Vox Publica

Yes, I've been spending lots of money that I shouldn't on kits of stuff to do with the girls. Yeah, I could play a board game with them, or play with their dolls (they'd love that) - but I personally hate playing. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Nothing makes me more anxious and unhappy as having to play little kids' games. I'm waiting for them to be a little bit older so that we can play cards or more adult games, because for the time being, it's just too painful.

Anyway, I have discovered that I do like doing "cosmetic" stuff with them. I've enjoyed making the bath salts from the Scientific Explorer's Spa Science Chemistry Kit, making soaps from a couple of kits I bought, and doing experiments from another. In a way, it's very similar to cooking, you put substances together and create something new that goes beyond the sum of its parts. And, of course, I love to cook.

The Scientific Explorer's Perfumery kit seemed like the next logical thing to get. I found it on DeepDiscount.com for $15.50 (about $4.50 less than in most places, unfortunately it's no longer available on that site), so I went for it. It arrived yesterday and I tried it this morning. Here is what I think of it:

The kit is very simple. It contains 5 small bottles of fragrances: apple, heliotrope,jasmine,lily of the valley and peppermint. Each fragrance contains sunflower oil with "perfume", whatever that be. There are also 5 tiny plastic vials, where you can mix your fragrances, and 5 pipettes. And the instructions, of course. That's it - for $15-20 bucks. As with Spa Science I feel that the most valuable part of the kit are the instructions. Unfortunately the instructions do not explain how to make the fragrances themselves. /What/, exactly, do I mix with sunflower oil to make fragrances myself? Essential oils? Actual perfume? Can I use those scents that came with my soap kits? (like this one). At least the instructions do tell you how to make essential oils from flowers: put the flowers in a jar, cover them with an odorless oil (sunflower, safflower, canola or corn all work), and let it stand for several weeks, adding more flowers when you can. You can do the same thing with herbs and spices. I think I'll try that (though I'm sure my kids will be too impatient).

The whole point of the kit is to mix the different perfumes together to make your own scents. They give you two "recipes", and then you are on your own. They do warn you against using too much peppermint. The only thing that I can surmise from the recipes, is that you put mostly one perfume, and then add small quantities of the other ones to change the smell. It'd be nice if there was more instruction as to how different smells interact with one another.

The other thing that is missing is information on what to do with the mixes once done. Do you apply them directly to your body? Do you first mix them with alcohol?

In any case, Mika and I had fun smelling and trying to identify the different scents. We weren't very good at it (Camila, interestingly, was better) but it was fun. Camila mixed all the five scents randomly and made a mix that ended up being quite pleasant. I didn't really enjoy the scent when smelling it directly from the vial, but once I mixed it with an equal quantity of vodka and applied it to our skin, it improved considerably. It also lasted for a couple of hours (which is longer than the cheap perfume I use, usually lasts). I'm pretty sure that Mika and I will enjoy doing it as well. I will also try using the scents we create in the soaps we make, hopefully they'll work.

So in conclusion, once again I think the kit is too expensive for what it is, but as I wouldn't have known where to start without it, I'm glad I bought it.

Today I gave the girls a pedicure. I had them soak their feet in some water with pre-mixed (commercial) bath salts, which I've had forever, and then I scrubbed them with a homemade foot scrub, put foot cream and foot spray. The girls loved it - they felt so grown up. Now I need to do it for myself :-)

Oatmeal Banana Foot Scrub
From the Scientific Explorer's Spa Science Chemistry Kit

-2 Tbsp oats
-1/4 cup cornmeal
-1 ripe banana

Put oats and cornmeal in a bowl. Add chunks of banana and mix well with your hands. Ta da!

I was looking for an easy recipe for a face scrub, and came across this one by googling. As you can see it's terribly simple, and while I can't really say it worked well (I honestly don't know how to judge it), it did taste very yummy :-) Who'd have known that olive oil, sugar and lemon juice would taste so well together? :-)

A little over a week ago I bought a lotion-making kit from Branble Berry, a seller of soap making supplies. While the description of the kit did not say it was obligatory to have a digital scale - once I got the kit I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get too far without one. Alas, digital scales are quite expensive, specially those that can measure down to .1 oz (note when you buy one that many digital kitchen scales cannot). So, instead, I got this regular diet scale, which can count down to 1/4 oz. I figure, that was close enough for me, given that I’m just doing this as a hobby. The only big problem with using this type of scale is that I have to do the actual weighing, so it can be as exact as possible, I can’t let my 4 yo “assistant” do it. Of course, she doesn’t like that. But there was still a lot she could do, pouring the substances into the bowls and mixing them with a spoon.

The Branble Berry kit came with one recipe for lotion, using the ingredients in the kit, of course. I found it fairly easy to follow - though the process ended up being much more complicated (i.e. messy) than I foresaw when I started. Branble Berry and other lotion makers suggest that you use a stick blender (like this one) to mix the lotion. If you don’t have one, they recommend you use an electric mixer. Alas, using my handheld electric mixer did not work at all, the lotion was just not thickening and it was a little lumpy (perhaps I didn’t melt the wax pellets as thoroughly as I should have) - so I had to transfer the whole thing into my regular blender. That worked perfectly, making thick, smooth, lotion.

The second problem came in bottling the lotion. I used a disposable piping bag, and while that worked well, it was pretty messy (but that may have had to do with the flimsy piping bag we were using). I read a recommendation to use squeeze bottles instead, so I’ll look for them at Michael’s next time I go there.

