DIY Natural Whitening Cleanser/Mask

I'm cheap so I love hunting for bargains. But if there's one thing I love more than shopping around, it's making my own stuff! Many months ago, I saw a post on Kalmo's blog raving over Kuan Yuan Lian's Bean Cleanser. It's a dry cleanser that you add water to to use. You can use it to cleanse the face or leave on the face untl dry as a mask.

Photo courtesy of Sasa.com

Part of me really really wanted to just buy it, since it was so cheap. But my conscience chided me for having a small bag of beans shipped the ocean for me. It looked easy enough to make: Job's tears, green beans, pearl powder.

Here's my version:

Yes, it's an old spaghetti sauce jar. No worries, the contents within are just as edible as its predecessor!

You'll need:
Job's tears powder
Green bean powder

I know some people will have trouble finding these ingredients. You usually can find these powders at a Chinese/Asian grocery like Ranch 99.

I took some photos at Ranch 99, so you have a good idea of what to look for.

Make sure to get the pure form of the powders. Sometimes green bean powder comes mixed with sugar, because it's sold as a drink or cereal mix. Check the ingredients!

And note that companies sometimes call Job's tears "pearl barley" or "coix seed" or "adlay". As English translation can differ from brand to brand, here's the Chinese for the ingredients.

Name	Traditional Chinese	Simplified Chinese
Green Bean Powder	綠豆粉	绿豆粉
Job’s Tears Powder	薏仁粉	薏仁粉

Lol, the simplified and tradtional don't differ too much here. You can scan the shelves for the words above or show these words to a kindly shop person to help you!

Directions:

1. Mix the two powders together.
2. That's it.
3. Seriously.

The fun part comes in figuring out the proportion of Job's tears:green bean that works for you. Green bean powder is good for acne and Job's tears is for whitening (ever read the ingredients in Japanese whitening skincare? it's usually there!). You can start off with half and half of each and go from there. If you want whitening, you can add more Job's tears. I've noticed Job's tears can be slightly irritating, so you might end up with less Job's tears than you'd like.

Kuan Yuan Lian's cleanser also included pearl powder. I had some pearl powder on hand, so I've tried the cleanser with pearl powder. But I honestly feel that it does nothing to whiten, so I've omitted it here.

How to use:

1. Add a few teaspoons to a shallow cup.



It's an old laundry detergent cup. I like repurposing!

2. Add water until the mixture is a runny paste like salad dressing. Mix out the lumps with your finger.



Should look like this. Like bird poop. Jeez, I'm not telling you to eat it! But you can if you want. :)

3. Apply to face, avoiding eyes. If you want to use it as a straight-up cleanser, gently exfoliate with bean particles and rinse.
4. Let dry until hardened if you want to use it as a mask, around 10-15 minutes. Rinse off. It may be a bit difficult removing the mask, since it gets stuck on good! Best for use before you shower, so you can hose it off then.

Heads-up

• As Kalmo has mentioned before, it might be slightly irritating the first time you use it. It feels prickly as it dries on my face and my face is slightly red after first use. But over time, your skin will be desensitized.
• It's kinda annoying to clean up the bean residue left over in the sink and shower. But a good spray of water should do the trick.

I hope this doesn't scare y'all off from trying this, because it really is an awesome cleanser/mask. It gets my face squeaky clean without overstripping the oil on my face and dries up my zits. It's also pretty good at whitening. Best part is that it's travel friendly: 2-in-1 mask/cleanser that's liquid free! Just pack some in a camera film container (if those still exist) and you're good to go! 

Have you tried the Kuan Yuan Lian cleanser? Want to try this? Your thoughts!