Perfume Lab: Mess is messy

So I've just wrapped up an experimental and messy perfume lab. Experimental because I'm still working on getting my solid perfumes the consistency I want. I've moved from just beeswax and carrier oil to beeswax, oil, and shea butter, and that's much better. So today I thought I'd try just oil and shea butter. This is not a bad idea in theory...In practice, they take forever to set and I get impatient and want to shake and poke them, and that just makes it all worse. I've got two chilling in my fridge right now to speed the process along. It'll be interesting to see how they are when they're ready, if the shea butter carries the scent as well as beeswax. If it does work well, I'll be investing in some cocoa butter too (I want to anyway, for lotion bars) and trying a mix with that in it.

Pictured: eternal cleanliness.

Messy because I made a regular beeswax/butter/oil mix and spilled it everywhere, so the tin I was using got waxed to the sideboard, and I couldn't move the tin without spilling more, so I've had to let it set on the sideboard. While that was happening, I starting cleaning up and discovered an amazing cheat for cleaning the kitchen:

Don't clean it. Just drop an entire bottle of pine essential oil all over it and it will smell clean forever and ever and ever. We'll ignore the fact that my kitchen (and the entire downstairs of my house) smells a bit like a bathroom. It smells like a clean bathroom. I don't use pine EO very often, so it's not a massive pain, but I know now I hardly have any left I'll find a million things I want to do with it.

Anyway... I've just been and cleaned up all the wax and oil and taken my shea butter perfumes out of the fridge. I'm pleased to announce they smell gorgeous! I think this is the way forward. I'm keen to experiment with different carrier oils as well - jojoba and fractionated coconut oil are high on my wish-list. I've got a new delivery of fragrance oil and empty bottles arriving sometime soon so further experimentations can begin in earnest! And without throwing oil all over the house maybe.

Adventures in Lemongrass: Cellulite-busting moisturiser (maybe)

One of the many things lemongrass essential oil is supposed to be good for is tackling cellulite. It works by helping to reduce fluid retention and increase blood flow (excessive fluid retention is one cause of cellulite). I thought a moisturiser would be a simple way to use up some oil and test the theory. First thing I did: select some other oils to use in my moisturiser. I chose coffee and grapefruit.

I use coffee grinds quite a lot in facial scrubs already as it's good for reducing puffiness*, and coffee essential oil is another good one for reducing the appearing of cellulite.

Grapefruit is, again, good for cellulite busting, as well as dull skin. It's also just a lovely, uplifting fragrance and if I'm going to rub something into my thighs it may as well be an uplifting experience.

So! Having selected my oils, the next step was to whack them all together with scientific precision. I gathered my tools:

Here we have sweet almond oil as a carrier, vitamin E oil for added skin-nourishing goodness, an empty bottle, my essential oils, and some pipettes and a funnel for scientific precision. 

I combined sweet almond oil and vitamin E oil without spilling it all over myself and the kitchen:

I filled the bottle about three quarters full with sweet almond oil and topped it up to shoulder-height with vitamin E oil. Not pictured: oil slick. Next, I added in my essential oils.

A little goes a long way with essential oils, so you don't need to add much of any to get the benefits. I used three drops of each and then gave the bottle a good shake.

Ta-da! It was that easy. Here's the finished product, sitting on top of my usual moisturiser, virgin coconut oil. As you can see, this isn't a very big bottle; I imagine it will last me about a week, which probably isn't long enough to see any real results. But it was so stupidly easy to make, I'm planning to try it out for a month and see if there's any benefits. I don't really examine my body that closely as a rule so I don't really know if I have significant amounts of cellulite to begin with. I'm just assuming I do because, you know, I'm a female person. Regardless of whether it works (or indeed whether I need it), it does smell good and that's always a bonus.

*I believe this is the technical terminology. 

