Pardon my absence, but guess what I’ve been up to lately?!

Danielle, a couple of our friends, and myself planned a potions party for this past Tuesday night, and we ended up making beet blush, toning mist, and deodorant bars. I’ve only used each product a couple of times so far, but I’m already in love with the beet blush. I’ll be back with extensive reviews when I have time to form solid opinions of the other two.

For the curious, here are the recipes we used:

1. Toner

2. Blush

3. Deodorant

We used both lavender and tea tree essential oils in the toner, and we put the liquid in spray bottles to avoid having to use a cotton ball. Also, misting your face is probably one of the most refreshing things ever. Right?

I’m pretty sure the potion party was a hit, and we plan to have another one so soon!

Still, I thought you guys might wanna hit up the following:

• Use the code REPEAT2012 and get $15 off a full size bottle of perfume from A Perfume Organic. Green sounds like my kind of scent.
• Check out this post on caren’s  blog, which includes helpful tips concerning which ingredients to avoid in your sunscreen and which foods may protect your skin from the sun. Sup, dark chocolate?
• Take it from the queen of crusty elbows: this cornmeal scrub is worth trying.
• Who knew coffee filters could be so useful?

I’m off to study, nap, and then repeat. Wish me luck!

A few nights ago, and for no good reason, my skin was looking a little splotchy and a lot dull. I wanted to make a mask that I hadn’t tried before, and I recalled reading a few articles about basil’s ability to combat blemishes. I knew that I also needed a gentle exfoliant , so I got out the old fashioned oatmeal as well. I threw together the following mask, and I was pretty happy with the soft, glowing skin that resulted:

• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 tablespoons dried basil
• 1/4 cup oatmeal

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I’m not sure if it’s the finals I recently took, the fried food I’ve been eating constantly, or the holiday anticipation I’m still experiencing, but my skin has been acting out in the worst way. Sunday night I made this strawberry and honey face mask, and things seem to be finally looking up!

I hope you guys treat yourself and give this mask a try. If you have some left, and you probably will, you’d be wise to add it to a healthy portion of plain Greek yogurt. Talk about tasty!

There’s still time to enter the mantra perfume giveaway. Tell a friend!

When Clementine and Winston ran out of their latest tube of store bought toothpaste, I decided to try and make their next batch to save a little money. I used a simple recipe that called for only salt, baking soda, and vegetable glycerin. I’ll admit that I was a little worried they wouldn’t like it since I didn’t add any sort of meaty flavor to it, but they loved it just as much as their old expensive stuff! Maybe I’ll treat them next time and pick up some low sodium beef broth, like the recipe suggests. One thing’s for sure, though: my days of paying an arm and a leg for dog toothpaste are over.

Do you have a pet whose teeth you brush? If so, then maybe you should give this stuff a try as well!

P.S. Don’t forget to enter the perfume giveaway!

Pumpkin, pomegranate, and cranberries are common ingredients in tasty fall treats, but did you know that they’re also good for our skin? Pumpkin is soothing and moisturizing, and cranberries/pomegranate are known fighters of free radicals. Try the homemade health and beauty recipes below and see for yourself!

• Pumpkin Face Mask- This mask can be modified to suit both oily and dry skin.
• Cranberry, Coconut Oil, and Oatmeal Sugar Scrub-This recipe is the fourth one from the bottom.
• Pomegranate and Lemon Peel-second from the bottom

