Natural Beauty at Home

This is the book that jumpstarted me to making skin care products. I dabbled before, but now pretty much everything I put on my face, besides makeup, is something I make.

I won't be posting recipes from this book, because you should buy it. But I will be posting recipes inspired by those in it, but with changes I've concocted.

Skin Tips

Random tips for taking care of skin:

♠ Drink lots of water.
♠ Eat lots of fruits and vegetables.
♠ Wash your face with water every night. To clean the skin when water isn't enough, use toners that are good cleansers, like with witchhazel, or use oil. Don't use soapy cleansers (in my experience, they cause more zits than just leaving your skin alone).
♠ Rinse your face with cold water after it's been exposed to warm moisture (shower, steam) and after sweating; or use a toner with pore-closing ingredients, like witchhazel or alum.
♠ Change to a clean pillowcase at least once a week.
♠ Moisturize your throat and around your eyes every night. Depending on your needs, go as far as moisturizing your whole face and neck every morning and night.
♠ Be gentle. Lots of chemicals and hard scrubbing will irritate your skin, causing more inflammation.
♠ Use natural mineral makeup, and cleansers and moisturizers with all natural ingredients.
♠ Don't blow-dry your hair.
♠ Don't get sunburned. (Most people say "use sunscreen," but their meaning is "don't get sunburned." My mineral makeup has zinc oxide in it, which is more effective, in my experience, than sunscreen. Other times, I wear brimmed hats or use a parasol. Or I just don't go outside.)
♠Exfoliate once or twice a week--like I said, no hard scrubbing, but you can focus on areas where you know skin builds up. I mostly use a baking soda mix or bath salts, while showering.

Tooth Powder.

Combine about 1/2 cup of baking soda with about 5 drops of an essential oil of your choice. Stir thoroughly to distribute the oil. Store in an airtight jar.

To use, get your toothbrush head wet, then dip into the powder to coat the head with baking soda. Brush as normal.

The alkaline nature of baking soda neutralizes any acid in your mouth, preventing it from creating cavities. It also scrubs away plaque with continued use.

You can choose essential oils according to flavor, but there are a few that are supposed to be anti-biotic, anti-viral, and anti-fungal. From what I've read, these include lavender oil, tea tree oil, lemon oil, sage oil, myrhh oil, and neem oil.  Neem oil is supposed to be amazing, but I haven't used it yet. I'm theorizing a fancier version of tooth powder that I will post later if I get positive results.

Salt Mouthwash.

In honor of my consistently troubled throat. I didn't measure exactly, but this should come close.

2 Tbls. salt (regular type)
5-10 drops essential oil
1 1/2 cups water

Pour the salt into a glass container with a narrow mouth. Don't use a container with any metal, as the salt rusts it pretty much immediately. Add the essential oil. Close the container and shake to distribute the oil. Add the water and shake again to dissolve the salt.

Take a small shot to gargle and rinse your mouth after brushing your teeth, or any other time. (Don't swallow it). Follow by rinsing your mouth with water.

I like to use breathing/clarifying essential oils, for example, out of my current stash, oils like eucalyptus, any kind of mint, pine, rosemary. I used eucalyptus for this batch. The oil came out a lot faster than expected, so I didn't count the drops accurately, but you don't want a lot.

Oil Cleansing.

I've had people argue about this with me, but I like what it does.

Combine a small amount of castor oil and a carrier oil. You can add essential oils if you want. Massage the oil all over your face. Lean over a bowl of steaming water and drape a towel over your head to trap the steam. Breathe deep and enjoy for a while, like 15 or 20 minutes, but I'm not great at measuring time when my head is under a towel. When you're done, wipe the oil and water off your face with a clean cloth. Then close your pores by splashing your face with cold water or using a toner.


(Yes, this can cause zits, by virtue of digging out zits that were going to happen anyway. Steam alone can do that, so it's not necessarily the fault of the oil. Keep cleaning and your skin will get more controlled.)

