Celebrate National Honey Month With Beauty DIYs

September may be beloved by vacationers for Labor Day and by the sartorially obsessed for Fashion Week, but the month is equally significant for naturalists. September is National Honey Month, when those who adore a spoonful in their Earl Grey or a dollop on their morning toast rejoice in one of the earth's best organic sweeteners. However, honey's benefits reach far beyond its addictive, saccharine taste. An antimicrobial and antibacterial substance proven to assist in curing infection and diminish harmful bacteria, honey is a veritable superfood for the diet and the skin. You could easily celebrate National Honey Month by scooping up a product professing to be infused with the ingredient, but creating your own honey DIY is infinitely more amusing — and cost effective.

Thanks to its rare combination of soothing and disinfecting properties, honey is an ideal addition to cleansers, shampoos, and moisturizers, even lending its restorative superpowers to remedy acne-prone skin. If you're looking to flex your DIY muscles this month, test drive one of these seven simple honey-based homemade recipes for lustrous locks and luminous skin. Though the formulas are intended for topical use, you may even find them delicious enough to eat.

1. Vanilla Honey Body Scrub

If too many hours of UV exposure have given your skin a scaly, rough texture, scour away dead skin cells with a honey-based body scrub. With its natural, non-irritating ingredients and intoxicating vanilla scent, this streamlined scrub is a snap to create and promises to give your epidermis an autumnal glow.

2. Honey Coconut Body Wash

Give your skin its due hydration while whisking away unwanted bacteria with a homemade honey coconut body wash. This ultra-moisturizing formula also possesses the added benefit of a faint, tropical smell, all the better for reminiscing about your summer jaunts to far flung beachside resorts.

3. Honey Olive Oil Face Mask

Greeting September with angry, irritated skin is no way to begin the year. Follow Michelle Phan's lead and pacify your inflamed epidermis with a warming honey olive oil mask to reset your skin's PH balance.

4. Honey Hair Mask

Although honey works miracles on dull and dry skin, the natural substance also beautifully reconditions limp locks. Use this straightforward honey mayonnaise hair mask to achieve locks glossy enough to put Blake Lively to shame.

5. Honey Lip Balm

The change in season can be just as devastating to your pout as it is to your skin. However, building a DIY honey lip balm into your daily regimen will keep your lips from unfashionably flaking.

6. Honey Lip Scrub

Lend extra oomph to your mouth with a DIY honey lip scrub, whose ingredients work to loosen dead skin cells and properly plump your pout.

7. Oat And Honey Soap

If scrubs, lotions, and masks are simply too complex for your skincare regimen, try a simple soap recipe instead. Your epidermis will thank you all month long for the formula's skin-soothing oats and moisturizing honey formula.

Images: Sonja Langford/Unsplash