Even though I got the scale, I still decided that it’d be easier to convert the weight measurements into volume measurements for the liquid ingredients (i.e. oils & phenonip). Of course, that meant that the measurements I ended up with were approximations, which means that the lotion I made wasn’t the exact lotion Branble Berry had in mind. Still, I did end up with lotion, so I can’t complain. This is the recipe I used

• 3 Tbsp. + 2 tsp. almond oil
• 2 Tbsp. + 1/3 tsp. avocado oil
• 1 oz stearic acid
• 1.2 oz emulsifying wax
• 1.2 oz shea butter
• 18 oz. distilled water
• 6 ml phenonip
• 2.5 ml Lavender fragrance
• 6 drops colorant

I will note that the recipe did not say anything about colorant, but as I was scenting the lotion with lavender essential oil, Kathy (my sister who was helping me) thought it'd be good if it was a little bit purple. Alas, I didn't have enough purple colorant, so I substituted with a little blue and red food coloring. The color I ended up with was a very pale lilac

Now, as to how I made it (and how I was supposed to make it).

-The first step was sterilizing everything you use in the lotion making process. I did sterilize a couple of the bowls I used, as well as the mixer paddle in a solution of water and bleach. Alas, I didn't sterilize the additional bowl and blender I ended up using, as well as the spoon I used to blend the lotion - because of a combination of forgetting about it, and using equipment I didn't foresee when I started.

-The next step was combining the oils, the stearic acid and wax in a 32 oz container and microwaving it until everything melted. That was supposed to last 1-2 minutes, but it took me at least 3, probably because my microwave is so old. To that you add the shea butter and mix with a spoon until well blended. That, we did.

-Next you warm the water for one minute, and then slowly incorporate it into the oil mixture, mixing with a spoon. Pretty easy to do. Then it's time to mix the lotion until it thickens. Use a stick blender or a regular electric blender for this.

-Once thickened, add the phenonip, essential oil and colorant. Mix with a spoon until all has been incorporated. What I plan to do next time, however, is to mix the lotion with the phenonip alone, and then divide it in batches - mixing in different scent/color for each bottle.

-You are done! Now it’s time to bottle it. Use a pastry bag or squeeze bottle.

-My kit didn’t come with any labels, so I used some I had left over from another set. It’d like to be able to find a source for pretty (and cheap) labels for future lotions.

-I wrapped the lotions with tissue paper, it's cheap and I think looks pretty good.

-The kit I used was supposed to make 24oz of lotion, but I only got about 20 oz - probably because so much lotion was left behind in the different bowls I used, or lost through the bottling process. Still, I used very little of the material that came in the kit, and it's clear that I'll run out of bottles before I run out of lotion ingredients (but I'm planning to use them for things other than lotion).

And now, as to the results: Well, I did end up with a lotion with a medium thickness, perhaps a tiny bit heavier than what I’d prefer, but not by much. The lotion seems a bit heavy/oil to the touch when you first apply it, but it dried up quite quickly. Indeed, the main problem I find with it, is that my hands (but not my arms) feel pretty dry a few minutes after applying it. Is the lotion really moisturizing me? That said, all in all, for being my first home-made effort, I think it's quite good.

My 7-year-old daughter Michaela is selling some soaps that she has made. These flower ones are $1 each. If you are interested in buying one, and live in San Leandro, let me know. She can also make them to order. I'll post pictures of other soaps she has made in the future.

I checked out The Girls' World Book of Bath & Beauty: Fresh Ideas & Fun Recipes for Hair, Skin, Nails & More from the library because I wanted to get more recipes for home made beauty products which I could make with my daughters. The book presents many ideas of how to make home made cosmetics. It's thorough, with recipes for hair shampoos and feet scrubs, and everything in between. The pictures of the girls are beautiful and even empowering. BUT... most of the recipes require ingredients that are relatively expensive and somewhat difficult to find (borax, glycerin, vitamin E, special oils, essential oils, etc.). You'd have to spend a lot of money to make all the recipes in the book (or even a few of them). So I think it'd be sort of a white elephant gift to give to a girl. That said, if I had the products at hand, I think we'd really enjoy it.

So I'm continuing with my obsession for cosmetic making. Not because I necessarily use cosmetics (though I'm starting), but just because it's fun.

In the last few days I've made:

-A facial toner (combining homemade rose water with witch hazel) - I've no idea how a toner is supposed to work, so I can't say how well it actually works :-)

-Eye wrinkle "cream" - for this I melted together 2 Tbsp. of lanolin and 2 Tbsp. of sweet almond oil and combined it with 1/2 tsp. honey. Will it work? Only time will tell.

-Body spray - I combined 1/3 cup distilled water with 1 tsp. witch hazel and added some essential oils. As it turned out too much as now I stink of jazmin :-) It's just really hot, and I wanted something I could spray on my skin to refresh it.

-Hand cream - this was a combination of coconut oil, sweet almond oil and emulsifying wax, combined with water and essential oils. Alas, it didn't emulsify (don't know why), so it was a waste :-( It's a pity because with this heat and dryness I could really use a hand cream.

Update - Well, it seems that the reason why the hand cream did not come out is that instead of using the emulsifying wax I used the stearic acid. They do look pretty similar and I can be a real idiot. Live and learn.

