5 Amazing Skin & Hair Benefits, Uses of Rice Flour

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Almost all of us use rice flour in our cooking on a day to day basis, but if you are not using for it for skin and hair care treatments then you are missing out one of the best skin care ingredients. If you know how to use rice flour for skin and hair care, you will start using it regularly. Since rice flour is a bit coarse, it helps exfoliates the skin well and also removes excessive oiliness. Rice flour also tightens very well on the skin making it ideal for using it on all face masks. Rice flour can be either bought from the shops or made at home easily. There are 2 types of rice that we use for making all our dishes. One is parboiled rice, where the rice is boiled partially which makes it more nutritious than raw rice, we use only this rice mainly. But certain traditional dishes call only for raw rice, so I always have both raw rice and par boiled rice at home. Making rice flour is always done with raw rice and we do that in two ways: To make the rice flour for sweets, first we soak raw rice in water, raw rice soaks faster than parboiled rice. Take the soaked rice and spread it on a thin cotton cloth to absorb all the moisture. Grind it in a dry mixer to get a fine powder, sieve and grind again until all the raw rice is ground finely into a powder. We use this powder for all our sweets and you can also store the powder by dry roasting the powder slightly in an empty pan to get rid of the moisture, spread it on a plate to cool completely and then store in an airtight box. The second method is grinding the raw rice directly without soaking in water, we do that by grinding it in local flour mills, as we can't grind raw rice finely at home. I like to use the rice flour made by grinding it directly for all the skin care treatments and it also stores well than rice flour made by soaking in water. Out of all the skin care treatments made with rice flour, strawberry face scrub made with rice flour is one of my favorite home treatments. Choose from the treatments given below according to your skin type and modify it to your preference.....

 

1.  Rice Flour For Acne & Acne Scars:

                       Rice flour when combined together with turmeric and applied as a face mask is a perfect treatment for acne and acne scars. Turmeric is very good for treating existing acne and preventing further breakouts. To make the mask, first make turmeric paste by rubbing turmeric in a coarse stone along with little boiled water to get a smooth paste. Mix turmeric paste with enough rice flour to get a paste and apply it all over the face. Wait for it to dry and wash it off. This treatment is also very good for removing black heads. This treatment can be used weekly twice and regular application also slowly retards facial hair growth.

2. Rice Flour Scrub For Dry Skin: 

                         I have dry skin and this strawberry and rice flour scrub is perfect for my skin. This scrub is ideal for people with normal to dry skin. It is especially useful during the winter months, when the skin turns very dry. I love strawberries in any form and I especially love to use it on my face. When I tried this homemade strawberry scrub, the strawberries and fresh cream in the scrub left my skin smooth and moisturized. The rice flour in the scrub gently removes the black heads, if used regularly. I have used fresh malai (homemade cream), but if you don't have it at home, substitute it with store bought fresh cream. To make your own cream, boil full fat milk and cool the milk to room temperature. There will be a thin layer of fat on top of milk, collect it and use. Fresh malai spoils easily, so always keep it refrigerated. People with oily skin can skip the malai and make the scrub with strawberries and rice flour. This scrub keeps well for at least a few days, if refrigerated. To make the scrub, clean the strawberries, remove the stalk and puree the strawberries in the blender without adding water to a smooth paste. Take the required amount of strawberry puree in a small cup. Add 1/2 tsp of fresh malai to the strawberry puree and mix well. Add rice flour to the strawberry - malai mixture and mix well without any lumps to form a thick paste and use it as a face scrub. If you use too much of malai, the scrub will be too oily....

3. Rice Flour Mask For Skin Tightening:

                   
                           One of the best things about rice flour is when it dries, it tightens into a firm mask. This quality makes it ideal for using it in firming masks. If combined together with pure honey and an egg white, this mask will rival any store bought firming packs. To make the mask, mix around 3 tbsp of rice flour with 1 beaten egg white and a tsp of honey. Mix and apply on the face, wait for it to dry completely and firm up on the face. This mask is very good for sagging skin and can be used for all skin types. This mask draws out all the impurities from the face along with firming the skin. This mask also lightens the skin tone, if used regularly...

4. Rice Flour For Dark Circles:

                    Rice flour when used along with banana and castor oil treats dark circles very effectively. To make the eye mask, mash a ripe banana along with a tsp of castor oil into a fine paste. Add enough rice flour to get a thick paste. Apply this mixture around the eyes regularly, all these three ingredients are  great for treating dark circles. Castor oil is amazing in lightening the skin around the eyes and bananas moisturizes the skin and prevents rice flour from firming up too much as the skin around the eyes are very delicate. This mask also is very soothing if used on the eyes. To use it on the eyes, spread a thin muslin cloth on the eyes and apply this mask on it and relax.

5. Rice Flour For Hair:

            We call rice water kanji in Tamil, it is very very good for hair and we use it regularly for our hair to keep it soft and smooth. We combine rice water with shikakai powder for having hair wash. As shikakai by itself can be quite drying on the hair, we always pair it up with conditioning ingredients. Rice water is got by boiling rice with a bit more water than normal and straining the water once the rice is cooked. Straining the water takes the nutrients away from rice but I just do it for collecting rice water for using it for hair and skin care treatments. If you can't get rice water, you can also mix rice flour in water and let it sit for a few minutes, the flour will settle down leaving a white liquid on top, you can use this water also for mixing shikakai or it can be used in hair packs too. But make sure not to add too much water to the rice flour, else the rice water will be very runny...

For further information log on website :
http://www.wildturmeric.net/2015/04/top-5-benefits-uses-rice-flour-for-skin-hair.html