All Natural Homemade Facial Cleanser

A few weeks ago, I came across an intriguingly simple recipe from Lily Organics for a homemade facial cleanser. The main components: baking soda, almond oil, and honey.

It all seemed waaaaay too easy (and cheap) to be true. I’ve tried a dizzying array of natural (and unnatural) facial cleansers. My oily, hypersensitive, acne-prone skin does relatively well with Blissoma, but is still far from perfect. Everything else — from the castille soap based cleansers to oil-based cleansing lotions — has been disastrous.

Still, I like experimenting on myself, so after reading up on other people’s experiments (see Crunchy Betty’s post) and making inquiries on Twitter (contradictory answers from various people), I gave it a go. Of course I couldn’t resist the urge to fiddle with the recipe. It’s come down to two basic ingredients, baking soda ($1 a box) and jojoba oil ($6 for 4 oz at Trader Joe’s). Instead of straight jojoba, I use my homemade facial moisturizer, which is just jojoba oil and a few essential oils (lavender, rosewood, lemon) so I can incorporate lower concentrations of essential oil. My skin is oily, so I don’t always use the honey, but if you have normal or dry skin, it’s probably a good addition. You can also try different oils, since jojoba is one of the lightest.

It’s been over a week, and my skin seems quite happy with the concoction. (This is surprising, since my skin always reacts to new anything, generally badly.) After I wash it, it’s clean and neither dry nor oily. I’ve heard that baking soda is slightly basic and human skin is slightly acidic, so I have no idea why this is working. Maybe the jojoba oil balances things out, or the baking soda is pretty mild to begin with.

Here’s what you need to mix up your own homemade facial cleanser:

• An empty, clean spice jar with a sifter lid.
• A box of pure baking soda
• Jojoba oil
• A glass bottle with a dropper lid
• Skin safe pure essential oils
• Local, unadulterated honey (optional)

1. Fill the spice jar with baking soda. (Prevents caking in a moist environment like the bathroom, and keeps you from accidentally dumping out half the box into your hand.)
2. Mix the jojoba oil with a few drops of essential oil  (see the post on homemade facial moisturizer for more detail) in the glass bottle.
3. When ready to use, shake the spice jar once into your hand, mix the baking soda with 3-5 drops of the jojoba oil mixture, and a small dollop of honey (optional). Spread on to damp skin and massage gently. It will probably tingle a little. Rinse off with warm water, pat dry, and proceed with your regular routine. You may or may not need more moisturizer, depending on your skin.

And that’s how you can clean your face for under $15 a year. Crazy. I especially like using it at night to remove makeup and grime; in the morning, I continue to use my super gentle Blissoma cleanser.

What do you think about mixing up your own beauty treatments? Would you try baking soda on your face?

Easy DIY: homemade lip balm & giveaway

I’m a self-confessed lip balm junkie, so what business I have making the stuff when I have more than I can use already, I don’t know. Excess isn’t green. But I figure that my predilection for lotions and potions is a fairly minor eco-sin in the greater scheme of things, and it’s good to know how to make the things I use.

If you look through a bunch of lip balm recipes, you might be a little intimidated by the apparent precision necessary. Don’t be. It’s not an exact science, and it’s hard to go seriously wrong. Lisa at Style Essentials was kind enough to send her [ridiculously simple] lavender lip balm recipe my way. It called for just three ingredients: olive oil, beeswax, and essential oil. (No preservatives are necessary, though you can add a drop or two of vitamin E if you’re concerned.)

Of course I improvised, keeping the basic ratio (2 parts solid to 4 parts oil) the same. I ended up using approximately 1 part plant butter to 1 part beeswax to 2 parts oil, and I’m quite happy with the consistency (smooth, not too soft, but reasonably melty). You can probably use any good quality, skin safe oil (safflower, jojoba, avocado, almond, etc.) and plant butter (shea, cocoa, mango) combination and achieve decent results. The honey seller at the farmers’ market sells beeswax for $1 for a one ounce stick, making this a pretty inexpensive DIY project. A food scale would probably be helpful, but I managed without one.

For containers, I cleaned and reused small plastic sample jars and metal tins I had lying around. Do not boil (even briefly!) the clear ones that mineral makeup samples come in  – the lids will warp. Yes, I found this out the hard way.

These are the exact formulas I tried this time. Endless variations with different butters, oils, and scents are possible. Have fun!

