DIY HairSpray

Well, I ran out of hairspray - and I don't use it often and it makes my head SO itchy. Like if I spend the time to curl my hair, I can't have it last more than a day because of how itchy the hairspray makes my scalp - I need to shower to wash it out - but the curls don't last as well without it:-/ So a little DIY that worked!! Held my hair like a wanted, even into the next day with a teeny refresh on certain spots. No itchiness, so a win for me!

I heated up 1/2C water on the stove top and stirred in 2t white sugar until melted. I added a few citrus oils for scent, and put in a little spray bottle I already had. Use as normal hairspray. Simple and easy! I posted this on social media and someone commented that they used to work in a women's prison and the inmates would melt down jolly ranchers to style their hair - so yeah. This feels very hard core, but hey - sometimes the chemical free life feels like this 😂

Claraderm Recipe

Claraderm is pricey, at $69 per 2oz bottle. But I'm kind of addicted to it...and it's been out of stock for awhile now - DIY to the rescue. I literally just read the bottle label, and used exactly what was listed.

Fractionated coconut oil

Myrrh

Tea Tree

Lavender

Sacred Frankincense

Roman Chamomile

Helichrysum

Ok, those are some heavy hitting (aka PRICY) oils. No wonder it costs so much! But lucky for me, I actually had all those oils. I did 2oz coconut oil, and then 3drops of each essential oil. I found it to be quite identical to the original, and since I had the oils, the cost for me was negligible. But, if you had to purchase Myrrh, Heli, Sacred Frank or Roman Cham just to make this and didn't have much other purpose for the oil, it's likely more economical to just buy the Claraderm...once it's back in stock!

I'm enjoying this DIY for sure, and it's giving me a way to use up Roman Cham & Myrrh, as I was given them as freebies for my monthly order awhile back, and haven't had too much use for them/don't like the scent. So glad it's not just sitting around in the bottle now!

 

Healing Balm

2T organic beeswax (buying pellets instead of 1oz bars making this easier to measure)

2T coconut oil (cold pressed, unrefined)

1T raw unfilted shea butter

1/4C jojoba oil

15 drops frankincense

25 drops lavender

15 drops helichrysum

20 drops tea tree

Melt beeswax in a double boiler, then add all except EO's. Let cool a bit (cooler, but still liquid), add EO's, and pour into "lip gloss" containers (Amazon).

This balm is *amazing* for healing skin issues of any kind - dry, rough patches, soften callouses, cracked or dry lips, even acne spot, hang nail or cuticle issues, or dry hands. Good for literally everything!! Could even put it in a little 'pot' kind of container, but I love the squeeze and go portability of this kind of container.

I think this recipe filled about 10 of this size container. 

DIY Toner

Facial toner! It feels amazing! I use an amber glass "spritzer" bottle - I get them on amazon and they are so useful (I use for after sun spray etc). Spritz on face after washing it morning and evening.

1oz witch hazel
10 drops Purification
10 drops Lavender
10 drops Frankincense
10 drops Cypress

Foaming Face Wash

I put this in a "foaming handsoap" refillable dispenser, and it's GREAT! An easy way to wash your face and get all that makeup off at the end of the day. Because I have all these ingredients on hand for "normal life" this costs me basically nothing to make. I do tend to use cotton make "rounds" for wiping it away and rubbing it around my eye area etc. Use this in the shower, or each morning or evening. Sometimes I use a wet-with-water cotton round to "rinse" it, sometimes, I don't. It's great for your skin, so it doesn't need to be cleaned off per se.

3/4 C cooled brewed chamomile tea OR filtered water (I prefer the tea)
1/4 C liquid castile soap (I like Dr Bronner's Peppermint)
1/2 t sweet almond oil OR jojoba oil OR grapeseed oil (I prefer jojoba - each one is good for a different skin type, so google the best choice for you)
3-4 drops Vitamin E oil
8 drops Frankincense essential oil
8 drops Geranium essential oil
(you can add other oils to this, or replace these with other ones that are great for the skin. A few ideas are Lavender, Tea Tree {aka Melaleuca Alternafolia - good for acne prone skin}, and Elemi)

Homemade Shampoo

I've been consistently trying to eliminate toxic chemicals from our home, but hair products can be tricky!! I've tried a few recipes, but none were just right. I really like this recipe, it works very well for me, and leaves me feeling clean without a waxy buildup or whatever. I use Trader Joes Tea Tree Tingle Shampoo and Conditioner too - I rotate through (homemade one time, baking soda & ACV the next time, Trader Joes the next time etc. I shower/wash my hair every other day, so use these recipes rotationally only about once per week.