Carrier Oils.

Carrier oils are gentle, nourishing oils, into which essential oils are mixed. The essential oils can add more benefits to the carrier oil, and the carrier oil is to dilute the essential oil and augment its usability.

Carrier oils are generally olive oil, canola oil, jojoba oil, walnut oil, almond oil, light sesame oil, flax seed oil, coconut oil, shea butter, and others made from pressing seeds and nuts, rather than distilling, which is how essential oils are derived from wood, leaves, flowers, and fruits. Generally people like to use the lightest versions of the oils when available.

Castor oil and Vitamin E oil are acceptable carrier oils in some situations. Both of these oils are very thick and sticky. Castor oil is usually mixed with another carrier oil. Castor oil is quite good for cleansing and purifying the skin, pulling stuff out of the pores. It is less gentle than other carrier oils, and can dry out the skin if used too much. Vitamin E oil is often used in small amounts, usually as a preservative to keep the other oils from going rancid. Vitamin E oil is very antioxidant and therefore makes an excellent spot healer.

Hair Cleaning.

For the longer version of this post, which may answer some questions you have, go here.  It has a lot more information than just the recipe and instructions posted here, such as information about how shampoo and conditioner affect your hair versus how baking soda and vinegar affect your hair, the history of shampoo, the additional benefits of washing your hair like this, some of my personal experiences with this, and so on.

I don't wash my hair with shampoo, and I haven't done since 2006, except a few occasions, mostly when traveling, when I didn't have anything else.

What I do is generally called no-poo (or no 'poo, however you'd like to punctuate it). I do the basic, which involves baking soda and vinegar. There are other methods that other people have tried, involving clay, henna, flax seeds, or other natural compounds.

This is a method that requires a lot of experimentation, patience, and willingness. You can infer that I've found it quite worth the effort.

The ingredients:

baking soda
apple cider vinegar
water or tea
If desired, essential oils and borax

This is a personalized way of washing your hair and you should start out with 1 Tbls baking soda per cup of water and 1 Tbls. vinegar per cup of water.

Then you can adjust the amounts as necessary, after evaluating what it's doing for your hair and what changes might be needed. Give it a week or more between each change you make, just to give your scalp time to adjust and to truly evaluate the effect the change had.

Since my hair is very dry I use less baking soda and a lot of vinegar, and the vinegar also helps my hair not be as frizzy.


In general, greasy hair requires more baking soda to clean it, and dry hair requires less baking soda (to prevent more drying) and more vinegar to nourish it.

I mix the solutions in old shampoo bottles. It's okay to make a batch and have it sit in your shower as you use it, just like with shampoo. It's not going to go bad. You can use other types of plastic bottles, like condiment bottles, or you can just mix it in a cup right before you shower.

For the shampoo, I mix 1/2 Tbls. of baking soda per 1 cup water.

For the conditioner, I mix 3 Tbls. of apple cider vinegar per 1 cup of tea. I use water when I don't have time or am too lazy to make tea. I usually add about 5-10 drops of essential oil (for about 3 cups of solution) and a tiny pinch of borax, which emulsifies the oil into the water.

The method:
1. Get in shower and get hair wet.
2. Squirt some baking soda solution onto your head. It's easiest to just squirt it directly from the bottle. Apply only to your scalp and roots, avoiding the length of your hair as much as possible.
3. You know you have enough when your hair starts feeling slippery.
4. Rub it in and massage your head.
5. Quickly rinse it out with water.

6. Squirt the vinegar solution onto you hair. Get it at the roots and all throughout the length of your hair.
7. Rub it in and massage.
8. Leave it in for the remainder of your shower to give it time to condition.
9. Rinse it out with cool water. Sometimes I don't rinse it out.

10. You shouldn't wash your hair every day. Even if you feel like you must shower every day, washing it with only water is sufficient at least half of the time. Just use the solutions when you can tell your hair is dirty or that it otherwise is needed. (I will oftentimes use the vinegar solution without using the baking soda solution.)

