It’s silly to pay $30 upwards for a small bottle of facial toner when you can make your very own organic toner at home.

Gather up the following:

Alcohol free witch hazel. THAYERS makes alcohol free witch hazel, some with organic ingredients, plus you get a lot for about $10 a pop. You can get witch hazel with aloe in it if you like, you don’t have to stick to plain.

A mix of herbs and spices (in equal parts). You can use just about anything, but of course you want to choose herbs and spices that will be beneficial to your skin type. If you don’t know anything about herbs, I suggest checking out The Complete Book of Herbs: A Practical Guide to Growing and Using Herbs, which is my favorite herbal book. This book is sometimes hard to find though. If you can’t find it, another good book is Herbs for Natural Beauty (Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbal Remedies).

The herbs I use are listed below, but I have normal skin, rarely break out, and am used to using things like herbs and essential oils on my skin. If your skin is not like mine, you need to find a mix of herbs that will work better for you.

The herbs, spices, and oils I use in my toner:

• Equal parts: fresh organic rosemary and organic lavender.
• A tiny bit of fresh organic basil.
• A few cinnamon sticks and a tablespoon of dried whole cloves.
• A tablespoon of grated orange peel and the peels of half a lemon.
• 2-3 drops of tea tree essential oil.

How to make your homemade toner:

Place all your herbs, oils, and essential oils in a jar. No need to break up your herbs or chop them, you also don’t need to grate your spices. Cover your mixture over completely with witch hazel. Let the mixture sit for a while in your fridge – I usually allow mine to sit for a week. Strain your mixture and it’s ready to use.

To use your toner:

You can apply toner to your face lightly with your fingers or an organic cotton pad or washcloth.  You can also use this as a refreshing mist is you have a tiny mist bottle. Just close your eyes and spray your face. This feels great in the hot summer.

Storage:

The upside of this toner is that it’s chemical and preservative free. The downside of that is it’s perishable. Unless you use this super speed fast, you should keep it in the fridge. I don’t like to have to walk to my fridge for toner, so I make tiny batches frequently instead of a lot all at once.

Have you ever made homemade toner? Which herbs do you like?

Sugar scrubs rock. Everyone I know loves them. Sugar scrubs make your skin super smooth and deliciously scented, but don’t have the same harshness as salt scrubs. You can make sugar scrubs for your own use or make bulk batches for great birthday or holiday gifts. Best of all, you control what goes into them (no icky chemicals, preservatives, or colors), you control the packaging (less waste), and they’re inexpensive to make. If you don’t already have essential oils on hand your start up costs will be more, but not more than it would cost you to purchase a ready-made boutique quality organic scrub.

I have tons of scrub recipes, but the one that always seems the most popular is the organic lavender vanilla sugar scrub, so I’ll post that. Later, I’ll post how to experiment with different scrub flavors

SUGAR SCRUB INGREDIENTS:

1. Natural or organic body oil: What you want is a basic carrier oil. You can also use light olive oil. My favorite carrier is apricot kernel, but I also like sweet almond and for scrubs I will use light olive oil; especially if I’m making a lot, because carrier oil is usually more expensive. Baby oil can work, but personally, I think it’s a tad slick. NEVER use cooking oils like vegetable oil – you’re not frying food. If you use any cooking oil besides olive, you’re going to get a scrub that one, smells funky, and two, can get rancid faster.

2. Sugar: You can use all plain white organic table sugar or organic coarse demerara or turbinado sugar. White sugar makes the lightest scrub, brown makes a more intense scrub, and you can also experiment with a mix of both. Never use soft brown baking sugar or powdered sugar – you’ll only get clumps, and no scrub appeal.

3. Organic lavender pure essential oil: If you’re new to essential oils, read the Essential Oil Buying Guide and the Essential Oil Safety Guide before you get started.

4. Vanilla choices: You have some different choices when it comes to vanilla…

• Whole Organic Vanilla Beans
• Natural Vanilla Bean Paste: This will darken your sugar mixtures, but it’s very concentrated and very vanilla scented. It takes less time to use than whole beans.
• Fair Trade Certified Organic Vanilla Extract: this, like paste, will also darken your scrub. You can actually get clear vanilla extract, but I’ve only seen clear in artificial, not pure, so I don’t recommend it. Using extract also may add an extra feel of oil to the mix, although, not too much.
• Vanilla Sugar: White in color, so it won’t darken your mix. However, depending on the kind you use, you’ll need to experiment with amounts. It won’t have quite as strong a vanilla scent as beans, paste, or extract.

