This is a lovely recipe from one of our local cowshare family – Heather Passmore is an amazing artist who has the ability to turn lemons into lemonade as you will see from this selection of some of her cool artwork: Rejection, Revised. Try out this recipe and you will have a chance to try a bit of her amazing creative artistry to cleanse your face. As many of you know, Cleopatra used to love taking fermented horse milk baths as the enzymes and probiotics in the fermented milk rejuvenated her skin preventing wrinkles and aging effects.

Raw Yogurt Herbal Facial Cleanser:

Instead of spending lots of money on facial cleansing cream that contains no cream and many preservatives, I simply use the following recipe which I created over a period of learning and experimentation with natural skin care. I am very happy with the results. It is best to use raw yogurt because it lasts longer than pasteurized. It is best to use whole yogurt because the high cream content will assist in the removal of make-up, sunscreen, dirt or grease.

Ingredients:

1 cup of Cleopatra’s Yogurt Mask

Mix 1 tablespoon dried lavender to all or any of the following dried herbs:

• 1 T calendula petals
• 1 T rosehips
• 1 T chamomile

Infuse the dried herbs in a small glass jar of yogurt. Place on the counter or in a cool dark place for about 24 hours. You will notice a warm pink colour develop if you use rosehips, and a gentle yellow colour if you use calendula petals.

Strain the yogurt mask through a metal sieve such as a tea strainer. (You may need to push the yogurt mask through the herbs and strainer with the back of a spoon).

Store your strained herbal facial cleanser in the fridge.

Apply liberally to the face and let penetrate before removing with warm filtered water. Pat dry and apply moisturizer if needed (you probably won’t!).

Lavender will impart natural fragrance and preservative to your lotion. Calendula and chamomile assist in skin healing. Rosehips impart vitamin C which is also rejuventating and beneficial to the skin. Combined with the alpha-hydroxy acids in yoghurt, Vitamin C is a gentle exfoliator of dead skin cells.

It really exfoliates the skin well if you leave it on for a a long time before washing it off. Skin feels so soft and good after!

The messiest part is pushing the yogurt through the tea strainer with a spoon. The rest is easy.

I soak the herb/yoghurt mixture for a day or two on the counter. Then I keep the infused yoghurt in the fridge.

If you leave out the lavender it goes sour more quickly if you happen to forget about it in the fridge.

If you leave out the rosehips it is a bit to runny to use without dripping yogurt around your sink.

You can also control the thickness by deciding how much cream to include. The raw yoghurt will have cream on top and its great to have the choice to include this part or not depending on whether you have dry skin. If you include the cream, the end result will not last as long but it will be thicker and easier to use. I tend to not include the cream because its still creamy and moisturizing without it. I like to emphasize the lactic acid attributes a bit more.

Big thanks to Heather Passmore for this delightful recipe!

This recipe is part of the Wildcrafting Wednesday bloghop