Dec. 15, 2015-In celebration of the International Year of Soil 2015 (IYS), the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is coordinating a series of activities throughout the year to educate the public about the importance of soil. December’s theme is “Soils and Culture”. In SSSA’s December 15 Soils Matter blog post, experts explain how soils have been used for various reasons for millennia.

According to Melanie Szulczewski, University of Mary Washington, “Many of the ingredients in items used by ancient civilizations came directly from the earth, such as clay, mud, minerals, and some pigments.” Common uses were rituals and war paints, but also beauty and health. Szulczewski was SSSA’s monthly leader for December’s theme.

“Mud or clay masks have been used for many centuries to detoxify, deeply cleanse, and soothe skin,” says Szulczewski. “The active particles in mud masks are called peloids.  Peloids are muds that have healing or cosmetic properties and can be found in many different geographic areas.”

Szulczewski cautions “though it can be exciting to make your own homemade mud mask, you shouldn’t use the mud from your backyard even if you have lots of clay in your soil. It is safer, easy and inexpensive, to buy purified clay powder, known as cosmetic clay, to use for a homemade mud mask.” SSSA made instructions for home mud masks for their IYS celebration, which can be found at https://www.soils.org/files/sssa/iys/mud-mask.pdf.

To read the entire blog post, visit http://soilsmatter.wordpress.com.

As part of their celebration of IYS, SSSA is developing a series of twelve 2-minute educational videos. December’s “Soils and Culture” video can be viewed at www.soils.org/iys/monthly-videos. Educational materials can be viewed at www.soils.org/iys.