Homemade deodorant in 5 minutes or less.

A lot of people get weirded out when I mention that I make our deodorant.  Well, I've been doing it for almost 2 years and you haven't complained that I stink yet, have you?

I get weirded out by conventional deodorant (and other conventional cosmetic products), so we're even.

Then I tell them how amazing it is- seriously, the best deo I have EVER had; absolutely no odor after wearing it in the heat, and I've tried MANY deos.  I've even tried men's deodorant because it's "stronger".  Yeah, well I still stunk.  Just keepin' it real.

Usually the reply is "I don't have time to make my own."

You guys.  I hate that response.  *stepping on my soap box*.  It takes 5 minutes.  Maybe less, I'm being pretty generous here.  Seriously.  And once you have the ingredients there's really no excuse.  No excuse, I say!  I'm sure everyone has baking soda and cornstarch in their house.  So go pick up some tea tree oil and Vitamin E oil (both at Trader Joes- I'd recommend getting these items there because their prices are SUPER CHEAP, and hopefully you already shop there for some things), then go get some coconut oil (at any old grocery store, usually near the other oils/shortenings but might be in the "natural" section).  Bam.  That's it.

I use a plastic container from LUSH cosmetics- it used to have "Ocean Salt" in it, but now it's the perfect container for our homemade deo (yes, Kraig and I both use the same one and we both smell AMAZING).  We use two different essential oils, tea tree (from TJs) and Eucalyptus (from a natural food store- fairly easy to get here in PDX but in Ohio you may have to look around... then again the eucalyptus oil isn't necessary.)

So, first things first.  Gather ingredients and make sure you have a container.  Luckily our container is the EXACT size we need.  Providence!

 Next, you need to evaluate the weather.  Strange but true.  If it is over 70 degrees, there is a good chance your coconut oil is melted or at least quite soft.  If it's under 70 degrees, it's likely pretty solid so I'd highly recommend busting out a tiny saucepan.  I always use a saucepan because our temps don't get all that high, at least not enough to turn the CO into a liquid.  Chunky coconut oil = chunky deo.  Bad.

So I heat the pan on low-med and pour in my oils (recipe below) then turn off the heat. You don't need to cook your deo, you just need to melt the coconut oil.

Then I add the other ingredients, mix thoroughly, and pour into container.  Since it's liquefied I let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours until solid, or you can just keep it in the bathroom overnight.

That's it.  It probably took me a whole 3 minutes and I carefully measured (definitely measure but don't beat yourself up by being ultra-exact.  It's going on your armpits, for crying out loud.)

Ahh, beautiful homemade, non-toxic, super-effective deodorant.  It's AMAZING, I dare you to try it and tell me otherwise.

You may be wondering how we apply it.  With our fingertips, silly!  It's a pretty soft formula, especially in the warmer months, so we just get a pea-sized amount and put half under each arm.  Then we wash our hands, of course.  It's really not as weird as it may seem at first....

THE RECIPE:

Sayward’s Homemade Deodorant Recipe

1/3 cup Corn Starch

1/3 cup Baking Soda

10 drops of Antibacterial Essential Oil (tea tree, lavender, or eucalyptus)

10 drops of Antifungal Essential Oil (tea tree, peppermint, sandalwood, or eucalyptus)

2 tablespoons Vitamin E Oil

3 tablespoons Coconut Oil

Some helpful notes:

This recipe lasts a good 6 months and that's between two users.  If you can't spare 3-5 minutes once or twice a year, I'll gladly buy your cancer stick  conventional deodorant for you!

Another great thing about this deo is it won't stain your clothing.  No more yellow pit stains!

Finally, if you have any irritation (everyone's skin is different!) just increase the coconut oil by a little and decrease the baking soda.  Play around until you get a good formula for your skin type.  You can also decrease the tea tree oil, add lavender instead (soothing), or any of the other listed essential oils.  Like I said, we do half tea tree half eucalyptus, but you can do all tea tree if you only want to buy one essential oil.

(PS.  Trader Joe's tea tree oil doesn't have a handy dropper like some oils... so if you have a mL dropper or 1/8 teaspoon it will come in handy here.  The equivalent is 10 drops ~ 0.5mL ~ a little less than 1/8 tsp.  If you use all TT oil, you can measure up to 1mL or just under 1/4 tsp.  Less is more, though- seriously, essential oils are potent and can irritate if used in too concentrated a solution).

*disclaimer, it is not an anti-perspirant.  This doesn't bother me because anti-perspirants are really bad for your skin (some say it increases breast cancer risk).  Anti-perspirant deos have an aluminum compound in them, and besides just being an awful thing to apply to one's skin, it also blocks oil glands- that's how it keeps you from, well, perspiring and that is bad.  Sweat is good, and this deo blocks any odor, so it's really just a little wetness.  Anyway, I haven't used an A-P deo in years because it caused really painful, really awful cysts (blocked oil glands!)  


You can check the safety (or toxicity) of your deodorant here.  My old deo was a super-natural, super hippie kind and it still got a "moderate risk" grade.

Price:  This is hard to gauge since I use the same oil bottles for a long time and for many different uses, but I'd estimate this is no more than a couple of bucks.  And in my experience it lasts longer than a deodorant stick....  But the up-front cost will be about 15-20 dollars.  Again, the oils will last a LONG time (years and years) if you only use them for this purpose.

