Vitamins for Your Skin

When picking the right skin product it is a good idea to check the ingredients to see if it has the right skin nourishing combination. Good product should contain most if not all of following vitamins to keep skin supple and healthy:

a) Vitamin A

Vitamin A is in charge of maintenance and repair of vital skin tissue, and is the key to healthy skin. Lack of vitamin A can cause skin dryness and wrinkles.

b) Vitamin B Complex

Vitamin B complex contains the nutrient, biotin, which forms the basis of nails, skin, and hair cells. It is anti-inflammatory, it hydrates the skin cells and gives a healthy glow to skin.

c) Vitamin C

In skin, vitamin C can help collagen production. This in turn reduces wrinkles, improves skin texture, and reduces photo damage.

d) Vitamin E

The trick to getting soft touchable skin is vitamin E. It regenerates skin and can improve appearance of acne scars.

e) Vitamin K

Vitamin K is your secret weapon to fighting dark circles and bruises. This vitamin helps fade discolorations on the skin, reducing puffiness and dark circles that so many of us suffer from.

While off the shelf cosmetic product can come packed with artificially synthesized vitamin groups, you really want to go as organic as possible. Organically sourced vitamins absorb into skin better and are more potent bringing better overall skin benefits.  Whenever possible choose the facial products that source vitamins from organic ingredients.

When it comes down to your skin, healthier is better. Please check out our  great selection of organic products at Nina Bella Organic Collection.

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Coconut Oil Dry Elbow Skin Cure

Dry, scaly chapped elbow skin. Embarrassing in summer time, painful in wintertime and always unwelcome – scaly, dry chapped elbows are a persistent problem for many. You can try countless creams, preparations, and ointments but until you turn to natural solutions, chances are you are stuck with them. Why is that so? Because most industrial dry skin preparations have preservatives and stabilizing agents are harsh compounds that damage and chap skin, which on the long run, negates the initial skin smoothing effects of other active ingredients. With natural ingredients, such as coconut oil, that naturally moisturize and nourish skin, you don’t have to risk that. So your elbows look great and you do not have to break bank to get them that way.

Here is a great coconut oil formula you can make in comfort of your own home that will blast scaly, dry, chapped elbow skin away.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of coconut oil

1 tablespoon of almond oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix coconut and almond oil together. Mix honey and lemon juice well and add to coconut and almond oil mixture. Apply ready mix to dry chapped elbows. Wrap tightly with saran wrap and let stand 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, wash gently with mild low foaming organic or natural soap and warm water and tap dry. Repeat two times a week for best results.  Store the unused mixture in fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Say goodbye to dry chapped elbows and say helps to summer clothes! Thank you for visiting Nina Bella Collection blog and website.

Coconut Oil Use in Organic and Natural Bath and Beauty Industry

Known as the tree of life due to its benefits and grinning face due to unique appearance, coconut is an exotic and important part of food and beauty industry. Going as far back as Eocene period, 37 to 55 million years ago, coconut was gracing the pre-historic landscape of in Australia and India, and later Indian Ocean and South America. While all parts of coconut, kernels, meat, juice, milk, and shells can be used, the oil is the most popular.

Coconut oil is produced from copra, dried coconut kernel, by dry or wet processing. Best oil is cold extracted from kernels harvested from coconut palm tree, 2 to 20 months old, where some 170 kilograms (370 lb) of copra yields about 70 liters (15 gal) of coconut oil. Good yield gives coconut oils competitive price making it attractive choice for bath and beauty industry. Due to variety of benefits coconut oil can be used in great many applications, such as:

a)        moisturizers

b)        anti-wrinkle products

c)        body butters

d)        lotions

e)        creams

f)        soaps

g)        hair care products

By composition, coconut oil is 92% of saturated fatty acids (caproic, caprylic, capric, lauric, myristic, palmitic, and stearic acid) and 8% of unsaturated fatty acids (mostly linoleic acid), making it ideal skin moisturizer and wrinkle smoothing agent. It is very stable white to pale yellow solid at temperature under 30˚C and transparent clear oil at or above 30˚C. Being stable at room temperature, coconut oil is easy to use and thus often used for natural and organic body butters, creams and lotions. Very easy to saponify, due to high saturated fatty acids content, coconut oil is great for soap production and makes an attractive, nicely scented, if slightly hard, product. Nice balance of fatty content with naturally occurring vitamins A and E, mean coconut oil is a great addition to hair products and makes hair shiny and supple while minimizes hair loss.

In short coconut oil is widely versatile and has many applications in organic and natural bath and beauty care. When looking to add extra dimension to your product for hair, skin or body care, chances are you will want to put your bets on coconut oil. Its bath and beauty benefits are well proven, based on naturally occurring fatty acids and vitamins that give coconut oil significant moisturizing, antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-fungal, antibacterial, soothing and rejuvenating properties. No wonder coconut was grinning when met with first humans. It may just be it was a start of wonderful friendship.

For more on coconut oil and products inspired by coconut oil, visit Nina Bella Collection blog and website.

Lemon Essential Oil in Natural Bath and Beauty Care

Lemon essential oil is one of the most popular and widely used natural bath and beauty oils. Hailing from Pompei and transposed to seductive Italy by early settlers, lemon essential oil is known for its refreshing and cooling properties. Of all essential oils, it is considered one of the most valuable oils for skin and body.

