Smells Like Green Spirit

Lye is an unavoidable element of making soaps, like it or not.

Back in the pioneer days, soap was made from animal fats and a lye created from ashes. Because lye can be used to make meth,  I wasn’t able to find it in any stores in Chicago, but it’s easy to order online!

Here are two places to check out:

Lehman’s www.lehmans.com
Lehman’s is where I ordered a big honkin’ container of lye. They shipped quickly, and I didn’t have to fill out any waiver forms like other websites require you to.

Camden Grey www.camdengrey.com
This is where you can buy some of the cheapest 2 pound containers of lye, which is great since lye is so toxic and dangerous to store (especially if you have pets and children). The only reason I didn’t order from them is because I didn’t feel like going to Kinko’s and faxing over a waiver form.

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I recently purchased the book Green This! Volume One: Greening Your Cleaning by Deirdre Imus. It’s filled with information about the harmful chemicals in our cleaning products and natural alternatives.

Cleaning Your Toilet Naturally

Imus says all you need to use for a disinfected toilet is white vinegar. Simply pour one cup in the back of the toilet, and let it sit for thirty minutes before flushing.

Pour vinegar into the bowl and scrub around too.

Be Sure to Clean Your Toilet Brush!

Think of all the nastiness that collects on your toilet brush…gross, right? Although she recommends replacing your toilet brush every six months, I think if you just follow her instructions to clean the brush with hot water, soap and vinegar, it will be fine, and be less wasteful too.

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My roommate and I must be hairball factories, because our shower drain is constantly slow or clogged. We’d been buying Draino to keep it running smoothly, but Draino is a cocktail of noxious chemicals, not good for our household health, and horrific for our water supply!

Here’s a natural remedy for unclogging drains:

Down the drain, pour
1 cup baking soda
1 cup hot distilled vinegar
Let stand for five minutes then flush with hot water

Do this and Simultaneously Clean Your Coffee Maker

As vinegar is a great way to clean automatic coffee makers, you can run the cup of vinegar through the coffee maker to clean it, and then recycle the vinegar by pouring it down your stubborn drain. Then, run a full pot of water through the coffee maker, and pour that hot water down the tub drain.

It’s recommended to pour vinegar down your tub drain proactively to prevent drains, so you can get in the habit of cleaning keeping your coffee pot cleaned and your tub drain unclogged!

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I’m new on the homemade soap making bandwagon, and last night I went by Home Depot to get some lye. All the recipes I read said lye could easily be purchased at any hardware store, and many recommended the brand Red Devil. Not only did Home Depot not have any sort of lye, the employees gave me some weird looks when I asked for it and then reacted incredulously to them not having it.

It turns out that a few years ago, Red Devil was taken off the market because it was a common ingredient used to make crystal meth. Nice.

Here’s a picture from the Missouri State Police Department’s Website on how to identify a meth lab. Look! There’s Red Devil Lye in the very bottom left corner:

http://www.mshp.dps.missouri.gov/MSHPWeb/Root/index.html

Luckily there are other places you can buy lye, although in many big cities, sources will only sell it in bulk. Be cautious buying lye in bulk, as it is a very hazardous material that you must avoid contact with and which must be stored in airtight containers.

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Since I have blond eyelashes, I would be lost without my mascara.

Two homemade eye makeup remover recipes I’ve found are:

* Using an oil such as castor oil, olive oil, jojoba oil or grapeseed oil
* Using a mixture of baby shampoo and water

Natural Oils

I’ve been using Jojoba oil on a cotton ball to take my eye makeup off, because I read that Joboba oil was very similar to the natural sebum our skin secretes. It works really well! Be sure you rinse your lids with warm water after afterwards.

I found some recipes that recommend using a mixture of grapeseed oil and castor oil in a ratio of 2:1.

An Oil Free Alternative

While it’s a less “natural” choice, sometimes you just can’t have oily lids if you’ve gotta put more eye makeup on right after taking the old stuff off. In that case, you can use a diluted tear-free baby shampoo.

