Skin Soothing Herbal Preparations for the Summer

Been out in the sun all day? Here is something that will cool your skin down and have you looking fresh for the evening.

Peel and chop a medium sized cucumber and mash it to a pulp in your food processor. Add the juice of half a lemon to this pulp and let it stand for an hour. You can either refrigerate it or leave it outside, depending on how cold you want it when it touches your skin. Apply this on your face. Be careful around the eye area! You don't want your eyes anywhere close to the lemon juice. Leave it on for about 30 minutes and then wash it off with cold water. This is a great skin cooler, especially for oily skins.

For normal and dry skins, you can add yogurt to the cucumber pulp instead of lemon juice. About 3.5 oz or 100 grams of yogurt is enough for a medium sized cucumber. A whole cucumber can give you pulp for more than one time use, so if you want to use only half of it at one time, reduce the proportions of the lemon juice or yogurt accordingly.