Green tea: face mask? (A girly post)

I'm a big fan of the cheap, natural-ingredient, do-it-yourself home facial washes and masks. It all started when I looked for makeup tips and found this article that changed my pimply, adolescent life on how to make your own aspirin mask. The aspirin mask worked amazing wonders for me, and since my skin isn't very dry, I could use it about twice a week without needing additional moisturizers. There's some kind of acid in the aspirin that kills acne like mad. It's pretty sweet.

Then I took Ricebunny's advice once again for her coffee grind mask, which smelled really, really, really good. It was more of a morning face wash than anything else, but I liked it.

So tonight I wanted to make a big pot of green tea. Then I had the crazy idea to make a face mask out of the green tea grinds. Because, hey, green tea is supposed to have all this healthy stuff in it, right? And be good-smelling and have anti-oxidants (what the hell ARE those, anyway?) so I went for it.

Firstly, MY TEAPOT I PAINTED FINALLY GOT OUT OF THE POTTERY KILN and into my dorm! I was so excited!
I painted fire on the bottom to keep the tea warm.... ;-)
What I did was I slit the tea bag and poured the grinds into the water to make it infuse better. It did taste great, but was kind of stupid because that technique is used with full-leaf tea and not the kind that's grinded up into little bits in a bag. So I had all these grinds sitting at the bottom and no strainer.
Then, after drinking all the tea...
I took the grains at the bottom, mixed them with a dollop of honey (as a moisturizer, seeing as I wasn't sure how the tea would work out) and slathered it on my face. I did take a picture of my face with the mask on it, but my roommates were making fun of how I looked so I'm not gonna put it up and embarass myself further. Washed it off after about six or seven minutes.

Verdict: My face felt really, really, really really SOFT. And looked kinda glowy, which is nice. I attribute the softness to the honey but the tea probably helped a lot. It was pretty sweet (and a good excuse to drink a whole pot o' tea)


I'd like to think I have pretty good skin for someone my age... right?

In other news, I have been craving Ten Thousand Waves, hot springs (because, as you should know by now, I have few indulgences other than spa treatments; I adore the idea), Santa Fe... just a girly getaway with my mom, which I think would be really fun for us both. Also it is so damn cold here... brr... spring will be much appreciated. I'm gonna have a Central Park classy ladies tea party picnic and be SO happy to peruse the city in skirts when it gets warmer.


...but really this whole post was just so I could show off my newly painted teapot.


P.S. I should totally work at a spa like Jen's because I dig that whole scene so very hard. Maybe one day I will have my own spa... and serve everyone tea out of my badass teapot.