Recipes for Making Your Own Cosmetics

Having already succumbed to making my own shampoo (and still going strong, months later!), it's likely not too long before I try my hand at other beauty essentials. So when I came across this article in ReadyMade (thanks to my mom's subscription she sent me recently!), I immediately ripped it out to hold on to: "MacGyver Your Makeup."

There's a recipe for whipping up your own lip/cheek stain, eye liner, eye shadow and mascara. That's more than my daily makeup routine right there!

Caveat: I haven't tried a single one of these recipes, so I can't personally vouch for them. But I love the idea of at least trying them out and giving them a-go to see how well they do perform. Let me know if you get around to trying them before I do...

Make Your Own Lip and Cheek Stain
You'll need:

• Raw, organic coconut oil
• Beeswax
• Beet root powder (available at fromnaturewithlove.com) or a beet
• Bowl
• Grater
• Pot
• Glass Jar 

1. In a bowl, spoon out 1 tsp dried beet root powder.
2. Add 1½ tbsp coconut oil and mix.
3. Grate 1½ tbsp beeswax into your oil paste and put it into an old pot (better if you don’t care about it). Heat on low, being careful not to let it burn, until melted.
4. Remove pot from heat and pour the mixture into a glass jar to cool. Once it hardens, use your finger to apply the best, easiest lip and cheek stain out there. Will last 6 months unrefrigerated.

Make Your Own Mascara
You'll need:

• Activated charcoal capsules
• Aloe vera
• Mascara wand, cleaned 

1. Empty an activated charcoal capsule into a small bowl.
2. Put in ¼ tsp pure aloe vera gel and mix.
3. Using an old (but thoroughly cleaned) mascara wand, sweep it onto your lashes. Make and use (don’t store) as needed.

Make Your Own Eyeliner
You'll need:

• Activated charcoal capsules (available at drugstore.com)
• Small angled-tip eyeliner brush

1. Empty the contents of an activated charcoal capsule in a dry, clean bowl.
2. For a liquid-liner look, add a few drops of water, dip in your angled-tip eyeliner brush, and sweep it neatly. If you want a more smoldering eye, put it on dry and smudge to the desirable smokiness. Make and use (don’t store) as needed.

Make Your Own Eye Shadow
You'll need:

• Spirulina powder (available at the vitaminshoppe.com)
• Coconut oil (optional)
• Round eye-shadow brush

1. Spoon ½ tsp powder into a clean, dry bowl or into your palm.
2. With shadow brush or your index finger, smear it onto your lids. For a glossier look, first apply a little coconut oil to your lids. Shadow will keep for months, but check the spirulina bottle for storage advice to be safe.
(They say that this recipe will create a naturally pigmented, "universally flattering blue-green" hue.)

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Recipe for Making Your Own Shampoo

Yesterday, I shared about why I decided to make my own baking soda-and-water shampoo, as a healthy shampoo alternative and a way to keep from having to wash my hair daily. Today, I wanted to give you a glimpse into what it was like to use this stuff to clean my hair, followed by the recipe to make your own!

My Experience Using Baking Soda Shampoo

Day 1 - Can't tell whether it's working, since there are no suds to go by. Fingers crossed!

Day 2 - What do you know, but my hair has not yet turned oily. Hallelujah! This might just work!

Day 3 - Still not oily, but I figure I shouldn't press my luck. Let's kick the every-other-day routine into gear!

Day 6 - Yesterday was a wash day, but for some reason today my hair decided to turn oily all of a sudden. I ended up washing it halfway through the day. Hoping it doesn't let me down!

Day 12 - Hair seems to be adjusting to baking soda shampooing and oil levels evening out. I think I figured out that the culprit is the fact that it's gotten hotter outside and likely more sweat on the brow, so to speak. I expect that when the weather turns cooler this fall, I can start experimenting with going two days between shampoos.

I'm now about two months into the process, and I just finished my second full bottle.

The main thing I've noticed is that my hair's texture/oil is much more consistent now than before; usually after shampooing my hair, it would be on the dry end (even with conditioning) and by the end of the day or the next morning, it'd be super oily to compensate. Now, whether it's right after a shower or the end of the day, it's about the same oily-ness.

Around the middle of day two, sometimes it will start to feel oily, though often when I go to check in the mirror, it doesn't actually look oily. By hour 48, the oil does start to show (some days more than others), but even then, it still has not gotten as oily as it used to at hour 24.

Which, for the simplicity of the product, I count as quite impressive. I wouldn't claim it to be a miracle solution (but, then, what is?), however I do think it's much more reliable and effective than previous shampooing, which is why I've decided to stick with it.

Recipe to Make Your Own Baking Soda Shampoo
All it is a mixture of baking soda to water; I took a bottle with a pump-head that I'd saved (there's always some use waiting!) and filled it 1/8 the way with baking soda, the rest with water. (The ideal ratio is about 1 tablespoon of baking soda per 1 cup of water.) I'd read online about adding rosemary to your mixture if you have dry scalp, so I added some dashes of that, as well.