Ever wondered how tear-free shampoos get to be tear free? This answer board breaks down the tear-free properties of Johnson and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo

Got any other recipes? Leave a comment!

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Vaseline? You’re Kidding, Right?

People have been swearing by it for decades.

As a child, my brother and I had a babysitter who we were scared of at night, as she would smear her face with about an inch of the stuff, making her look ghoulish and shiny. Tyra Banks says she couldn’t live without it.

Researching homemade lotions and homemade skin remedies, again and again I stumble upon Vaseline as a magical ingredient for beautiful skin. Those who wholeheartedly support it say it won’t break you out, won’t leave you feeling greasy, and say they’ve used it all their life and look 10-20 years younger than their friends.

I Can’t Find Any Information that Says Vaseline is Bad for You

But…but…it’s a petroleum product! This can’t be good for your body, can it??

The raw material for petroleum jelly was first discovered stuck to oil rigs in 1859, so says Wikipedia. I know oil and its products come from the earth technically…but…does anyone out there have information as to whether or not this is bad for your body or not?

Some Recipes I’ve Found

*Simply use it as a moisturizer before bed

*Blend 1 part vaseline and 2 parts lotion for added moisturizing effect

The Only Precautions My Research Uncovered:

Be careful smoking when applying it, as it is highly flammable.
Don’t eat too much of it, or your punishment will be bad diarrhea.
Don’t put it on fresh burns, as it traps heat and could worsen the damage.
Don’t put it in your nose, as it limits the efficacy of cilia to trap dirt.
Don’t use it as a lubricant for latex condoms, as it destroys the condom and increases risk of infection in the female parts as it just “hangs out” up there. (Ew!)

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In response to learning more about toxic chemicals in makeup and cosmetics, I’ve decided to make more and more things myself, and make them as easy and inexpensive as possible!

The Simple Scrub Recipe

The easiest, luxurious body scrub I’ve made so far are made by mixing either sugar or salt or a combination of both with olive oil, until the texture is to your liking.

I used this on my face and my entire body, standing in the shower as I scrubbed it in. Take care not to rub too hard, of course!

For the most moisturizing results, you can scrub this on your body and then just rinse it off with warm water, but I did it before my regular shower.

After my shower, I applied my new homemade Orange Lotion to everywhere but my face!

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All this reading about toxic chemicals in makeups and body products has got me on a quest..for the best, healthiest natural homemade lotions, cosmetics, and home products.

This recipe was the first homemade lotion I’ve made.

“Orange Lotion”

Pros: easy, all natural, common household/kitchen items, very moisturizing
Cons: weird texture, weirdly separates

I got this recipe from stretcher.com, a website chock full of tips about saving money doing the things we do, and the person who posted this said it came from a book called The Natural Forumla Book for Home and Yard by Rodale Press, edited by Dan Wallace.

Orange Lotion Recipe

1/2 oz Cocoa Butter, melted
1 oz Olive Oil, warmed
1 oz Orange Juice
2 drops essential oil (Orange Flower if possible)
Mix all ingredients together in blender until light and fluffy. (I used a hand mixer)

The recipe also included a vague reference to rose water and vegetable glycerine, both of which I added a half ounce for good measure.

I got all my ingredients from Whole Foods, but you could probably get them cheaper somewhere else.

My Review

While the ingredients were warmed, the consistency was a little thicker than orange juice, but once the ingredients cooled, everything separated, and it was pretty weird. It looked like scrambled eggs in orange juice (I eventually just poured the liquid out and kept the solid):

The lotion made my hands feel a tiny bit sticky at first, but on my body it feels great.
The wonderful thing about this lotion is that the ingredients were so natural and easy!

Day 2 of using the lotion:
Since I’m keeping the lotion in the fridge, the cocoa butter sort of hardened, but once you run it in your hand for a minute, it liquifies and spreads nicely.

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