Experimenting with Natural Beauty Products
Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 10:23AM So here are 3 things that Tim has said to me in the past week:
- Why are you all sticky?
- How come your face smells like vinegar?
- What are you going to do with that peanut butter, smear it on your face?
Hmmm…let me tell you how it all started. I became interested in all natural cleaning and hygiene products, so Tim’s mom got me a book for my birthday a couple of months ago. It’s called Natural Beauty at Home by Janice Cox It’s full of recipes for creating soaps, moisturizers, shampoos, etc. using things right in your kitchen. Let me tell you…I LOVE IT! Now I am completely obsessed. My bathroom now looks like a kitchen pantry with things like baking soda, lemon juice, olive oil and vinegar. I’ve been experimenting with all kinds of recipes and am so intrigued about the qualities of these different ingredients. But…maybe I’ve gone a little overboard. The other night when I was cooking supper I got some olive oil on my hands and instead of washing it off I began rubbing it all over my hands like lotion!
What I’ve found so far is that some of the recipes are really great, but some others I still need to tweak for my particular needs. All in all though, switching from commercially made products to homemade is a huge difference. For example, when I tried a moisturizer for the first time it felt like rubbing grease on my skin, but now that I’m used to it I love it. And the first time I used the shampoo, which doesn’t lather, I thought my hair would never be clean, but after a few days my hair adjusted and now it’s great! What I’ve realized is that I was so used to the commercially made products that my body overreacted when I took away the chemicals and it takes some time to balance out, but once it does it feels so much better.
I also feel good about it because just about nothing gets thrown away now. We have been saving orange peels, old lemons, and pecan shells. After sitting out for a couple of days, the peels get dehydrated and I grind them up along with the nut shells in a coffee grinder and it makes a great exfoliater. And the web has so many resources. Just type in something like “homemade face wash” and you’ll find all kinds of experiments to try, but whatever you do, don’t search for something like “toxic shampoo” because once you start reading that you’ll never turn back!
Farm Life 
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Reader Comments (5)
LOL - the funny conversations we have with our spouses when nobody else is around. Loved this post - very funny and informative. It only makes sense, too, that after years of applying all sorts of chemicals to our bodies, that there would need to be an adjustment period, of sorts, to get used to the natural stuff. What *did* you do with that peanut butter? :-)
I've been wanting to try some homemade products, particularly on my hair. I'm waiting a few weeks because I start back to work Monday and I've read it takes the body a few weeks to adjust and you may look bad those couple of weeks. I didn't want my looking bad stage to coinside with starting back to work. I teach 2 nights a week at a community college.
Farmgirl - Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the post. My family visited for the holidays and started joining in on the teasing for a few days. They all think I'm crazy! I actually was using the peanut butter to remove the left over sticky labels on some jars I've been saving, but Tim just doesn't know what I'm going to do next so he's always questioning!
Christy - I'm still working on getting a shampoo that I like a lot. I've found that recipes using castile soap (olive oil based liquid soap) creates suds and gets my hair clean. I also tried plain old baking soda and LOVED it but then I read online that it has caused some people's hair to fall out! It really only took about 3 days of my hair looking just a bit flat before things balanced out. You should go for it over the weekend or something...and let me know if you find any great recipes!
Liz - have you tried any of Dr. Bronner's products? www.drbronner.com
Kat - I use this liquid castile soap as a base for many of the things I've been trying. Especially the shampoo. Unfortunately, when I went to Earthfare in Athens to buy it they only had the kind scented with tea tree oil and hemp left so Tim thinks my hair smells funny! I guess next time I know to buy plain!