You’ve heard of physical exfoliants and chemical exfoliants – now meet their less famous cousin, enzyme exfoliants! You’ll find them in a whole bunch of popular products, like Mario Badescu Enzyme Cleansing Gel, Jurlique Fruit Enzyme Exfoliator, MUAC Triple Enzyme Peel and DIY pumpkin, kiwi, papaya or pineapple masks. What’s an exfoliant? If you need a refresher, an exfoliant is …
If you’re like me and you love chemical exfoliants but want to take it to the next level, then you might be interested in trying out some chemical peels. Dermatologists and some beauty salons perform all manner of peels, but you can easily and safely do light chemical peels at home. What is a chemical peel? A chemical peel involves …
It’s time for me to gush about rosehip oil again! It’s my favourite skincare oil, and it’s my SOS beauty saviour – whenever my skin is looking dull or pimply or otherwise subpar, I give it a break from all my other treatments and just slap on rosehip oil. Today I’m focusing on one of its components: linoleic acid, also …
Aztec Secret Indian Healing Clay makes a great mask, but it’s alkaline so you need to mix it with apple cider vinegar to bring the clay to a skin-friendly pH. But then you slap it on your face and try to relax, but you can’t because all you can smell is vinegar. What can you do? I was stuck with …
I have a little collection of AHA products now, and since I also have a bunch of pH strips lying around at home, I thought it’d be a good idea to test all the pHs out, since they’re pretty important when it comes to choosing an AHA, and companies rarely state what they are. If you can’t remember, this post …
For years, we’ve been using just 2 solvents, ethyl acetate and acetone, to remove nail polish. But recently a whole host of new removers containing neither of those have made their way onto the market – what are they, and are they worth a shot? Are they really solvent-free? No. Anything that dissolves something else up is a solvent – …
It’s the second part of my soap making post! Last time we looked at the chemistry behind soap making (also called saponification) – today we’re looking at how to actually make a bar of soap, using ingredients from the supermarket. Related Post: Make Your Own Soap! Part 1: The Chemistry Behind Soap Making From the previous chemistry post, we know that …
In the middle of teaching some high school students about the chemistry of soap-making, I realised that I really, really wanted to try making some soap myself and write about it here. My write-up ended up being really long, so I’ve made it a two-parter – Installment 1 is all about the chemistry, and Installment 2 is about the actual …