A few days ago my friend asked my why I look so much older than I used to (sigh!!!) Imagine! Maybe because people get older, and when they get older they look older. Maybe because I am not 21 anymore like all of his girlfriends. Maybe because I do not wear an inch of a make-up on my face every single day. And maybe because I like the sun and I am not a vampire as most of his friends think they are ;). So those are the main reasons why I’m getting old and it’s some how visible. 🙂 Oh… and a year ago, I had a terrible labor after which I woke up with at least 10 grey hair (before I didn’t have a single one).
Not that I got very upset because of that but… hm… it made me think…
Maybe I really should start to use some sort of a face cream, anti-wrinkles/aging serum… 😉
Because it’s been a year when I bought a body lotion for the last time, I thought that I could do the same with a face cream. It’s a bit more complex thing to make a face cream than to make a body lotion. Face it more sensitive, you don’t want to clog you pores, and everybody has a different skin (oily, sensitive, dry, .etc). I do have oily face, so I was looking for something good for my skin.
So I did a research.
I have found a bunch of sites with bunch of recipes. Most of them had one or two ingredients that I don’t have, already. So I kept looking. On the bottom of my post I added a few related posts with the recipes I have found. Some of those sites have recipes for facial mask made from fresh avocado, egg yolks, honey… etc.
I recently ordered a few extra things from Mountain Rose Herbs. My last buy from them was a year ago, after I decided to try to make my body lotion. That time I bought emulsifying wax, 4 essential oils and something else… don’t remember what. I paid $35 for that package (35$ with shipping cost), my next purchase was a few days ago ($37 including shipping cost).
It’s really not that expensive when you have the bigger picture in you head. That supply of stuff last for a year or more.
1 oz to 4 oz of face cream costs from $10 to $30 and more.
Cream I made yesterday cost me about $4.50 for 6.8 oz. Next time, though, I’m going to add more great tea of some kind so juice to loosen it up more because the batch I made is too thick. At that point it will be much more than 6.8 oz for maybe about $5. In addition, everything that’s in your cream is fresh, you can pronounce its name and you know how it looks, and tastes… etc.
Right now, if you take your cream or body lotion and read the list of ingredients I wonder how many of it is understandable to you(?) hm?! What about “triethanolamine”, or “PEG-100 Sterate”, or “Propylparaben”, or “Imidazolidinyl”.
I’ll give you an example.
Pond’s cold cream. From what I remember this cream is made from: mineral oil, water, beeswax, borax, fragrance, and a few things to preserve the shelf life of this cream (you surely could skip that part)!
It costs about $7 for 3.5 oz.
Instead of buying that cream,
you can buy:
pound of borax for $3.50,
beeswax for $1.75 (1 oz)
carrier oil (from $5 to $20 for 8.5 oz)
the best carrier oil for making face cream are the grape seed and hazelnut oils.
From what I know mineral oil clog you pores so it’s not that good for face cream.
To make your own 3.5 oz ponds’ cream you will need:
1.4 oz (about 2 tablespoon) carrier oil = hazelnut oil $1.32, grape seed oil = $3.30
1 tablespoon (0.5 oz) beeswax = $ 0.80
1 tablespoon (o.5 oz) borax = $ 0.10
1/4 cup distilled water = $0.50 or less
= $2.72 = $ 4.70
cream like that is awesome to use on you hands, feet, face, and your entire body.
You can always add a few capsules of vitamin E. I bought my (buy one get one free in Wallgreens=$9.50), and it will take you forever to use it all.
If instead of just the distilled water you use brewed greet tea, coffee, fruit juice (grapefruit, orange, lemon) you’ll add more vitamins to the cream, and more anti-wrinkle effects 🙂
For less than $7 you could make rich, healthy, safe (for your kids to eat 😉 ) cream.
Ok, back to my mixture.
You’ll need:
4 tablespoon of hazelnut oil
2 tablespoon of emulsifying wax
1/4 cup of green tea
1 or 2 tablespoon of aloe vera juice (fresh squeezed is the best)
4 capsules of vitamin E
1 tsp. citric acid
essential oils (optional!)
Directions:
take one (or two) leafs of aloe vera (from your garden or from your neighbour’s garden)
cut into pieces
blend it… I do not have a juicer, so I use blender and a strainer. works great.
separate the juice and set asaid.
in a glass container mix the oil and the wax
on the low heat over a water bath mix it until completely dissolved
meanwhile brew the green tea for about 10 minutes. one bag in 1/4 cup of hot water.
pour the tea, aloe vera juice and the wax-oil mixture into one glass container. stir every few times untill not so hot anymore.
if you add the vitamin E and essential oils to the very hot lotion they will lose their properties. That’s why you need to wait until the mixture cools down.
With a sharp knife cut vitamin E capsules and pour the liquid into the lotion mixture.
Add citric acid.
I added 5 drops of grapefruit essential oil, 3 drops of st.johns essential oil, and 5 drops of sweet orange essential oil.
Mix it well a few time until it cools down completely.
Face cream ready to use:
Because this cream came out so thick and rich I recommend add 1/2 cup of green tea instead of 1/4. Instead of just green tea you could add 1/4 lemon juice. That way you’ll get about 8 or 8.5 oz of cream.
One more thing. If you want to just try this recipe out, and do not want to spend you money on buying “special” oils, you can use olive oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil or almond oil. Those oils are easy to get in your grocery stores. If you use those oils instead of hazelnut oil, or grape seed oil, use that lotion on every part of you body except you face. It will clog your pores.
Keep your homemade lotion/cream in a glass (not plastic) jar in a fridge.
ENJOY!!!
* Important note:
for some reason this lotion gets bad really fast (even when kept in the fridge) so I recommend to make it in small batches (like from half of the recipe) and use it as fast as it’s possible.
Related articles
- homemade coffee body lotion (https://momphotographer.wordpress.com/)
- homemade butterbeer (avoidingaquarterlifecrisis.wordpress.com)
- Homemade Detergent (domesticdivainthemaking.wordpress.com)
- Homemade face cream (http://myhomemadebeauty.com/)
- Soothing Shea Butter Lotion (http://www.easy-aromatherapy-recipes.com/)
- Beauty Recipes with Aloe Vera (http://myhomemadebeauty.com/)
- Homemade Beauty Recipes (http://healthrecipes.com/beauty.htm)
- Homemade anti-wrinkle eye cream (http://www.lifecellreviews.net/)
- Homemade coffee lotion (http://www.coffeetickle.com/)
- Coffee body scrub (http://www.coffeetickle.com/)
- Homamed Hand lotion creams recipes (http://naturalnailcarerecipes.homestead.com/)