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE SUGAR SCRUB WITH WHOLE VANILLA BEANS:

1. Place 1 to 2 whole vanilla beans in 1 cup dry sugar. Cover and let sit for a week or two – the longer it sits the better the smell. You can experiment with vanilla bean intensity. I like strongly scented scrubs, so I err on the side of more, however, use less for a lighter scent. If you’re not using whole beans directions are posted below (after this recipe).
2. Remove your beans.
3. Saturate (but don’t over-saturate) your sugar with carrier oil. It should be totally moist, but there shouldn’t be a huge layer of liquid on top of the sugar.
4. Add two drops of lavender essential oil. Smell your mix, and add more lavender if you want a stronger scent.
5. Place in a container with a lid.

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE SUGAR SCRUB WITHOUT WHOLE VANILLA BEANS:

If you’re using vanilla extract or paste, skip straight to step 3 above. After mixing in your carrier oil, add a tablespoon or so of paste or extract. Then continue with step 4.

If you’re using vanilla sugar, I’d start with a half and half mix – 1/2 cup vanilla sugar, 1/2 cup other sugar. I haven’t used vanilla sugar much, and the time I did it was not too strongly scented, so you’ll need to experiment. After you have the sugar scent you want go to step 3 and continue from there.

HOW TO USE YOUR SUGAR SCRUB:

• For hefty scrubbing action, stand in your shower with the water off. Scrub your dry skin down, then rinse in the shower.
• For basic scrubby action, use in your already running shower, after your skin is wet.
• Do not use on your face.
• Although it seems odd, you won’t be sticky after using this, all you need to do is rinse with warm water. No soap is necessary. This scrub will not dry your skin out and is perfect for troublesome dry areas.

SUGAR SCRUB SHELF LIFE & STORAGE:

• You can keep this in your bathroom. You don’t need to refrigerate it. It won’t mold.
• Make sure you keep it covered.
• I’d guess that this scrub keeps for 3-6 months well. I’m not totally sure because it never lasts that long. It’s so great, you’ll use it up before it goes bad.
• Oil does get rancid. It won’t kill you or anything once the scrub gets old, but it will start to smell funky. I once made this orange scrub, didn’t love it, threw it under the pantry, and forgot about it. I found it eight months later and you could tell that the oil had gone a little bad, so I tossed it. Since it’s biodegradable, you can throw old scrubs in the sink.

SUGAR SCRUB SAFETY:

• If you give a sugar scrub as a gift be sure to make a cute little label (like the one above) that lists all the ingredients on it. You don’t know if a friend is allergic to a specific essential oil or if she’s allergic to nuts (if you used a nut based carrier oil).
• Be careful in the shower because oil based sugar scrubs can make life a little slick. No big worry, just be careful.

Later, as noted, I’ll share some other scrub recipe ideas – including a few I made that bombed so that you won’t make the same mistake.

Let me know if you make this scrub and what you think…

I was looking for a honey scrub, but found this great holiday lip gloss instead at the National Honey Board. Perfect for the season! I’m way excited to try it.

You’ll need to gather:

1. 1 Tablespoon sweet almond oil
2. 10 fresh cranberries
3. 1 teaspoon honey
4. 1 drop vitamin E oil

I’d use organic everything, if you can find it.

To make your lip gloss:

1. Mix all your ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Microwave for two minutes or until just boiling. If you don’t own a microwave, heat your bowl in a pan of water on the stove.
3. Stir well and gently crush the berries.
4. Cool your berries for five minutes. Strain with a  fine sieve until there are no fruit pieces left in your mix.
5. Stir and set aside to cool completely.
6. When cool, transfer into a small portable plastic container or tin.

Awesome recipe! This would also make a cool holiday gift.

