The Yuppiest 3-Ingredient Facial Mask Ever

As someone's who's been obsessed with food-as-skincare since I was 12 (I found a book called Treat Your Face Like a Salad at my local library and game = over), I often feel like I've seen every facial mask recipe under the sun. Oh, you're using an egg white to tighten? Yogurt for the mild exfoliating effect of the lactic acid? A mashed avocado to moisturize? Call me when you're sufficiently reinvented the wheel.

So it was with great joy that, while flipping through the fantastic book 100 Organic Skincare Recipes by Jessica Ress, I found a facial mask recipe that I'd genuinely never heard of before. Even better, the trio of ingredients was an aspirational yuppie-with-a-slight-hipster-edge fantasy. Chia seeds? Red wine? Raw honey? Excuse me while I run to Whole Foods and cry with joy over the sustainably harvested avocados.

According to Ress, this mask is overflowing with antioxidant from both the chia seeds and the red wine. The wine also tightens and clarifies pores, while the honey does everything amazing that honey does. I had to try it out.

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon raw honey

• 1 1/2 teaspoons red wine

• 1/2 teaspoon ground chia seeds

Since I didn't have any way to grind up my chia seeds, I used whole ones — and they didn't expand in the red wine the way I'd hoped. I blame the alcohol content. If you're using whole chia seeds, try soaking them in a tiny bit of water beforehand until they expand into a gel. This will help the mask stay on your face and not slide off onto your new bathroom rug.

Mix all ingredients together until you get a mask-like consistency. (Too runny? Thicken up with more honey or chia gel.) Apply in a thick layer to face, being careful not to stain anything with the red wine.

Hm, is that a glass's worth of red wine left in the bottle? Better drink it. Loaf around for 10-25 minutes, avoiding all human contact, then rinse, tone, and moisturize. Dream of your next Whole Foods run. Chia and yogurt? Chia and avocado? The facial mask game is suddenly looking fresh again.

Recipe excerpted from 100 Organic Skincare Recipes Copyright © 2014 by Jessica Ress, founder of Angel Face Botanicals and published by F+W Media, Inc. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.