My journey into home made cosmetics.

I suffer from dreadful dry skin and dermatitis. I have tried every lotion and potion under the sun. Some cheap, some expensive. None of them seem to do what I want. They are either too thin and I get flakey  and sore too quickly or too thick and I am sticky for too long.

Recently we have had some horrible biting wind which makes your skin very raw. Winter weather is not good for people with normal skin anyway. I read up on the Internet that certain preservatives in cosmetics can cause skin irritation in certain people; but I found it difficult finding products without these nasties in. Although I did find a great shower gel in the Body Shop without these nasties in. It's the hemp one for dry skin, I love it but some days you don't want to smell like you have been rolling in the grass.Especially at job interviews.

My Mum bought me the hand cream from the same range because the lady in the shop said it would be good for my dermatitis (which is on my hands), personally, I think it is good but it leaves your hands quite greasy for a while and the moisturising-ness (is that even a word?) doesn't seem to last very long.

For  an all-round moisturiser, I have used the Simple dermo intensive relief, which was pretty good. Didn't seem to leave me moisturised for very long so I went through the bottle quite quickly, when I went to replace, it the shop didn't have any!

I spent some time looking at the ingredients at the other moisturises and settled on an Aveeno one, it has oat extract which I have read is quite good for dry skin and doesn't have many of the nasties I mentioned previously. The cream is thick and does not really sink into my skin very well. I use it on my face sometimes if that horrible cold wind is around and I need to go cycling.

I was starting to get fed up with all these expensive cosmetics that didn't do what I wanted. I decided to have a go at making my own.

I had a dig around on the Internet and realised it is deceptively easy, I found some recipes and ordered the ingredients, waited and it arrived.

I started with soap, as apparently that is one of the easiest.

This is recipe I used:

500g SLS free opaque melt and pour soap base
2 table spoons of honey
1 tea spoon of bees wax
About 50 grams of oats
20 drops of lavender oil

Melted it all in a ban marie (double boiler) and poured it into a 6-hole silicon muffin pan.

 

Looks almost like my breakfast!

All I need to do now is to let it set for two days.

I used lavender oil as it is supposed to calm irritated skin, oats for moisturising and honey for it is antibacterial properties.

I will let you know how it goes when I use it!I have also ordered some bits to make some lotions/moisturisers too.