What's next? I think I'll try to make a hand lotion again - and I need a foot spray as well. But that means I need to buy more spray bottles :-)

A few weeks ago, when Kathy was here, I made lotion for the first time. I enjoyed doing it, so I decided I'd really like to make other beauty products. I don't have any hand cream, and my night face cream is running out, so I'd like to make some of that. The problem? I can't find recipes that include preservatives! I don't understand why - emulsions of oil and water go bad quickly, and even in the refrigerator they don't last more than a week or so. I'm definitely not going to use up even a cup of lotion in a week. I've also checked out several books on making cosmetics out of the library, but they are no better. What does everyone else do? Make this cosmetics without preservatives and use them up quickly? Do they not go bad as quickly as some of the literature say? Should I just take a regular recipe and add .5-1% of phenonip (the preservative I have)? I think I may try the latter.

The other problem is that I don't have where to put the lotions. The kit I bought came with 12 4-oz bottles, but I used almost half of them with my first batch. Buying bottles online is ridiculously expensive. I did find these very cute jars at Michael's, for $1 each. So far I think that's the best I'll be able to do - but it does add to the price of the lotion a lot - specially when my plan is to give away the lotion (though the kids may try to sell some).

anyway, those are my complaints for the day - pretty frivolous, I know :-)

I'm turning 40 tomorrow and until recently I never really used lotions or creams. My mother, a devotee of oil of olay, kept giving me bottles and jars of different beauty concoctions. But until a couple of years ago, I had very good skin plus I didn't really believe lotions could make any difference. That may have been a stupid opinion, given that people have been using oils and salves from time immemorial, but it wasn't a subject to which I gave a lot of thought.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to start making lotions, just for fun, so I decided that I needed to start using what I had. I still have tons of bottles of lotion my mother has given me, some of which smell quite good, plus the lavender lotion I made, and a couple other things I'd bought. So for three weeks I've been using:

-A combination of the lavender lotion I made and Avon Skin So Soft Body Souffle on my arms and upper chest area (what is exposed when wearing t-shirts). I've grown to really like the lotion I made, despite the fact that lavender is not my favorite scent (it's my mother's, though, and I originally made it for her). It's very refreshing when I put it on, and it dries up quite quickly. I absolutely love the body souffle. It's so light and easy to spread and it has a wonderful scent. I didn't find it in the current online Avon Catalog, but that's just an incentive to try to make my own. Alas, I haven't really found any recipes for body souffle online - though I'll try to see if those for whipped butters are similar. As I keep the lavender lotion on my desk, I've been using it several times a day, when the mood strikes me :-)

-L'Oreal Dermo-Expertise Age Perfect Day Cream for Mature Skin for my face. I'm not as crazy about this lotion, it's rather thick and creamy and takes more effort to apply - but my mother gave it to me so I'm going to use it up :-)

-Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock, SPF-55 when I go walking. This sunscreen is very thick and even more annoying to apply, but it doesn't have that horrible intense coconut smell of most sunscreens.

And at night:

-Grateful Body Facial Cleanser (which also doesn't seem to be in their catalog any more), to wash my face. It's very light and made all of natural products. It doesn't seem to have any preservatives, which worries me a little.

-A homemade toner made from home made rose-water and witch hazel. I've ran out of this now, so I'll need to make another one.

-A homemade eye wrinkle "cream" made of lanolin, sweet almond oil and honey.

-Kirkland (Costco) night cream and eye cream.

Now for the results. My arms have really become very soft. Mike touched them today and he could really appreciate the difference.

My face skin is also improving. It had been great until a few years ago when I started walking a couple of miles each way to pick up my daughter at day care. I wasn't very good at using sunscreen, and my face became not only tan, but blotchy, reddish (specially my nose!) and coarse. I'm spending less time in the sun now and I think all the lotions are also helping making my face improve. It's becoming less blotchy and it's also much softer. In the last few years I've also developed quite a few whiteheads, and I started using some Retin A on them. Several have disappeared already, but when I use it, it reddens my skin as well.

And finally, my eyes. As most 40-year olds I've developed wrinkles around my eyes. I imagine that eye cream helps stop the development of new wrinkles, rather than treating the old ones, and whether that works or not cannot be judged in the space of 3 weeks. That said, the area under my eyes seems very soft, too soft. Now, I don't know if this is due to the oil or cream I've been using, or whether it's always been like that. In any case, I'm wondering if I should discontinue using them.

Well, this is it for this very frivolous posting :-)

I've been thinking of making another lotion for a while, but I felt I needed a clean house and kitchen first, so I kept putting it of. Finally, today, I managed - for a very brief moment - to have a house reasonably tidy and a clean and free counter - so I figured I'd indulge myself and give my lotion-making another go.

I wanted to try a recipe for hand cream - because my hands are pretty dry, all in all, and I don't actually have any hand cream (as opposed to body lotion, face cream and foot cream). After an extensive search online, I chose this one because it had ingredients I had at home AND because the fact that it listed ingredients by weight made me think it was more serious than most of the other recipes I find online. Apparently serious lotion-makers use weights, not volumes.

The recipe was fairly easy to make and, most importantly, it worked - that is to say, when I finished I had a lotion. But I was disappointed in finding it too thin - just as thin as the regular lotion I made the first time around. Taking another look at the ingredients, which seem to be in similar proportions as those of the first recipe, suggests why.

The lotion itself feels more oily than the first lotion I made, but only slightly so. It does seem to take more time to dry/be absorbed and I think it's too oily to be used as hand lotion. But I see no reason to not use it as a body lotion instead.

Meanwhile I'll be looking for another hand cream recipe - if anyone knows of a good one, let me know.