There are all sorts of other natural beauty recipes offered like:

• Foaming Vanilla Honey Bath
• Green Honey Glow Mask
• Harvest Pumpkin Exfoliating Mask
• Honey and Oat Exfoliant
• Honey Cleansing Scrub

+ Cranberry Lip Gloss via the National Honey Board

Today we have a special DIY homemade eco chic soap guest post from Anne-Marie, founder of Bramble Berry Inc.…

More and more families are growing increasingly concerned about their ecological footprint. In addition to taking less trips, recycling and planting more trees, there is an easy thing you can to help save the environment, improve your family’s health and save money in the process. Making your own soap is a great way to control the ingredients that go into your bath tub, onto your child and down your drain. And, bonus! It’s a fraction of the cost of store bought soap.

Eco Chic soap is the next big thing in personal care. What is Eco Chic soap? This category of personal care is all about creating yourself, controlling the ingredients and reusing common household goods. Rather than throwing away single use plastic containers, give them a new lease on life and use them as soap molds.

Making soap is an ideal creative outlet for the entire family. When you make your own soap, you choose the ingredients so you can use all natural colorants (like cocoa powder or charcoal) to color your soap and all natural essential oils to fragrance it, creating a soap bar that is naturally derived and cleans effectively.

Here’s an easy recipe to follow (hint: it’s perfect to make with children ages 4 and up with parental supervision):

You’ll need:

• Herbs, oatmeal, coffee, spirulina, clay, or food-grade charcoal
• 1 pound (16 ounces)Bramble Berry melt and pour soap, organic base
• 1 ounce essential oil (we used lavender, orange and eucalyptus)
• “Soap mold” (a clean, used plastic food dish, like an empty yogurt
• container)
• Rubbing Alcohol

How to make your soap:

1. Prep your herbs and make sure they are the right size for exfoliating gently. Sharp herbs may be too abrasive on the skin. I love using charcoal. It helps to remove toxins and impurities, similar to clay. Plus, it gives the soap a nice black hue.

2. Cut the organic melt and pour blocks into 1 x 1″ cubes.

3. Melt the soap in 30-second increments until the soap is fully melted.

4. Add .25 ounces to .50 ounces of essential oil. Remember, if you use a yellow or orange colored fragrance, your soap base will look less clear and look more yellow/orange.

5. Mix in your herbs or additives. Stir until the herbs seem mostly suspended.

6. Pour your scented and herb’ed soap into the make-shift mold

7. Tip: Don’t fill your make-shift soap mold all the way up. It helps for easy release to fill 85% of the way to the top and not the entire way.

8. Do one finishing touch of rubbing alcohol to finish off your soap and give it a nice smooth surface

Last steps: Wait for the soap to harden, get the soap out, wrap with saran wrap, label and enjoy the compliments you get on your innovative way to help save the earth, improve your household’s carbon footprint and help save the family budget this holiday season.

For more information on how to make your own soap, head to www.soapqueen.com and to buy supplies, including essential oils and the organic soap base, go to www.brambleberry.com

Some of the lovely soaps you can learn to make:

Coffee soap

Layer soap

Spirulina soap

A word from Jennifer:

First off, thanks so much to Anne-Marie for the excellent post. This is a fun holiday gift idea for sure, especially because everyone loves a good eco soap. Secondly, I visited the Bramble Berry site, and it’s amazing – well worth a visit (a long one). Not only do they carry everything you need to make delicious eco-friendly soaps, but they offer loads of tips and recipe ideas as well. This is not just a shop site, but an excellent resource if eco chic soap is your thing (of course it is!).

If you need a merry holiday reason to visit – check out this adorable Christmas tree centerpiece made of soap!

Learn about how to make this and many other beautiful soap creations at Bramble Berry.

If you’re going to use flowers or herbs in a homemade beauty product, follow these safety tips…

Basic flower and herbal safety tips:

• Use organic herbs and flowers when possible.
• Know your herbs and flowers. Get a good guidebook so you can recognize types. If you grow yourself, clearly label the plants.
• Using the wrong herb in a soap could be bad news if you’re allergic. Read Homemade Organic Beauty Safety Basics to learn about dab tests.
• Herbs and flowers work slower than essential oils because they’re less potent, depending on how much you boil them down. If you create a homemade product that also has healing properties it may take longer to work than products made with essential oils. Also, it may take longer for an allergic reaction to appear, so wait your dab tests out.

Also read:

• Essential Oil Buying Guide
• Essential Oil Safety Guide