Budget Beauty Treatments You Can Do at Home

We all want to look our best, but handling every single beauty need at the salon isn’t something many people can afford. So how do you put your best foot forward while staying on budget?

The secret lies with home treatments. You may not be able to cut your own hair with any precision, but you can certainly embrace a basic facial if you put your mind to it.

This is the perspective you need to operate from in order to begin redirecting what you’re spending at the spa into your savings account. Try these tips and homemade recipes to get started:

Sugaring

I saw this done for the first time shortly after I moved to the Arabian Gulf. Whether women performed this treatment themselves at home or had it done at a salon, the recipe was the same. Sugar, cooked with a few other ingredients, can be made into an all-natural waxing medium to remove unwanted body hair.

Once you prepare a batch, you can simply pull off as much as you need for a particular session. The rest can be stored in a plastic container in the fridge until you need to use it again. This Arabian sugar wax recipe from the folks at Green Prophet comes with an instructional video so you can try this process for yourself at home.

Threading

Using twisted lengths of thread is another method for removing body hair, and is popular in India and the Middle East. Typically used on facial hair around the chin, upper lip and eyebrows, it allows you to go longer between removal sessions than traditional tweezing.

I’ve noticed salons popping up in some of the smaller suburban cities and towns here in the United States over the past few years. Those who want to pinch pennies by doing it themselves at home can receive guidance from this instructional video.

As you’ll note, the instructor mentions the need to stretch your skin in order to avoid getting it caught in the thread. This is much easier in the chin and upper lip areas than it is around the eyebrows. If you want to venture into brow shaping with this technique, it will benefit you to explore some additional hand-positioning ideas and videos. You may even want to bring in a friend to help.

Dry brushing

Who doesn’t love smooth skin? One of the neatest personal care tricks I ever learned from a spa treatment was the ability to both exfoliate and stimulate circulation with the use of a dry brush against your skin. It’s what salon professionals use to initiate a body polish treatment, and is easily accomplished at home.

The trick is to use a medium bristle body brush with natural bristles. You obviously don’t want a full-on scrub brush, as it would be too harsh on your skin. But purchase one that’s too soft, and you won’t really receive the kind of circulatory stimulation you’re hoping to achieve.

Purchasing a bath-style brush with a removable wooden handle and a strap on the back of the brush section is a good way to go. This demonstration video gives you an example of how you can reasonably expect to begin performing this treatment at home. The instructor is demonstrating on a model, but as you’ll see, it would be just as easy to do this yourself in the morning.

Hot oil

Our hair takes a great deal of abuse. It doesn’t take too many trips to the gym and days in the sun before our daily conditioning routine begins to fall short. That’s where a good hot oil treatment can come in handy.

Not only can you perform this treatment at home, you can also skip the additional cost of over-the-counter salon products by using oils you may already have in your pantry. For example, I’ve noticed that Costco is carrying large jars of organic coconut oil now. If that’s your oil of choice for baking, simply scoop some into a separate jar and set it aside in the fridge.

When you’re ready to give your tresses a little TLC, all you need to do is pour some into a glass measuring cup and heat it in the microwave or heat it in a sauce pan before applying. These hot oil treatment instructions from Daily Glow will walk you through the rest of the process.

At-home beauty treatments can be accomplished with a great deal of success, especially if you choose those that are firmly within your skill set. Try a few of these techniques yourself. I think you’ll find a few that suit both your needs and schedule.