I'm not fond of my face cream, so I wanted to try to make one and see if I liked it better. Plus, I wanted to make some to give to Camila's teacher - whom I adore - for mother's day. She's truly like a second mom to my children. After looking and looking and looking for recipes, I settled on this one because I had all the ingredients, including home made rose water. The recipe also looked more complex than other ones.

I followed the recipe quite closely. I think it may have been a mistake to make all the substitutions mentioned in the recipe, however. I substituted part of the water with aloe vera gel and part of the oil with jojoba and avocado oils. I also added phenonip, a preservative, so that it wouldn't need to be refrigerated/used immediately.

The cream emulsified very nicely, had a lovely pastel pink color and a nice, light consistency. At first I thought I'd wanted it thicker, but then I think it would have been too difficult to apply.

I was quite unhappy with the cream at first because when I applied it to my face and arms, it was not just super oily, but super sticky - so much so that it made my skin feel very tight. I had to wash it off.

Later, I tried applying just a tiny bit of the cream to my face (rather than the lot I'd originally applied), and while it was still oily, the sticky sensation wasn't there. I was still unhappy with the oily sensation - but then I compared it to my usual face creams and realized that they were just as oily. I guess that while a body lotion is supposed to be absorbed quickly, a face cream should take longer to absorb so that it provides you with longer protection.

I've decided that I'm going to use it as a night cream, after I run out of my usual one. With so many different oils and ingredients, I think it will be very nourishing. At night, it won't matter much that it's greasy, and, as it doesn't have any UV protection, I shouldn't use it during the day anyway. I gave it a test drive last night and my face is moist and soft this morning, not at all oily.

Now, for the recipe. I wasn't sure if the measurements were on fluid ounces, or regular ounces. I decided to weigh all the ingredients, except for those given in teaspoons. I also halved the recipe from the original, as I didn't need so much of it. That meant I had to modify some quantities a little bit. I'm giving the quantities in grams, as, given the light measurements, it's easier.

I'm sad to say that while Camila loves making cosmetics with me (just as she loves baking/cooking with me), Mika has not been very enthused about it. I'm not really sure why, but she's also not into baking & cooking, so it's probably related.

In any case, after buying some more cosmetic-making supplies, I checked out The Girls' World Book of Bath & Beauty back from the library and looked through it with Mika. She liked the idea of making "Glitterbug Body Glitter", so we did that after she came back from school today.

The results were pretty good, the glitter was much more liquid than I thought it'd be, even after we added quite a bit more glycerin, and we did add quite a bit of glitter, but Mika was happy. Interestingly, she put the glitter on me rather than her :-)

Body Glitter Recipe

3 Tbsp. aloe vera gel
2 Tbsp. witch hazel
1 Tbsp. glycerin
6-12 drops soap/lotion color
3-6 drops essential or fragrance oil
a pinch of soap glitter or more

Mix the aloe vera, with hazel and glycerin in a zippered sandwich bag. Add the color and mix well. Add the fragrance and mix again. Finally add the glitter and mix.

Make a small cut in the corner of the sandwich bag and pour the glitter lotion into a 2oz cosmetic bottle.

Rub all over your skin.

Update I don't know how this has happened, but the glitter has disappeared from the body glitter. I kid you not, you can't see any of the glitter when you apply it to your skin, or when you look through the bottle. How this has happened, I cannot say. Maybe it was simply dissolved in the aloe vera/glycerin mixture. I bought the soap body glitter at Michael's, so perhaps it was just bad quality glitter. Next time, I'll try getting it online. The kids are, of course, disappointed.

I made rose water the other day and I wanted to write the recipe here, so I don't forget :-) I'm fortunate in that I have a variety of roses growing outside my house - so I can make rose water for free :-)

Instructions

Put 1 packed cup of rose petals in a heat-resistance bowl. Cover it with 2 cups of boiling water. Cover the bowl and let steep for 30 minutes. Filter the liquid with cheesecloth into a jar, discard the petals & cheesecloth and cover the jar. Add 1 Tbsp. vodka and/or keep in the refrigerator. It should last about 10 days.

Recipe from http://www.ehow.com/how_2123201_make-rosewater.html

This rose water is not for consumption. If you want a cooling and exotic rose water drink, try this one.

Given that my last attempt at lotion making did not go very well and that I've used or given away most of the stock I had - I found myself wanting to give some to a friend, but having nothing available. So today I made (or tried to make) some more lotion, using yet another recipe. It didn't come out perfectly either. I followed the instructions very closely, but made a few changes. I used beeswax pellets instead of shredded beeswax (can't imagine it'd make a difference), green tea instead of chamomile tea, and skipped the potassium sorbate and cinnamon. Instead I added phenonip and cucumber-green tea essential oil. Now for the problems:

1) The recipe wouldn't emulsify -or rather, about a third of it emulsified, but no matter how much I beat/blended it, the oil would not mix with the rest of the lotion. The consistency of the emulsified lotion, however, was wonderful: silky, smooth, creamy and light. I loved it - but I needed the whole bunch to be emulsified. Realizing that blending alone wouldn't do it - I added a bit of melted emulsifying wax - and that, fortunately, did it.

2) Once the oil mixed with the rest of the lotion, the whole thing became very liquid. I blended and blended, mixed and mixed, and it made no difference. I finally added quite a bit of arrowroot, and I think that may have made a difference, but not a huge one.

