DIY Tea Beauty Recipes: Sip Your Way to a More Beautiful and Healthier You

by SUSAN BOYOUNG BAILEY SCHABACKER

What better time to refresh and repurpose your beauty routine with purer products than a warm welcoming spring! As the season ushers in a fresh new time of growth, it’s time to think of tea. Not just a nutritious and delicious beloved beverage to sip and savor, tea also offers bountiful beauty benefits supportive of your health.

Tea’s ample antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties, and plentiful polyphenols contribute to anti-aging properties that assist in cellular regeneration. The caffeine in tea can tighten pores, and other benefits of tea will give your skin a healthy glow. With antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antiviral properties, tea packs a punch when combined with essential oils and other pure ingredients, banishing breakouts and also preventing them.

In addition to the bountiful beauty benefits that tea offers with each sip, soothe, refresh, and rejuvenate your skin with these DIY recipes featuring tea.

KEEP IT SIMPLE WITH GREEN TEA TONER & MASK

BREWING INSTRUCTIONS: Place an organic green tea bag or 1 teaspoon organic green tea leaves in a mug. Pour ¼ cup boiling water over the tea and allow to steep for 5 to 10 minutes. Strain the tea leaves or remove the tea bag.

What could be simpler! Brew a fresh cup of green tea in the morning and your skin can enjoy re-energized benefits and reduced redness later as your tea works double duty. The antioxidants will be super fresh with no need to pay top dollar for a commercial antioxidant toner. Pour tea into a spray bottle and spritz or simply splash directly on your face. Store toner in the refrigerator where it will keep for up to 5 days.

Mix left-over green tea leaves with ½ teaspoon honey to use as a face mask and soothe angry breakouts, remove toxins, and tighten pores.

Remember using cucumber slices on your eyes to soothe puffiness? Green or black tea may be an even better choice to reduce dark circles, inflammation, and swelling. Place warm or chilled tea bags over closed eyelids, sit back, relax, and drift away for 10 to 15 minutes. Whether pink eye (conjunctivitis), red eye, black eye, or dry eye, all will benefit.

CITRUS GINGER GREEN TEA EXFOLIATING & MOISTURIZING SCRUB

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar or sea salt

½ cup coconut oil (solid)

½ cup olive, avocado, apricot kernel, or sweet almond oil

1 teaspoon matcha green tea powder

1 teaspoon ginger powder

1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest

1 tablespoon honey (optional)

A few drops essential oils

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine ingredients in a medium size bowl. Store in a glass mason jar. Stir before use. Use as a hand scrub or as a body scrub in the shower.

FLOWER POWER TONER

INGREDIENTS

½ cup rosewater

½ cup witch hazel (alcohol free)

¼ cup lavender herbal tea

¼ cup chamomile herbal tea

¼ cup rose petals and buds herbal tea

¼ cup jasmine green tea

A few drops essential oils (such as lavender, chamomile, rose, geranium, ylang ylang, and/or jasmine)

INSTRUCTIONS

Stir ingredients to combine and store mixture in a spray bottle. Keep refrigerated for up to 5 days. To apply, spray directly on your face or use a cotton ball.

TEA FOR TEA-RIFFIC TRESSES!

In addition to keeping you and your skin nourished, tea also provides nourishment for your hair. Whatever your desired hair color of choice, tea can bring out natural highlights or lowlights, as well as give your locks luscious luster. So, after you steep, sip and savor your tea, save some to try in these DIY recipes for a more beautiful and healthier you!

Susan BoYoung Bailey Schabacker of Winston-Salem, NC is Founder/Owner/Master Tea Blender of Tea-lation, a woman and minority owned tea business! Teas organic ingredients (from left to right: chamomile, rooibos red tea, hibiscus, and chai black tea) can be used to add natural color tint, shine, and healthy luster to hair. As seen in the before and after shots, Susan steeped the organic hibiscus and rooibos red tea for about 15 mins until deep, rich red, let cool, applied to hair and let sit about an hour. She’s elated about how tea can enable better health and longevity and also enhance beauty and hopes you’ll also stay Tea-lated!

For blonde highlights, add cooled chamomile herbal tea and lemon juice to a spray bottle. Cardamom pods may have an effect similar to peroxide and can be included when steeping the chamomile.

For a reddish tint, try hibiscus and/or rooibos red tea. Steep in boiling water until concentrated and dark red and let cool.

And, for going darker, try concentrated black tea that can also be combined with coffee (like dirty chai). This works especially well for shades of brown hair and gray hair and adds a healthy shine.

Add concentrated tea ingredients to plain yogurt or pour over hair and leave on hair for about 1 hour. Rinse out and condition.

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Susan B. B. Schabacker

Forsyth Magazines writer since 2018. Susan Schabacker was blessed to be adopted as a baby and made her journey from South Korea to Massachusetts where she arrived safely into her adoptive mother’s loving arms. She later moved to New Mexico and, after a few years, moved to Winston-Salem, NC, to study classical ballet at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from the eighth grade through high school. Susan has lived in the Piedmont Triad area for nearly 20 years and had the opportunity to travel to Budapest, Hungary; London, UK; and Beijing, China, where she studied abroad through Elon University. In Stockholm, Sweden, she had a marketing internship at Hachette-Filipacchi, publisher of Elle and other magazines. She graduated with a B.A. in Corporate Communications and a minor in Dance from Elon University. Susan loves writing and is pleased to have written for Winston-Salem Journal’s "Teen Page," Triad Living, KernersvilleMagazine, and of course, Forsyth Mags. She is a co-author of a children’s book, Huckleberry Robin, based on a three-generation true family story. Susan is grateful for her faith, family, and friends and is happy and excited to be part of the Forsyth Mags team. She spreads the word about Forsyth magazines and enjoys reading and sharing them with her family and friends every month.

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