Adventures in Lemongrass

So one of the companies I order essential oils from sends you a free bottle of lemongrass EO whenever you spend over a certain amount. As a result, I currently have four bottles of lemongrass oil and not much to do with them. It's not an oil I use very much in perfume-making, so far. But it has a ton of beneficial properties including:

1. Reducing pain and inflammation
2. Insect repellent
3. Sedative properties
4. Curing cellulite

There are lots of other things it does, but these four interest me particularly because:

1. I suffer from severe RSI in my right arm and the best advice my doctor can give me is "don't use that arm and do use anti-inflammatories." Which...is not terribly helpful. I had some success over the summer using essential oil massages to manage the pain (I used a mix of ginger, cardamom and wintergreen), and now the cold weather is setting in and bringing all the seasonal aches and pains I get with it, I think this is a good time to try lemongrass massages.

2. We live in a very nice village. Unfortunately it's just down the road from a recycling plant, which means there are lots of flies. Lots of flies. We've tried fly sprays and those sticky window things you get, but the flies just spit in our faces and keep on living. Earlier this week we tried lemongrass oil in a burner. I am pleased to report the house is now fly-free, although that could be partly down to Fergus's efforts.

The mighty fly-killer at rest.

3. I am the world's lightest sleeper. I wake myself up turning over in bed. At the moment I'm going through a patch of insomnia, so the sedative/relaxing properties of lemongrass are rather appealing right now.

4. Curing cellulite - well, why not?

So! I'm going to experiment with all these things and report back. I'm already plotting how I can mix lemongrass oil and coffee grind as a body scrub...Stay tuned!

"If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive."

I have never been a high-maintenance girl. I still own and regularly wear a hoodie I bought when I was 16, ffs. I didn't bother with make-up until I was at university, which put me about six years behind all my female friends. I hate clothes shopping and I never bought into the idea of expensive beauty products. I remember seeing a uni housemate spend £60 on a jar of moisturiser once and just about passing out from shock. That was like two weeks of food shopping, gone on this pot of cream that, as far as I could tell, didn't do anything. I was actually a bit offended by it.

About my only real indulgence on that front is Lush's shampoos and conditioners. They are stupid expensive, but my hair is a bit special, and the big bottles last me about three months, so it seems worth it.

Anyway. Since I started experimenting with all the natural beauty stuff last year, I've definitely become convinced there's no need to be high maintenance. One bottle of honey at a cost of less than £2 lasts me about four months and makes such a good face wash that I don't need to use facial moisturiser. One jar of coconut oil at £5 lasts a good two months and makes amazing body moisturiser, deep conditioner, eye make-up remover, and in Kyle's case, beard conditioner. Baking soda is so cheap it's not even funny, and it lasts forever. I've really reached the point where I just don't get why I ever did anything different. I've given up synthetic perfumes altogether - the smells just aren't right now I'm used to my own home-made ones.

Not everything works. I was experimenting with oil based night-moisturisers this week. I'm not really sure why, because I don't think it's something my skin needs, but it just seemed like it might be fun. I made a concoction of sweet almond oil, vitamin E oil, and lavender and palma rose oils. Used it for three days - yes, my skin is all soft and dewy, but I also got pretty bad spots, which I normally never get unless my diet takes a turn for the junky. I read online you're supposed to stick with oil-based treatments like this for two weeks before deciding whether they work or not, to let your skin adjust, but...well, no. I'm going to use the mixture as body moisturiser instead.

Next stop is body lotion bars to replace shower gel. I need cocoa butter and more shea butter, and I've ordered some ground apricot stones to throw in as an exfoliant. Eventually, aside from the little make-up I wear, I'd love every beauty/cosmetic/health product in my house to be natural and homemade.

I've toyed with the idea of going no-shampoo, but honestly I think for me that's a step too far. Homemade shampoo bars may be a possibility? I'm a bit overwhelmed by most of the recipes I've seen for that. But it's something to aim for in the future. I get a lot of satisfaction from the whole natural beauty kick, especially when something works really well.