Full Disclosure and Goodbye for Now

Okay folks, here's the scoop.

This post is probably going to be my last on this blog and though it somewhat pains me to admit that fact, I just have too much on my plate as a fiction author to leave stuff like this hanging out there untouched forever.

I'm learning the practice of letting go and it has truly been a blessing to let myself off the hook for trying to do everything. I have enough going on with my full time job to add even more to the pile.

Some things are going to fall off the back end. This blog is one of those things.

I'm a person who likes things natural, Green, environmentally conscious, and that won't change, but I'm also a person who likes to feel good. As my husband always says:

"Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's good for you." 

He's right.

The thing that sucks is when I have to admit he's right and stop trying to be "healthy" because it is messing with our health in the long run. I have finally learned what the word 'balance' really means.

Before I go for good though, I want to give an update on where our household stands on all things homemade, natural, organic and why we are at the place we are right now. Some things are left out there in limbo and you readers deserve a wrap-up on how, why, or why I'm not using those items anymore.

Oh, and FYI, none of the links in this post are affiliate links.

Toothpaste. Yes, I still love making our toothpaste and feel it does a fantastic job of cleaning our teeth. It is quick and fairly simple and now that I have the formula down I know it not only saves us money in the long run but does the job without chemicals. If I decide to give up everything else, the toothpaste will be the one thing I don't stop making.

Body lotion. I made a batch early last summer and I loved it. The stuff was like visiting a tropical island where the air hints at coconut, lemon, lime, warm breezes, and sunshine. It melted into my skin and felt ah-mazing. But then the moisture of the tropics came to the inside of the jar and the stuff started to mold. After only a couple weeks. I thought that was weird because I use primarily shelf-stable ingredients and in the past had a jar last upwards of 5 months with no trouble. Also, I never reach into the jar or place it near water. I tried again. Same result. I don't know what happened because none of my ingredients had issues. Instead of wasting more shea/cocoa butter and essential oils I stopped making my own and started experimenting with commercially available products from handmade sellers. I haven't settled on any one product yet and that's okay. Someday I'll find my go-to.

Laundry detergent. Oh boy, this one is the biggie. I was so thrilled to find a formula that seemed to get our clothes clean. The problem: it started causing major skin irritation in some of our, let's just say, more sensitive areas. At first I didn't know it was the detergent so it took some time to figure out but once I did realize what was going on I had a half a gallon of useless liquid left over. I did a LOT of research after that debacle and ended up buying Biokleen Laundry Liquid last July. It gets an A rating from ewg.org and that's good enough for me. The best news: I spent $27.00 to buy the 150 oz. and I'm only about halfway through the bottle. The stuff is super concentrated and we have an HE washer so it lets us use even less. Clothes are clean, non-irritating, and at an average of 4 loads per week I spend about $0.14 per load. More expensive than making my own but less irritating and still super cheap compared to a name brand jug of chemicals.

Lip balm. I will continue to make this forever. It moisturizes, lasts longer than petroleum based sticks, and is low on the time investment scale.

Other stuff. Makeup is my next hurdle. I've noticed recently that I sometimes get headaches after wearing chemical based crap all day. No thanks. I'm switching over to RMS Beauty, Ilia, Alima Pure, Au Naturale, Beauty by Earth, Afterglow Cosmetics, or other organic based products with an ewg rating under 3. The challenge here will be to buy just what I need because some of those products are CRAY expensive! And as a person who believes environment means personal, local, and global, I won't break my bank just to look pretty for the 3 times a week I leave the house.

Haircare is under total control with Shea Moisture. I love it and though some products rate a bit higher than I'd like, everything I use is under 3.

Soap and deodorant were two fails when I tried to make my own. And other producers just make them better. For the past year I've been using Aspen Kay Naturals dead sea and Neem soap bars. I love it and for the first time my skin isn't dry after a shower. I barely even need lotion. Recently though, my friend turned me on to Hickory Ridge Organics soap and so far I'm loving the Balinese Coffee body soap. She also sells a deodorant I'm planning to try and her moisturizer bars look (and smell) good enough to eat! They are a bit pricey and could melt in transit from FL so if anyone knows of a similar seller here in AZ I'd love to check them out. Leave me a comment!

Food is another area where we have tried to streamline. Within the next year Matt should have his garden up and going but in the meantime I buy organic wherever possible, try to shop at the Farmer's Market when I can, and we are now getting weekly delivery of SunBasket. Organic and locally sourced when possible, their meals (and even the recycled packaging) are fantastic. It runs us about $75 per week for the 3 meals but that has actually saved us money because we eat every bite of food we make (no tossing leftovers anymore) and I don't over-buy at the store only to toss things gone bad later. 