So I've been left with a beautiful, silky, easy to spread lotion that is, unfortunately, quite thin. Still, I love the melt in your skin consistency and I'm definitely giving some to my friends (and keeping some for me!).

Here is the recipe that I plan to use next time.

Silky Body Lotion Recipe

1/4 cup apricot kernel oil
1/4 cup jojoba oil
1/4 cup beeswax pellets
2 Tbsp. emulsifying wax pellets
1 Tbsp. stearic acid
1 tsp. arrowroot powder
1 tsp. honey

1 cup brewed green tea, warm
1/4 cup aloe vera gel
1/4 tsp. citric acid

1 tsp. phenonip
fragrance oil
colorant (optional)

Melt together the oils, waxes, stearic acid, arrowroot and honey in a double boiler. Let cool a little, but not become hard.

Mix the tea, aloe vera and citric acid in a blender or in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the mixed oils very slowly, mixing/blending constantly. Continue blending until it emulsifies. Blend for 2 more minutes, and then for 30 seconds at the time, until the lotion achieves the thickness you want. Add phenonip and mix again.

Divide the lotion in as many parts as you want and add fragrance and colorant to each, mix. Bottle.

For some reason it seems that the lotions I've made several weeks ago are separating - as I squeeze them out of the container, water comes out! This has happened with two separate bottles of lotion, made at different times, from different ingredients. I don't understand why it's happening now. My concern is, of course, that the lotions have gone bad or are going bad. How can you possibly know when a lotion has gone bad? I'm afraid that the perfume would mask any off-smells.

I have a lot of roses. A LOT. Too many. And while I'm not particularly fond of roses, I thought I could at least use them to make rose essential oil. The real recipes for it require distillation or something like that, so I took the "cheater" way and simply mixed in the bruised petals from one rose with 1/4 cup sunflower oil. I put it in a tightly lidded jar and rested it in a dark place for a week. Then I added another rose, and so forth for two more weeks. Finally, I squeezed the oil from the petals into a strainer and discarded the petals.

The results are not too great. What I have left is not rose oil, but a mixture of oil, solids (so fine that I cannot filter them out) and water (the moisture from the rose petals, I assume); it's not completely emulsified. Most worryingly, the perfume barely smells of roses (or plants, I can't quite tell). Now, the fault may be with my roses. Even though it looks like the rose bush next to our house threw up, the resulting roses are not very aromatic.

Oh well, I planted some lavender and perhaps next year I'll have enough to attempt lavender oil.

I finally ran out of face cream, so I had to make some. I used this website for the recipe, as the last night face cream I made wasn't that great. I just finished it, so I don't know how I'll like it - but I will report back after trying it for a while. This time I didn't use any preservatives, so I'm keeping it in the fridge for now. That said, I'm going to Mexico soon, and if I take it it'll be warm most of the time. Hmmm...

I changed the recipe in a few ways: by using water instead of rose water and orange essential oil instead of chamomile or lavender oil. More fundamentally, I used lanolin instead of lecithin - I misread the recipe. I'm pretty amazed it came out anyway, I hope it won't separate.

The results were a very creamy and quite oily cream, pretty heavy and not terribly easy to spread. Still, it's just for night use so I'm not concerned. Let's see how it leaves my face after a few weeks.

*Later Note* Well, it did separate. So I added 1 tsp. melted emulsifying wax (I don't have any lecithin), and re-whisked it. The results were a lighter, creamier cream - but I think that may have been from the extra whisking.

Thick Night Facial Cream

3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. shea butter
2 tsp. beeswax pellets
1 tsp. emulsifying wax pellets
1/4 tsp. vitamin E oil
1/4 tsp. lanolin
1 Tbsp. distilled water
1 Tbsp. aloe vera gel
3-5 drops essential oil of your choice

Heat the olive oil, shea butter and waxes over boiling water, until they melt. Add the vitamin E oil and mix. Add the lanolin and mix.

Separately mix the water and aloe vera. Add to the oil mixture and whisk until it's emulsified and it's nice and creamy. Let cool and whisk in the essential oils.

I've began naming my lotions and making little cards listing the name and the ingredients (I don't think labels look anywhere as good). The names will help me differentiate them in the future, when I go back and look at the recipes, in case I want to repeat one. But I've noticed that I don't actually want to do that - just like with food, what I want is to create something different each time. Though, I must say, lotions don't differ from each other anywhere as much as dishes.

I got this recipe from Snowdrift Farm, an online merchant of cosmetic-making products. I haven't bought from then yet - and who knows when I'll get bored of this hobby. I was looking for a cocoa butter recipe, so that I could use some of the cocoa butter I bought, and this fit the bill perfectly as I had almost all the other ingredients (I substituted the recommended preservative for the one I have at home).

I'm quite happy with the results. The lotion is creamy and silky, perhaps a little too oily, but I seem to say that about all the lotions I make. I like it quite a bit. My only complaint is that the fragrance I added cannot hide the smell of the cocoa butter (they sell deodorized cocoa butter if you want to avoid this problem). It's not a major issue, though, I just smell somewhat chocolaty :-) Indeed, I named the lotion Tropical Sun because it has cocoa and coconut oil (we'll forget about the jojoba for now).

Here is the recipe: all the measures, except for those specified as ml, are in weights.

