Homemade Lipstick with Natural Ingredients

As I mentioned before, lipstick is my all-time favorite beauty product, so I thought it was only fitting that it be my first homemade creation. There are a plethora of natural lipstick recipes floating around, so I tried my hand at a few. After playing around with different ingredients, I got a pretty good idea of what I liked, so I came up with my own simple recipe. This lipstick is really conditioning and has a glossy finish. It's suitable for everyday wear, but the wash is quite sheer. I'd still like to come up with a more matte and pigmented formula, but all in good time.

Recipe:

• 2 tsp Castor Oil
• 1.25 tsp Beeswax pastilles
• 1 tsp Jojoba Oil
• .5 tsp Shea Butter
• .5 tsp Coconut Oil
• .5 tsp Grapeseed Oil
• 1 drop Vitamin E
• Desired amount of pigment

Put the beeswax in a double boiler and add all the oils, plus the vitamin e. Heat until pastilles are completely melted, stirring frequently. Add your choice of pigment, starting small and adding more until desired colored is achieved. Mix well and pour into an oiled lipstick mold as liquid begins to cool. Put lipstick mold in freezer for about ten minutes, trim excess, and pop out completely lipstick. Place in tubes.

Alternately, you can combine all the ingredients excluding the pigment and put in the microwave. Heat slowly in about 15 second increments. Add pigment. If not using a lipstick mold, the liquid can be poured into empty makeup pots or directly into lip balm tubes.

Some choices of natural pigments include beet root powder or turmeric, or you can choose to use FDA approved, cosmetic grade pigments that can be purchased from reputable retailers. Make sure you are using a pigment that is approved for use on lips.

WARNING: The safety of this product has not been tested.
WARNING: The statements made here have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure or prevent any disease. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

 

Homemade Rosemary Leaf Extract

Recipe:

• 1/2 Cup of fresh rosemary needles harvested straight from the plant
• 1 Cup Vodka

When I started making my own cosmetics with as many natural ingredients as possible, I really didn't have many of the ingredients on hand though most of them are quite common and easy to find. That meant I had to spend a bit of cash to get this project started. Rosemary Leaf Extract can be purchased from reputable sources for about $10 - $13 per 2 oz, but I got to thinking. I have a nice rosemary plant blooming out back that I grew from a start, just waiting to be utilized. One can only cook with so much rosemary on a daily basis and this plant can produce! So as I said, I wondered if I could use my homegrown rosemary to create my own extract. How cool would that be to use my own herbs in my homemade cosmetics?

I did some digging and found it can be done! And easily!

I chopped off some stems from my rosemary plant, then washed and air-dried them. Once they were clean, I harvested 1/2 cup of rosemary needles (leaves) from the stem and placed them into a mason jar. I then covered them with 1 cup of vodka. We bought it in bulk at Costco, so it was still cheaper to use than to buy a small bottle of ready-made extract. I closed the lid tightly, shook it up, labeled it with that day's date and put it in a cool, dark cupboard for about six weeks. I shook it up occasionally just to check on its progress, but it's important to avoid too much exposure to light.

After six weeks, my liquid was an amber color and ready to be bottled for use. I took a sieve and lined it with an unbleached coffee filter. I poured the liquid through the sieve into a glass bowl. Once it was all strained, I gathered up the coffee filter with the leftover rosemary needles and gave it a good hard squeeze. Then I stored my rosemary leaf extract in small, dark bottles and labeled with the date. And there you have it, homemade rosemary leaf extract.

Note: I discarded the leftover rosemary leaves because I ended up with more rosemary leaf extract than I could use before it goes bad, but if you're interested in making a lot, you can actually save the leaves and do the process again to make even more extract!

Note: Only do this with rosemary that you know has been grown without pesticides or fertilizers as a safety precaution. You don't want to put those unknown ingredients on your skin.


WARNING: The safety of this product has not been tested.
WARNING: The statements made here have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure or prevent any disease. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Super Simple All-Purpose Disinfectant

Remember when I said we had to start somewhere? Let's just go ahead and start at the very beginning. While this is not technically a cosmetic, it's a way to jump into making your beauty routine green. This will give you a clean surface to start with whether it's making your own cosmetics in the kitchen or applying them at your bathroom vanity. 

Recipe:

• Vinegar

Yes, that's it. In place of harsh bleach or other caustic kitchen and bathroom cleaners, use some vinegar in a spray bottle; it's nature's disinfectant. It may sound crazy, but just give it a try and see how well it works.

Another variation on this is a recipe that, though not natural, is a gently clean option:

• 1 Part Vinegar
• 1 Part Dawn Dish Detergent

Combine ingredients in a spray bottle and shake.





WARNING: The safety of this product has not been tested. 
WARNING: The statements made here have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure or prevent any disease. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Welcome to Green My Beauty Routine!

Have you ever wondered, how can I green my beauty routine? Then you're in the right place. Follow me and let's figure it out together!

Consider all of the different cosmetic products you use on a daily basis. It can add up to a lot. And let's be honest, most of us don't even understand what the ingredients listed on the back of the bottle are. It wasn't until recently that I really stopped and looked at what I was putting onto my body, face, and hair.

As a new mom, the wife of an environmental scientist, daughter of a cancer victim, and in-law to a couple doctors, I don't know what more it could have taken to get me to this point. This point of learning to Green My Beauty Routine.

It's not that I haven't thought about the contents of my cosmetics before, but it's no small fete trying to make sense of it all. It was the birth of my baby that really triggered my desire to find safe and natural products. I wanted to have products not only for her, but for the whole family. After losing my mom to breast cancer just weeks after my little one was born, I felt it was my duty to try and limit our exposures to possible cancer-causing products. And (thanks largely in part to my husband's career) I want all this to be done in as Earth-friendly a manner as possible.

Overall, it might seem like a tall order to fill, but doing even just a little bit is better than doing nothing at all. You have to start somewhere. We can even do it together!