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As of late, my skin hasn’t been looking its best. I’m sure it’s due to some combination of the heat (which means my face is pretty much constantly sweating) and the time of month it happens to be, but I’ve been more concerned with fixing the problem than pinpointing the cause.  I can easily drive myself crazy when trying to determine whether or not a (usually harmless) change in my routine is to blame. Instead of stressing out about a tiny breakout and overall redness, I found a simple recipe online for a soothing facial mask. We happened to have a cucumber in the fridge and our aloe plant always has plenty of juice to offer, so I made the mask right away. I simplified this recipe even further (mostly out of laziness) by simply chopping the cucumber and letting it soak in the aloe juice rather than pureeing it, and this actually worked out for the best. I put a couple of the aloe-soaked cucumber slices on my eyes while I let the mask dry, and it was a pretty dreamy experience.  Once the mask was completely dry, which took no more than 15 minutes, I decided washing it off was pointless. Since the cucumber wasn’t pureed, the aloe mask was basically a simplified and more concentrated version of the moisturizer I already use. Besides, my skin felt softer and looked better than it had in days. If your skin is giving you trouble, then maybe you should take a page out of my book and give this simple mask a try!

If you too would like to fancy up your feet at home, I’ve provided a picture of the supplies I used and a list of the steps I took below.

Supplies:

1. Nail Maintenance Kit (Out of this kit, I only used the toenail clippers and the nail file.)
2. Karen’s Botanicals Exfoliating Cleansing Grains
3. Burt’s Bees Coconut Foot Creme
4. Burt’s Bees Peppermint Foot Lotion
5. Piggy Paint Nail Polish Remover
6. Piggy Paint in Sea-quin
7. Large Baking Pan (This pan should be large enough to accommodate both feet.)
8. Ped Egg
9. Pumice Stone

Steps:

• First, I filled the large pan with enough warm water to cover my feet. I soaked them for 5 minutes.
• After 5 minutes, I took my feet out and dried them off with a hand towel.
• Next, I scrubbed both feet with the Exfoliating Cleansing Grains (making sure to get in between my toes and the tops of my feet as well) and rinsed them off in the water I initially soaked them in.
• I dried my feet a second time and began scrubbing my heels with the Ped Egg.
• After removing the dead skin from my heels, I used the pumice stone to scrub the rest of my feet.
• Once my feet felt completely free of dead skin, I trimmed my nails carefully with the toenail clippers, leaving enough nail on each toe to avoid a future ingrown toenail.
• Next, I used to end of the nail file to remove any dirt from underneath each nail tip.
• Then, I applied the coconut creme in between my toes (which tends to be especially dry) and the peppermint lotion all over the remaining area.
• After using a cotton swab dipped in polish remover to get rid of any lotion/creme that ended up on my toenails, I painted each nail with my Sea-quin Piggy Paint.
• Adding a step that wasn’t entirely necessary (but following a suggestion provided on my polish bottle), I dried my freshly-painted toenails with a blow dryer on medium heat with the low blower setting for approximately 1 minute.

From my smooth, pleasantly minty feet to the bright, fun polish color, I am very happy with the results of my at-home pedicure. If I were inconsiderate and aimed to gross you guys out, I would’ve posted a before picture. The finished product would have been all the more impressive!

After going to so much trouble to make your feet pretty (assuming you’ll give this DIY pedicure a go), don’t forget to protect them from the sun!

Using a ReadyMade tutorial we’ve had bookmarked for months, Danielle and I recently made a batch of homemade body moisturizer.  It required only the ingredients pictured above (minus the essential oil, since we decided to make ours unscented), and it works like a dream. Now I know you guys are entirely capable of reading the tutorial yourselves, but we learned a few things along the way that the tutorial didn’t exactly explain, so I’ll give you a rundown of the supplies we used, preparations we made, and things we learned.

Supplies:

• Olive Oil-I’ve had a full bottle of organic olive oil lying around for a while now, so we chose to use that as our oil (over coconut, avocado, and almond).
• Filtered Water- I wanted so badly to use orange blossom water or cold brewed tea instead, but I couldn’t find the former and was too impatient to wait for the preparation of the latter. Maybe next time.
• Beeswax- Fortunately, Danielle had several blocks of filtered beeswax that she purchased from Mountain Rose Herbs for just such occasions.
• Eucalyptus Essential Oil- I love the scent of eucalyptus, and my initial plan was to add a few drops to the moisturizer. Danielle preferred having the unscented version, so I left out the oil to simplify the process.
• Glass Containers (to hold the moisturizer)-Danielle and I doubled the proportions, so we used 2 glass jars instead of the recommended 1. We picked ours up at Hobby Lobby for a little over $2 each.

