making skincare products in the neighborhood
April 10, 2011 § Leave a comment
I love when I meet new people with this project and it’s even more fun when I meet new people who only live 4 houses away. When my friend Jessica found out I was making skincare products, she introduced me to her friend Faith who also happens to be a neighbor I had yet to meet. The 3 of us had a leisurely Sunday morning together where Faith taught us how to make cold process soap and lip balm.
When I walked in and saw all of the materials I joked that my husband said it was going to be like Fight Club for ladies when I left this morning. Sure enough there were goggles and gloves for handling the lye, which can burn your skin when it comes in contact. Faith mentioned you have to sign a waiver to get it because apparently it’s also used to make meth. We steered away from that and focused on making some nice smelling soaps instead.
Faith introduced me to a site I wish I had known about earlier in the week called BrambleBerry.com. It’s a much more economical way to make stuff at home vs buying stuff at Whole Foods. First we made a cold process soap. I found a similar recipe, although we added in essential oils for scent, some coloring and loofa for exfoliation. Faith mentioned an essential oil kit you can buy to try out scents you might like before you pay for them separately.
The process is fairly easy, but it’s important to be careful working with the lye. Faith was good about having “lye only” equipment vs using everyday kitchen bowls. Other than that it is a simple process and the beauty is that you can make all kinds of combinations based on your own personal taste. She had an oil called tomato leaf that smelled amazing. I think I will like trying out some almond & oatmeal, since that is one of my favorites. The soap will take about 4 weeks to sit until it’s ready to use but then lasts a year, so it’s great to make batches at a time. Cold process soap involves saponification, which you are welcome to read more about in your leisure.
Next Faith showed us how to make our own lip balm. I will have to get the recipe and post it. You can find a number of different recipes here on the Soap Queen blog to try. This was not only simple to do, but for about $10 we made about 45 tubes of lip balm. Consider you usually pay $4 for lip balm that is generally pretty waxy. These are made with really good ingredients.
We made them in two flavors: grapefruit & honey. Delicious as well as moisturizing. Faith even had fun containers to put them in.
Today was not only another fun day of learning just how easy & inexpensive it is to make your own natural products but also great to meet another great neighbor!
52 To Do 
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