness) to almost noth­ing by morn­ing. Bet­ter yet, you can also put it on in the morn­ing and no one will know. Oh! And it doesn’t dry your skin out at all. It has a funky herbal scent that I really like, and the ingre­di­ents are pure and 100% nat­ural, of course. This gel will be espe­cially use­ful if you work­out a lot and tend to get sweat-related blem­ishes on  your back — this gel clears it right up.

3. John Mas­ters Organ­ics Cit­rus & Neroli Detan­gler. This is a great con­di­tioner for dry hair. I put a lit­tle on my ends before sham­poo­ing to pre­vent the ends from dry­ing out, then once I rinse out the sham­poo, I re-apply the con­di­tioner far­ther up my hair and let it sit for a few min­utes. I’m left with soft, delicious-smelling hair that’s not weighed down at all (which is easy to do to my hair!).

4. Organic Apoteke Detox Face Mask. This is a great face mask. I usu­ally make my own, but I didn’t want to pass this up because I loved the ingre­di­ents and it got great reviews on Makeup Alley. I tried a spray tan about 2 weeks ago and my skin reacted pretty neg­a­tively to it (read: break­outs), so with the help of this mask and the BBS Gel (above), it cleared up 100% in 2 days. So this mask has a per­ma­nent place in my cup­board, and gets 5 stars for being very sooth­ing, reduc­ing red­ness, and elim­i­nat­ing exist­ing prob­lems as well as pre­vent­ing any new ones. And again, love the ingre­di­ents for being pure, organic, and 100% natural.

5. 100% Pure Organic Laven­der Honey Facial Cleans­ing Foam. I love this company’s entire prod­uct line, but this is my favorite. I use this face wash most of the time — I’ll change it up occa­sion­ally by using goat milk pow­der mixed with water, or their cran­berry foam wash. This wash smells won­der­ful, works well, and doesn’t dry your skin out. I even used this for a while in the win­ter, and still no bad dry­ing effect, which was sur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing the major­ity of face washes I’ve tried always cause some dry­ing. About once a week I’ll mix my laven­der wash with 1 tsp. of really fine organic sugar or some MSM pow­der to make an awe­some scrub. If you have nor­mal or oily skin, you can try mix­ing it with aluminum-free bak­ing soda (I like Bob’s Red Mill variety).

6. Sir­cuit Skin Cos­me­ceu­ti­cals Hand­some Creme. Every­one I know loves the incred­i­ble smell of this thick lotion, and the name (Hand­some) is so cute and catchy you’ll never for­get it. The ingre­di­ents are great and very heal­ing, and even con­tains fruc­tooligosac­cha­rides, which is a pre­bi­otic that helps to feed the good bac­te­ria on our skin (this is why I also rec­om­mend yogurt for the skin all the time, even though yogurt is more of a pro­bi­otic than a prebiotic).

7. Hair Ther­apy Wrap Cord­less Ther­mal Tur­ban Heat Wrap. Michelle sent me one of the wraps to try and I’m really glad she did because I’d been think­ing about buy­ing one for a few months. I use this with my John Mas­ters Organ­ics Laven­der & Avo­cado Inten­sive Con­di­tioner or Weleda Rose­mary Hair Oil (see below). First I put the conditioner/oil on, put on a shower cap, put the entire ther­apy wrap (it has microwave­able heat pads inside) in the microwave for a minute or two, and then pop it on my head over the shower cap. It’s a bit heavy for my head (they’re com­ing out with lighter gel-packs soon), so I usu­ally leave it on for about 20–40 min­utes. It stays hot for a long time, which I like, and you can always re-microwave it if you think it’s not hot enough. I’m glad it’s not super-hot because I’m not a fan of any kind of heat dam­age. ;D I love the results, it makes the con­di­tioner work that much bet­ter. This is a must-have for sum­mer, espe­cially if you’re swim­ming in hair-damaging chlo­ri­nated pools or the salty ocean.

8. Weleda Rose­mary Hair Oil. Rose­mary and bur­dock are two of the main ingre­di­ents in the all-natural oil, and both are known for pro­mot­ing scalp bal­ance and hair growth. I use this oil at least once per week and my hair feels and looks so amaz­ingly healthy that I went out and bought two more bot­tles so I’d never run out. ;D I pour a bit into my hands and take my time gen­tly mas­sag­ing it into my scalp (I pour more into my hands as I go along, my goal is to coat all of my hair) and smooth­ing it through all the way to the ends. Then I wrap my hair in a bun and either put my heated hair wrap over it (see above), or I do a BodyRock.tv work­out which heats up your scalp (and your whole body, for that mat­ter) and helps the oil works its magic.

9. Aura Cacia Vanilla Essen­tial Oil (in Jojoba Oil). Oh…my…goodness. This smells so incred­i­ble. I love nat­ural per­fume oils, and this one is my favorite along with their Jas­mine essen­tial oil. I just dab a few drops on my skin and smooth any remain­ing bit into my hair. Mmmm! If you’re sen­si­tive to com­mer­cial per­fumes and tend to sneeze or get headaches around scents, then you’ll absolutely LOVE this because it’s com­pletely nat­ural and only has 2 ingre­di­ents — jojoba oil and real vanilla extract. Plus, it’s cheaper than com­mer­cial per­fumes and even if you use one or two drops a day (which is all you need), it’s going to last you at least two months.

10. Sweet Bee Magic All Over Skin Cream. Sweet Bee sent me a jar and two lit­tle sam­ples (which I gave to some friends so they could get hooked) of their prod­uct a few months ago, and haven’t had a chance to try it until now. It really reminds me of Egypt­ian Magic, but for some rea­son, it works a lot bet­ter for me than EM ever did. If you ever get dry patches or if you’re prone to dry feet because you walk around bare­foot a lot or do yoga, this will soon turn into your holy grail of skin creams. I had a lit­tle dry patch on the my left cheek yes­ter­day, and when I woke up this morn­ing is was 80% gone. It’s very sooth­ing and incred­i­bly mois­tur­iz­ing. Hoorah!

Just an FTC note: I’m never paid by or affil­i­ated with any of the prod­ucts I rec­om­mend, and I always tell you if I received an item for free (the hair wrap and bee magic, in this case).

Let me know if you use or try any of my favorites! I’d love to know what you think.
~Stephanie  x

Related Posts:

• 3 “Secrets” to Clear Skin (No More Acne!)
• 10 Best Nat­ural Skin & Hair Care Prod­ucts of 2009
• Skin Care Rou­tine as of August 2010