Preparation:

As I’ve already mentioned, this moisturizer is fairly easy to make…so it doesn’t require much preparation. However, if you’re using block of beeswax like we did, you’ll need to either grate it (as the tutorial suggests) or chop it into tiny, easy to melt pieces (what we did).  We decided to chop ours instead of grating it because a knife seemed like a much easier item to clean than a cheese grater. Fyi, melted beeswax is pretty hard to get rid of once it dries on an item. Since we used a knife, we simply dipped the knife in boiling water to remove the beeswax.

Lessons Learned:

• Picking up a hot jar full of olive oil and melted beeswax with a pair of tongs isn’t necessarily a smart move. Use potholders to avoid splashing hot liquid on yourself or a loved one.
• If at all possible, clean beeswax off of the dish/tool is has covered before it dries. This will make life easier for you.
• I expected this moisturizer to be slightly runny like a lotion, but it’s much firmer like a body butter. I was actually pleased with the outcome, but if your heart’s set on lotion then this moisturizer might not be for you.
• Applying the body butter just after a shower, waiting 5 minutes or so for it to dry, and then patting your skin with a towel yields best results (i.e. the softest skin imaginable).

Here are couple of pictures of the finished product. It might look like mashed potatoes, but the similarities stop there. I promise.

We’ll likely cover the lids with pretty fabric, since we’ll be using these jars to house our future homemade moisturizers as well.

Have you entered the Made From Earth giveaway yet? You should!

The little face scrubbies I made as part of my recent giveaway are ideal for both cleansing and toning.  The best part? They were surprisingly easy to make (which is good news for someone as uncrafty as I tend to be), so if you don’t win the giveaway or you do and you simply want more…you can totally make your own!

Here’s how I did it:

• First, I cut a bath cloth (or cloths) into as many 3×3 inch squares as I wanted scrubbies. I managed to get nine squares out of one standard bath cloth. I used a post-it to get the shape right.

• Next I cut out nine squares of a pretty floral jersey fabric Danielle let me use. I made sure the fabric squares were large enough to fold over the cloth about 1/2 inch on each side to keep the cloth pieces from fraying. My fabric squares were 4×4 inches. To get the best shape, I used a ruler and a washable marker. Heads up, you might want to use something more cooperative than jersey. I had to sew my scrubbies by hand rather than using a sewing machine because jersey tends to bunch up with sewing machines. I learned the hard way by destroying two potential scrubbies with Danielle’s sewing machine. Had I thought about this possibility beforehand I might’ve used something else or avoided the sewing machine altogether.

• I laid the fabric squares decorative side down and put a cloth square in the center of each fabric square, or as close as I could get to the center.

• Since I sewed my scrubbies by hand, I used the following tools- scissors for cutting the embroidery floss, a thimble to protect my little finger, a needle threader whose purpose should be obvious, a needle, embroidery floss in a beautiful shade of turquoise, and a hair pin to place at the end of each row I sewed (pictured below). I found that the pin kept the fabric still and helped me sew straighter lines.

• In the picture above, I’ve just finished sewing the far left row and am about to begin the bottom row, which is which is why the pin is located at the end of it. Sewing the fabric to the cloth was definitely the most time consuming part of this project, but it was nothing a little music couldn’t make more interesting. I tried several different stitches, but I settled on a Split Stitch, which seemed result in a sturdier scrubbie.

• As a final step, I washed and dried the scrubbies to get the marker off of them and test their durability. As you can see, the little guys made it!

So there you have it. Please let me know if I’ve left anything important out or if you have any questions. If you guys make your own scrubbies using my tips or another tutorial entirely, I’d love to see pictures (even and especially if they’re better than mine)!