8 ideas to reduce student stress that only cost £20
Create your own spa experience for £20 and reduce student stress
Your body is a temple, but as students the lifestyle tends to lend itself more to being a dump site. The alcohol, cheap food, deadlines and all-night sessions can make you feel run down, ready for retirement and stressed out. A day in a luxury spa would be just the thing to help you de-stress. But on a student budget, that’s not possible, even when you loan comes in.
I’ve got together with my friends Becky and Niki to try out a few little DIY student spa tips that can make you feel radiant, full of life and ready to take on the day. Importantly, you can achieve all of this with a trip to the supermarket and for less than £20!
Finding the perfect setting
It is all about the setting. You need to start by feeling like you’re at a spa, and sitting in your kitchen with your friend frying up a greasy bacon sandwich isn’t going to do you any good. Your bedroom is the ideal location to be relaxed. Make sure it’s neat and tidy, bed made and curtains closed to really set the mood. If you’re not sharing a single bathroom with the whole house, you can always use this as an ideal space, too.
Invest in some fairy lights (£2.00) to really set the scene. And just to spoil you, try out this relaxing spa playlist to really help you unwind.
Easy pampering facial
This one freshens up the skin like you would not believe. Grab an egg (free range of course), scoop out the egg yolk, add a bit of honey or lemon juice if you fancy, and whisk it to a smooth foamy paste. Then just grab some loo role and layer it over the egg white, so that it looks a bit like one of those face sheet masks. Then simply wait for it to dry and peel off. Repeat the process again, this time with a different added something, such a Greek yoghurt or squashed avocado, and your face with feel fresh, healed and revitalised.
Ingredients
Eggs: 89p
Lemon: 30p
Greek yogurt: £1
Loo towel: £1.35
Avocado: 79p
Total: £4.33
A winning smile
This one is simply, and you get to eat some scrummy food, as you go as well. Grab a banana, eat it (then maybe wash your teeth) and simply rub the inside of the skin on your teeth and it should help add shine to your smile. Dislike Bananas? Take a bite of some strawberries and do the exact same. Then eat the rest of the strawberry!
Ingredients
Strawberries: £2
Cucumber 50p
Total: £2.50
Banish bags
We have two separate tips for your eyes.
First up is a generic one, and all it involves is avocado. Simply mash half the fruit, mix it into a smooth paste in a bowl, and layer it under your eyes to help get rid of those dark spots. The vitamins contained really help repair the skin, and after around 15 minutes you with feel and see the difference.
Another good tip is for those of you that pluck your eyebrows. Once again including avocado, but this time with that old eye fruit favourite cucumber. Once you’ve plucked the eyebrows, apply a thinner layer of avocado around the red areas and a thicker layer under the eyes, but this time leave some space for the cucumber. Find a comfy place to lie down and put a slice of cucumber over your eyes, leave for around 15 minutes and wash off. You should notice the redness from plucking your eye brows will have gone down and feel soothed, and dark spots gone as well!
Ingredients
Avocado: 79p
Cucumber: 50p
Total: £1.29
Softer locks
Coconut oil may be expensive, but it has countless possibilities. You want 100% if you can, and buying a supermarket own brand from the cooking aisle is the same as anything you will get down the local chemist. But this oil does amazing things for people’s hair, short and long. A coconut oil hair mask is a natural way to reduce dandruff, reduce split ends, promote hair growth and make your hair feel lusciously soft.
Ingredients
Coconut oil 2.25
Total: £2.25
A paste of honey
A body scrub does miracles for the skin, even if it can sometimes look and maybe feel a bit weird. The best and most student budget-friendly one you can conjur up is a mixture of brown sugar, oatmeal, olive oil and honey.
All you need is half a pint of dry oatmeal (pour the oatmeal into a pint glass until it’ half full), 3 tea spoons of sugar, 2 tea spoons of olive oil and 2 tea spoons of honey. Mix it all into a paste, add some more of the ingredients if you think more is needed (those are just what we thought worked) and apply to your arms, legs and anywhere else you can think of / reach.
Scrub it in for a few minutes, leave to rest for 5 minutes, then wash off. Your skin will feel so, so, so soft, and just to make yourself feel even better, have a little skin cocktail of lemon juice with some mint. That will make the feeling last longer into the next day, and feel like your insides have had a major deep clean.
Ingredients
Brown sugar: £1.40
Oatmeal: 75p
Olive oil: £3.60
Honey: 99p
Lemon: 30p
Mint: 70p
Total: £7.74
Don’t forget the pointy/bendy bits
Our elbows and knees can take a lot of battering, often leading to rough, dry skin as well as dark spots. The most simple answer is a citrus treatment, with an aftercare of cucumber. The citrus treatment, which can be done with either lemon or lime, adds vitamins and cleanses the skin due to its acidic properties. Cut the limes and lemons into slices, and rub them in on your elbows and knees for a few minutes.
Give it a few minutes after to let the juice’s soak in, then rub cucumber in the same places. With its anti-inflammatory properties, any redness and white spots should disappear soon after. You could also do the same thing for that thick dry skin around your nails.
Ingredients
Lemon: 30p
Lime: 30p
Cucumber: 50p
Total: £1.10
Feet on fleek
Foot baths are amazing, and so simple to do as well. You just need to find a bowl that is big enough for your feet, make the water the perfect temperature and add whatever you want to make them feel soft and fresh after a long day on your feet. The best way to achieve this is to use any leftover scrub that we told you to use on your body.
Rub the mixture all over your feet to get rid of any dry and old skin, then add some lemon, mint and a bit of shower gel to the make-shift foot bath and leave you feet to soak for as long as you want. They will feel fresh, and smell nice as well. Result? Sexy feet!
As you’re using the excess body scrub you made, this treatment is actually free!
Total spend: £21.21
(OK, that’ a bit more than £20, but I mentioned cucumber twice, so it sort of work out.)
Have you got any other student spa hacks that you do? Let us know @purplefrogprop on twitter!