You will probably agree, there are very few fruits or veggies that taste good AND are just as healthy for the body. One such food is the creamy nutty textured avocado.  And here’s something that you probably didn’t know about avocado, which happens to be family favorite and an all-purpose ingredient that can single-handedly flip the burger, salad, toast or smoothie into a star dish. This pear-shaped superfood and culinary delight is actually a berry. And why is that important? There is a reason why people don’t mind fatty superfood like avocado. Berries, including avocadoes, come loaded with antioxidants and other essential vitamins and minerals that you need for healthy skin, heart, eyes, and bones.  Here’s everything you need to know about them and how to use it in your food.

Good for your heart

Avocadoes are full of healthy fat, the good kind that minimizes the risk of stroke. Though avocado has high-fat content, it is monounsaturated fats that actually reduce cholesterol, a common risk factor for heart diseases. It has even more potassium than bananas.

Nutritional powerhouse

Avocadoes come blessed with 20 vitamins, and minerals including folate, lutein, potassium, and B vitamins. Folate aids cell recovery and cellular wear and tear (mitigates the risk of brain and spinal cord defects at birth), lutein is needed for healthy eyes and potassium helps manage blood pressure. The presence of B vitamins improves immunity and keeps diseases and infections at bay. Other vitamins like C and E prevent cancer. The fruits are high on fiber yet low on sugar. So you feel full for much longer.

Gift for your skin

You can eat it or apply it to your skin in the form of masks, along with other ingredients to absorb the complete range of benefits that avocadoes have for your skin.

(Also read: 5 Ways To Remove Stubborn Makeup Naturally)

Softens and Rehydrates

Avocadoes have natural oils that help penetrate the skin cells to nourish and soften the skin apart from rehydrating it.

Prevents skin aging

Rehydration also prevents the formation of wrinkles and fine lines. Avocadoes come loaded with important antioxidants. Avocadoes infuse your system with antioxidants that diminish over time due to a stressful lifestyle, pollutants, poor diet, age or wrecked sleep cycles, and other environmental factors. Infusing the system with antioxidants reduces oxidative stress, that is it improves the balance between antioxidants and rogue free radicals in the body. The free radicals damage the skin and affect collagen production, making the skin look older and wrinkly.   The antioxidants boost the immunity of cells and make them look healthier.

Promotes skin elasticity

Avocadoes also have lutein which is a carotenoid useful in promoting elasticity of the skin.

Reduces inflammation

It also contains plenty of oleic acid and chlorophyll that removes redness and inflammation in the skin.

Various Avocado Facemasks for Various skin needs

Avocado honey face mask

If you have dry wrinkly skin, you can go for this one. Here both the ingredients are competent moisturizers.

You will need 1 ripe avocado and 1 tbsp honey.

Get rid of the avocado skin and seed. Mash it into a creamy textured pulp and put it in a bowl. Put 1 tbsp honey in the bowl and stir it to make a uniform mix. Apply it evenly to your skin. Let it sit for 15 minutes. Rinse it off with some lukewarm water. Pat your face lightly to dry with a soft towel.

Avocado oatmeal facemask

For a great exfoliating and moisturizing option, you can try making the oatmeal avocado face mask. Here, you will need half a ripe avocado and half a cup of oatmeal. Mix the oatmeal with mashed avocado and blend it into a smooth paste. Apply it evenly on your face and neck. Let it be for 15 minutes. Rinse it off as mentioned above.

Avocado yogurt honey face mask

The avocado yogurt face mask helps fight acne and dryness problems. Yogurt has zinc, lactic acid, and it is a strong probiotic.

Here, you need a quarter of a ripe avocado, 1 teaspoon of plain yogurt and half teaspoon of honey.

Here’s an interesting addition to your face masks. To make amazing exfoliating face masks, you can break the avocado seed pit into tinier pieces, dry, and blend it into a powder. You can add this powder into the avocado oatmeal or add it with coconut oil, yogurt, or honey to make hydrating face masks with exfoliating benefits.

Shankara’s Moisturizing Mask

But it can be a messy work to prepare the masks. There is a way you can upgrade your moisturizing facial masks. You can leave it to the trained curators and experts at Shankara to make you a much-loved hydrating moisturizing face mask that comes with the goodness of soothing honey, oat flour, and avocado oil. These form the base for this hydrating, nourishing, moisturizing mask that leaves skin satiny smooth. Fatigued skin is rejuvenated while the rich oils target dryness in mature skin for a younger, dewy glow. It is ideal to address skin dryness and can be used for mature skin.

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