#NicaDIY: We Share Some of our Favourite Natural Hair Remedies

Here at Nica HQ, we love testing out natural beauty remedies, and for this week’s #NicaDIY, we’ll be looking at natural hair treats which will have you forgetting what a bad hair day ever was! So, read on to discover exactly what you can do to make your hair even more beautiful!

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Damaged Hair

Pretty much all of us are guilty of using hair straighteners or hairdryers on a daily basis, and each time that we do so, we’re damaging our precious locks. Excessive exposure to heat and constant brushing causes our hair to become dry and brittle. So, what can we do to help? Nothing beats leaving a deep conditioning treatment upon our hair for anything from 15 to 30 minutes. Why not ever so slightly warm up a mixture of coconut and castor oil and massage from root to tip? Kick back and leave to soak in for no longer than 30 mins and rinse off with a splash of warm water. Repeat once or twice per week, and hair should gradually become less dry in just a few weeks.

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Dull Hair

If you feel like your hair is dull and lifeless, then, you should definitely try out an overnight treatment, which will have your hair looking back to its glossy finest before you even know it. We recommend mixing together a few drops of olive oil (with the optional splash of vitamin E oil) with a little bit of water and massaging from root to tip. Leave on overnight, and then, rinse off and style as usual the following day. The extra shine will be instant!

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Oily Hair

Many factors can lead to oily hair, so, for those of you who have tried every promising shampoo upon the market without success, then, it’s definitely time to test out a natural remedy instead. From egg yolk to honey, there are lots of concoctions that’ll help but our personal favourite is aloe vera. Take some very mild shampoo and mix with a teaspoon of aloe vera gel, which you can take straight from your very own plant, and add in a tablespoon of lemon juice. Apply to the hair, and wash away with some warm water after a couple of minutes, and you should see results in just a few washes!

Do you have any of your own natural beauty remedies that you swear by? We’d love to hear, so, please share them with us by dropping a comment below or getting in touch on Twitter @Nica_Handbags. 

#NicaBakes: How To Make Healthy Peanut Butter Brownies

Imagining all of the unhealthy chocolate that we could scoff this Easter got us thinking that maybe it was about time that we pulled out our oven mitts once more, and whipped up a healthy yet sweet alternative!

So, after a quick peruse around some of our favourite blogs, we were hooked on Blogger Deliciously Ella’s healthy take upon our regular naughty brownies, which switch the flour for sweet potatoes instead. So, we used her recipe as a guide and infused it with a peanut butter twist! Here's what you need:

Ingredients

2 small sweet potatoes
1/3 cup of raw cocoa powder
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1/2 cup coconut cream
2 tablespoons raw honey
½ tsp salt
4 Tablespoons peanut butter
½ cup pitted dates 
½ tsp baking powder
Walnut oil to grease tray 

Instructions

1) Soak the dates in tepid water for ten minutes

2) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

3) Grease your baking tray with a little walnut oil

4) Peel and boil the sweet potatoes until they’re soft enough to mash

5) Place the soaked dates into a food processor and mix until they clump together in a small ball.

6) Add in all of the other ingredients, except the peanut butter and sea salt, and blend together until a smooth mixture forms.

7) Pour into the greased tray and cook for 20 minutes until the tip of a fork pulls clean.

8) Allow to cool before spreading on the peanut butter.

9) Finish with an optional sprinkle of sea salt and cut up into squares to serve. 

Et Voilà! Our delicious peanut brownies are a healthier take upon the traditional brownie, helping to make those naughty indulgences guilt free! 

Here at Nica, we love to try out new healthy recipes, so, please feel free to share your favourites with us and we may just try them out. Get in touch @Nica_Handbags on Twitter or @nicahandbags on Instagram. 

#NicaDIY: Discover Our Organic Facial Masks

We love trying out DIYs or baking here at NICA HQ, and we've decided that we no longer want to keep our crafty trials to ourselves! So, we’re going to share them with you right here upon Nica's Notebook.

This week, we’re turning our hand to edible face masks. What could be better than creating a completely organic feast for the skin with leftovers that we can then scoff?!  

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So, we've rounded up some lovely assistants from the Nica team with different skin types, and popped along to our local shop to pick up some very basic and rather cheap ingredients in order to create two different facial masks. And of course, we turned to some of our favourite blogs for recipe inspiration beforehand.

Best for Oily Skin: Apple and Pear Facial Mask

Ingredients

1 x Green apple

1 x Pear

1 x tablespoon of organic, low fat yogurt

If you suffer from oily skin and what to balance out your pores, then, one of the most effective organic facial masks to turn to combines a mixture of apple and pears. We learnt from Facial-Homemade that the apple contains ursolic acid which helps to banish oil, as well as, alpha hydroxy acids that helps to clear up the pores and even make them smaller! The yoghurt imbues your skin cells with much needed protein, and the pear helps to smooth out its overall appearance.

We simply grated one apple, mashed up a pear and mixed together with a table spoon of organic, low fat yoghurt. We must admit that it didn't have the best smell after adding the yoghurt though! It was a bit messy to apply and bits did keep falling off too. We left it for 15 minutes before removing with warm water, followed by a splash of cold water as to close up the pores again. 

Our Results?

Our skin is still feeling soft and balanced the next day, and it definitely helped to smoothen out and remove any graininess from its surface, so, we'd be interested in seeing the effect after a few more applications. It also makes a great summertime mask as it creates a cooling effect upon the skin. The process was a bit messy though... So, we're not too sure if we'll actually go to the effort of doing it all over again. 

Best for Banishing Breakouts: Strawberry Facial Mask

Ingredients:

4 x Strawberries

1 x Tablespoon of Sour Cream

Inspired by Eco Beauty Secrets, our Strawberry facial mask is cheap yet effective, as this fruit of choice is packed with salicylic acid that is known to unblock pores and prevent breakouts. 

We simply took the four strawberries and mixed in the sour cream, and applied to the face for 15 minutes. 

Before testing out the mask, the complexion of our lovely NICA assistant was fairly mixed with some dry patches and a slightly oily T-zone, and hoped it'd even out her complexion.

Our Results?

The application of the mask was a bit tricky as the consistency was a mixture between runny and lumpy, so, parts of it kept sliding down the face. After washing the mixture off, the skin was left feeling quite soft, and also slightly more even the following morning– with less dry patches and oily spots!

Overall, we found the face mask quite messy but it did make a small difference after just the one use, so, it's definitely a good idea if you want a cheap and natural alternative to purchasing products from expensive brands.

Which natural facial masks do you recommend? Share them with us @Nica_Handbags on Twitter. Or try out our examples for yourself and let us know what you think!