Saving Your Skin With Botanical Remedies in Mexico
Botanical stores are fun places to wander around in Mexico.
Reviewed April, 2023
Baby Boomers and the sun
Many Baby Boomer women commiserate over youthful days greasing down with baby oil mixed with iodine as suntan lotion. I never did that, but perhaps what I did was worse.
In Oklahoma, the summer quest is for water wherever you can find it and the sun would not be denied. Local public pools served as a daycare center for parents willing to pay fifty cents a day. Located in the center of City Park, my parents dropped me off every morning, barely stopping the car to let me out.
Keys to wire basket lockers were huge safety pins attached to our sagging bathing suits. The place was filthy. Mayhem reigned. I stayed at the pool from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. with hundreds of other kids, sealing our dermalogical fate.
On week-ends I was towed to Quartz Mountain Lake Lodge, about 30 miles away. Even though the summer temperatures are frequently in the hundreds, the Lodge pumped the pool water from the bottom of the lake. Strangers to the area would launch out of pool like missiles, lips blue from hypothermic shock, screaming.
I learned how to do a one-and-a-half from the pool’s two springboards, but not before splattering face-first hundreds of times in the the much-less popular one-and-an-eighth dive, weaving like a miniature drunk boxer back to the diving board line. No keeping sunscreen with all that going on.
Botanical stores in Mexico
Like Oklahoma, the sun in Mexico can be brutal. It’s not just the sun. All the salt in the air in coastal areas does strange things to skin. You have to be particularly careful with cuts. In the humidity, they don’t dry out and become infected easily, a serious situation which will require a hospital visit.
Infections from cuts, like my surfer friend exhibits here, are a bigger risk in coastal areas due to the salt and humidity and will require a hospital visit.
Foot and toe fungus is common in humid coastal areas too. A large botanical store can provide a tincture to apply which is more effective and far less expensive than anything a doctor will proscribe. (I’m sorry I don’t remember the name, but the skull and crossbones on the label stuck with me.)
Since being in Mexico, I've researched a number of homeopathic ways to address issues with my skin with botanicals before moving up to more expensive pharmaceutical treatments that would assuredly be prescribed by a dermatologist.
People who work in large botanical stores in Mexico are very knowledgeable. Buying botanicals in Mexico is a lot more fun than buying them at home because you can buy in the quantity you want, taken from bulk from the people behind the counter who retrieve it and weigh it out for you. They give you the ingredients in an unlabeled plastic bottles or baggies, without all the packaging. (It makes me eel like I’m at the General Store in a western movie as they tally it up on a sheet of paper…”that’ll be 788 pesos, Little Missy”.)
Packaging is plain
Cost for botanicals is about the same
Unlike many things in Mexico, I found botanical remedies to cost about the same in Mexico as the U.S.
First of all, homeopathic skin remedies aren’t very expensive to begin with. From online in the U.S. eight ounces of Vitamin C powder costs about $8 (U.S.), about the same as Mexico. An ounce of the tree tree oil runs as little as $6 online, about the same as buying it in a botanical store. Extra virgin coconut oil about $10, a carrier lotion costs about $8 dollars. The 100 capsules of Omega 3 oil cost about $10 both in Mexico and online.
My purchases in Mexico totaled 788 pesos ($40 U.S). Ordering the same online with the taxes and shipping in the U.S would have been $55-60 dollars.
The one skin treatment I highly recommend
The one purchase I recommend trying while in Mexico is barro, exfoliation clays. Mud from certain areas of Mexico is known for certain chemical qualities that make it excellent for exfoliation or facial treatments.
In the main botanical store in Mazatlán there were four types, ranging from black, pink, brown and white, all in unmarked bags to measure out exactly how much you want. It’s very inexpensive. My Mexican friend Estella has used barro religiously for years. She swears by them so much she’s indoctrinated her 20 year old to get started with them now. She’s 61 and her skin looks fabulous.
Botanical stores are great fun to poke around in. You can find anything you use at home, and then some.
Related links:
Get an overview of other great products and procedures you may want to try in Mexico. Ventanas Mexico
"The best plant remedies for your skin concerns" - by Reader's Digest Best Health
Next up:
Even bus rides are loaded with adventure in Mexico
Most recent:
About the author:
Hola - I am Kerry Baker, a partner with Ventanas Mexico and the author of four books.
Check out how to rent in Mexico with my second book "If Only I Had a Place," The book includes a listing of rental concierges, people on-the-ground in your favorite expat destination to assist your search.
Most recently I released, “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico.” I recently co-authored a cookbook, “The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico.