Rose Water Facial Mist

We’ve all been told water dries your skin out. It’s true, but with conditions. Your skin needs water. It needs water from the inside and on the outside. But if you don’t trap that water on the outside it will evaporate, wah wah- dry skin. That is what lotion does best. It doesn’t so much put moisture into your skin, as keep it from evaporating (unless of course it as a humectant like glycerin that will draw water to your skin from the air). This is why body oil doesn’t work unless you trap some water under it. This is why lotion after a shower works so much better! Why staying hydrated from the inside is so much better! And why humectants are king of the skin world. So, let’s trap some fancy dolled up water against our faces.

Silky Facial Oil

I tested this formulation for a LONG time before sharing it. Confession, a lot of the B&B products I make are one-offs. I make them, use them and enjoy them- but never make them again. This facial oil (and another product coming soon!) are the exceptions. I have been using this for a year and I love it.

Moisture Wrap | Lavender Body Lotion

Moving on from the face in this glycerin series, let's address the whole body! So this lotion is... weird. I'm not going to sugar coat it. Ok so it's kinda thin, goes on super smooth and liquidy then dries to a kind of tacky feel. Then a couple hours later skin is smooth. It has its drawbacks of being sort of thin and more than mildly sticky (getting into cotton leggings right after was an exercise all on its own). But, it offers 24+ hour moisture and I know it's not just covering up ashy skin* but actually -I can't say heal- but definitely helping my skin get through winter less scathed.

All Good Things | Nightly Facial Serum

This whole glycerin craze started with adding a few drops of glycerin to my night time moisturizer (I use Egyptian Magic cream). It made such a noticeable difference that I figured, why not make an awesome glycerin based serum! I recommend you try just the plain glycerin on your face before you make a serum, just to see if you like it before shelling out. This serum can be personalized to your face and what ingredients you have on hand.

Little Bubbles | Low Lather Facial Wash

Since glycerin and not drying our skin out is the focus of this series, lets do a super duper gentle face wash! When I say super gentle, I mean this baby hardly foams. I used just one mild surfactant and used it only at 20%. Low lather should really be "no lather" but I managed to get a few bubbles.

Sweet Glycerin | A Three Product Series

Do you ever get to a point with your skin where it feels like nothing you do is making any difference? I have such dry facial skin and it gets bumpy and itchy in the winter. I use a humidifier during the night, slather on a thick face cream and try to only wash it with a cleanser once a day (the other time I wash with water). Yet this is not enough.

Hand & Foot Trio | Honey & Yogurt Scrub

Part 3! The final product I made was a salt scrub. I usually like an emulsified scrub with sugar, but I wanted to try something a little heavier this time. This gift trio is about homemade pampering and I wanted to use more ingredients and some fancy salt I bought. Equally as easy to use fancy sugar and it might have even gone with the scent better, but darn it, I wanted to use salt! Just this once. This scrub was inspired by three things. Yogurt powder, European Spa salt and Goat Milk & Honey fragrance oil. Take all my money WSP. 

Hand & Foot Trio | Chill Pill

Part 2! Since I have never been able to make a bath bomb stay together, I love bath melts. They are super easy to make and add a lot of smoothing oils to bath water. I've realized that I can't assume people will take baths. Showers yes, but baths aren't popular with everyone. I wanted to make a foot specific bath product that could be used for a nice soak at the end of an on-your-feet day. Just thinking it's more likely for a non-bath enthusiast to be more into a foot only bath. I soak my feet as part of my home pedicure!

Hand & Foot Trio | Night Time Balm

Part 1! This is a heel balm recipe I found on Soap Queen. I only changed out the avocado oil for rice bran oil because I didn't have it. This isn't my recipe even a little! (Head over here for the original recipe). I wanted something rich and smooth with Cera Bellina and this fit the bill.

Hand & Foot Gift Trio

Next week stay tuned for a three part series! I'll be making these three winter appropriate hand and foot products that are great for gift giving. A "Chill Pill" bath melt, a rich "Night Time" balm, and an oil based "Honey & Yogurt" salt scrub.

Scented Body Powder

Why make a body powder? Well for me it's because I've been trying out a new mineral spray deodorant (which has been working to de-stinkify really well!) but I miss the powdery smooth feel of my last deodorant. The mineral spray combined with a dusting of this super silky scented powder... pampering with a capital P.

Clarifying Shampoo

Ok, I have a serious love hate relationship with silicone. Mostly love. I love them in my skin products, I love them in my conditioner, and even love a little bit in my shampoo. One place I do not love them is in leave-in treatments. Yet they seem ubiquitous in all smoothing, glossing and detangling post-wash leave-ins. I had been using a light detangler (Ouidad's Botanical Boost Moisture Infusing & Refreshing Spray) and about 5 drops of fractionated coconut oil rubbed through the ends. This was working fine and dandy until winter hit and we didn't have our humidifier set up. While at the salon I expressed my crispy static prone problems and was suggested a silicone "oil" treatment. I had previously used this same silicone treatment so thought, 'what the hey I'll try it', and shelled out.

Winter Body Oil with Oat Extract

While usually I prefer lotion (especially in winter), there is something luxurious about slathering on body oil in the post shower steam and wrapping up in a fluffy robe. Body oil works best when applied to damp or even wet skin post shower or bath. It spreads easier so you use less and it sinks in better so you aren't a grease ball. The star of this show is the Avena Oat Oil I purchased from The Herbarie. You can use any oat extract or oil you want, but it has to be oil soluble. A water soluble extract won't fly in this formulation!

'Everything Butter' Winter Lotion Bar

Ok, this is barely mine. Barely. I saw this post Argan & Sandalwood Vanilla Lotion Bars on the Soap Queen and decided to give lotion bars another chance. These are just so pretty and look like pats of butter.

Winter Lanolin Balm

It's common knowledge that winter is a dry skin chapping season. I alter my skin and beauty products (and routines) to keep on top of the chapped skin! In all honesty, Linsinoh HPA Lanolin doesn't need any alteration. If you have chapped skin, especially lips, I highly HIGHLY recommend this product. Don't be put off by the fact that it's for breastfeeding Mommas. If you are looking for more for your $$ or a non-baby related product (even though the HPA Lanolin is nothing but pure deodorized lanolin) you might have to get something less deodorized. I haven't found another lanolin I could buy that didn't have at least a little of that lanolin chemically-leather smell. But seriously,  the benefits outweigh the smell; using pure lanolin on your lips nightly can really help stave off the worst of chapping and drying.

Another Look at Reusable Cotton Squares

I've been using these since I made them about six months ago. I have some revisions and notes.

1. The flannel I picked feels ok, but still not soft enough.
2. I can feel the scratchy stitches when I rub these on my face.
3. They are not good at getting around the delicate eye area when removing things like tough eye liner.
4. They vanish in the laundry.
5. Because of #4, I never have enough.
6. I end up still needing disposable cotton rounds for removing nail polish.

Despite the drawbacks listed, I'm not ready to give up on these at all because I feel with a few tweaks some of the above problems can be solved. Yes I'll still need cotton swabs for removing eyeliner (when I wear it) but I need those for ears anyway. I don't paint my nails much, but it could be possible to devote a true rag to that cause... these are too cute for me to ruin with polish. 

1. faux suede fabric with batting in middle. Super soft, low pile.
2. silky stitching closer to the outside.
3. mesh zippered bag for collection and washing.

Rosemary Mint Cleansing Facial Oil

'Oil Cleansing Method' is everywhere. While it isn't for everyone or even for every time you wash your face, if it interests you perhaps you should give it a try! Typically when you make this at home for yourself you use 100% oils. A blend of castor oil and one or two other oils (to mitigate the drying effects of castor) is the standard go-to. Jojoba, olive, avocado or grapeseed are readily available and not terribly bank breaking. Argan, borage, evening primrose oil, squalene or pomegranate are nice too but more expensive. You can pretty much go as fancy or simple as you like!

On the other hand, if you choose to buy a facial cleansing oil you will see a whole host of ingredients. This is because most (at least the ones I looked at: Clinique's Take the Day Off Cleansing Oil, Shu Uemura Cleansing beauty Oil Premium, and Josie Maran's Argan Cleansing Oil) contain esters or solubilizers. My guess is because the oil on the face thing is off-putting to lots of people; so these companies have made lighter (esters) cleansing oils that wash off cleanly in water (solubilizers). 

Bath Melts

These are very cool. Not as explosive as bath bombs, but they offer more nice butters that bath bombs don't have! I'm not much of a bath person, but I do give myself home pedicures and these are fantastic for that. It makes the foot soak feel very luxurious and has the added benefit of not just looking cool, but softening and moisturizing your skin. I follow this 'Bath Melt with Emulsifier' recipe on Point of Interest! by Susan. It works fantastically. I use 12% cocoa butter and 20% Shea butter. I like the kind of bath melt with an emulsifier because it distributes the oil into the water, so you don't have it sitting on top. The baking soda and citric acid are included to help break up the melt so it can dissolve faster. I use Polysorbate as my emulsifier, but you could use any. They are firm enough but dissolve easily in the water. I do keep them in the fridge in a baggie during warmer months to make sure they don't melt. Though these will be coming into contact with water you do not need a preservative. This is because they are single serving portions that don't get wet then sit out; they are used up completely each time.

Reusable Cotton Squares

I really hate buying cotton balls and cotton rounds. No reason, I just hate it. Anyone have those things you know you need but it feels physically painful to shell out money for them? I feel this way about contacts too... While there are no DIY contacts (unfortunately? fortunately)... there are DIY reusable cotton rounds. Or in this case squares.
While I'm not against DIY solutions that help the environment or decrease carbon footprint, that is not why I'm making these. You can make them for whatever reason you want, you won't find any green shaming here.

However I do feel some so-called-natural alternatives are downright unsafe. "Make your own _______! Without preservatives! Rub it on your baby! Rub it on your face!" Beware the aqueous DIY make up remover and home made baby wipes... pretty please? Rant over. Luckily these reusable cotton squares are cute and effective- no horrible bacterial infection included.

Preservatives.

Use them.