Tropical Sun Body Lotion

Today I gave Mika a full manicure: hand soak, scrub massage (it tickled), lotion and nail polish. She, of course, loved it. I made the hand soaking solution and the hand scrub myself, following recipes I found online (that I'm posting below). I think both worked reasonably well. I used a lotion I had made previously, but I have another recipe for a hand lotion that I want to try. I first want to get rid of most of the other bottles of lotions that I've made, however. If you live in San Leandro and want some all-natural lotion, I'll be happy to give you some (I have extra Tropical Sun lotion available now).

As for the nail polish, I bought a set with 10 bottles of nail polish at Grocery Outlet for $5. The nail polishes are Sally Hansen brand, a low-end brand for what I understand. Most of them are in the pinkish-to-reddish spectrum, there are a couple beige/cream ones and a blue one. The kit seems to have been put together from bottles that were being sold individually, as some of the bottles have a 50% off sticker on them and/or price stickers (original price $4.29 per bottle!). In any case, we'll now have nail polish for the rest of our lives.

Cinnamon Milk Hand Soak Recipe

From Skin Care Recipes and Remedies.com

• 2 cups water
  
• 1 cup milk
  
• 1 ½ tbsp olive oil
  
• pinch cinnamon
  

Mix all ingredients together in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high until warm (30-60 seconds). Soak your hands in the liquid for 10 minutes. Rinse and pat dry.

Olive & Lemon Hand Scrub Recipe

From Good Life (eats)

Note: I halved this recipe as I don't know how long it'll keep and will refrigerate just in case. I also added more sugar and salt than required as it otherwise was too wet. This recipe is very similar to the face scrub I made a couple of months ago - however, the addition of coarse salt will probably make it too rough to use on your face.

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• zest of 1/2 a lemon, grated
• 1/8 tsp. lemon extract (optional)

Mix all ingredients and spoon into a lidded container. When ready to use, massage a tablespoon or so on/with your hands.

Update: I've been using this cream for a couple of days now and I love it. It's very light and silky, not at all oily, it absorbs quickly and leaves my skin very soft. I'll definitely make this lotion again when I'm done with what I have.

I made this recipe for my friend Lola's birthday. It makes a nice and light lotion, with a silky/creamy consistency. This version has no preservatives, but it should be good for several weeks if you make sure to sterilize your pots and containers before using them. Otherwise store it in the fridge, and it should last for several months. Given how hot it is, I like keeping mine cold anyway. The cream is light enough that you can use a lotion pump for it, but it's OK for a wide-mouth jar as well.

This recipe makes a little over 5 oz. I used three types of oils, but you can use one or more in whatever proportions you want - just make sure they come up to 6 tablespoons or so. I used chamomile infusion (tea), but you can use regular distilled water or a different infusion. If you do use an infusion, let it seep for at least 2 hours.

It takes a while for this mixture to thicken up, but don't despair, it will. Just blend (at intervals, so that your blender does not burn out) until it cools down.

• 2 Tbsp. Jojoba oil
• 2 Tbsp. Avocado oil
• 2 Tbsp. Coconut oil
• 1/2 tsp. Stearic acid
• 1/4 tsp. Emulsifying wax
• 1/4 cup herbal infusion or distilled water
• 1/4 tsp. Borax
• 1 tsp. Vitamin E oil
• 3-4 drops Essential or Fragrance oil

Put the carrier oils in a small microwave-safe bowl (I used a pyrex ramekin) and add the stearic acid and emulsifying wax. Microwave in high until the wax melts 30 to 90 seconds, depending on your microwave.

Mix the infusion/water with the borax in a small microwave-safe bowl and microwave until it boils, 30 to 60 seconds, depending on your microwave.

Pour the oils into the water, slowly and gradually, while blending all the time with an electric stick/hand blender. Blend until the mixture emulsifies, and then continue blending, 20 seconds at the time, until it cools down and thickens.

Add the vitamin E and blend until incorporated. Add the fragrance or essential oil and blend until incorporated again.

Transfer the lotion to bottles/jars.

Note: To transfer thickened lotions into bottles with a small aperture, I first spoon them into squeeze bottles and then I squirt them into the final container. A funnel may work just as well, but I don't have one :-)

Recipe adapted from Article Base.

How to make homemade body Lotion

I have made lotions for several months now, but until now I have been following recipes. The following one is the first one I've planned out by myself. Alas, I haven't made it yet and I'm not going to make it until I run out of the many other lotions I have - but I'm writing it down here so I don't lose it. This recipe should give you a bit over 10 oz of lotion.

As for the instructions, they are the usual ones. Mix the oils and waxes and heat until they emulsify. Wait until they cool down or heat the waters until they are the same temperature as the oils. Pour the oils into the water, slowly and gradually with a stick blender, until they emulsify and thicken, then add the vitamin E, preservative and fragrance and blend well.

• 1/2 oz Apricot seed oil
• 1/2 oz Shea butter
• 1/2 oz Jojoba oil
• 1/2 oz Avocado oil
• 1/2 oz Stearic acid
• 1/2 oz Emulsifying wax
• 6 oz water
• 1 oz aloe vera
• 1/4 tsp. glycerin
• 1/2 tsp. vitamin E oil
• 1/2 tsp. phenonip (preservative, skip if you want)
• 4-10 drops essential or fragrance oils
• colorant (optional)

My whole (now mostly gone) obsession with making beauty products at home, started last Christmas when I got Michaela a Scientific Explorer's Spa Science Chemistry Kit. Mika sort of liked it, but I thought the concept of making cosmetics at home was pretty cool. I have to admit that there wasn't much in the way of "science" to this kit - beyond learning about the interactions of baking soda and citric acid in making bath bombs - but I was happy that at least there was the attempt to make the kit seem scientific.

