9 Reasons Why You Should Incorporate Avena in Your Beauty Routine

You lived your best life this summer. You drank micheladas, attended a few carne asadas, laid out in the sun and did the most. Now you’re at home thinking maybe you should go back to eating healthy meals and drinking more water.

Hopefully, you at least used sunscreen and didn’t rely on makeup removing wipes to clean your face every night. But chances are after exposing your skin to all that vitamin D, you didn’t take care of it properly. But not to worry, here is one of my favorite tricks that can repair your skin: an avena face mask.

Below are a few reasons to incorporate avena in your beauty routine this fall!

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What is Avena?

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If you’re not familiar with avena, I’ll break it down. Avena is a Mexican staple, dedicated to soothing your pancita and keeping you full until lunchtime. Abuelitas usually provide you with this feel-good breakfast. Traditionally, Mexican avena is homemade and made with cinnamon, old-fashioned oats, milk, and sugar. Nowadays everyone uses instant-oats, which is fine, but Mexican oatmeal is creamier because of the high-quality ingredients and abuelita’s love. Now that you’re caught up on the background of avena, let’s jump into why it’s not only good for you internally, but it also provides great benefits for your skin when used as a face mask.

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Cinnamon 

Cinnamon has been used in traditional medicines in Chinese and Indian cultures. Cinnamon offers many benefits, one of the most important is helping maintain healthy skin. Using cinnamon can stimulate blood vessels and bring blood to the surface of the skin. It also reduces the signs of aging by increasing collagen levels for up to six hours after it is applied to the skin. When I use cinnamon on my skin, I always use a very small amount. It’s important to do a patch test before using it in a large amount on the face.

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Milk

According to dermatologists, milk can do wonders for your face. Milk is a moisturizer with water, fat, and proteins that may replenish the lost natural moisturizing factors of dry skin. Cleopatra is historically known for using milk to rejuvenate her skin. The enzyme, protein, mineral, and vitamin content in milk may help reduce the appearance of wrinkles. 

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Sugar

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

We obviously don’t want a high-sugar diet but applying sugar to your face can give you some pretty sweet results. Sugar’s small particles make an excellent topical exfoliator. Sugar is used in many body scrubs to remove dead skin cells and reveal that glow that you want. Sugar scrubs are also more beneficial than salt scrubs. Small sugar granulates are gentler than salt, and sugar’s natural humectants properties make it more hydrating than salt scrubs, which can strip skin of natural oils.

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DIY Avena Face Mask

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons oatmeal (preferably oat flour)

2 tablespoons milk

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon sugar

Directions:

If you are using regular oats, you need to first grind them in a blender or food processor. It’s easier to just buy oat flour which is the exact same thing as oatmeal.

Combine all ingredients into a bowl to make a paste (adding more milk if necessary). Apply the face mask onto clean, dry skin. Leave on for ten minutes. Rinse with cool water and follow with toner and moisturizer.

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LUSH OatFix Face Mask

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Not only do I love this product, but I also love this LUSH, a UK store dedicated to selling cosmetics with the freshest ingredients. Their Oatfix Fresh Face Mask ($10) will definitely leave your face feeling soft and dewy. Lush will give you free samples of anything, so go ahead and ask! The best part about this company if that if you send back five empty black Lush containers, you get one for free!

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Oat Muesli Mask 

Photo: Sephora.com

You can spend so much money at Sephora – it’s expensive to be beautiful. But even if you’re not into makeup, Sephora has other great products for skincare. Try their Oat Muesli Mask ($7). This mask smooths the skin as well as targets blemishes. It’s great for all skin types. It’s also less than $10!

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Honey And Oatmeal Nourish And Glow Face Mask

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If you’re looking for a little extra moisture in your skin, try the Honey and Oatmeal Nourish and Glow Face Mask from Ulta. It has sweet almond oil to replenish your skin, as well as hyaluronic acid to hydrate. Another plus is that it smells great!