Then you shake it up and are ready to go. (If you end up adding rosemary, like I did, the water will start to turn brownish like in the photo above. In my first batch, I just dumped the herbs in but after awhile they started clogging the pump and also would sometimes squirt out into my hair--not quite the accessorizing I'm often going for. One alteration I made with my second batch was to bundle the rosemary in a swatch of gauzy fabric, kind of like a homemade tea bag to avoid that, which has worked exceptionally well so far.)

One thing is that the mixture is really runny, which means it takes a little longer to get my hair fully coated with it because I keep squirting more on. Once I can feel it's coated my hair, I let it sit for a minute and then rinse it off. Some people choose to use an apple-cider-vinegar rinse for conditioning, but I don't need to do that at all.

I can finally go more than a day between shampoos. Who would have guessed the answer would be as simple as a kitchen staple?!

P.S. If you are new to this blog, thank you so much for stopping by! You can feel free to browse all my other posts about my journey toward a lifestyle of simplicity and DIY, as well as some of the ways my husband and I are learning to save money. I also write about my faith, my marriage and everything in between, which you can explore in the archives.

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Why I Started Making My Own Shampoo

You have no idea how many times I've tried to get my hair to comply with my wishes. How many times I've tried to be patient with its disobedience as I wean it off its preferences and wait for it to catch on. All the way back to sixth grade when I got a home perm (oh yes), it has had a mind of its own. What I anticipated to be loose, bouncy ringlets became poodle kinks. (Fortunately I think all photos are destroyed from that era.)

Over the past few years, the latest plea I've presented to my tresses is not having to wash  them everyday. All I'm shooting for is every other day. They get their washing wish. I've tried all sorts of shampoos, dry shampoos, baby powder, conditioners or no conditioners at all to try to make it to the 48-hour mark. Yet when the 24 hour mark hits, the oil gushes forth and there's no hope for going even an hour more.

Especially because I have such fine, thin hair, I know it's healthier for me to not be washing my hair everyday. But until now, there seemed no feasible (or attractive) solution. Forgoing my collection of shampoo and conditioner bottles, I have started using the shockingly simple answer of: baking soda and water. Yes, not a soap sud in sight. But it works.

When I went to the hairdresser last, I absolutely loved the shampoo they used on my hair. I really, really wanted to buy some because a day after getting my hair done, my hair was still not oily. This was the first time I'd ever experienced such a thing! Such freedom! But when I looked it up on Skin Deep (a site that rates how safe certain cosmetic and beauty brands are for you and the environment), it was marked as having "developmental/reproductive toxicity." Whoa. Which sent me on a search to find a shampoo that would be kind to my hair and to me.

After looking up a half a dozen "safe" shampoos to no avail, I happened upon a recipe to make your own shampoo using just baking soda and water. I was a little weary how this solution would work, but since I had both ingredients on-hand, I decided to give it a go.

Tomorrow, I'll post my day-by-day reactions to trying this new "shampoo," as well as the recipe for this ever-so-simple little concoction, if you'd like to try it for yourself. Skip ahead to Part II.

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What Going Green Looks Like for Me

I remember being in elementary school and learning about the dwindling rain forests. I remember the commercials that aired, teaching us the “3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” So was my foray into environmentalism, when I convinced my dad to start a compost pile and tried to turn empty toilet paper rolls into all sorts of craft items.

A decade later, we’re still trying to incorporate “green” and “eco-friendly” into our daily life--albeit in more grown-up ways. What I’ve found most interesting, though, is how friendly--even convenient--“going green” has been to our lifestyle and budget.

To “go green” you don’t have to buy a pair of organic cotton jeans that cost $150; just go to the thrift store and find a pair that fits for $10. I love buying used clothes, furniture, décor or housewares and being able to get a one-of-a-kind item for a dollar or two; it’s like a treasure hunt for me. It doesn’t even feel like I’m “reusing.”

Instead of buying something brand new that you know you’ll only use a handful of times, why not see if you can borrow it from someone else? When Michael and I needed a stud-finder for one-time use, we ended up borrowing it from my dad. I wanted to try my hand at baking homemade bread, so I asked my mom if I could have her bread maker that’s been sitting in the basement.

I’ve tried to get crafty when new wants or needs arise to use things I already have or make my own. For instance, I wanted to decorate our apartment for the holidays. I ended up ironing a large swatch of olive green linen fabric into a table runner and using some festive jewelry to accent a cluster of candles.  Even for decorations at my wedding, I trolled through my house to find items that could be repurposed for the occasion, like an old bedspread thrown atop the cake table or a picnic basket used to display the favors.

Obviously, we don’t do all of these things 100 percent of the time: We still end up throwing things away. We still buy new products. We can’t always afford the greenest items on the shelves. But we try. For us, it’s about trying to live as wise stewards of the resources God has given to us. That also includes our time and energy. So you won’t see me washing out Ziploc bags (though I do try to keep their use to a minimum) or taking buckets into the shower with me to save the water (but we also are aware of how much water we're using). A fine line, but it works for us!

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