So there you have it. Bottom line, I'm done trying to be a chemist who handcrafts everything. Between life, work, and hobbies I'm a busy gal with less and less time on my hands every day. I will happily transition back to commerce to free up more of that limited time as well as help support some smaller businesses who are much better at doing all of this than I am.

Like I said, this is likely my last post over here so I want to thank all of you who have stuck with me through the last ten years as this blog transitioned to many different iterations from where it began. Your loyalty has meant so much.

I'm streamlined now so if you want to find me and my opinions online, visit my personal blog
Randomness and Lunacy
or my author page on Amazon.

Again, thanks for being here and I wish all of you a long, healthy life xoxo

• • • • • • • • • • • PLEASE NOTE:

1) A new window opens when you click to comment.
2) Comments on posts older than 3 days will be moderated. Spam will be deleted. I am the sole decision maker on what constitutes spam. Anonymous comments are no longer accepted.
3) Nothing in this blog is meant to treat, cure, diagnose or otherwise fix anyone's ailments. I am not a doctor or other medical professional. Each post is simply an opinion of how something performs for me personally. Reading this blog or trying to make these products for yourself isn't advice for how to take care of yourself and shouldn't be construed as such. Always seek the advice of a medical professional.

The Highs and Lows of Creating DIY Beauty Products

Recently back from a week in a humid location, my husband and I noticed something about our old friend humidity. We loved it!

As soon as the door opened to the jetway back at Sky Harbor we both started losing moisture from our skin. And let me tell you, for the week we were traveling our skin felt and looked better than it had since we moved to AZ.

For 5 years now we’ve forced ourselves to suffer. Well, suffer no more I say!

In recent years I’ve been on a mission to naturalize our home and beauty products.

It started with toothpaste, which we still use and love. Then I moved on to laundry detergent (also, love), eliminated even more chemicals with wool dryer balls, then went all-in and started buying a bunch of stuff in bulk.

Shea butter, cocoa butter, beeswax, arrowroot powder (because I had/have dreams of creating makeup), vinegar, baking soda, liquid castile soap, essential oils, coconut oil by the truckload…

And then it was time to start experimenting. So experiment I did, with mixed results.

I blame it on my inability to sit still during science classes 30 years ago. That and the fact we never learned about this kind of stuff in school to begin with– why do some oils need to be heated, what does it do to the properties of the molecule, why does that make it more likely to mix with another element, how come some things don’t mix, why do I need a carrier oil when using essential oils…

If they taught that shit in high school I’d be a master mixer by this point and probably would have gotten better than a C in science. But here I am, still learning today!

The good news? I’m a grownup now and get to do my research without the silly grading system or pressure to perform during the school year. So, with the time to properly learn and give things a try, I’ve managed to test out quite a few home products.

Here’s how things are going so far:

• Lip balm – epic win!
• Body butter – semi-win (turned out a little too solid, less cocoa butter next time).
• Toothpaste – epic win!
• Face lotion – win.
• Lip gloss – meh (beet root powder didn’t blend well with coconut oil).
• Face powder – meh (I don’t love loose powder but the color was okay).
• Shampoo – EPIC fail (can we say greasy oil slick?)!
• Deodorant – fail (either too loose or too solid).

The 2 things I was skittish on trying my hand at making? Body wash and shave cream/lotion. Which might sound strange but I didn’t want anything that would cause my klutzy self to take a dive in that wet location.

So I put it off until last week. Why last week? Last week a new, shiny product arrived in the house and rekindled my inspiration for creating shower products!

Allow me a minute to explain how that particular product came to be in our house.

One of the other things I’ve been doing in recent years is really looking at all the items we purchase and “consume” in addition to food. For example, my shaving razors.

I might go hippie chick to a point but I love being a modern American hippie girl. That smooth leg, pit, and bikini line feeling is something I love on my body so I don’t plan to give it up anytime soon. Of course, that means limited choices and I have to pick one.

Laser hair removal. I’m torn on this one. On the one hand I’d be altering the natural rhythm of my body by literally killing the hair root so it simply stops growing forever. On the other hand, it stops growing forever! Eventually. After a certain number of treatments I could stop spending time/effort/money on any or all of the rest of this list. It’s tempting. But cost prohibitive. Next…

Waxing. Never done it. Very skittish of pain. Plus, it isn’t one and done, I’d have to keep paying someone else to hurt me on purpose and let the hair grow out in the meantime. If I wanted pain on purpose I’d go get another tattoo, thanks. Next…

Esthetician. Do they still use those swirling at light-speed, rip your hair out, tweezer in a container things? Not sure I want to find out. And speaking of Tweezers, um, no. That’s okay for my brows but not so much for legs. Next…

Removal cream. For a while this seemed like the ultimate idea – no nicks, no razor burn, slop it on and it’s 3 minutes to done! – but then I realized  what I’m really doing is giving my entire leg a chemical burn/peel. Absorbing all that crap into my body. Eek. Next…

