A Botanic Garden For Your Face
One of the easiest and most luxurious self care activities I have found are floral facial steams. Not only are they easy to set up, (AKA no added stress) they’re incredibly beneficial to your skin. Herbal and floral facial steams boost circulation, calm nerves, open and cleanse your pores and hydrates leaving a dewy glow. And they’re incredibly easy to make yourself!
I am not a “blogger” who will bore you with a bunch of anecdotal word fodder in relation (or sometimes no relation) to the topic at hand, so let’s get right to it!
What you’ll need:
clean, heat safe bowl ( I usually use an oversized ceramic bowl)
2 cups boiling water, preferably filtered
2 tbsp organic, food grade dried flowers (more on that in a sec)
large bath towel
cleansed skin
Add the 2 tbsp mixture into the bowl and cover with the boiling water. Create a hood with your towel over your head and gently lower it towards the steam. Deep inhales and weird noises that scare your roommate are encouraged. I pop on some relaxing music or a good crime podcast and usually last about 10-15 minutes in the steam. Then, I’ll add a heaping application of this to further nourish my skin.
I have bought pre-made facial steams in the past from Franklin & Whitman but made the decision to buy my own flowers in bulk to make variations on the botanical steams offered from them. And I am so happy I did. I purchased everything on Amazon, and mixed up a large batch, so large in fact, I gave away sachets of the mixture as Christmas presents last year. They were a hit! (Unless my friends were lying).
Here are the supplies I ordered, but really the combinations are endless and you probably have a few of the ingredients sitting in your herbs & spice drawer and tea drawer! Images below are linked!
Botanical steams are one of my secret weapons for self-care and skin health. Not only does the gentle steam, infused with calming or invigorating properties. Here are a few of the combos I readily use:
Skin Calming
Lavender
Calendula
Chamomile
Rose
Sinus Clearing
Eucalyptus (I’ve not been able to find a reliable source of organic dried eucalyptus leaves, so I use this instead)
Peppermint
Rosemary
Rejuvenating
Lavender
Peppermint
Cornflower
There really is no right or wrong combination, so I encourage you to branch out. You can also add these combinations to a warm bath, but I suggest using one of these to contain all those petals!