Tropical Goodness

Hair fall problem is a common problem for some of us. It is a serious problem especially for people who are concern about their appearance. Baldness is a big concern for those who have hair fall problem.  There are many causes that lead to hair fall problem. Stress is one of them. Other that stress, ageing process and genetic also play a role in this problem. Lack of nutrients, some medicine and lifestyle also contribute to hair fall problem. Lack of sleep also may contribute to this issue.  It is important to find the root cause of your hair problem before taking any action or treatment. If you are stressed, reducing the stress may stop or decrease the hair fall problem.  One of the method to reduce the hair fall is by taking enough nutrients. Knowing or finding the right nutrient to cure your hair problem is quite a mission. First you will need to ensure what is the cause of your hair problem. If it is caused by the lack of nutrients, then you will need to find what nut...

I have been drinking Calamansi lime water for around a month. I drink it almost everyday. Only 1 Calamansi lime at a time. Slow and steady effort. I add plain water in a mug, and then I squeeze the lime juice from a Calamansi lime.  I did it for health, and for taste. Sometimes I don't like the after taste of the food I ate for lunch so I decided to drink Calamansi water to cover the after taste. It works everytime. And I also love the taste of lime juice.  After squeezing the lime, there will be the remaining lime juice on your fingers and in the lime peels. This, I did not throw away easily.  The remaining juice in the peel, I apply it on my skin as serum or face mask. It helps the skin to become smoother and brighter. And it works for me. Let it stay on your skin for 15 to 30 minutes and rinse it clean.  But before applying the juice, we must test a small amount of it on the sensitive and small area on our skin. It is because the lime juice is acidic and can cause...

Vitamin C is essential for our body. It is needed for many processes in our body, like tissue growth and repair, wound healing, neurotransmitter synthesis, immune system and many more. Reading about its functions in the body may convince a person to take Vitamin C supplements.  I will share the benefits of taking 1000 mg of vitamin C daily. I read that the maximum dose is 2000 mg daily for an adult. However I also read that our body only need less than 100 mg per day. Seems like 1000mg is more than enough. But it's okay. And I also read that our body do not produce vitamin C, so we have to take it daily from our daily food consumption.  After doing some testing, these are the benefits of eating 1000 mg vitamin C daily that I learned.  Smooth And Soft Hair  Vitamin C can make hair become smoother, and lighter. It feels like we just applied shampoo and conditioner on our hair. It also may solve rough hair problem.  Lesser Hair Fall  Eating Vitamin C daily may...

Blackheads and whiteheads are some of the skin problems which many of us have to face. The dots on the face affect our appearance and also sometimes can be itchy, or can make us uncomfortable. It does make our face become oily and easy to get acne.    Oil to reduce blackheads There are some ingredients which might be useful or effective to remove this blackheads. And they are oils. Two types of oil which may reduce the blackheads are jojoba oil and coconut oil. I won’t be elaborating about jojoba oil because I have not tried it yet. I have tried only coconut oil.   Coconut Oil Coconut oil does help to reduce the blackheads. It has anti-bacterial properties which may help clean the skin and the oil also penetrates into the pores. The coconut oil must be applied for at least 30 minutes. It also helps to moisturize the skin and also tighten the skin. If you want to make your own coconut oil, here is the recipe. If you live in the tropics, you can add Pandan...

Rice Rice has many benefits to the skin. It works as anti-ageing agent, an effective scrub and also adds radiance to the skin. Rice can be used as a good base for making mask and scrubs. It leaves a cooling effect when applied on the face. The benefits and availability of rice makes it a good choice to be used as the base of our face mask.    Tamarind Tamarind is a tropical fruit which is rich in vitamin. A Bangladeshi man once told me that drinking tamarind juice may help to decrease fatigue and muscular pain. I think it does. Because I always drink this turmeric-ginger drink called jamu . It contains tamarind in it. And this drink is effective in boosting energy and reducing muscular pain. The vitamin C in tamarind may also be beneficial to our skin. Consuming vitamin C really help us to obtain healthy skin and helps our body to function better. Tamarind is also effective in eliminating or reducing oil on our face. Washing face with tamarind juice not only elimi...

Coconut oil is well known for its moisturizing effect and is widely used as skin and hair moisturizer. It is also traditionally used to moisturize hair in some cultures such as in South Asia and Southeast Asia.  In the ancient Malay Archipelago it is widely used in beauty care. Our grannies had been applying coconut oil to moisturize and maintain their hair. The oil is applied everyday, just after bath when the hair became a bit dry. It is believed that the coconut oil can make hair smoother and slow down the occurrence of gray hair. Coconut oil can be obtained through several methods. And the end result is different, based on the method used. You may end up with coconut oil or virgin coconut oil (VCO).  The best coconut oil is virgin coconut oil, as the properties in the oil is not destroyed during the extraction process. However, processing virgin coconut oil at home may be a bit challenging. Hence, most people usually go to second option which is coconut oil. Even thou...

Scrub is an essential beauty product in our beauty routine. Exfoliation is one of the important process for people who care for their skin. The process exfoliate dead skin cells and sometimes add nutrients to the skin. Thus the skin may become smooth, clean and healthy.  There are abundance of ready made body scrub in the market. Herbs, fruits, rice and milk are some of the ingredients contained in body scrub. And the price of these scrubs range from cheap, affordable to expensive.  But many of us also loves to make homemade scrub. Why. Because it is not only cheaper, but also fresh and flexible. It is flexible as we can control the ingredients used to make our body scrub. And making scrub is also take not much of our time.  There are many ingredients can be used to make homemade scrub. And they range from long lasting scrub to easily expire one. Dry ingredients such as rice, coffee ground and dried ingredients are usually last longer than wet ingredients...

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 seju...

I went out this morning, and found some hibiscus flowers in my mini garden. So I planned to make hibiscus hair mask for today. And walking beside a pandan container reminded me of the idea that I just thought yesterday, which is making a pandan-hibiscus hair mask.  Hibiscus and Pandan Mask So I prepared my  hibiscus hair mask . I blended 3 pandan leaves with a little water and strained the pandan juice. I then took the strained juice and and mix it with hibiscus hair mask. The remaining pandan leaves paste/particles on the strainer I added in the body scrub. (I used 3 hibiscus flowers and 3 pandan leaves of 20 cm length). You can also blend hibiscus flower and pandan leaves together with some water (enough to cover your hair). Applying the hair mask on my scalp, I feel a very cooling experience. My hair also smells of pandan. It is so refreshing, and cooling especially during hot weather. I am keeping it for a few hours and will update when I washed my hai...

Exfoliation Exfoliation is an essential process to get a smooth and healthy looking skin. I found the exfoliating process has become more famous in the past few years. It has become a weekly beauty ritual for some women. There are lots of ready made beauty products for exfoliating dead skin cells in the stores, as well as homemade scrub recipes which we can make at home.  I also like doing it. Exfoliating dead cells from my skin makes me feel refreshed and clean. I usually make my own body scrub using available ingredients I have in the kitchen. I have tried tea leaves scrub, coffee scrub and some other types of scrubs.  Rice Turmeric Scrub But lately I have been using this rice-turmeric scrub once a week and I like the result. Rice and turmeric are well known ingredients in health and beauty industry. The benefits of rice to the skin and hair is widely known. The same goes for turmeric which is believed can brighten the skin and promote better blood flow....