My beauty secret
April 3, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Fresh Look , trackback
Beauty tips? You? I imagine my friends read this and roll on the floor laughing, with tears streaming down their cheeks. You? The person who confuses a lip liner with an eye liner, the person who has never deviated from asking for a wash and go hair style? The person who pretty much wears two pairs of shoes – one pair for the summer and other for the cooler weather?
Okay, I get it, even my five year old told me the other day that my top did not exactly match my pants.
But even I can discover a beauty secrete once in a blue moon – loofah, aka loofa or luffa.
Apparently in Asia and Africa, loofah is popularly grown to be harvested before maturity and eaten as a vegetable. Post maturity, it can be used as a sponge after being processed to remove everything but the network of xylem.
I have very dry skin, especially in the winter time. Never was a problem in Texas back in the college days. Since I moved to California in the 90’s, the dry skin problem gets a little worse every year. Who am I kidding? perhaps it’s just a part of getting older. Anyhow I have used all sorts of lotions - intensive care this and skin therapy that. Sadly nothing worked and now I am left with a collection of ineffective bottles of goo that are eye sores to my husband.
Then I bought a loofah bath scrubber from my local drug store to replace my nylon one, in the spirit of reducing plastic consumption. I had my doubts: it felt pretty rough and I was supposed to scrub my bare skin with that? After some hesitation, I tossed the soft but disintegrating nylon scrubber and picked up the loofah.
Let me just say that it is so worth my $2.15!! It took a bit to get used to the rough texture. But a month later, I no longer have dry skin – not much at least. It’s sort of like a natural and reusable exfoliate – taking off a layer of dead skin. I know it sounds oh-so-gross. Undoubtedly expensive exfoliates with 57 ingredients will never advertise “we polish off dead skin”. But hey, regardless how gorgeous the model is next to a $95 exfoliate bottle, removing a layer of dead skin is what an exfoliate does.
Amazingly, loofah can also be used to scrub kitchen counter or floor. Now this probably gives away any beauty cred I have earned from the previous paragraphs, if any.
(image courtesy of Rachel Ray, seriously)
How about “loofah can also be used to polish your luxurious kitchen counter – smooth as new skin.” Okay, I will shut up now. No advertisement career in my future.
The other nice quality about loofah is that it is compostable. Recycle This provides more ideas for reuse loofah - make glycerin soap or use as a planter. Brilliant.
Objects you may not want to use loofah on: babies, children, cars – all have much more delicate skin than us adults.
CindyW
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Comments»
I wonder when we all decided to use the plastic scrubber things? Back in the day, I think everybody just used a wash cloth. I would say this another case of everybody just falling for advertising! But the loofah does seem interesting, and makes me wonder if we could all grow them in our back yard gardens.
I actually own one of these little cuties and use it for dishes. I bought it because it is biodegradable and also had no plastic packaging - though, to be honest, it works so so on hard to clean pots and gets yucky stuff stuck inside.
I also use the compressed vegetable cellulose sponges from Trader Joes (12 in a pack). But they don’t last as long as the mainstream ones.
What to do? Did people really used to use wash clothes? Is that what a dishrag is? I can’t remember what my mom used but I think it was a sponge. Maybe the cloth is a better way to go - you can reuse it endlessly. Any thoughts?
The beauty industry is in the business of selling images and desires. Products are only means to achieve them. Face it, a loofah scrubber just isn’t as sexy as a nice bottle of scented exfoliate that “regenerates your skin with natural lavender, orange essence, raw organic sugar, and a touch of sea breeze”. But if you can see through all the marketing mambo jumbo, a loofa scrubber is probably just as good of an exfoliate.
I want to grow my own loofahs!
Green Bean, the yucky stuff getting stuck inside yours is why I don’t use one in the kitchen for dishes. The best thing I’ve found is the plastic mesh bags that produce comes in. Cut the ends off and the seam. When you want to scrub with it, scrunch it up. When you’re done, open it up all the way to easily wash off the bits and pieces.
Actually, I hardly even do that anymore. I typically use baking soda and a dish rag to clean pots with stuff stuck to them, after soaking the pots for a while.
I also have been known to use baking soda and/or salt on my skin. There. Now you have MY beauty secret!
Joyce: I asked my parents about this. They said they had actually grown loofah plants in their backyard a few year ago, “it was very easy to grow,” so they told me. They also informed me that drying out and removing the stuff inside was a bit messy but not too bad.
GB: I haven’t tried it on my pots yet. Body first then pots
Rosie: I am with you all the way about the beauty industry which is so incredibly successful in convincing us about the NEED for millions of bottles of lotions and potions
Chile: Welcome! Thanks for sharing your beauty secrete
Looks like we both believe that what can be used on the pots can also be used on the body (not really, but close 
) Baking soda and salt, I will have to try it.
Every time I hear the word loofah I think of Bill O’Reily and his falafel. Ugggggg. I guess I will be skipping breakfast this morning.
I’m off to buy a loofah!
Right now we have one of those nylon things hanging in the shower. Since I have gotton rid of liquid body soap (in my bid to reduce plastic cosumption) I only use bar soap.
We have hard, hard water and the entire family seems to be shedding.
I can compost it too! Cool. Is that a brown or a green? I’m going with brown.
Needl: Not a fan of Bill O’Reily? Haha, who is? That’s too bad that the totally functional and always fair-n-balanced loofah reminds you for him. Scrub him off, scrub him off.
mary: I had one of those nylon pom-pom thing too
We too have gotten rid of liquid body soap and shampoo. Seems to work nicely so far. Compost-wise my guess it is a brown . But it probably doesn’t matter.
BTW, I heard about it a while ago from one of the actresses in Grey’s Anatomy. So it is a totally plagiarized idea.
Hi Cindy, great story! (and much better than that fool’s day teaser about Al Gore — that was just mean!) But shh… this is going on the Mother’s Day shopping list. Also, although you’ve been buying yours at a store, can you recommend any nurseries or stores that can help start a backyard loofah garden?
Tim, you are so thoughtful for thinking about mother’s day a month ahead
I’ll call the local nursery to see if the bay area is suitable for growing loofah.