Face the Day (and Night)

My face oils

The other day I was refilling my bottles of face oils for day and night. I wrote up a recipe for these last year, but back then I hardly had any oils. Now that my collection has grown more extensive I thought I'd let you in on what I'm using now. Over the summer a friend's daughter, who's about 8 years old, asked who was older, me or my 16 year old son! I was feeling pretty confident after that! There is, of course, no high without a low...the other day one of my youngest son's classmates, on seeing a photo of me from about 5 years ago exclaimed, "Is that you? You look so young!" If you want the truth, ask a 6 year old!

Oils for day

I do think I look pretty good for my age now that I added the oils to my regimen. I was getting crepey looking eyelids and a large age spot was lurking just below the surface of my forehead. Both those issues have disappeared. I also had some tiny bumps, not pimples, but just little hard bumps next to my eyebrow and those are gone now as well. I realized after I took the photo above that I left Purification out of the picture. Although it isn't shown I do use that in my day oil. The roller ball on the bottle really makes the product last a long time; I get about 6 months of use from a 15ml bottle of oil!

Face Oil for Day

Mix 15 drops Tea Tree essential oil, 10 drops each Carrot Seed, Cypress, Patchouli, and Sacred Frankincense essential oils, 20 drops each Purification, Frankincense, Myrrh, and Geranium essential oils in a 15ml bottle. Top off with grape seed oil and a Young Living Aroma Glide roller fitment. Apply to the entire face each morning, using care around the eyes to keep the oils out of the eyes.

To blend the oils I roll the bottle between my palms for several seconds so the heat from my hands can help them meld together. I have a reason, of course, for using each oil, specific to me. That's the wonderful thing about essential oils: they make it easy and affordable to customize all natural products for yourself. Tea Tree oil combats the blemishes I still sometimes get, as does the lemongrass in Purification. Purification also helps with broken veins and uneven skin tone. Sacred Frankincense has been shown in studies to have cell regenerating properties and Frankincense is great for general skin health. According to Dr. Axe, Baylor University in Dallas, TX recently published results of their study showing Frankincense is more effective in killing cancer cells than chemotherapy. Sacred Frankincense is also supposed to kill cancer cells, but I'm not sure if it was used in that study. Geranium is another wonderful oil for general skin health. Cypress and Patchouli tighten sagging skin, and Myrrh and Carrot Seed have sun screening properties.

Oils for night

My night oil contains a lot of citrus oils because the acids in these fruits exfoliate the skin by gently eating away the old top layer of dead cells. Using them is like having a very diluted chemical peel to resurface the skin every night. These oils will make your skin very photosensitive, however, so you should not wear them in the sun because you would burn quickly. I didn't know this many years ago and went for a walk wearing a face cream made with citrus oils and got a burn like a cigarette burn on my face from the sun, so it's no joke! I have very sensitive skin and every once in a while this oil will make my skin sting. If that happens I just dilute it by rubbing olive oil or grapeseed oil all over my face.

Face Oil for Night

Mix 20 drops each Citrus Fresh, Sacred Frankincense, Frankincense, and Joy essential oils, 10 drops each Christmas Spirit, Tea Tree, and Geranium essential oils in a 15 ml bottle. Top off with grapeseed oil and a Young Living Aroma Glide roller ball. Apply all over face each night, being careful to keep out of the eyes.

The cinnamon bark oil in the Christmas Spirit blend helps tighten the skin, and that mixture also contains orange oil to improve tone and texture. You could just substitute those oils if you don't have the Christmas Spirit. The blends I mention, such as Christmas Spirit, Purification, and Joy, are all exclusive Young Living blends. Young Living is the brand I recommend because you can become a member and purchase the oils wholesale and I believe they are the highest quality oils sold here in the US.

Tuna Melt Bread

Another wonderful way to improve the health of your skin and your health in general is to eat more fish. I try to serve fish at least once a week. This has never been a problem until last year, when my youngest suddenly began to ask, "Is this fish?" and if so, to refuse to eat it. I don't understand it; when I was little tuna melts, salmon loaf, and fish sticks were among my favorites and those suppers were meals I always looked forward to. None of my kids are great tuna melt eaters, however, and my husband put the kibosh on salmon loaf almost immediately after our marriage. So, the other night I was browsing Pinterest for ideas and came across a pizza stuffed monkey bread consisting of Grands biscuits stuffed with chopped onions, peppers, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and baked in a Bundt pan. I thought, why not tuna melt bread? It's an easy bread to make. I, of course, do not use canned biscuits as my homemade biscuits are fabulous and don't take any longer than opening the biscuit can and separating the dough! Plus, my recipe is only three simple and wholesome ingredients.

Tuna Melt Bread

1 recipe biscuit dough or two cans Grands biscuits

Tuna Mixture

Glaze

Tuna:

2 (5 oz) cans albacore tuna, drained

1/4 cup ranch salad dressing

1 cup Colby cheese, shredded

2 tbsp dill pickle relish

Glaze:

1/4 cup butter

lemon peel and dill to taste

Biscuit Dough:

3 cups self rising flour, sifted

1/2 cup salted butter, softened

1 cup milk

To make the tuna, mix the drained canned tuna with the ranch dressing, Colby cheese, and pickle relish and set aside. To make the biscuits, sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center, pushing most of the flour up on the sides of the bowl. Squeeze the butter into little pieces in the center of the well. Use the butter wrapper to grease the Bundt pan. Pour the milk into the well and stir with your hand, causing the flour to fall down into the well. A dough will form. When the dough has formed but is still very liquid, begin turning the bowl clockwise, pulling a tiny bit of flour into the dough with each turn and kneading it in. When the dough is stiff enough to hold together knead it a couple times, turning it over and then back again to coat both sides with flour. Knead in this manner until the dough is stiff enough that you can pull off golf ball sized bits of dough. You might have some flour left over; just leave it in the bowl. Pull off 12 bits of dough and roll each into a ball. This should use up all the dough. To assemble the bread, flatten each ball of dough into a disk. Place a tablespoon or so of the tuna mixture in one side of the disk. Fold the other side of the disk over and pinch closed. Place the filled dough seam side up in the Bundt pan. Repeat, placing each filled dough ball next to the previous one until the pan is filled and your dough is used up. You will probably have some extra tuna mixture left over. To make the glaze, melt the butter and mix in the dill and lemon peel. Pour the glaze evenly over the assembled bread dough. Bake the bread at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the bread is golden and puffed up. Turn the bread out onto a serving platter and serve warm with the extra tuna mixture on the side.

This recipe was a huge hit. Every kid gobbled it up and asked for seconds. So, mission accomplished! They got their fish in at least one night last week!