Body Lotion Recipe

I hit pay dirt yesterday! My shipment from Mountain Rose Herbs finally came in and I was able to try out this lotion recipe I adapted from a recipe I found online here, www.the-soap-dish.com/basic-lotion-formula.htm. I made some changes to the formula, mainly using different oils, but more or less using their formula as a guideline.

I made this lotion for my husband, who MUST use lotion after every bath on his extremely rough, dry skin. Unlike me, pure oils and butters on damp skin do nothing for him. Previous homemade lotion recipes that I came up with were either too waxy, leaving a residue, or too oily, leaving skin dry and greasy. He has been using Gold Bond Ultimate lotion, which works great for him, but has toxic parabens and low quality ingredients. This final recipe, is comparable to the Gold Bond and has received his seal of approval.

About the lotion:

1. It is THICK. After cooling and setting up, it has the consistency of mayonaisse. It probably wouldn't work great in a pump or squeeze bottle. I've stored mine in a glass jar.

2. It penetrates quickly. My initial reaction was that it penetrated too quickly and wouldn't be emollient enough. In my experience, lotions that work take a long time to rub in...

3. It is magical. Despite penetrating quickly and feeling "watery" when rubbing it in, immediately after rubbing it in, the skin feels soft, smooth, and moisturized. It has great emolliency without feeling greasy.

Here is the recipe and directions:

Oil Phase

1 oz shea butter

.3 oz coconut oil

.7 oz cocoa butter

1 oz castor oil

.8 oz emulsifying wax

.8 oz stearic acid

Water Phase

15 oz water

.2 oz citric acid

.6 oz glycerin

additional ingredients: .2 oz optiphen and .4 oz fragrance

Directions: Boil water and allow to cool slightly while mixing and melting oil phase. Weigh out oil phase ingredients and melt in a large glass mixing bowl. Add glycerin and citric acid to water and mix with stick blender for a few seconds. Pour water phase into oil phase and mix well with stick blender 2-3 minutes. Allow to cool 10 minutes, then add optiphen and fragrance and mix with stick blender 2-3 minutes. Allow to cool for 20 minutes, mix with stick blender and allow to cool completely before pouring into glass jar.

Just a note about fragrance, it is optional, but I really like it. I used chocolate serendipity from Southern Soapers, and really like the chocolate cake scent. It reminds me of Palmer's Cocoa butter smell, which is one of my favorites.

A note about optiphen, this is a preservative, and also optional. However if you choose not to use it, then you must store your lotion in the refrigerator and plan to use it within a month.

Summer Garden transitions to Fall!

So as I have talked about earlier, I have an unjustifiable loyalty to the notion of gardening. I've cycled through 4 or 5 gardening seasons, and put in brief spurts of strenuous labor here and there, with little to show for it. I'm TRYING here! I have to give myself credit for that. Somehow, I need to muster up the motivation to try harder.

For the summer garden, I managed to till the earth several times, build a raised garden box from reclaimed scrap wood, fill it with dirt, manure, compost. Dig rows in the ground garden. I also filled several pots for a container garden of herbs and tomatoes. In the raised garden box I planted radishes, beets, carrots, and tomatoes. In the ground garden, I planted black pole beans, squash, mustard greens, okra, cucumbers, and again tomatoes. Sounds like a ton of work right? Not to mention watering and weeding consistently...

You would think that I would be swimming in produce, right? WRONG. Not to say I didn't get anything, but not enough to live off of. Obviously, I can do better. So, I will be pulling up all the summer foliage in a few days, tilling, spreading the compost pile in the ground and letting it bake in prep for the fall garden which will be planted in September. One day, I will get the hang of this...

Another Great Couple- Peanut Butter and Marshmallow

Good Lawdy this was good! I smooshed 2 halved marshmallows between some cinnamon-raisin Ezekial Bread with a smear of peanut butter, then I pan fried it in a generous pat of butter. Wonderful!

Flaxseed Gel

I bought a pound of flaxseed a while ago, intending to use it in my diet. I did use it a little, ground up as a binder in vegan recipes, or stirred into my oatmeal, but I usually forget about it. I've seen mention of flaxseed gel for hair on various hair blogs and after watching a youtube video tutorial yesterday, I decided to finally make my own. It was very easy, just boil 1/4 cup with 2 cups of water, then strain and let cool. So I applied this gel generously to my hair and got some popping curls! I am so excited to have another all natural home-made product to add to my beauty arsenal, AWESOMENESS!

Sweet Summer!

There are a few things that make the sweltering summer heat not only bearable but welcome in my opinion. One of those things is cold watermelon and it just so happened to be my breakfast this morning... this is the less common yellow meat variety, juicy and sweet!
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Hair day!

Sunday, when I went to the beach I had my hair loose and free and paid no mind to the salt water and wind. I washed it when I got home, applied conditioner and wet bunned it... without detangling. Last night I lightly washed my hair and applied a henna treatment overnight... again without detangling. This morning after dunking my hennaed head into a bucket of water twice to remove most of the paste, I washed and rinsed my hair, applied a deep conditioning treatment and sat under the hooded dryer for about 30 minutes. I then attempted to rinse out the deep treatment in the shower, it was too thick and oily to be rinsed away without shampoo, but since that would be the 4th time shampooing in 3 days I just rinsed best I could and stepped out. At this point it became clear that I was in for one hellacious detangling session. As I raked my hand through my hair it felt as though locs were already forming. I didn't have much detangling leave-in conditioner so I watered down what I did have so I would have enough to distribute throughout my whole head, which effectively watered down the detangling power of it. I was too lazy to finger detangle thoroughly and used my detangling comb for most of the job. I noticed quite a few broken hairs on my palms- not cool. I two strand twisted each detangled section, ending up with 8 greasy twists. I guess I will make another batch of leave-in conditioner and then wash my hair a little later today, then prep for a twist-out. I'll come back and post a pic of the final outcome...

ETA: I didn't rewash my hair, I re-two strand twisted my hair after it air-dried.

A time to buy!

I enjoy shopping... however I am incredibly indecisive at times. Especially with online shopping because it feels much more final to me and the items aren't tangible before purchase. None the less, online shopping has become more and more prevalent in my purchasing experience due to the fact that I live in a super small town and getting some items locally is either impossible or prohibitively inconvenient.



I have filled and emptied my online shopping cart more times than makes sense and now I realize it would be better to wait until payday so I can pay down my credit card before making any additional purchases...

I am going to limit my purchases to these 3 items: citric acid, emulsifying wax, shea butter

Hopefully, I will not be strayed between now and then...

A Day at the Beach!

Back from a day at the beach, it was intense! I had a blast and really enjoyed watching Manny frolick in the water and shovel sand with his cousins.