Coconut Make up Remover and Cleanser

I am not looking at bottle and jars to use to make my own healthy products. I have ordered supplies but I am still looking around for things I need.

"What?!" you say ... yes, I've started making my own beauty products. It's actually pretty easy. I have bought a lot of  beauty products but I know they are pretty bad as far as chemicals go. Look at the back of any moisturizer bottle and you'll see what I mean ... So I started buying organic cleansers and shampoos and moisturizers, but they can be a bit expensive.

I finally got up the courage to try some recipes from a book  Bodyworks: Restoring Wellbeing with Homemade Lotions, Potions and Balms. and found recipes on this site, they have taken all the work out of me playing with ingredients ;) http://www.easypeasyorganic.com/2010/04/save-money-by-making-it-yourself.html

One of the most magical ingredients for cleaning your skin is Coconut Oil. I'd never bought it before this, but now I love it. It has a gorgeous light coconutty scent, it's wonderful for the skin, it tastes great, and it's meant to be good for your immunity and health. And I got a 500 mL jar of organic coconut oil (above) for $8 that will last me for ages.

Here are two of my new standards (adapted from Bodyworks: Restoring Wellbeing with Homemade Lotions, Potions and Balms) for you to try ... I recommend you give them a go for yourself then start saving jars for Mother's Day presents!

NOTE: See if you can get virgin coconut oil ... less processing is generally better.

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Coconut Make Up Remover

3 Tbs coconut oil
3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil or apricot kernel oil
*Try to use organic ingredients when you can 

Put the oils in a small pot or jar,  and mix them. Dip a cotton ball in the mixed oil and gently wipe your eye area. Rinse off with water and follow with your regular cleansing regime. This will cost you less than $1 a batch.

NOTE: It's best to make homemade beauty products in small quantities, to keep them fresh. Try to get organic ingredients when you can, you deserve it! Also try to store them out of the light (which can oxidise some oils) and use a fresh cotton ball or Qtip each time.

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Coconut Honey Cleanser

5 Tbs coconut oil

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil or apricot kernel oil

2-3 tsp boiled water

2 tsp (raw if you can find it) honey

10 drops lavender essential oil*

*Always keep essential oils out of the reach of children
**Try to use organic ingredients when you can

As I learned this morning (having freshly run out of cleanser), there are two ways to make this cleanser:

1. The original way, which is much like making mayonnaise … in which you slowly drizzle a warmed water/honey mix into the warmed oils as you stir, stir, stir. Keep stirring. Drizzle slowly. It should thicken as it cools and you’ll have a beautiful creamy cleanser. (But I’ve never been good at making mayonnaise …). Add the essential oils at the end.
  
2.  The lazy way!
Put all the ingredients into a small bottle or pot and shake, shake, shake! This doesn’t give you a creamy cleanser, but let’s be practical here … when you want to throw this together while your two year old is pulling on your pajama leg it doesn’t really matter if it’s creamy or not. If you do this the lazy way, though, just be sure to shake your cleanser before each time you use it as the honey tends to like to remove itself from the mix.

Also, I was up for something different and added lemon essential oil instead of lavender. Zing!

This cleanser feels a little oily when you rinse it off, but I find that by the time I've dried my face with a towel it feels amazing and not oily at all. In my estimation this organic cleanser will cost you around $2.00 per batch.