It turns out the honey is for more than just breakfast. Honey face wash is full of amazing skin benefits!
How to make honey face wash
When it comes to washing my face, I certainly love the oil cleansing method with grass fed tallow balm. But sometimes I just want something a bit more simple. Something quicker, and that’s easy to do over a sink.
I started using honey face wash some time ago, and I have really been loving it. I’ve noticed my skin seems softer and smoother, as well as brighter and more even in skin tone. It helps heal blemishes really quickly, and soothes inflammation. My skin feels moisturized after washing with honey.
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Honey on the face benefits
When it comes to facial skin, honey does pretty amazing things. Honey:
- Has natural preservative and anti-aging properties
- Is naturally antibacterial
- Preserves the skin’s acid mantle
- Regulates our skin’s PH
- Is slightly astringent
- Is slightly humectant
- Helps to regulate our skin’s own production of oil
Have you heard of people using honey to heal burns very quickly? That’s just one example of how honey contains important nutrients for healing skin.
The ingredients
In keeping with my minimalist tendencies, I like keeping honey as face wash very simple. As a general rule, my skincare routine involves only the purest and most natural products. I try to stick with ingredients that are so pure that in most cases, you could safely eat. After all, our skin is our body’s largest organ, and anything that goes onto our skin is absorbed straight into the bloodstream. Honey fits this criteria perfectly.
To be honest, you can wash with pure honey, without adding anything else, and have amazing results. That’s exactly what I’ve done in the past, and it’s a great way to get started.
Make it even better
I’ve had fun experimenting with adding some things to the honey when using it as a face wash. These can be completely customized, based on your skin’s particular needs. The great thing about honey is that its own amazing properties work equally well for all different skin types. Based on what your skin is currently like, you can add in certain extra ingredients to give it a boost in the direction it needs.
Have dry skin? Rose absolute essential oil is perfect for calming and moisturizing dry skin. Oily, acne prone skin? There is a whole host of add-ins to help with this.
Although I’ve come a long way in healing my skin with diet, if it does have a tendency, it would be towards being oily and prone to breakouts. I added a blemish essential oil blend at one point, and that worked very nicely. This particular blend has a minty feel to it, which made the face wash very refreshing and invigorating.
Lavender essential oil is also a really nice addition. Lavender is another skin superhero, and it has to be one of the most gorgeous scents there is. It is equally useful for dry, mature skin, as well as oily, acne prone skin.
Another thing I’ve tried is adding rose hip powder to the honey. This gives it a little bit of a gritty feel, which is gently exfoliating. I noticed that the vitamin C from the rose hips also made my skin brighter and quickly calmed any red areas, evening out my skin tone.
What I don’t include
If you’ve look up honey face wash recipes at all, you’ve probably seen quite a few that include Castile soap. I chose to not include any kind of soap in my honey face wash, because I don’t want to strip my skin of oils and dry it out. Honey has beautiful, gentle cleansing properties of its own. I find that if it’s left to work alone, without any soaps, my skin is happiest.
What kind of honey to use
When choosing honey to use for a face wash, you want to be sure to choose a raw, unfiltered honey. This will ensure that the beneficial properties are intact and present. If possible, I like to choose local honey, since I like to support local farms and consume things that have been produced close to where I live. Honey that is raised organically is also important, since you don’t want things like herbicides and insecticides contaminating your honey.
Other things you can do with it
This honey face wash also makes a beautiful face mask. I plan to write more on this in a later post, so stay tuned! As I mentioned before, honey is amazing for wound and burn healing. Your honey face wash can double as a handy burn treatment, should that mishap arise.
How to Make Honey Face Wash Instructions
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup raw, unfiltered honey
Optional ingredients:
- 1/4 tsp rose hips powder
- 24 drops of essential oils of choice (lavender, rose, frankincense, anti-blemish, or anti-aging blends are great choices)
Directions:
- If adding any optional ingredients, measure honey into a glass pitcher.
- Mix in desired optional ingredients, if using.
- Pour honey into a 4 oz. glass bottle with pump, or store in a shallow glass jar with lid.
- Store in a cool, dark place.
More DIY skincare recipes
Have you ever made a face wash?
What kind did you make? Did you use any crazy ingredients? Let me know in the comments!
What are the anti-blemish essential oils to add to the face wash? Very excited to make/try this!
Hello, if I’m not adding any of the optional ingredients will I be adding the honey alone in the 4oz glass bottles? Or do I need to add water?
Hi! I’m really interested in making this. I’m curious to know what the road hips powder is for. Thank you!
I use this face wash twice a day…does it need to be stored in the refrigerator? How long does it stay good without refrigeration?..also I wanted to ask that I suffer from rosacea…which is a good natural preservative for rosacea prone skin?
Great questions! With a preservative, it’s good without refrigeration for about 6 months or longer. I think the preservative I have linked works okay, as it is the most natural and gentle one I know of, but I’m not sure; if it doesn’t work well for your skin you could try it with no preservative and store it in the fridge 🙂
Whats the shelf life particular mixture in the recipe ? I use Manuka honey i know its more on an expensive side but love it.
Manuka honey is great! With a preservative it should be good for about 6 months or longer.
If making without preservatives, what would be the shelf life ? Thanks so much
I’d store it in the fridge, and it should be good for a few months or so 🙂
Hi! What preservative would you recommend? Thank you!
My favorite is Optiphen Plus and I have it linked in the recipe. You can also find it here: https://amzn.to/3pIBc5A
Looks awesome, and good for your skin. Thanks for sharing
I have a really sensitive skin and I think this DIY will benefit me 🙂 Thank you
I’m so glad, thank you!
Does the honey ever solidify or clog up the pump bottle? I am interested in making but wondering how long it would last.
The small amount of water helps thin the honey so it can work easily in the pump bottle. I haven’t had it clog up. Hope that helps!
Your recipe above doesn’t call for water so I’m confused about your reply saying the small amount of water helps thin the honey.
Real raw honey will crystalize in 6 weeks.. acacia honey will be creamy even for 30 years if its not polluted.. but if its too runny, then probably the manufacturer added water to it.
Interesting, good to know. Thanks for sharing!
Have you ever mixed jojoba with honey for a face wash? Seems like the best of both kinds of cleansing, for dry skin anyway. Do you think that would work?
Great post. and great website. Thanks for the information!
Skin Scraping & Scrubbing Spatula
Hi Marisa! I really love your skincare line and i want to create my own skincare line too but i don’t know how or where to start. Can you give me advice? Thank you! Godbless to you and your family! 🙂
Thank you! I just started with products I liked to make and use that had been well tested by me and others, that I thought would be popular. Etsy is a great place to sell. Hope that helps! 🙂