Whether you loved or hated oatmeal as a child, there is no denying the fact that it is one of the most nutritional foods to have at breakfast, or any time of day. Oatmeal not only provides excellent health benefits when consumed, it is also being used in many skin care products as well. So even if you don’t care for eating oatmeal, your skin can enjoy the benefits.

You may think of oatmeal as flavorless sludge. Despite its appearance, oatmeal has a range of advantages and benefits when it comes to your health. Unfortunately, the new flavored oatmeal out on the market today tends to contain a lot of sugar. It is still considered healthy but if you want the complete nutritional benefits, you’ll only find it in plain oatmeal.

Aside from keeping your stomach warm in the mornings, oatmeal has many abilities, including cancer-fighting properties that attack certain bile acids, which reduces toxicity, lowering bad cholesterol and raising the good cholesterol, as well as containing essential nutrients like vitamin E, magnesium, iron, zinc and protein.

But what if you hate oatmeal? If you just can’t get past the taste, or old memories of your mother or grandmother forcing you to finish your bowl, there are other ways to enjoy the health benefits of oatmeal. Take skin care for example. In addition to what oatmeal does for the inside of the body, there is plenty it can do on the outside.

Oatmeal has been found to contain properties that allow it to be easily absorbed into the skin, helps soften skin and is hypoallergenic, making it an excellent ingredient in natural skin care products as well as homemade skin care recipes. Dry skin types can find great use for products that contain oatmeal because it has the best amino acid balance out of all cereal grains. These amino acids allow oatmeal to work as a water-binding agent, which keeps dry skin properly hydrated and moisturized. This form of oatmeal is known as the ingredient colloidal oatmeal, a very popular ingredient in many dry skin care products.

A fun way to experience oatmeal that’s out of the ordinary is as a facial mask. Depending on your skin type and sensitivity, a patch test should be performed first. There are a number of ways to create an oatmeal facial mask. The best type of oatmeal to use for this type of skin care is pain, unflavored, ground oatmeal. Some other ingredients that can be added to oatmeal to make a mask include essential oils (primrose oil, almond oil), egg whites, milk, honey, and yogurt, to name a few.

Research each homemade recipe carefully and only use ingredients that won’t irritate your skin.

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