Homemade Organic Beauty Safety Basics

If you’re planning on creating some of your own homemade beauty products, please be sure to read this guide completely.

Just because a beauty product is homemade, it doesn’t mean it’s safe for your skin or body type.

Before you get started, you may also want to read:

* Essential Oil Buying Guide
* Essential Oil Safety Guide
* Flower & Herb Safety Guide

These tips apply for products you make at home, such as homemade organic cosmetics, soaps, hair colors, body washes, massage oils or steams, lotions, sugar scrubs, or any other homemade concoction.

1) You are responsible for your own health and safety. Books, websites, blogs, and other resources for homemade beauty products (myself included) ARE NOT responsible for your personal health and safety. Homemade beauty products are amazing, but be sure to take charge, and stay safe.

2) Speak with an expert. I know a lot about homemade beauty products, essential oils, flowers, and herbs. I’ve worked as a doula, went to college for nursing, and have picked up tips from experts I’ve worked with over the years.

However, I’m not a licensed holistic doctor or a professional in the field of aromatherapy, herbs, flowers, essential oils, or any other homemade beauty or health profession. The ingredients that go into creating homemade beauty products are complex. Method of use is also complex. If you’re not an expert in the field, or someone with plenty of self-experiment experience, speak with a professional health care provider (holistic or conventional) before making homemade beauty products. Skipping this step is not safe because many herbs, flowers, and oils can interact negatively with medications or vitamins you may be taking. You may also have a health concern that limits your use of homemade beauty products.

3) Educate yourself. Some excellent books on this topic include:

4) Basic homemade beauty product safety tips:

Homemade beauty products are not one size fits all. They’re meant to be tweaked personalized.

Natural or organic does not mean a product is 100% safe. You could be just as easily have a reaction to a homemade organic product as you could a store bought conventional product.

Always do a test dab of a new homemade beauty products. For a test dab, take a dab of a homemade product and rub it on your inner arm. You can actually also do test dabs with individual ingredients instead, like lavender essential oil, before using it in a completed product. Cover the dab with a bandage. If you develop red, burning, itching, pain, or any other issue it’s likely you should toss that product you just made, or you can tweak the recipe ingredients to make it work for you.

Homemade products are preservative free (unless you have some freaky chem set in the basement). Preservative free is healthy for you, but not so great for shelf life. If there’s anything questionable in your product, that may go bad, keep it in the fridge. Make small batches so you don’t have to toss a lot of one product. Lotions and some hair colors are important to keep in the fridge, while things like soaps and sugar scrubs are not.

5) MAJOR SAFETY CONCERNS:

If you are pregnant: Your midwife or doctor needs to give you the go-ahead before you use any homemade beauty product. Some essential oils or herbs can cause birth complications, harm your baby, or induce early labor. There are many safe natural and organic items for pregnancy, however, if you can’t happen to name them all, then check with your prenatal care provider first.

Babies and elderly individuals: Natural and organic homemade beauty products can be good for little ones and the elderly. Still, it’s commonly recommended that you down-size recipes for these age groups. For example, if a recipe for a body wash calls for 12 drops of lavender oil, you’d want to cut that by 1/3 or more for a baby or elder adult.

6) More information:

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