Electric razor. So my MIL told me that’s what she uses. Sounded so smart! I tested it out on my legs using my husband’s (thanks Matt!) but quickly discovered that process isn’t for me. The thing felt awesome at first, gliding over my leg with ease. Until I saw the blood. Worst nicking/razor burn of my life and I tried both wet and dry. Next…

Disposable razors. Ah yes, the trusty old standby. The port in the storm. And probably the single most expensive piece of equipment in my bathroom. As a girl (because you know our products are always “better designed for women” AKA: more expensive for the same shiz the guys use) I can buy a 4 pack of the moisture strip razors for about $25. With legs to shave (even ones as short as mine) and various other bits and parts, I spent that $25 about once a month. Yes, that’s hovering at $300 every year just to feel sexy!

Now before you get all in my face about “feeling sexy starts on the inside” remember I told you I like my smooth legs for me. Because I feel sexy. So there it is. I buy into the line they feed me and I don’t really care because it makes me feel good.

But I digress…

Since the other options weren’t going to work for me for various reasons I settled on the fact that I’d be buying disposable razors for the rest of my I-still-want-to-feel-sexy life. So I started doing my research and even though it seemed like a gimmick at first, I’m the newest member of the Dollar Shave Club.

I used to use men’s razors all the time. My shin bones are prominent and women’s razors never seem to have the ability to bend. It’s probably because of the pounds worth of “moisturizer” they surround the blade with, trying to convince us that it might actually provide moisture.

It doesn’t.

Because it’s nothing more than a chemical compound that leaves a film of crap on my skin which supposedly allows the razor to glide across my skin.

Again, it doesn’t.

Most of the time I’d have worse razor burn with a first use of a women’s razor than a third use of the men’s. But men’s razors are pretty expensive too so I wanted something more pocket friendly. Enter DSC.

I’m only into my first month but I love the razors. They have some give in the blade head to get through problem areas but don’t have a ton of bells and whistles. They don’t try to convince you that a Dyson roller ball in the middle of your razor or a pound of moisturizer are essential to shaving.

When I ordered it was just the razor but of course they sent me a sample of their Dr. Carver’s Easy Shave Butter. I tried it.

Ho-lee heaven!

Thing is, the site says it uses sea algae and oats and barley and prickly pear cactus but the full ingredients list isn’t available on my little sample. Because I wasn’t sure I tried to make my own.

Based on a few bloggers I love, I tested out a few different recipes to see what might work the best. I came up with one using Shea butter, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, liquid castile soap, and lavender E.O.

Now here’s where things get tricky.

I whipped it so it could go into one of these open end tubes I bought back when I started making toothpaste (the tubes are too huge for the paste, we use a glass container and butter knife to apply to our toothbrushes). It scooped okay but my formula may have been a bit off because it started to fall and slightly separate as I spooned it into the tube.

But I persevered and tried it yesterday.

Um…

Pros:

It didn’t dry out my legs.

It smells awesome.

It glides on, sort of.

It is all natural.

But like Matt always says: Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Cons:

My razor clogged with every swipe. Which I didn’t realize until I pulled it up my shin 2-3 times, knowing right away I’d have razor burn (it was mild, I’ll say that much, but it was there). And the water wasted down the drain while I spent so much time cleaning out my razor hardly seems environmentally friendly.

The razor had only been used 1 other time so it wasn’t dull blades. In fact, I tried it after shaving my legs on my pits using the last of the DSC shave butter and it was a-ok.

Meaning I needed to track down an ingredients list for the shave butter.

According to Badger & Blade this is what you’ll find in the Dr. Carver’s Easy Shave Butter:

Water, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Cyclopentasiloxane, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil, Grape Seed Oil, Oat Kernel Extract, Willow Bark Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Algae Extract, Papaya Fruit Extract, Pineapple Fruit Extract, Camelia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Panax Ginsing Root Extract, Propanediol, Cyclohexasiloxane, Dimethicone, Phospholipids, Retinyl Palmitate, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment Filtrate, Hydrolyzed Barley Protein, Opuntia Ficus-Indica Stem Extract, Orange Peel Extract, Rosemary Leaf Oil, Lavender Oil, Eucalyptus Globulus Leaf Oil, Dimethiconol, Potassium Sorbate, Hydroxypropyl Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Disodium EDTA, Ethylhexyglycerin, Phenoxyethanol.

No parabens, no animal testing. (Good, but not enough)

I got to the 4^th ingredient, looked it up and sighed. It’s a silicone. And a potentially scary one at that.

Sorry DSC but when the EWG deems an ingredient to be “bioaccumulative” with the potential for endocrine disruption, cancer, and neurotoxicity, I throw it away and don’t look back.

