Being a bit of a hippy I prefer to try natural things at home to maintain or better my skin. Most of my life after puberty has been spent fighting acne and other skin problems. I have acne on my face and neck. It’s not nearly as bad as it was several years ago. I also have something on my upper arms. I’m not sure what it is, might be a form of eczema. I’ve never been to a dermatologist for it. My mother-in-law, whom is a nurse, guessed that is what it was. I looked at her medical dictionary and it has pictures that match my arms under the “eczema” page. I did have it on my hands as a child, very badly, left my young hands looking about 10 years older than they were. They still look old and wrinkly. I used to hate it. Now I think, well I’m going to end up wrinkly anyway, my hands just have a head start.

I’m getting side tracked. So my arms used to cause me a lot of worries, I was so self-conscience about it. I think I’ve worked through it. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t try to get rid of it on occasion. I experiment with it. This was my experiment two nights ago. I took a nice hot bath and made my own salt scrub. The salt scrub consisted of the following: Epson salt, olive oil, essential oils, tea tree oil, rose gallica, cedarwood atlas, cypress, sweet orange. I’m not sure of the amount of drops other than I tried to put just one of rose, it can be overwhelming. One or two of cedar or cypress, I can never remember which one it is, but one of them is way overwhelming for me. I just need to smell it and I’ll add it later. I’m going to work on perfecting this recipe because well, the next morning my arms looked so much better. There were still bumps and scars but it wasn’t inflamed anymore and there weren’t as many bumps that I could pop. I know it’s gross but I do pop them sometimes. And yes I know that causes them to scar sometimes.

I was amazed! Two days later, my arms still look great. I’m going to write everything down and slowly eliminate ingredients one at a time, to see which ingredient(s) it is that helped so much. It might turn out to be the combination of everything. I’m so excited. I’ll write it all down and post it later.

On a side note, I do end up smelling like a garden. I’m okay with that, but if anyone else has issues with smelling like nature than it isn’t for you. Also, be careful with what essential oils you use. I am a certified aromatherapist and have done plenty of experiments on myself after double-checking for cautionary notes. I can’t remember everything and rather than burning myself I check my handy-dandy essential oil book. And before I complete this, I’ll say that most essential oils need to be mixed with carrier oil such as olive oil or jojoba oil. Some can burn or cause irritation. So do research before hand. The book I have on hand all the time is The Encyclopedia of Essential Oils by Julia Lawless, very good, very informative. There are websites where you can buy them and get information on the essential oils. But be careful, you want good quality oils. Better results come from better quality oils.

This is what I mixed up this morning and I used it in the shower, just on my arms.

Salt scrub with olive oil

1 tsp olive oil

1 drop rose gallica

4 drops orange

4 drops tea tree

2 drops cypress

1 drop cedarwood atlas

Epson salt*

*I used maybe1/8 cup of Epson salt. I’m not sure of exact measurement I just wanted enough salt to absorb all the oil. If you have too much then the oil won’t cover the salt.

So far my arms are still looking great. I might also decide to use this for a week and then take an ingredient out and try that for a week. I’ll update this later.