homemade vegan bath & beauty recipes?
Posted by stephsings77 on Jan 27, 2007 · Member since Sep 2004 · 23 posts
Hi. I was just wondering if a thread or a recipe section could be started to share recipes for homemade bath and beauty recipes. I hate using commercial products for a multitude of reasons, but can't afford to buy the natural products. I've tried a few recipes and really enjoy it.
Thanks
Steph
I'm just pooling this from another thread:
Zit-fighter: dab on tea tree oil several times a day--or--apply a paste made from baking soda and water and wear over night
Additionally, a zit fighter I've heard of (but never tried) is mashing fresh garlic, dabbing it on, and leaving it for 15 minutes. Seems that this may work, but it the reason might be because you would have to wash your face three hundred thousand times afterwards. . . ;)
My favorite thing to make is body scrub. I take pure jojoba oil, wonderful magical stuff and add it to coarse salt. You can also add any essential oils you want at this point. I keep a tub of it the shower especially in the winter when it is really dry up here. After you are finished soaping and rinsing just just scoop some of this up and scrub everything except your face( the salt is a bit too scratchy) and then rinse off. You don't want to wash off all the oil just rinse off the salt. Jojoba oil is very easily absorbed by the body and never leaves you feeling greasy.
I recommend buying the oil through massagewarehouse.com you can buy it here for much less than in the stores. I also wouldn't recommend many of the blend oils. I haven't found one that doesn't leave you feeling greasy and they go rancid quite quickly. Jojoba has a 100+ year shelf life.
This also makes great gifts!
I make my own shampoo from a recipe in "Natural Beauty at Home" by Janice Cox (not a vegan book; many recipes use beeswax, lanolin, eggs, and others--but still totally worth owning). The basic recipe I use is:
1 cup very hot water
1/2 cup liquid soap
1/2 cup glycerine (vegetable of course!)
1/4 cup borax powder.
Put the borax powder into a bottle and add hot water. Shake until borax is dissolved. Add glycerine and lastly soap. Let stand overnight to thicken.
This recipe does not get as thick as commercial shampoos, but I've been using it for over a year and it is just as effective as anything you would buy in a store. You can also add herbs or other ingredients to make a fancier shampoo if you want. The most expensive ingredient is vegetable glycerine, which I ended up buying in bulk (1 gallon) online--and now it is much cheaper than when I was buying commercial shampoo.
I do not use conditioners anymore--just a vingar/water rinse which I've found works beautifully.
I also make most of my own cleaning products. This has really become a lot of fun to do and you feel so much better about yourself.
Elizabeth
thanks so much for the replies. i think it would be really great to have a permanent section where we could list these recipes. right now my skin is so incredibly dry from the winter and i've been experimenting with some things. so far, olive oil seems to be the best moisturizer. and a really good sugar scrub i've found is:
1/2 cup vegan brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp aloe
1tsp water (or less just to dissolve sugar to a paste)
it's nice and softening as a scrub in the shower and followed with olive oil, it seems to help with the winter itchies.
Keep 'em coming! i need all the help i can get... :-\
Steph, I'm with you...it might be worth asking admin to give us a section on natural vegan beauty recipes. Maybe you should do a poll and then draw admin's attention to the response. I'm in! :)
You could have a "non-food" recipe category along with all the other categories. Two subheadings could be "bath and beauty" and "cleaning supplies." Good idea!
Elizabeth
ok. so i started a poll, but i didn't put that it was a poll, so i hope ppl respond :P. it's listed as non food recipes, etc. please vote! thanks!
hopfrog--what kind of liquid soap?
hopfrog--what kind of liquid soap?
Currently, I'm using this:
http://www.clearlynaturalsoaps.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=872588882
because I bought a whole case of it almost 2 years ago, and I'm still not even halfway through it. But you could use any kind you'd like.
Elizabeth
Thanks hopfrog !-- I needed a soap "category" to put it in. :)
i recently went vegan and my baby recently got teeth. ouch! now, i don't feel like i can use lanolin, but what else works and is safe? help, my boobs are vegan too....
ps. sorry for the terrible spelling! i was rushing...
under the pull down recipe categories thing on the left there is a non-food items link. go there!
Now I don't have babies, but I do have shea butter which is delightful on dry skin. I get it at my co-op (NOW brand); they also have raw cocoa butter in the bulk/spice section that is wonderfully soft and aromatic, and I presume baby friendly. I can't imagine either would be harmful to kiddies.
Good luck, ouch, my girls are feelin' for ya!
I started making my own soap about a year ago and I think it's a fun hobby. I make all sorts of bars in various scents and I package them up and give them as gifts. I really like the quality and texture of homemade soap and it can also be very economical to make. I found an awesome resource for soap making supplies that supplies everything that a person could hope for including all different oils and a good selection of packaging including nice little tins. The packaging is especially good as I can give a very finished product to my friends and family. :)