Jaid's Skin Smoothies:

I'm finally starting to feel better and am ready to take care of myself again (yay! :)) so tonight I whipped up some of my oh so versatile skin smoothies for my daughters and me. I played around with various ingredients for about a year before perfecting my recipe so trust me that it works! This concoction is awesome and very healing to the skin and hair. And I'm sharing the final result of much trial & error with you for free. (Ain't I sweet? :-PPPP) Anyway, my basic recipe is as follows:

• 1 cup pure extra virgin coconut oil with a butter consistency
  
• 1 cup raw, pure Shea butter, preferably imported from West Africa
• 1-2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil

Pretty simple, huh? That it took me a year to arrive at this specific combination feels kinda ridiculous when the ingredients total a whopping 3, but there it is! Okay, my self-criticism aside, all you have to do is vigorously mix the above ingredients together with a spoon. To make it easier on yourself I recommend mixing the olive oil and Shea butter together first and adding the coconut oil in after that. Pure, raw Shea is NOT smooth; it has a clay-like consistency that the olive oil will smooth out for you.

Skin Uses:

• Repair scarring
• Prevent and/or repair stretch marks
• Repair skin discolorations (i.e. "liver spots")
• Prevent and/or repair wrinkles
• Moisturize skin
• Softens skin
• Repair dry or weather-damaged skin
• Relieve pain from swelling or arthritis
• Rejuvenates skin
• Massages
• Repairs skin elasticity
  

Hair Uses:

• Repair dry, damaged hair
• Deeply condition hair

How To Use It:

I should warn you that a little bit goes a long way. My daughter left & below) is modeling what NOT to do! In other words, don't slather your skin with it like you're buttering a turkey for Thanksgiving. (A dime-sized amount will easily cover both of your hands and you need even less for your face.) If you can see yellow on your skin, you've not added enough coconut oil.

If you're using this to repair damaged hair, the same rule applies; don't dump all of it on your head or it'll take you a week to wash it all out lol. All you do is put a nickel-sized to silver dollar-sized (depending on hair thickness and length) in the palm of your hand, work it into dry, clean hair, leave in for 2-3 hours, then shampoo your hair. The result will be silky smooth, luminous hair!

How Often To Use:

For your hair, once every 1-2 weeks. There should be noticeable luster immediately and noticeable repair after about 4 treatments. For your skin, use it every night. Your skin will feel very oily when you go to sleep, but it will absorb my smoothie throughout the night. You should see a noticeable improvement to your skin within days and a noticeable repair to blemishes within 2-4 weeks.

Buying The Ingredients:

You can find good, pure olive oil in any grocery store and pure coconut oil in any health food store. The not-so-easy part, unless you happen to live in West Africa, is finding raw, unrefined Shea butter. Luckily we live in the age of technology so you can get it pretty easily on the internet. Up until about 6 months ago, it cost an exorbitant amount of money to import, but now Amazon carries an import from Ghana via a Halal store at a very reasonable price!

The Exact Ingredients I use:

• Nature's Way EfaGold Organic Pure Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
• Raw, Unrefined, Filtered Shea Butter from Ghana, West Africa (32 Oz.)
  
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Enjoy! :-)

~ Jaid