Kitchen-based beauty - Avocado

Whenever I go food shopping, I try to be as health-conscious as possible. Admittedly a few sinful goodies might find their way into my trolley, but I attempt to be good. One item that usually gets grabbed on the way round is avocado. A handful of already-ripe (I'm too impatient to wait for them to ripen at home) avocados will make their home in my fruit bowl, until I mash one up with lemon juice and black pepper, team it with chicken and sriracha (my favourite condiment) pop it all into a pitta bread and take it to work for lunch. It's delicious, and incredibly good for you. Not exactly a kitchen cupboard staple, I know, but stay with me.

Avocado is famed for its health benefits.Rammed with vitamins, nutrients and healthy fats, it keeps a healthy heart, promotes eye health, and ensures that we get the fibre, potassium, and Vitamin E (amongst others) that we need. However, it's always the case that I'll end up with at least one left languishing in the fruit bowl uneaten, beyond the point of being desirable lunch fodder.

I started to wonder, would it be as beneficial if applied to our hair and bodies? So I did some research.

Avocado can be used in a multitude of ways in your daily health and beauty regimes. The flesh, mashed up and applied by itself as a face mask, leaves you with beautiful, glowing skin that feels plumped and refreshed. Apply to your face, leave for 10 minutes and rinse, then apply a small amount of coconut oil to moisturise if you suffer from dry skin.

Avocado can also be combined with coconut oil to create a hair mask. A variant of the oil mask I told you about in my previous post, mash the avocado and a tablespoon of coconut oil together with an egg yolk, apply all over your hair and leave for 10 minutes then shampoo and condition as normal. This is a great for achieving shiny, manageable hair. This can also be done by substituting the coconut oil for avocado oil, for dry, frizz-prone tresses.

Avocado and avocado oil can also be used as a moisturising lotion. Again, combine the two, apply all over or where you have particularly dry skin, leave for a few minutes and wash off in the shower. 

It can be combined with aloe vera for face masks, oats and brown sugar for body scrubs, with honey for a facial cleanser, the list goes on. Next time you have one floating around the kitchen and you're not quite sure what to do with it, try one of these suggestions!