SHAMPOO
1 cup of green tea steeped for 30 minutes (I used a Tazo regular green tea)
1 teaspoon honey mixed into tea while it is hot
1 teaspoon olive oil mixed in tea after it has cooled
1/2 cup liquid castille soap (we love Dr Bronner's peppermint) added to cooled mixture
Stir well and pour into container. Shake shampoo before each use.

BAKING SODA WASH

3 tablespoons baking soda to 2 cups of water and then shake. I put in old shampoo bottle and shake before each use. Focus the baking soda mixture on the scalp, leave on for a minute, and rinse well.

Then apply Apple Cider Vinegar mixture (I put in plastic spray bottle), spray on hair, and concentrate it on the ends, not the scalp. Let sit for 5ish mins and then rinse with cool water right at the end of your shower. Easy and done!

APPLE CIDER VINEGAR WASH
Boil 1 1/2 cup water, and remove from heat. Add 1 or 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary and let that cool. Remove the rosemary and add 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar (strain to avoid getting the "mother" in your mixture)

You can use dried rosemary, in a thing for loose tea, or just strain afterwards, or use rosemary essential oil - Which is what I did, once the water was cooled. About 10 drops.

Shake before each use on all three of these.

Sea Salt Hair Spray

Sometimes I spend tons of time looking through all kinds of recipes on the internet, for beauty replacement stuff, and cobble together the few ingredients from this one or that that I want to try. Then I make the recipe - and when/if it turns out - I can't ever remember how I made it to do it again because I can never to replicate the exact google search or whatever! So in an effort to remember the things I want to do again, I'm posting them here! ;-) (Publishing recipes I consider "successful" only)

Recently, I've been wearing my hair curly. Mostly because my hair actually is curly, now (thank you pregnancies and hormone changes), and also because Brian has decided he likes is curly, maybe even better than straight. I also decided to try and grow my hair long. On purpose. Not like in the past when I forgot to cut it for 4.5 years and it felt like straw. I want to grow it longer, for real this time. So I'm taking care of it (natural and homemade shampoos, for another post perhaps!), and getting regular trims to keep it feeling great!

So, in an effort to not use as many heat tools on my hair (previously blow dry, then flat iron), I let it air dry, which produces curly hair, but kind of flat. If I scrunch with mouse, it's perfect. But I didn't want all the product in my hair, so enter the beach wave with sea salt spray.

Sea salt can dry your hair out, but there are enough natural conditioners in this recipe that I think it's doing ok for my hair. No noticeable "problem" yet anyway, and I also still use my argan oil and stuff for in my hair too when it's wet.

When it's drying/damp, I spray some of this in my hair all around, and scrunch, and then just let it go. Every once and awhile I'll scrunch/push up my hair as is dries, and that seems to give the volume I want with the beachy wave look I want.

1 C warm water
1 T sea salt
1 t epsom salt
1 T fractionated coconut oil (stays liquid)
1 T aloe vera gel (is a liquid)
essential oils - I do Cedarwood, Rosemary & Lavender - they are good for hair and smell nice.

Mix all together in a spray bottle (I'm using a glass one because I had on hand, but plastic is fine), and shake before using. Enjoy the messy curly beachy look it gives your hair. And if you ever chew on your hair (ew, don't), but if you do - um, just believe me - it tastes pretty great...so my friends tell me anyway;-)

*I found the coconut oil and aloe vera gel on amazon, and I use them for in our After Sun Skin Relief spray (way better feeling than that goopy green aloe gel you can buy, and way better for your body!).

Thieves Wipes

Thieves Cleaner is really amazing. I've mostly transitioned to using white vinegar for cleaning over the years. It's cheap, easy, does a great job and is toxin free. Winning. But I still used Windex, because it just is easier on glass than vinegar. Young Living makes a product called Thieves Cleaner, and I was curious to try it. It's toxin free, and apparently you can clean EVERYTHING with it, even glass. So I wanted to give it a try. I am so completely sold! It has essential oils in it, and it very concentrated, so you dilute it with water.