11. Brush your hair with a natural-bristle brush, or a wooden comb. As long as it's natural it will pick up your natural skin oils and help distribute them through your hair. Plastic doesn't do it too well.

Note: if you use a lot of products in your hair, you will have to wash your hair (with the rinses) more often. Ideally, using no-poo will make your hair healthy enough that you don't need to put in tons of products.  Hair products will add sticky build-up into your hair, so you will need to wash more often. Using more vinegar will help dissolve out the buildup.

Most people have a transition period where their hair will seem super greasy for a while. It's your scalp getting used to the different chemicals.  It usually takes just a few weeks to adjust. If your hair is still pretty greasy after a month, you might want to adjust your rinses (use more baking soda, use the same amount of baking soda more often, use less vinegar, or use lime juice instead of vinegar, for example).

Like I said, it requires experimentation, patience, and a willingness to make it work.


Other:

I've found some natural soaps that work well for cleaning hair, instead of getting all gunky and sticky in my hair. Just use a tiny bit, like swiping your hand over the wet bar of soap. It goes far. Unfortunately, I never know if it's going to be a good soap until I try it. I do this only when my hair seems really dirty.

I also like to sometimes wash my hair with bath salts instead of baking soda. They can be followed by the vinegar rinse, or used alone.

Makeup Remover.

What you need:

carrier oil
cotton balls
washcloth
warm water

You can mix carrier oils or use one plain. Castor oil is appropriate here if mixed. You probably don't want to use essential oils, to be safer for your eyes.

Instructions:

Soak a bit of oil onto a cotton ball. Start wiping away the makeup. A lot of it will transfer onto the cotton ball, but some will smear on your face. Just keep going until you have it mostly off. I can do both eyes with one cotton ball (I wear a lot of eye makeup), but if you're doing your whole face you'll want to have more.

Get the washcloth damp with warm water and use it to wipe away the oil and the remaining makeup.

At this point I would advise you to splash cold water on your face for the sake of closing your pores.

Bath Oils.

about 1 oz. carrier oil
up to 20 drops essential oil (you can mix them)
3 drops vitamin E oil

Mix all together. Store in a glass container away from light and heat.

There are a lot of uses for this. I often use mixed oils as a moisturizer for my face and hair. (Yes, don't be scared to put a few drops of oil in your hair, especially if it's damaged. Just keep it away from your scalp.) You can use for massages or facial steams (either put some in the hot water, or put some on your face during the steam). And, of course, put some in your bath water.

Balt Salts.

1 cup salt (as natural as you can get it, or at least non-iodized)
1 cup epsom salts
1 tsp. essential oil
3 drops vitamin E oil

Mix the salt together first, then mix in the oils. Vitamin E oil keeps the essential oil from going rancid.

Store in a glass container.

You can dissolve some in the bath, or use it as a face and body scrub. I like to wash my hair with it, too.

Spicy Facial Scrub.

2 parts baking soda
1 part ground nutmeg
1 part mixed ground spices and herbs

Basically just use whatever kinds you want. I like to use the sweet spices like cinnamon, clove, allspice, ginger, mace, cardamom, dried orange peel, etc.

I like to store this in a glass herb container with a perforated top for sprinkling.

Use in the shower. Sprinkle some on your wet hand, and scrub your face gently; then rinse off. Use a few times a week.

Water.

A lot of recipes will call for water, but there are some fancier options. You can choose based on scent, color, or added benefits from different plants.

Tea
Herbal tea
Any kind of herbal infusion, like strawberry leaves, raspberry leaves, orange peels, spinach; basically just choose any herb, spice, or plant you like and steep it in hot water. Then, obviously, you strain it and discard the solids before use. Be careful of using things that could stain you, like coffee.
Water with Vitamin C dissolved in it. Possibly other supplements would work, depending on if they thoroughly dissolve.
Rose water
Lavender water (etc.)