Well, it seems that Elmer's, the company which manufactures the kits under its division Scientific Explorer, thinks that attempt may be turning off some: it is now marketing the same kit under the name Totally Glamorous Spa Kit - carefully omitting the word "science". Other than that, and the fact that "Spa Science" comes under the brand "Scientific Explorer" while "Spa Kit" comes under the brand "Elmer's", the packaging is identical.

You can buy "Spa Science" at Amazon, Target and Barnes & Noble. "Glamorous Spa Kit" is available at Walmart and Toys R Us. Does this say something about the demographics of who shops in those stores and how marketers believe they should approach different demographics?

I don't know for sure, but it seems to me that Elmer is cynically assuming that some people (poorer people?) will be turned off by a kit if the word "Science" is in it, if there is even the possibility that their daughters (because this is a set which is marketed towards girls and will mostly appeal to girls) will learn something from it. That's pretty sad - as is the possibility that they might be right.

Update

I wrote to costumer service at Elmer's with this concern and this is the response I got:

"The reason that Spa Science is marketed under Scientific Explorer and
Totally Glamorous Spa Kit under the Elmer's name is not related to whether
buyers at one chain will purchase a science kit while those at another will
not. Instead, it goes back to an old arrangement prior to Elmer's purchase
of Scientific Explorer, whereby certain stores carried the Elmer's brand and
others, the Scientific Explorer brand. That has since changed and we will be
transitioning away from the Elmer's brand altogether for future science
products."

It's good to know.

The girls and I made lip gloss to gift to some of their friends. It's super-easy to do and works pretty well. We didn't have any flavoring, so we didn't add any, but feel free to do so if you'd like.

I wanted the girls to decorate the containers more, but I guess they weren't feeling very creative. Perhaps they'll do it later. You can decorate the lids by gluing beads, sequins, "jewels", gemstones, etc. You can buy the little containers for the lipgloss at craftstores or look for toiletries travel kits.

Semi-natural lip gloss recipe

• 1 oz beeswax (by weight)
• 1/2 cup grapeseed oil
• lipstick

Put the beeswax and the oil in a small cooking pot and heat over low heat until the beeswax melts, stirring occasionally. Once melted take off the heat and stir constantly until the mixture cools down and thickens. Transfer to a bowl.

Using a knife cut a tiny bit of lipstick and add it to the lip gloss mixture. Stir until the color is fully blended. Add more lipstick if you want a darker color. Add flavoring if desired. Put in small containers.

Today I found the Elmer/Scientific Explorers' Magnificent Manicure Kit at Thriftown for $2. New it retails for $17 at Amazon. I had been curious about the kit before, mostly because all in all I've enjoyed other Scientific Explorer kits (Spa Science, Perfumery and its chemistry kits). But I didn't buy it because in my experience these kits are waaaaay overpriced. They usually contain mostly the type of ingredients you have at home, plus a couple of small samples of stuff that would be a bit harder to come by. But for that you spend close to $20!

This is definitely the case with the Manicure kit. The kit comes with a 3.4oz bottle of lotion base, 4oz bottle of bath salts (aka sodium chloride or table salt), 1.2 oz bottle of crystal mud (aka sodium polyacrylate), 1ml of sodium melon fragrance, 1 ml green dye, 2 foam toe separators, a small plastic soaking tray, a measuring spoon, a mixing spoon, a small pipette, a toy nail buffer (I can't imagine it'll be good for anything) and a foot-shaped pumice stone. There is also an activity guide, which is really what you buy the kit for. My $2 kit did not have the lotion, fragrance, dye or mixing spoon - not a big deal as I have all those things at home. But indeed, I have everything the kit comes with save for the "crystal mud" (and the guide) at home.

My kids enjoyed playing with the "crystal mud" so much, that for me it was a good purchase. But the kit is definitely not worth $20, IMHO.

There isn't very much science to the kit, though the crystal mud section is used to help kids learn about saturation, which was a concept Mika didn't know before. There is also a few "fun facts" in the booklet with helpful information, though Mika was less than interested in this :-(

--

Here are the activities included in the activity guide.

- Making gel with the "crystal mud". The crystal mud is a polymer which starts as granules which can absorb 300 times their weigh in liquid. They basically become a gel when saturated, and you can use them to soak your hands for relaxation purposes. It doesn't do anything for your skin/nails, though. But Mika LOVED making and playing with the stuff and holding it in her hands.

-Adding salt to the gel, supposedly to help rub off death skin from your hands. However, this part irritated Mika's skin.

-Mixing the lotion base with color and fragrance and rubbing it in her skin. We skipped this part, though we've done it before with a previous kit and the lotion we make ourselves, and just used regular lotion.

-Buffing and shining your nails with the included nail buffer.

-Painting your nails with the non-included nail polish.

Then you do a pedicure

-Soak your feet in the gel

-Rubbing your feet with the included pumice stone

-Applying lotion to your feet

-Painting your toe nails using the included toe separators and your own nail polish.

Today I got a bottle of Mystic Blends, Success Oil made by Sun's Eye Oil. I got the 1/2 oz bottle off listia.com for 100 credits and boy, was it a bargain!

I just love this oil. It smells of incense mixed with peach and gardenias, it's just alluring and relaxing. I've decided to keep the closed bottle on my desk (the fragrance escapes it), just to be able to smell it. I'm going to try using a little bit of it with the next batch of lotion I make - I can't wait.