The bottle I got was 14.4fl oz for $22. I've had it for over a year now, and it's only half gone. The lid is used to measure - and it's a tiny lid, and you only use one capful in a whole spray bottle of water. So it lasts. And it cleans glass!! And toilets, and granite, and floors, and...everything. I really love it.

One thing I really enjoy having, just for ease of life with kids, is wipes. Once I realized this Thieves thing was going to work, I keep Thieves wipes made and ready. The kids can use them to wash or wipe anything. They work for tables, and faces:-)

Cut a roll of papertowel in two - I use Bounty usually, but have also found the "higher end" Great Value brand to be excellent.

For the wipes I only use about 1/2 a capful, in about 1.5ish cups of water. I mix the Thieves cleaner into the water, and then pour over all the papertowels

Pull from the center to use! So easy!

This is the container I chose (from WalMart, just a few dollars). It has a seal tight lid, and can be unlocked and opened with only one hand - bonus for when you're messy with one hand cleaning a mess.

While I started out intending for these to be for the kids - I use them the most. They've become my go-to table and counter wipers for sure. And perfect for windows or mirrors or our glass top coffee table, it cleans all the smudges off in streak-free fashion, and fast!

After Sun Spray

I can't even tell you how much we all love our essential oils. Everything I try, we love, and so I'm always on the lookout for things I can make myself and 1) save money 2) have a healthier option available to us.

Something that we need often enough in our climate is aloe after sun skin care. Even if we're not burnt, being in the sun, and in the water just makes your skin want something. And my kids hate the green aloe gel because it's "sticky".

So I made my own! And we LOVE it. It's like a moisturizer. So refreshing, even if you haven't been in the sun.

I made mine in a 2oz bottle, and gathered some ideas from online and kind of combined a few recipes to one I thought I'd like.

I used 3 parts aloe gel, and 1 part fractionated coconut oil. This aloe is clear, and not sticky, it's a liquid, and the fractionated coconut stays liquid, it doesn't solidify. So for this container, I used about 1.5oz aloe and .5oz coconut. To this, I added 8 drops Lavender, 8 drops Melaleuca Alternafolia (Tea Tree) and 8 drops Peppermint.

I don't spray it directly on the face, I spray on fingers and then apply, so I can avoid the eye area. This feels amazing on the skin, truly. And it smells heavenly too! We like it much better than the sticky green gel you can buy, and it's much easier to apply too!

Sugar Scrubs

So this Christmas brought me a new obsession. And when I say obsession, I mean it quite literally, can't. get. enough. Sugar scrubs. I don't know why I never used one before. Or really ever heard of them before. A friend made me a homemade sugar scrub as a Christmas gift, and it was so amazing. In case you're weird like me and don't really know about them, sugar scrubs are just basically sugar and oil, and you rub it on your skin in the shower to exfoliate and moisturize. And it feels so great! The thing I noticed, and that I liked the best, was how CLOSE of a shave I would get after using on my legs. And how great it was for rubbing on my calloused heels. The only thing I didn't love, was that in a really hot shower, the sugar would "melt" faster than I wanted it too, - I wasn't done scrubbing and so I had to use more. Not really a problem, but still. When I ran out I googled how to make it, and Pinterest to the rescue. There are about a million recipes to try, and trust me, I'm going to try them all, eventually!

I decided to make a Coffee Sugar Scrub, because the coffee won't melt away like the sugar will, so you can get a really good scrub! I would encourage you to pick a recipe on Pinterest that sounds good, and give it a go. I would say an approximate guide to know if it's a good one is that the "dry" or "scrubby" bit should be at least double the volume of the coconut oil (I've only made coconut oil based ones, personally, and that does seem to be the most common base oil used)

My original one was white sugar, coconut oil, a little bit of vanilla extract, and peppermint essential oil. When you make it, maybe start with 1C sugar, and 1/2C coconut oil, and then add a bit more sugar if needed to get the right texture or consistency.

I made one with white sugar, coconut oil, and lime essential oil. Possibly my fave. The smell was amazing!

The one in the picture is ground coffee, white sugar and coconut oil. I think I did about 1/3C coffee, 1/3C sugar, and a bit less than 1/3C coconut oil, and that fit in the container I was going to use.

I have so many more I want to try, thanks to Pinterest ideas! I don't want to make any batches too big, so that they run out faster and I need to make more! Wahoo!

