It's holiday season and everyone's on their errands and a couple of holiday shopping rush here and there, or probably doing some event planning, organizing reunions, office parties, everyone's superduper busy at this time of the year And let's admit it, this could really give us a dull face every morning because of lack of sleep and not enough rest. But we want don't want to just to hide the ugliness under the mercy of concealers, right?

So to keep up with this hectic season, we go to a salon to get a facial, or put on facial masks at night. I love the simple facial at Flawless. And when it comes to facial masks, I favor more of the korean brands, The Face Shop and Tony Moly. Now if you do not have spare time to go to a clinic to have a facial, or if suddenly you didn't notice you ran out of your facial masks at home, you can actually do a home-made mask right from your kitchen. How about a turmeric paste (luyang dilaw in Filipino) facial mask?

photo from www.mrsikhnet.com

Skin Benefits
Now why turmeric as a facial mask? Turmeric have high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Here are some of the skin benefits of turmeric:

1. Anti-aging - it helps reduce wrinkles

Weekends are best spent on indulging on home spa rituals. I did my home spa ritual this past weekend. And to complete the ritual, I did my occasional facial mask, using SkinFood's Black Garlic Mask. It says on the pack that it has allicin fermented black garlic extracts to moisturize the skin.



It is very essential to me to use facial masks to rejunevate and moisturize my tired skin, especially when I



 Last December, I could not have resisted taking a picture with the huge poster of Kim Hyun-joong at The Face Shop store at SM Megamall, if not for my super kill-joy then boylet.

Okay. Now it's not because of this star why I'm hooked with this korean brand so far. For the record, I hate

This facial mask sits in my toiletries basket for a while now, but it's only recently when I truly have discovered its magic. I had a couple freaking ugly pimples two weeks ago all over my face, sort of like on the forehead, in front of my right cheek just under the eyes, and then a large one on the right part of the chin. Disgusting, really, and to make things worse, I did something really, really wrong. Himalaya mud mask was the only one that saved my face.

Here's what happened. One awful day,  I noticed that my current Neutrogena facial wash is out already, I resorted to use my travel pack korean-branded (Etude House) peeling wash. Peeling!  And the fact that I just put some acne gel on it like a couple of times! The last thing I want to do is make the skin more sensitive when I have pimples, especially when it's under acne treatment (using my acne gel) but maybe I just wasn't myself that very moment.

You can imagine, my face swollen, literally swollen on the parts where I've got pimples. And I go to work, looking like  a monster, thinking when will this suffering end. Bad, so bad. I realized I dont need to put anything on my face until it heals, but the pimple areas been peeled pretty badly.

Good thing I tried using this mud pack. I was thinking, I wasn't going to wash my face anytime soon, meaning using any kind of facial wash, because I was sort of in a kind of trauma, but let me just try this mask. And I was surprised, because it's so gentle, I didn't wait 10-15 minutes as it instructed me to do, but just after 5-or-so minutes, I washed it and it gave me a clean feeling.  It is so mild you feel it, especially after using it, you'll definitely look prettier, ehem. After several uses for one week now, I felt good and I realized I would use this as my facial wash everyday. Now my face is back.

I didn't believe in it when I first bought it, having used it like once every two weeks only, I didn't see its power. Maybe because it is very cheap, about php 200 or so for I think 150 ml. But now I do definitely! And I must rejoice that it's so cheap. And it's organic, made from natural mud, so it's naturally safe, and chemical-free. Ayurvedic herbals rock!

To see more info about the Himalaya Herbals, go here: http://www.himalayahealthcare.com/. It is available through all Watsons in SM departments stores. They also distribute their products in all over Asia and worldwide.