Feature: Top 4 skin care products for darker skin

Towards the latter part of 2012, Georgina kindly asked if I’d do a blog post for her on either foundations or skincare for dark skin. To put it bluntly, I very rarely wear makeup, so I thought it wouldn’t be fair for me to do my top 3 foundations for dark skin, so I have opted to blog about the top 3 skincare products for dark skin that I/family members have found to be really good. So here goes:

Body Shop ‘Almond’ Body Butter 

Several years ago my mum discovered this body butter in the Body Shop, and I have to say it has become one of my favourite.

‘’Our famous Body Butter with sweet almond oil. It is quickly absorbed and leaves normal to dry skin feeling soft and smooth. It hydrates, leaves skin feeling soft and smooth, has a buttery texture, with a sweet almond scent’’.
(Body Shop, 2013)

My skin always gets dry; whether that be spring, summer, autumn, winter, but it drives me mad. Therefore I always like to make sure my legs, arms, feet, tummy and god knows where else on my body is well moisturised before I leave the house. This body butter I find does exactly what I want it to do; it hydrates my skin but keeps it hydrated throughout the entire day. Once I lather up my body in the morning, that is it (unless I take a shower during the day), but it’s lovely. Its consistency is nice and thick, sinks well into the skin and just smells absolutely divine.

RRP £13.00/200ml (although while stocks last it is currently in sale at £6.50).

Jamaican Black Castor Oil

Back in 2010 I started a hair journey to try and grow my hair long. I joined up to several hair forums, and there was a lot of hype around this particular product, purely because if its growing properties that has made hair grow incredibly fast. Although this product is good for growing hair, it is also a brilliant product for the skin.

‘’Black castor oil is the only oil in nature with ricinoleic acid which helps to destroys viruses, bacteria, yeast and moulds that cause many skin problems. It is also a skin moisturizer and healer. Use as a massage oil for aches, pains, fibroids and lumps in the breasts, as first aid for cuts, wounds and burns’’.
(Jamaican Black Castor Oil, 2013)

The product is not thick or sticky unlike the organic Indian castor oil, but it does have a slight smoky scent (which of course is not permanent). However if you are not so keen on the scent, there is a lavender alternative which smells absolutely divine. As stated before this product is predominately aimed towards hair care, but there are so many skin care ailments that the Jamaican Black Castor Oil can be used for.

RRP £9.00/4oz, £12.50/8oz. You can purchase this from www.akuawood.co.uk

Pure Coca Butter (raw)

When I was a child and I got the smallest of scars, my mum would always get this ‘block’ thing out of the fridge, warm it up in her hands and then rub well into my skin, leaving me smelling like chocolate! I never knew what it was until I got older; Pure Cocoa Butter (raw).

’’Cocoa butter is a wonderful natural emollient moisturiser which is rich in vitamins and minerals. It is wonderful when dealing with dry and chapped skin and can be used in both skin preparations and lip balms. Cocoa butter is rich in anti-oxidants".
(Naturally Thinking, 2013)

This product comes in all shapes, sizes and quantities (depending on where you purchase and how much you want). It will be solid and hard and will require you to warm up a bit in your hands before using (this will generate an oil like substance in your hands). This product works amazing on scars, blemishes, dark areas on the body. It does however require day and night application, and is not a quick fix but gradually over time you will begin to notice marks and etc start to fade. The raw cocoa butter also smells absolutely divine (just like chocolate), and it does in fact last

RRP £9.00/250g, £13.00/500g, 1kg/£20.00. Available from www.naturallythinking.com. (However do shop around – hair salons that sell Black hair care products may well have this product in stick form, and cost as little approx. £1.99).

The above products are items I have used throughout the years, and have had great experiences with them all. Although the blog spot is aimed towards women of colour, I would say anyone can use these products for whatever purpose.

Hope you enjoyed this guest blog post.

Cas

www.serenityofbeauty.com

Thank you very much to Cas for writing this for me :)  I was just sitting here one day looking at my stats and loved how people from all over the world come here and read my blog, and I suddenly thought that I'm only really able to write about my own experiences which is for a limited amount of people, so I wanted to have a variety of guest posts from different people in the hope that everyone can get something out of it :)

This months big pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Angelica from One Little Vice - be sure to head over to check out her beautiful blog <3