When life hands you lemons

During this past summer I noticed that my freckles were getting a little darker than I liked and my skin tone was becoming uneven and I immediately thought I needed to head to the dermatologist for a microdermabrasion treatment ASAP! But after doing a little research on natural skin lightening treatments I found that lemons can be used to even out your skin tone, as an exfoliant and help with diminishing breakouts. Now I have to say that I am not a professional, so if you're allergic to lemons or have a skin condition in which lemons or lemon juice can irritate, please do not try this. With that said, I decided to give the lemons a try. I wish I had taken a "before" photo so I could compare the progress. But I didn't. I can say that the lemons have helped with evening out my skin tone and my skin is softer than before. I've also noticed that they help heal breakouts and reduce redness and inflammation associated with blemishes. I've been using the lemon treatment 5 times a week for about six weeks and I'm pretty impressed with my very inexpensive discovery.

After washing your face, cut a lemon in half and discard any seeds. Rub the open lemon in a circular motion until the skin on your face and neck are fully covered with lemon juice. Keep in mind that if you have any dry spots or blemishes, that area will sting slightly, but will stop as soon as the juice dries. It's nothing unbearable. Leave the lemon juice mask on for 10-15 minutes then rinse it off with warm water. Then apply your moisturizer.

Now you can discard the used lemon half, but I have found several other uses for it:

• If you have kids in diapers, throw it in the diaper pail to help with the odor
• Throw it in your garbage disposal to help with the odor from food that stays in there after rinsing your dishes
• Rub the lemon under the faucets of your sinks and on your shower head to help prevent lime scale build up (just rinse the juice and pulp after a few minutes)

But the best use I found for the leftover lemon is to clean the floor of my shower with it. The floor of my shower has a textured nonslip material that has tiny raised bumps in which dirt constantly gets trapped in. No matter how often or what cleaning product I used I could never quite get the floor as clean as I wanted. That was until the lemons! The lemons are now taking care of that problem as well.

If you've discovered other uses for lemons besides lemonade, please share!