Over the years doing this blog, I’ve done lots of research on DIY products. Now, my daily ablutions are all taken care of with homemade products…’cept the cotton swabs and toothbrushes!
In the Shower
- Baking Soda solution in old rubbing alcohol bottle (shampoo, body wash)
- Dilute solution of apple cider vinegar in old peroxide bottle (conditioner, body soap residue remover)
- Small bottle of face oil (cleaning face, moisturizer, make-up removal)
- Bar of Soap for shampoo or body wash if I’m dirty enough to need lather.
At the Sink
- Baking Soda with optional essential oil, dry in jar (toothpaste, hand washing)
- Homemade deodorant.
- Body butter (a softer version of the lotion bars found only in our book)
- Peroxide (cleaning ears, treating open boo-boos and blemishes)
Not DIY
- Toothbrush
- Q-tips
- Floss picks (I’m addicted to the generic Kroger version.)
Great post, I’m a hairstylist as my day job and when I first meet a client and look at their hair it is almost always coated with silicone, which is a synthetic oil that produces a nice “slip” in your hair and on your skin BUT leaves the worst buildup imaginable! Women think it’s just there hair being unhealthy, no its the silicone buildup. So I always advice a cider vinegar rinse/treatment to remove it and they come back in for their next appt with gorgeous shiney hair! I then try to steer them away from silicone products to a more natural and healthy alternatives. Thanks for the great post!
Do you have a lip balm recipe? I adore the lotion bars and oil facial cleansing! Thanks so much!
Melissa–Yes! Here: https://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com2008/11/homemade-lip-balm.html
Hooray!!! Thank you so much!!
Do you have a recipe for the body butter listed above (#3 in At the Sink)? I have made the lotion bars and love them but would be interested in the body butter too. Thank you!
Christy–The only one we have is the one in our book. None on the site. I’m sure an internet search will turn up some perfectly good ones. Remember you can substitute practically any solid oil for any solid oil, liquid oil for liquid oil, etc. so you don’t have to buy every little ticky different oil all the recipes use.
I really like your blog, lots of useful information to be found. I’ve been doing a lot of research lately and am turning more and more towards natural and homemade products. Hope that one day I’ll get to the point where basically all my beauty products/detergents will be homemade. Keep up the good work!
As for toothbrushes, I use Preserve (made from recycled yogurt cups). It comes with a postage-paid return envelope. Preserve will recycle your used toothbrush.
http://www.preserveproducts.com/products/personalcare.html
The toothbrush is too slender to stay in our ceramic toothbrush holder, so I put a slid a small Lego tire on the middle of the handle. Works like a charm.
Cute. I have the opposite problem. All the new toothbrushes don’t fit in our 80 year old toothbrush holders. This would work for me without the tire.
Not that I don’t have a thousand Lego tires, though . . .
Why natural DIY products rock? Last night I used my deodorant as Goo Gone to get a sticky label off a foaming soap dispenser I wanted to reuse with Dr. Bronner’s.
Come to think of it, I could have used my toothpaste for that same purpose!