The Hangover Facial

Before

Does this look familiar? Well my friend, we have all been there. You try and open your eyes the morning after the night before, but your false eyelashes are seriously preventing you from doing so. Your skin feels like sandpaper, your makeup has melted so that it kind of resembles Heath Ledger’s Joker and you look in the mirror and think to yourself: ‘what the HELL happened last night?!’

Welcome to The Hangover Facial, a little post-night out treatment I’ve designed to get you from grotty to gorgeous. The best part is, everything I’m going to include is probably already lying around your house, so you don’t have to go and buy anything special. Playing the ‘how much did I actually spend last night’ game is torturous enough, so this facial keeps it cheap and easy, perfect of a student budget.

PHASE 1: DEEP CLEANSE

If you don’t remove your makeup, it’s unlikely that anything else will have much of an effect. Try and avoid using face wipes as these will spread old makeup and bacteria around your face as you try and remove it (yuck). E45 cream makes a great makeup remover even for lipstick, eyeliner and mascara, it’s good for sensitive skin, and it will replace some of the moisture that alcohol sucked out of your skin. Grab a big dollop and massage it into your skin, before removing with cotton pads and warm water.

PHASE 2: TONING AND BRIGHTENING

As alcohol dries your skin, it also leaves it dull and lacklustre. Run a basin of very hot water, squeeze in some fresh lemons or limes into the basin (or use Jif if its easier), cover your head with a towel and steam your pores for 10 mins. This will create a little steam room for your face, to sweat out excess bacteria and deep set makeup, and tone your pores. Also, the vitamin C will brighten your skin and leave it less dull.

PHASE 3: MASK

A face mask is a great way to feed your skin with nutrients to liven it up again.

Teeny budget: I recommend looking up fresh face masks that you can make yourself  on the internet, using ingredients like yoghurt and fruit. There’s lots of good recipies out there, so it should be easy to find one for your skin type.  I’d avoid the rubbish packet ones that they sell in Primark and H&M, they are full of chemicals and not effective in my opinion

Medium budget: Go to Lush! I know I’m always banging on about Lush but their fresh face masks really are divine and full of lovely natural ingredients. I love The Sacred Truth, its full of repairing antioxidants and exfoliating papaya. Have a look at it here.

Big budget: My current obsession is Elemental Herbology’s Purifying Facial Mask with manuka honey, aloe and calendula. My skin feels baby soft whenever I use it, it's gentle yet effective and I can see my skin is instantly purified. Plus, it smells like a spa. Have a look at it here.

PHASE 4: EYES
While your mask is on, leave two used green teabags on your eyes. Sounds a bit weird, but green tea is a great anti-oxidant that helps to protect and repair the skin. If you leave wet tea bags in the fridge for a bit, they will be nice and cool and will also reduce puffiness.

PHASE 5: MOISTURISE

After washing of your mask, you need to add a moisturiser to avoid your skin drying out. One lovely and very cheap moisturiser is Sweet Almond Oil, which you can buy in any pharmacy, supermarket or health food shop for £1-£2. Its moisturising, and naturally brightening for dull dehydrated skin. As it’s oil, you can spend 5 mins giving yourself a little facial massage (or better yet, ask someone else to give you one!) until it absorbs. Oily skin types should use only a tiny bit and pat on lightly with your finger tips. If you can get your hands on some Argan Oil, this is great too.

And the transformation is complete! I hope this helps to bring you back to life again a little bit. Let me know if you try it, I’d love to hear some comments!