This may very well qualify as the frilliest, most stupid post of my not very proud posting career. But hey, I can be as frilly as the best of them.

For some reason I decided last week that I wanted to get a lot of small lipsticks - I figured the girls might have fun using them to play make-up and they were less likely to cause much damage if they were the sample size rather than the full-size (plus the others would be cheaper). So I went looking for sample lipsticks at e-bay (where else? the things are not supposed to be sold), and quickly found out that there were two main kinds: Avon and Mary Kay, not surprisingly, given that these are products sold face-to-face by "consultants".

I'm not much of a makeup wearer, and my only experience with Avon was when I was a child and my mother used to sell the line to her friends (though mostly I think she bought things for herself). I've never even met with a Mary Kay representative. I remembered the tiny lipsticks and that's what I wanted - but I couldn't tell from the blurry pictures on e-bay whether the Mary Kay packaged samples contained a small, skinny lipstick inside them. I could also not find any information about that online (imagine that - but that's why I'm posting this, in case someone else is in the same dilemma ;-). But the Mary Kay samples were cheaper (about 17c each vs. about 25c for the Avon ones) so I decided to give them a try. Oh well, you win one you lose some.

As you can see by the picture above, the Mary Kay sample consists of a tiny applicator and a very small, thin layer of lipstick. They are not kidding when they say it's for ONE application. There is probably enough to use on both my daughters, but they have small mouths.

The amount of lipstick in the Avon samples is much more generous, plus they are more like lipsticks, so I think the kids would like them more.

The real test, of course, will be what they find more fun.

A little while ago I came back from picking up Camila at daycare. Her daycare is about 2 miles from my house and I walk to pick her up and back - this means that every day, in the middle of the day, I spend almost two hours under the sun, not a trivial amount.

In my youth, that wouldn't have been an issue. I always tanned beautifully and seldom burnt (though I remember one trip to Ecuador where I didn't fare so well). But with age my skin has changed and now my face and upper chest acquires an ugly red tint if I spend almost any time under the sun (my arms, meanwhile, continue to tan just as well).

I usually hate wearing sunscreen, both for the oily feeling and the horrible coconut smell. I like spray sunscreens for this reason (and because they are easy to apply), but even those with a high SPF don't seem to work that well for me. So Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock has been a Zeus-sent to me (I was going to say godsent, but if I'm going to be invoking a god, I might as well go for the big honcho). The sunscreen is not as oily as other sunscreens, it spreads fairly easily and does not smell of coconut. More importantly, it works quite well. I use the SPF 70 stuff, what they have at Costco, and while I'm still a bit red after that walk, it's definitely nowhere as much as when I forget to put it on. This year Neutrogena has come up with an SPF-85 sunblock, available at Amazon but not at Costco, and I may try that when I run out of the stuff I have (but this stuff lasts a long time). Anyway, all of this is to say that I recommend it :-)

The girls and I have been playing at putting on make up quite frequently lately, so I've been looking for a good (and cheap) makeup remover. I found the Blum Daily Cleansing Towelettes at Grocery Outlet and, despite the price ($3 for 30), I decided to give them a try. Bad idea - they suck.

The selling point of these towelettes is that they are made with natural and organic ingredients (though if you look at the ingredients the only organic ingredient is the tea tree oil). Some of the ingredients (salicylic acid, gluconolactone) don't sound very natural, but who am I to know? The towelettes are pretty thin and they are a bit rough when you apply them. The ones I use are for combination/oily skin and they don't contain any oil - which means that they leave you with a dry feeling. That's probably a good thing.

The problem, however, is that they don't work well. My kids applied a lot of makeup to my face today, and I tried to thoroughly clean it with the towelette. It removed quite a bit of the stuff, but by no means all of it. I followed up by cleaning my face with cotton balls and a combination of 2/3 aloe vera gel and 1/3 jojoba oil, and I was amazed at how much makeup there was left over. Of course, using oil to clean my oily face is probably not a good idea - but it does work.

A few weeks ago I won an auction on listia.com for foundations and I have to say I'm quite pleased with what I got (specially because I paid the equivalent of $3 for quite for a bunch of foundations and blushes). So far, the foundation I like most is Purity Mineral Science in color "buff". It's a powder foundation and it seems to blend well to my face and cover the redness quite well. It also is easy to apply over sunscreen.

The problem with this makeup, however, is twofold. For one, it's extremely expensive. A 2 gram container, which is not very much at all, retails for $25 at their website (though I saw it for $6.50 at e-bay).

For another, the company that sells it seems less than honest. If you go to their website, you see an offer for a foundation starter kit for $1 plus shipping & handling (which is $8), but it's not until after you put the item on your shopping bag that you see a link to the "terms & conditions". And these are that you are actually signing up for a "membership" that will oblige you to pay $80 for their supposedly "free" product. If you don't want the product (and you have 3 weeks to make up your mind) you have to both call the company AND return the products, plus pay an $8 restocking fee (in addition to the price of shipping back the product). So, that $1 kit is basically costing you $24 for a 3-week supply. In addition, once you order this starter kit, you will automatically receive a 2-month supply of product for $36. And it seems they make it *very difficult* for you to cancel your membership, by not answering e-mails nor the phone - plus they make you agree to not dispute payments with your credit card. How slimy can a company be? And given how nice their products are, why do you they have to be that slimy?

Needless to say I won't be shopping from them, though I'll be sad when I run out of this foundation.