More brews!

So far, Kraig is keeping up wiht his goal to always have a homebrew in the works.  He even has his brewing schedule mapped out for the rest of the year.  What a fun hobby for him to have! 

I must say though, I am a baker and baking is precise with just a little teensy-eensy bit of room for error or experimentation.  But baking doesn't intimidate me like it does for some folks.  Brewing?  THAT is intimidating.  I feel like my husband is a mad scientist when he's brewing.

Check out these photos from the first day of pale ale brewing (there are two rounds of fermentation before racking (bottling) followed by bottle conditioning.  This brew will be ready to drink in about 2 weeks or so (4 weeks from original brew date)).

 Carboy and funnel, sanitized and ready!

 Owen gets excited about making beer.  

 Yeast from Hopworks brewing co., and Kraig's notes and recipe.

 Apparently one needs to drink beer in order to make beer!

 Whole grain crystal malt

 Everything is boiled...

 and precisely measured.

 Hops!

 boiling malt

 Calculating original gravity, IBUs, and he can also figure out the estimated alcohol content

Primary fermentation!  That's some happy yeast!

homemade body care

My dear friend Emily prompted me to do a post on all the personal care products that I make at home.  This was a pretty big undertaking to list them all, complete with comparisons to conventional products, reasons why we don't use the conventionals, as well as price comparisons.

I hope I covered everything.

Here goes:

Lip balm- this is my favorite thing to make at home.  It only takes 3 ingredients, a couple of regular household tools, and some old lip balm containers (I use our tubes of Burt's Bees.  Empty, of course.)  I use this recipe, but have also added more coconut oil instead of jojoba oil/grapeseed oil.  I use what I have on hand basically.

Shampoo and conditioner-

hand soap-

face wash (and moisturizer all in one!)-

deodorant- Oh, my... I love, love, love, love, LOVE our deodorant.  We've been using it for two years and it is AMAZING.

body moisturizer

face scrub

deep conditioning treatment

hair lighteners

facial toner

bath salts

For baby:

Wipes solution

Antiseptic for wounds

Lotions

Some not-homemade but highly recommended products:
toothpaste
body soap
hand wash
contact solution
makeup
baby wash


It's so easy to make these things at home.  I literally have a handful of ingredients around for ALL of them, so here is your shopping list:

coconut oil
grapeseed/avocado/jojoba/sunflower seed/olive oil (any one will do, and you can use the ones in the grocery oil aisle, not pay extra for the beauty care ones.  They are all food grade anyway!)
castor oil
castille soap
tea tree oil
other essential oils (lavendar, eucalyptus, etc)
vitamin E oil
epsom salts
chamomile tea

pantry staples: oatmeal, lemon juice, honey, cornstarch, vinegar (white and apple cider), baking soda.

Handmade Holidays

It was a very busy month of December for me.  I got a very late start on holiday crafting.  I blame a few different factors (the move (when can I stop using that as an excuse?), lack of needed supplies, unorganized crafting space, procrastination....) and next year I plan to do better.  

Yeah, that's what they all say.

Anyway.  I am so glad that I have a sewing machine.  I can only knit so many things, and sewing really opened up the options as far as what I could create.  Like this little number for my sister-in-law:

I liked it so much I wanted to keep it.  But really I'm not cool enough to pull it off so it's better off with Melissa.

I didn't use a tutorial for the headband.  I was just inspired by the fabric and Melissa's sense of style, so I made it up as I went.

However, I did use a tutorial (loosely, at least) for these beauties.

(alert!  Blurry camera phone photos....)

They are Anthropologie-inspired fabric bead necklaces, and I completely love them.  They are fairly easy to pull together, just a bit tedious.  

Don't think I didn't knit anything this year, though.  Boy did I ever knit....

This scarflette was for my mother-in-law:

And this one was for my cousin/friend/theKate:

No pattern for either, just inspired by some neck cozies/scarflettes and came up with a lovely knit pattern (Mistake Ribbing).  The buttons don't look like much, but are from my grandmother's collection.  I love chunky buttons!

The thing I love about the second neck warmer is that while it looks sort of plain in that photo, it is EXTREMELY versatile.  Don't believe me?  Check here and here.  You can wear it however you want!  (enjoy, Kate!)  How awesome is that?

Let's see, what else did I make?  Oh yes, I made a few coffee cozies for my brother-in-law, a coin purse for his girlfriend, and another scarflette for my mom.  Kraig was in charge of other "boy" gifts, and he came up with the fabulous idea of hand-roasted coffee.  Oh yes, he bought a roaster and some green coffee beans and cranked out some delicious, specialty, home-roasted blends for the men in our lives.  Thank goodness for that idea because homemade gifts ideas for men are so difficult to come up with.

In addition to the handmade goodies, I added a personal touch to the gift wrapping.  I made homemade gift bows out of magazine pages.  They turned out quite lovely and are much more aesthetically pleasing than those super-shiny $1/bag atrocities.  Don't you think?

 Kind of weird that this one has an eyeball on it from the M&M's character... Must be more careful next time!

We also attached some of our homemade ornaments on the outside of the gifts.  Sorry I forgot to snap a photo of that, but here is what some of them looked like.

I was also busy with other handmade projects around the house.  Stockings, pillows (not for Christmas but just general throw pillows), and baking, of course!

Om-nom-nom.

What did you make this holiday season?