My skin has literally never been better. I use on my body, and even my face, though not the face every day/time. My eczema is pretty much gone. I think that's because of the coconut oil, but whatever the reason, I'm just loving these scrubs!!

Lip Chap - Recipe

I made lip chap over the holidays, and it's incredible! I've gotten many comments from people that it's the best they've ever used. It perfectly keeps lips moist and hydrated - it just feels amazing! I ordered all my supplies off amazon, and they don't cost much...I think the shea butter was most costly at $12 for 16oz...and using 1/2 an ounce at a time - it'll last me until I die?! Since a good (all natural) lip balm costs you anywhere from $3-$6 per tube, this recipe is definitely a money saver. I ordered 50 empty chapstick containers on amazon for $5. I haven't done all the math completely, but a rough estimate is that it costs about 20cents per tube to make. And it takes 10 minutes (of waiting on that beeswax to melt), and it's so easy! Never buying another lip balm again - because I have a lifetime of shea butter to use up:-)

I googled various recipes and there are many options to choose from. This is the one I settled on, and it's a real winner. I have no reason to try and change it up. I use my digital kitchen scale to measure the amounts.

1 oz organic beeswax
1.5 oz coconut oil (I used Trader Joes)
.5 oz raw unfiltered shea butter

Melt beeswax in double boiler - then add in the other two. stir until melted. Remove from heat and add essential oils - whatever you'd like, and probably 30 drops (which gives a very light scent). I did about 30 drops of Citrus Fresh, and it was light in scent/flavour. I made another half batch, and did about 6 each of Peppermint and Rosemary. These were very lightly scented - just barely detectable, so next time I'll do a little more. I was a bit worried of overdoing the peppermint, but I don't think that is much of a risk, now that I've tried it!

Oily Recipes

Just wanted to share a few recipes - mostly for my own sake, so I don't forget them - and not really coming up with a good system for keeping the recipes in a place where I can easily access, and share with others, so this works:-)

There is a popular allergy recipe, known as LLP, or Lemon, Lavender, Peppermint. We've (especially Brian and Kenna) have been suffering from seasonal allergies for a few weeks. The pollen count in our area is *insane*, and is literally visible - pollen will coat your car (and everything else) as you sleep, and then get washed away in the rain, causing almost florescent coloured yellow puddles. For people that are very sensitive - this is a nightmare. I've adjusted to it fairly well over the years we've been here, but Brian still gets affected. Runny nose, sinus pressure, low grade headaches, fatigue - and it probably lasts about a month or so, spring and fall.

After a few weeks of complaints from him (he refuses to try OTC solutions like Claritin or Zyrtec, has he hasn't yet found one that doesn't make him sleepy and "off" feeling - even the non-drowsy varieties) - I decided to mix up the "allergy bomb" and have him try it. Oils save the day again! I used my old Stress Away bottle, as it was empty and had a roller ball fitment on it.

I mixed 10 drops lemon, 10 drops lavender, and about 8 peppermint (recipe suggests equal amounts of each for diffusion, but didn't want the peppermint too strong applied topically. It's very strong and the fumes can make your eyes water). I didn't dilute this LLP mixture with any carrier oil, and he "rolls on" his sinuses and the neck/behind ear a few times daily.

After only one day, he commented on how well it worked, and how much better he felt. He uses it probably 3 times daily, rolled on, and has been doing so for about a week, and with no more allergy complaints!!

In the picture you can see a mason jar - that is my belly/stretch mark "cream". It is 12 oz grapeseed oil, 10 drops lemon, 10 drops grapefruit, 6 drops ginger, and 6 drops peppermint. Massage in after shower and before bed. This should help "shrink" belly and lessen the appearance of stretch marks. 

I have been using this for about 3 weeks, and so I have a little longer to go until I can say for sure how it's working. However, I think there's been some improvement!!

Using grapeseed oil as a carrier is really recommended. It absorbs faster than coconut or olive oils, and doesn't have a thick or greasy feel to it at all. 

And finally Thieves "Tea" is great for soothing a sore throat when you are feeling sick or have a cold and scratchy throat. Remember, Thieves is not only anti-bacterial, but also anti-viral, so it really helps in getting rid of things that conventional medicines cannot. It's a mainstay in our home, we love it.

Add to hot water

1-2 drops Thieves
2-3 drops lemon
honey - sweeten to taste