During the Spanish Conquest, lemon seeds were spread throughout the New World, partly to create ornamental trees and also due to the fruit’s supposed medicinal properties. I’m sure many of you are aware that ye olde sea dogs (ship manz) were told to consume these ellipsoidal zesty citruses to help get rid of their scurvy [A Treatise of the Scurvy, James Lind 1753]. The reason for this was that the fruits contained high levels of vitamin C (in some cases known as L-ascorbic acid – protector against the forces of oxidative stress and key to tissue repair!) which deterred the disease by being a helpful step in restarting collagen synthesis. As collagen is a huge part of the human body, you can kinda understand why they’d be feeling as rough as the choppy seas.
To reduce blackheads or minimize oil, applying lemon juice neat (or diluted depending on skin sensitivity) to those areas of your skin can help. Another cool thing to note is that the low pH of the lemon juice has antibacterial benefits; skin bacteria have a favoured, higher pH and do not like this to be messed with! Perhaps when you’re told to go have some honey and lemon for your sore throat, don’t be a sour lemon about it and DO IT. In addition to this, it is possible that mood is enhanced by its tangy fragrance!
Uplift your mood, antibacterialize, bust blackheads and brighten your face! Gogogo!
You can do this by attempting my special 5 minute mini peel, which I devised just for you ( it can be otherwise known as the Lemon Seadog Peel, which I think is apt considering its historical rep). I’m going to give you a little pre-warning: do NOT put near, or around your eyes.
– Take a generous squeeze of lemon juice*
– Pour in some Redybrek (oh those finefine oats)
– Lastly add a strategic pinch of turmeric
*Used from a fresh lemon (best idea) or one of those squeezy things…students I feel ya
I left this on for five minutes; it does sting, so you sensitive skin folk need to be careful! If you are on a prescribed spot cream already then proceed with caution – some may use different methods to mess with the naughty microbes. You can again dilute the juice with water according to sensitivity. As per most of my things somehow, this mask may lighten your skin.
Other tips:
I use lemon juice to lighten the skin on my elbows, knees and in the pits!
Make sure to moisturise the first two afterwards, as they can become dry if you don’t.
People use honey and lemon over a period of a few months to bleach facial hair apparently- give that a go if you’re embarrassed and don’t wanna get involved in buying facial kits in public <3
If you have histamine intolerance (which means you cannot intake histamine-containing foods or you’ll get some super lame symptoms), whilst following a strict diet, taking high doses of vitamin C is actually recommended as an additional aid to help alleviate residual/background symptoms.
Edited by Luisa Parnell