Razors? Check! Butter? Back to the mixing bowl.

Have you ever made your own shave butter/lotion/gel? What ingredients do you use and what would be your deal breakers if they were involved? Have you found a readily available all-natural product you could recommend? Leave a comment and let us know!

• • • • • • • • • • • 
PLEASE NOTE: A new window opens when you click to comment. Comments on posts older than 3 days will be moderated. Spam will be deleted. I am the sole decision maker on what constitutes spam. Anonymous comments are no longer accepted.

Blossoming Tree Bodycare Lavender Facial Soap and Lotion

Over the course of the last five or so years, I have seemed to develop sensitive and breakout prone skin. I have tried just about everything imaginable to get my face back to the way it looked when I was a teenager and considering it is the complete opposite of normal, I have been baffled for many years about what to do. Recently I discovered a skin system that has been working fairly well on my breakout areas but was wreaking dry skin havoc on the normal places on my face (cheeks and nose).

When a friend of mine, Lisa Abdul-Quddus, Owner and all around magician of creation over at Blossoming Tree Bodycare, (Etsy shop here) was running a contest to comment and receive a sample of her homemade lavender facial lotion and cleansing bar, I had to give it a shot! I was a lucky recipient of the sample pack and I am fully converted!

The areas of my face that receive the slightly drying cleansing are fully rehydrated with the amazingly rich and creamy lotion. But it is not sticky or greasy, it soaks in but leaves my skin feeling soft and smelling great. With coconut, sunflower and jojoba oils plus shea butter I can definitely understand why. To keep a nice even balance she also includes apple cider vinegar but the recipe starts out with water.

As for the soap, it spawns from organic olive oil, water and other natural ingredients. The ground lavender buds provide just the right level of scrub without being too damaging to my skin and as opposed to those plastic beads in some facial scrubs that will sit on the bottom of the ocean forever, lavender buds will simply go back into the Earth. Since I tend not to use soaps on my face, I keep this baby in the shower as a nice, gentle, underarm exfoliant.

Overall I must say that I am completely blown away by the lavender lotion so I fully intend to get over to her shop (my body lotion is running low!) as I know I can find some yummy goodness to pick up there. Although sparse at the moment Lisa intends to fill up stock soon and in the meantime you can keep your eye on her Blossoming Tree Bodycare Facebook page for information and contests.

The commitment to using organic and natural ingredients wherever possible has earned Blossoming Tree Bodycare a Three and a Half Leaf Rating!

Thanks for keeping your eye on the planet as well as our beautiful skin! ♥love♥

LUSH Cosmetics is Taking a Stand against Palm Oil

About a week ago I received two bars of soap from LUSH Cosmetics. The name is Jungle Soap and even before I opened the box I could smell the familiar scent of patchouli. Not only does the soap smell nice, the reason for its creation certainly is nice.

In an effort to reduce expansion of palm oil plantations in the rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia, which can be devastating to the indigenous tribes and animals who currently inhabit these lands, LUSH Cosmetics donated 100% of the profits from their limited edition Jungle Soaps (which retailed for only $5.95) to the Rainforest Foundation. Cool!

The Jungle Soap was created using a palm-free base, now introduced into all the other soaps in the LUSH line, and in doing this the company estimates to have reduced their consumption of the oil by 133,000 pounds; equal to 36.3 acres of rainforest saved. The soap is attractive too, it came in a deep forest green color and in the shape of a tree. Neither of which, I imagine, were a coincidence.

Although the company has indicated they strive to create a 100% palm oil free soap they admit it is difficult as the oil is rampant in just about everything including two of the main ingredients used to create soap - Sodium Stearate and Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.

I was impressed to learn that the company’s focus is on using natural ingredients (organic fruit and veggies) as well as essential oils, that they are always 100% vegetarian and they do carry a Vegan line. It probably also doesn’t hurt that as a girl who loves her bath products I could spend days perusing their catalog LUSH Times.

What I was a bit baffled by however was the packaging my soaps were shipped in. The company boasts their products are generally sold “naked” (60% of all products are free of any packaging) and that the company participates in public awareness campaigns with regard to over-packaging. Unfortunately when I received my two 3” x 2-1/2” x ½” soaps they were wrapped up in a 13” x 10” x 4” box stuffed with paper based packing material. Eek. I can understand the desire to protect something a bit delicate but this was way over the top.

All told LUSH Cosmetics’ attention on the rainforests of southeast Asia and the steps they are taking to ensure the survival of the native people and animals in the region by providing an ecologically responsible product that gives back, really impressed me and I am granting LUSH Cosmetics a Three Leaf Rating!

I am excited to try more of your lovely products LUSH so please get cracking on lessening that packaging and your Leaf Rating will skyrocket! ♥love♥