Tuesday, February 16, 2010

homemade cosmetics


Well, like I need another hobby...but I actually came across this one by accident. I have been looking for a miracle cream for Oliver (ever since the day he was born), who seems to have eczema. It especially effects his face, which I thought was from teething...but he hasn't been cutting teeth for awhile, and is still plagued by it. I've tried vaseline, baby oil, Eucerine cream, Aveeno, my cousin even made a special salve with tea tree oil and some other stuff in it. That's just to name a few. I went to a craft fair with my mom, and every year she buys this 'dry skin cream' from a lady who has a booth there. I decided to give this a try even though it was $20 a jar. It did seem to help more than anything else had, but she also gave me a tube of her chapstick...which oddly enough really seemed to clear up his face. ( I noticed his face was really broke out one day when we were away from the house, and this chapstick was all that I had with me.) When I ran out of these two things, I was trying to figure out how to order some more. I decided instead of paying $3o plus shipping fees, maybe I would try to make my own. So, I looked up some recipes on line and bought some supplies. First I made a whipped body butter, which I don't have any pictures of the process ( I thought of that after the fact) but here is the recipe:

1 1/3 c. shea butter, 1/2 c. olive oil
1 t. vitamin E oil, 1/4 oz. fragrance

Heat the shea butter up slowly in a sauce pan until liquid form than add olive oil
Let mixture cool for 30-40 min, without letting it fully set back up. Add
vitamin E and fragrance. Now, use a blender to whip the mixture until it is very light in texture.
Do not over pack whipped body butter into chosen container.

Mine turned out a little oily, but I also added some coconut oil to mine. ( I have a hard time following directions.) It has really cleared up Oliver's skin nicely.

I also made some chapstick. I purchased the tubes from sks bottles and packaging, I bought the beeswax pellets at soapgoods.com. Here is that recipe:

3 t. beeswax pellets, 4t. cocoa butter
5t. olive oil, 2t. lanolin
1/2 t. honey, 5-10 drops fragrance

Place beeswax, cocoa butter, olive oil and lanolin in glass dish. Put glass dish in pot of
water ( a couple of inches) , and boil until everything is in liquid form and well mixed.
Remove glass dish from pot and add honey and fragrance. Poor into
tubes and let cool.

I doubled this recipe and it made 20 tubes.





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