Activated Charcoal Masks

Putting charcoal in your hair and on your face might not seem glamorous, but it’s proven to have many health and beauty benefits when used safely and properly. Activated charcoal is administered in hospitals as emergency treatment for poisoning; as chemicals bind to it, it can help remove them from the body. These days, people are using food grade activated charcoal internally to detox, in supplements and juices; it’s even being used to whiten teeth.

Here are the best ways to use activated charcoal for the health of your skin and hair.

1. Make pores smaller and cleaner

Throughout the day, toxins from the world around us clog our pores. When your pores aren’t clear, neither is your complexion.

2. Take care of oily skin

Oily skin? Activated charcoal may be just the ingredient you need to balance things out. Used in a cleanser or mask, activated charcoal can pull the unwanted excess oils from your skin, leaving it smooth.

3. Treat acne

Depending on the specifics of your acne’how severe it is, what’s causing it and what else is going on’activated charcoal may be able to help. In soap form, it’s slightly gritty, which might provide just the gentle exfoliating you need.

4. Deep clean your skin

You can find cleansers that contain activated charcoal in bars or bottles. It’s important that you don’t use these daily, as you don’t want to soak up the healthy oils and moisture your skin needs

5. Rid your hair of toxins

Activated charcoal, when used on your hair, can pull out oil, dirt and toxins’just like it does for your skin. You can find regular and dry shampoos that contain activated charcoal. If you have very light hair, you won’t want to use the dry shampoo, as it may stain

6. Soothe and heal bites, cuts and skin irritations

For minor skin ailments’including insect bites, stings, cuts, scrapes and minor infections’activated charcoal can be applied topically.