SEA Beauty Secret : Homemade Cooling Rice Mask

Face mask and beauty are synonymous. Face mask and me are also now synonymous =). I hope beauty and me are also synonymous =P.

I've been wearing various types of face mask. Since I read an article on how easy we can use kitchen ingredients to make face mask, I have been applying it on my face. Save money and also effective... There are egg white mask from remaining egg in the eggshell used for frying eggs, cucumber juice mask obtained after peeling cucumber, tomato mask after slicing tomatoes. And my favorite is turmeric and rice mask and tamarind and rice mask. And I just use rice flour as the mask base.

There is one traditional face mask that is effective to me which is cooling rice mask. Our ancestors no, including my late grandmothers wore this mask, a cooling mask made of rice. I really wonder how they came to the recipe and this method of making rice mask or they call it cooling powder (bedak sejuk). My late grandmother always applied this bedak sejuk on the daytime and night time. If you want to apply it during the day time you just apply it thinly but if you want to use it as mask you can apply it thicker.

The ingredients are just rice and water. Rice are soaked in the water for 3 to 6 months until they become soft. The water need to be changed frequently. Then it will be dried in the form of small dots. And add pandan leaves to fragrance it. When you want to apply it, take 2 or three dots and add water. I prefer rose water. Then apply it onto the face. For using it as face mask, use 5 to 7 dots. I usually wear the mask before going to sleep and clean it when I wake up in the morning. 

Cooling rice mask can be used as an effort to...

• Reduce acne.
• Smooth the skin.
• Brighten the skin.
• Reduce white black head.
• Can be used as base ingredient for making other face mask such as cucumber and rice face mask

And for the reason it is named cooling powder, it actually cools your face. When the face is cool, pores become smaller. I live in equatorial climate area and the weather is hot, hence i need something cooling. So I wear this cooling rice mask often. And, how to wear it on daily basis? Just apply thin version of the powder, wait until it dry and top it with moisturizer (can use tinted moisturizer). Then you are ready to go. 😀. 

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My Endeavor to Make Homemade Cooling Rice Mask...

I then decided to try to make my very own bedak sejuk (cooling rice mask). Below are the timeline of my endeavor. 

21 March 2019
I soak some rice (about half cup) in a bottle of water. 

April 2019
Today I changed the water in the bottle as always. I change once in two or three days. The smell is unpleasant. But I used the water to water my plant. They did not die so it is okay. 

I tried to make my own cooling rice mask. This is a 3 weeks old rice soaked in water. 

Closer look of the rice. The rice has changed in color but it is still not soft.  

An update in June

Today is already June. It has been three months since I made this cooling rice mask. (Actually I just soak it in water). The rice mask or we call it cooling powder (bedak sejuk in Malay) usually will be ready to be used after 3 months. So I washed it today and found out that it is really became white. It is a fermented rice. The smell of the water at this rate is a little bit similar like of the Tapai smell. (Tapai is a dish usually served as dessert. It is made from glutinous rice fermented with yeast until the rice became soft and sweet. It is a very delicious dessert). I will wait a few more days before processing it to become rice.

Transparent rice has become solid and pure white. 

Rice after soaked or three months.

Pure white in color. 

The rice became white and soft. I really loves looking at the color of the rice. It looks white and pure. I cannot wait to make bedak sejuk out of it and try wearing it. 

An update on 25 June 2019

It has been around three months and a few days now. I rinsed the rice a few times until I am satisfied with its cleanliness and smell. I used the water from rinsing process to water my brazilian spinach and they seem to love it. At this rate the rice are already soft and when it is pinched by using fingers it became paste. But not all rice particles are like that. So I blended it with small amount of water. I also added some diluted rose water to give it rose scent. 

Then by using cone made from fruit leaves (mango) I made dots of rice paste as in the photos below. I even added turmeric powder to a small amount of the paste. My blended paste was a little bit thin and I also have no experience using leave cone to make the dots so the dots shapes are really.... vary and a bit off. But it is alright as I still liquefies it into thin paste when I apply it. So the shape does not really matters. I also learned that I have to make the dot bigger.

Then I dried the bedak sejuk or cooling rice mask for three days under a shaded area. I have to ensure the bedak sejuk are really dry before putting them in the container. This is to ensure the bedak sejuk or cooling rice mask last long. Usually people wear this mask before going to sleep. 

I am not really good in 'dotting' the mixture. 😜

Dried cooling rice mask or bedak sejuk.