Beeswax takes the longest to melt. Be patient!

Lip Balm Recipe #1: Creamsicle
2 TB meadowfoam oil
1/8 oz beeswax (not having a food scale, I cut up a 1 oz bar into eighths)
1/8 oz mango butter (crumbly, so it came to about 1 loosely packed teaspoon)
5 drops organic orange (or tangerine or mandarin) essential oil
3 drops vanilla absolute

Place oil, beeswax, and butter in a double boiler over simmering water. Stir until completely melted. Turn off heat, allow mixture to cool slightly (5 minutes or so? just to decrease evaporation of the essential oils), and stir in essential oils. The vanilla absolute will have to be whisked in fairly briskly because it is not oil soluble. Use a plastic dropper or spoon to put the melted solution into desired containers. Let cool before capping. Yields about 4 small 1″ diameter jars.

Notes: the meadowfoam oil feels quite slippery. Consistency is slightly softer than recipe #2.

Lip Balm Recipe #2: Lavender Vanilla
1 TB sweet almond oil
1 TB kukui nut oil
1/8 oz beeswax
1/8 oz mango butter
6 drops organic lavender essential oil
2 drops vanilla absolute

Same instructions as above. I’m not as happy with the lavender/vanilla scent combo and am not sure I would try it again (lavender mint might be more interesting). The kukui nut oil has a slight but noticeable scent.

Giveaway time!

You know how lip balm takes a long time to use up? Even though these were pretty small batches, it would take me a long time to use this much lip balm on my own, so I’d like to offer creamsicle lip balms to two of my subscribers. (If you really want a lavender one, you can choose that one instead.) Sorry, but due to the beeswax, they are not vegan.

How to enter: be an RSS or email subscriber and leave me a comment telling me how you subscribe. That’s it. Dead easy.

The giveaway ends next Friday, June 3rd, or thereabouts. Winners will be chosen randomly.

DIY Thursday: Homemade Facial Moisturizer

It’s been a while since I did a purely practical post, so I thought I would introduce you to my latest DIY project: homemade facial (or body, if you like) moisturizer. It has no synthetic chemicals or preservatives, can be customized to your preferences, works out to be very inexpensive, absorbs nicely, and seems to work with most skin types — even mine, which breaks out if you so much as look at it the wrong way.

I was originally leery about putting oil on my already oily skin, but having tried several facial oils, including My Skin and Bones and By Nieves, I’ve found that they work a lot better than all the anti-oil products I tried for years. This is the poor man’s version. (If you do have the money, I totally recommend the two I already mentioned.) 

Here’s what you need:

• Jojoba oil. Trader Joe’s $7 for 4 oz, slightly more for organic at Whole Foods. Jojoba is a shelf-stable liquid wax that resembles human sebum (the oil produced by our skin). It absorbs quickly and does not clog pores.
• A dark glass bottle (any size between 15ml and 50ml) with a dropper lid or pump.
• Skin-safe essential oils such as lavender  (anti-bacterial, mild astringent), chamomile (calming, de-puffing), geranium (balancing), rose (moisturizing). Different essential oils are supposed to be good for different things. If you don’t want to bother looking into it, just pick one or two of your favorites.  Be cautious with the citrus oils, which are mildly phototoxic, and don’t go near the ‘fragrance’ oils, which may not be skin safe and can contain all sorts of synthetic chemicals.

If you’re re-using the glass bottle, sterilize it, the lid, and the dropper in boiling water for several minutes. After everything has dried and cooled, add about 1 drop essential oil for every 3-4 ml that your bottle holds, e.g. no more than 5 drops of essential oil for a 15ml bottle.  If you have very sensitive skin or are trying a new essential oil, add less. You can customize it to your favorite essential oil or create your own special blend. Fill up the rest of the bottle with jojoba and shake. Allow it to sit for a few hours.

When you’re ready to use your new moisturizer, massage 2-3 drops on damp, clean skin. It will absorb quickly with little or no greasiness. I prefer to make small batches to keep any chance of contamination down, but since there is no water in this moisturizer, it’s unlikely to spoil and doesn’t need a preservative. Microbes love water, not oil.

Total investment for about a year’s supply: about $15-$20, depending on the essential oils you use. Sounds good to me. My next DIY project is going to be a thick body butter for my dried out potter’s hands. What are your favorite DIY skin and body products?