Chemically, lemon essential oil contains limonene, which is responsible for the oil’s tangy-fruity aroma, and citral, which is responsible for lemon note in the aroma profile, dimonene, a powerful antioxidant very beneficial for skin and body, neral, geranial, as well as vitamins A, B and C. The higher neral and geranial concentration the higher the quality, so this is something you want to consider when picking out lemon essential oil. Lemon essential oil has watery consistency, and pale yellow to light green/yellow color, with freshly peeled lemon scent.

It is extracted by cold-pressing from fresh lemon peel. Following cold-pressing various lemon essential oil are often blended together to produce a more consistent aroma profile. This is why lemon essential oils purchased from different manufactures and regions may smell and look different. Due to many beneficial properties lemon essential oil is often in soaps, shampoos, face wash and many personal care and skin care natural bath and beauty products. Let’s see why that is.

For starters it is a very powerful antiseptic, antibiotic and astringent. In one shot, it cleanses, detoxifies and purifies body and skin. Being a strong astringent it is ideal for oily, blemished skin. Used regularly it will clear and rejuvenate even the most dull and tired skin. Second it is natural bleaching agent, and great for naturally lightening freckles and adding sun-kissed highlights to your hair. It will also eliminate dandruff, nourish and strengthens hair so may want to try adding some lemon essential oil to your regular hair routine. Third, lemon essential oil has high concentration of vitamins and will rejuvenate and de-wrinkle ageing skin. Fourth, and this is a little know but true fact, lemon essential oil is a great skin resurfacer and can be used to help smooth skin and reduce appearance of cellulite. Similarly, lemon essential oil is great for treating and minimizing tough and calloused skin and it just may be your feet’s new best friend.

Lemon essential oil is easy to work with. It bends easy and works great with many other essential oils including lavender essential oil, rose oil, neroli essential oil, sandalwood oil, geranium essential oil, ylang ylang essential oil and tea tree essential oil. Cheerful and uplifting this it is particularly designed to distress and improve mood, so it allows you to create products with dual skin care and aromatherapy benefits.

To explore how lemon essential oil can benefit your skin care, visit Nina Bella Collection and a great selection of you lemon essential oil based products.

Sweet Orange Beautiful

Originating from mythological “golden apples”, sweet organic essential oil has been used from middle ages for its healing properties. Divinely energizing, it is known for its uplifting, stimulating, sensual, deodorizing, toning, cardiovascular, circulatory and refreshing properties. Fun, youthful and summery, sweet orange essential oil is one of the most effective natural ways to energize, motivate and purify body and soul.

Produced by cells inside the rind of an orange fruit, sweet orange oil is traditionally extracted by cold pressing orange peels. Its main chemical components are a-pinene, sabinene, myrcene, d-limonene, linalool, citronellal, neral and geranial. In appearance, it is thin and water like to touch, with color ranging from pale yellow to deep orange.

Because of great natural scent sweet orange oils is an ideal additive to natural massage oils, creams and lotions. Top note oil, it nurtures and uplifts at the same time. This is why orange essential oil is often used in aromatherapy products designed to relieve tension and anxiety.

Great antioxidant, detoxifying and analgesic agent, sweet orange essential oil is a favorite additive to massage oils and natural bath and beauty products. Known to relieve cold and flu symptoms, eliminate toxins, boost the lymphatic and immune system and ease tension, sweet orange essential oil is often found in natural bath salts, shower gels, bubble baths, shampoos and conditioners. Known collagen booster and moisturizer, sweet orange essential oils makes for a  great skin tonic, does wonders for older mature skin, smoothes wrinkles, helps with dermatitis and soothes dry irritated skin. You will find that most great natural an organic creams, lotions, body butters and scrubs, have sweet orange essential oil.

Although most essential oils blend well with one another, orange oil blends particularly well with black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, frankincense, sandalwood and vetiver. Same with basil, bergamot, clary sage, clove, coriander, eucalyptus, geranium, ginger, grapefruit, jasmine, juniper, lavender, lemon, litsea cubeba, marjoram, myrrh, neroli, nutmeg, patchouli, petitgrain, rose, vetiver and ylang ylang.

Little chameleon of essential oil world, this magical oils blends well with most natural an organic plant butters, waxes and carrier oils adding unique aroma depth. However you choose to use sweet orange essential oil in your products stick to a golden rule – keep it in concentration of 1% or less and you everyone will get along just fine.

For more on sweet orange essential products, visit Nina Bella Collection website.

Natural Blemish Skin Cure

Blemishes – minor imperfections in skin texture, are a frustrating reminder of skin’s natural sensitivity to environmental and hormonal shifts. Anything from hot weather to stress and anxiety, from comedogenic skin products, to puberty and menopause will bring about a cohort of unseemly breakouts. Whether popping up as spots, pimples, whiteheads, marks or areas of discoloration on the skin, all are unwelcome and most of us will do anything to see them gone. It is good thing then that nature gifted us with many easy and cost effective solutions to treat and prevent skin blemishes.

Anise seed face lotion is particularly powerful natural way to treat blemishes. With its strong antimicrobial, antibacterial and antioxidant properties star anise is a natural alternative to common pimple blasters and is commonly found in your local grocers.  To make your own, follow easy instructions below.

Star Anise Blemish Skin Lotion

Ingredients:

10 star anise

Two cups of water

One tablespoon vodka

Heat the water until boiling. Add star anise and continue boiling for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove from heat and let cool. When cooled off, filter off star anise and keep the liquid. Add one tablespoon of vodka to liquid and mix well. To prevent and treat blemishes, massage small amount of star anise lotion into skin daily.  Store star anise blemish skin cure lotion in a closed container in the fridge for up to 1 month.

Here is to clear skin!! For more great ideas, check back with Nina Bella Collection often!