I am a big fan of facials. Lying back, relaxing, while someone slathers something cool and gooey all aver your face. Even if, as the New York Times tells me, they don’t work, at the very least, you leave feeling refreshed. And feeling less stressed, and pampered, always makes you look prettier.

But in these straitened times, it feels a little indulgent to be spending $100 a month to have someone rub gunk on your face. Which is why my friends and I have decided to start having home facials with homemade products.

We started by cleansing our faces with normal cleanser, which, in this case was a Skinfood one (in keeping with the organic and green theme). We then lay on the couch with hot facecloths over our face – relaxing and pore opening!

We then scrubbed, with a scrub made of brown sugar, almond oil, and vanilla extract. You can buy all of that at the supermarket, and just mix them together – don’t use too much oil, or the sugar starts to dissolve. Don’t scrub too hard, just kind of smooth it over, and the sugar will start to dissolve on your skin. And once you are done, I’m pretty sure if you add some flour and an egg to the leftovers, you’d get a delicious cake.

After scrubbing, we applied the mask. We used one I found on the Martha Stewart website, but there are heaps of different ones on the internet.

Balancing Facial Mask
1 small avocado, mashed (about 2/3 cup)
1/2 small cucumber, finely grated (about 1/3 cup)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons green clay powder (sold at natural-foods stores)

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, using a fork to blend. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Apply a thick layer of the mixture to clean, dry skin on your face and neck, avoiding the eye and lip areas. Keep fairly still for 10 to 15 minutes, allowing the mask to dry in place. Wipe skin clean with a damp cloth; splash with cool water, and pat dry. makes enough for probably 6 applications – but it won’t keep for long.

You can buy the green clay powder at health food stores, in Wellington, they have it at Commonsense Organics. This mask, which did take a while to dry, reminded us a lot of this, which if you are the same age as me, you probably remember playing with as a teenager.

Anyway, once you have slathered it on, lie back with a glass of wine and some healthy snacks, and some good conversation. It’s best to warn anyone around your house that you have it on, as it really isn’t that nice a sight. Once it is dry, wash it off, and slather on the richest moisturiser you have, and you are done!

Our skin felt soft and smooth, and we definitely had a post-facial glow. Today, my co-facialist reports her skin looks very happy. Mine does too, but it also feels slightly sensitive – possibly from overly vigorous scrubbing.

And hey, even if it does nothing for your skin, an afternoon in the company of your Pretty Pretty Pretty friends can’t be bad, right?

First up, we found a recipe for bath bombs online and decided to make super moisturising bombs. We were a little limited in that Newtown New World didn’t have any citric acid, so we had to make do with one container of it. So, for our first batch, we mixed together a third of a cup of citric acid, a third of a cup of milk powder, and a third of a cup of baking soda. This had to be mixed and mixed and mixed until there were no more lumps. Then we added in a teaspoon of grapeseed oil, a drop of food colouring, a teaspoon (actually way more, by accident) of Rose Water (from the Med. Warehouse – good in cocktails too!) and spritzes of water until it started bubbling. In fact, it bubbled far too much. We decided to use ice trays as moulds, but it kept bubbling up and up until eventually we decided to roll the cubes into balls and put them in muffin trays instead. And then they kept on rising. I’m sure they’ll be great in the bath though, even though they don’t look so pretty.

We made our second batch with almond oil, no food colouring and some mango tea leaves for scenting. These ones were far far dryer, and so we packed them into muffin paper cases. I think we need to find a balance between the two levels of moistness!

After we were done experimenting with bath bombs, we moved to my brilliant Gosh You Scrub Up Nicely Sugar Scrub – just mix sugar with grapeseed or light olive oil, almond oil, and coconut oil if you have it (or a tiny drop of essential oil if you fancy a different scent). This scrub exfoliates and moisturises at the same time, and is magic before shaving your legs, and on elbows and heels. If you don’t have the ingredients to make it, well, you just might get lucky and win some from us…