Growing up, I always thought the fanciest thing you could do was go to a salon and get one of those full body wraps. Something about them always seems so luxurious and pampering, so when I got my first job I decided to treat myself to one. Until I saw the price tag that is. Holy lip balm on a stick those things are expensive! So a few weeks ago I received a GIANT tub on seaweed powder to test out and review and guess what was on the side of it?!?! Instructions on doing a seaweed body wrap! I may have been more excited than is normal, but that's ok. So today I'll be walking you through the steps of doing a seaweed body wrap at home and reviewing this product, so a bit of two birds one stone.
First though is a health warning. If you are allergic to iodine or iodine products you cannot use this product. I did not know this but apparently seaweed is a natural source of it, so please avoid it if you are allergic to it. The tub also said not to use the body wrap recipe if you are pregnant, breast feeding, or susceptible to heat. And my own personal warning that if strong smells bother you or make you ill, this may not be a great product for you. It smells like seaweed (duh) times 100, super strong smelling, so keep that in mind. My husband wouldn't come near me while I did this, but it didn't really bother me.
To do this tutorial you will need:
- InstaNatural Seaweed Powder
- Warm water
- Olive oil
- Saran Wrap
- Bowl, measuring cup, measuring spoon, mixing spoon
- Large flat paint brush
First, measure out a cup of the seaweed powder and place it in a medium sized bowl. I used glass because I wasn't sure if the stuff would stain a plastic bowl or not. Be careful, the powder is very fine and will puff up at you when you open the safety seal or sneeze while measuring it out.
Now you are going to add enough warm water to create a thick paste. This actually took a lot more water than I thought it would, probably three times as much as I thought I would need. And no matter how much I mixed it I never could get it smooth. I actually added more water later, and that helped so I think next time I do this (only once a week) I'll thin it out some more. And yes, I know it looks like split pea soup.
Now you are going to add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to it. This helped smooth it out a bit and I assume will help make my skin really soft. Mix it really well
Now comes the fun part, or not so fun part depending on how you feel about covering yourself in a thick green paste. You are going to apply it with a brush in long, smooth, upward strokes, making sure to completely cover the skin.
This was the step that I realized it was still to thick, so thinner is easier to apply. The bottle suggests applying it in the bathtub to avoid messed but I never really had any drips. This felt really weird, looked super weird, and smelled super weird.
Once you are done painting it onto your chosen area you get to saran wrap it! This not only keeps it on your skin but traps heat in and makes your pores open up. Saran wrapping myself was hilarious, I'm not going to lie. And yes I have socks on, it's like 20 degrees F here right now.
Once fully saran wrapped you are suppose to cover the area in warm clothing to increase the heat retention. I used my new snowman socks and some sweat pants. This recipe makes a ton, I did both lower legs and my stomach and barely used half of what I made. I'm pretty sure you could do both full legs, arms, and your stomach easily with this recipe. So now that you are a wrapped up green monster you get to sit around for about 20 minutes before you get to wash it off.
I'll use this as my chance to talk about the actual product itself. This is a huge tub, 1.5 pounds of certified organic kelp, so it will last you quite a while. It comes with a few different recipes for face masks and this body wrap, and I've already thought of a few other products I can use it for. I'm really happy with the quality of the powder, there's nothing in this tub but the dried seaweed powder. It being organic makes me feel better about wrapping my body up in it, I don't think I'd be willing to do that if it wasn't organic to be truthful.
InstaNatural is a brand I really like and generally trust as well, I think I've only found one product by them I did not like at all. They seem to strive towards giving you really great products with good ingredients and are decently priced. This whole tub is currently $21.95 with free Prime shipping on Amazon, which is a seriously good value I think.
You probably want to know what I thought of the results once I finally rinsed this stuff off huh? On my legs I didn't notice a huge amount of change. They were softer yes, but not more than using one of my sugar scrubs would cause. Where this stuff blew me away was when I washed it off of my stomach. I have stretch marks from my pregnancy and lots of scars from 3 major surgeries, so my stomach is kind of a mess. This actually made a HUGE difference in the visibility of my stretch marks. Like so much so I stood there just staring for a while. I can actually tell exactly where I stopped painting it on, there is that much of a difference. I will for sure be doing this once a month or so on all of my stretch marks and maybe by summer they'll be completely done. I am giving this two thumbs up for sure!
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