Brigitte Holiday sets coconut oil, shea butter and beeswax in a bowl over hot water to melt. She measures baking soda and arrowroot powder on a scale and dumps it into the warmed oils, stirring with a kitchen spoon until it thickens.
What’s this? A sugar-free muffin glaze? A fortified cooking oil?
Holiday slowly pours the mixture into a plastic tube and voilà! – homemade deodorant.
“Some people don’t wear deodorant because they worry about what’s in it,” says the owner of DermaDaisy, a made-from-scratch, all-natural skin-care line. “But with this, you can sweat and you won’t smell.”
If you check every bite of bacon or breadstick you put in your body for dyes, chemicals and preservatives, you probably should start considering every hand lotion and shampoo you put on your body, as well.
The skin is our largest organ, capable of absorbing both nutrients and toxins in short order. And skin- and hair-care products can be equally as loaded with bad-for-you artificial ingredients as processed food.
One friend was alarmed to discover dyes and chemicals in her shampoo and combed her house, throwing out all her teenaged sons’ scented hair-care products. Another had a bad reaction to skin cream, finding it exacerbated her allergy to wheat because it contained gluten.
If you’re game, you can make your own natural beauty products. After all, some date back to before Cleopatra’s day (or maybe just your mother’s). Freshly squeezed lemon juice and water will still lighten your locks, mashed avocado is a wonder for reducing fine lines and baking soda will make your teeth shine.
Just as it’s good to rid your body of impurities by eating a mostly plant-based diet devoid of refined foods, it’s also good to patrol what you put on your skin.
“The main reason is because of all the added chemicals they put in commercial products,” said Amber Beye, who works at the San Juan Basin Health Department and is a certified holistic health coach. “All that is getting absorbed into your skin.”
She has just started experimenting with making shampoo and conditioner – a cup of water to 1 tablespoon baking powder for the first, a cup of water to 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar for the conditioner, leave on two minutes and rinse – and likes the results. She found it made her hair a little drier than normal but predicts her locks will adjust to the purer formula.
Local naturopaths swear by the simplest do-it-yourself beauty products made from food. They use food-based oils (sesame, grapeseed and coconut) to moisturize the body and face, natural astringents like green tea and chamomile to reduce puffiness and aloe vera to soothe burns.
That’s the beauty of homemade skin and hair care – you’re in charge.
“You know what’s in it,” said naturopath Nicola St. Mary. “You get to choose the ingredients.”
So what, she says, if your face is a little shiny because you moisturize with organic oil rather than fancy face cream?
“In our climate, we need that. Put on some powder and get over it,” she said.
But you don’t have to be able to eat it for a product to be natural. Holiday uses beeswax – not exactly something you want to ingest – and other substances like hyrolonic acid and willow bark in her potions, all things you can find at the natural food store. (You can buy containers for your own concoctions, too, from roll-on tubes to lotion bottles.)
Glycolic acid goes into skin toner, peptides into face-firming cream and vitamin C into a serum Holiday claims is good for just about anything.
She started her business because she was concerned about the toxins in store-bought products. While researching the ingredients in skin-care products online, she noticed that many contained fillers and preservatives and worse, substances banned by the European Union.
So she figured it out for herself, searching health and environmental websites to help her develop her formulas. Still, it takes time and trials to perfect a product and even more work to customize a cream.
But the work must be paying off. Holiday, who is 47, looks 10 years younger.
An excellent side benefit to making your own skin-care products is that you save money. Some news sources contend you can create $300 worth of skin- and hair-care products with just $3 worth of kitchen ingredients.
Just consider: Salt (29 cents a pound) or sugar ($1 a pound) mixed with a little oil exfoliates the skin. Mud packs (free) remove toxins, and oatmeal ($1.53 a pound) can soften your elbows. Cucumbers (about 50 cents each) do, in fact, reduce swelling. Butter ($4 a pound) can calm a kitchen burn, and yogurt ($2.50 a pound) can remove redness.
“DIY skin care is a great idea,” says naturopath Nancy Utter, “because what it takes to manufacture and then store it on a shelf is refining and processing. You can’t put it on a store shelf without preservatives.”
Holiday says her products are meant to be used immediately, and in general will last for four to five weeks, longer in the refrigerator. Deodorant is the exception, holding steady for a year.
So call in the kids, get out the avocados and get ready to moisturize. You’ll save money and exude beauty (inner, if nothing else). Mango-mayonnaise face mask, anyone?