How to Make All Natural Lip Gloss

A few weeks ago, I wrote about running out of facial powder and substituting organic corn starch - with great success.  I'm comfortable now that I'll never go back to buying commercial facial powder.  Inspired by this success, I decided to try my hand at creating other beauty products.  My criteria: they must be all natural, easy and quick to make, smell great, feel soothing, and be edible.  Yes, edible - that's my measure of safety, particularly for lip gloss.

Over the next few weeks, I will experiment with making a few different items, and I'll share my recipes here with you.  I hope you enjoy the health, savings, beauty and fragrance of these as much as I do!  Also note: they make great little gifts for the holidays!

Pink Lip Gloss

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons grated pure beeswax
8 teaspoons castor oil
4 drops vanilla extract
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon organic beet juice powder (be careful where you put this - it is a strong dye)
 -- you will also need a container to put it in - I bought a small Nalgene jar  (they are BPA free) at The Container Store for $0.99.

Directions:
1. Melt the beeswax and castor oil together in a small Pyrex dish in the microwave.  45 seconds ought to do it.  Mix well.  Add the vanilla, honey and beet juice powder.  Add more beet juice powder if the shade is not as dark a as you'd like.  Let it sit in the Pyrex dish until it cools enough so it won't melt your Nalgene jar.  Don't wait until it's fully set up to move it to the jar.
2. Pour it into your jar.  Let it sit 20 minutes before covering it.

The Many Uses for Corn Starch

I ran out of facial powder this morning.  I've used Prescriptives for years as it's one of the only ones that doesn't irritate my skin.  But there is just no way I am going to drive 30 minutes and navigate mall parking with a cranky toddler to buy some anytime soon, I'm not going to pay for shipping and I've wanted to try something more natural anyway.

So I grabbed the box of corn starch from my toddler's room (when he was a baby, I used to apply it to the deep chubby creases around his neck and under his arms to reduce irritation).  A little dab here and there and the shine was gone, which is really the only reason I use facial powder.

As I researched whether or not to do this, I came across Hodgson Mill's website.  It has a page chock full of tips on other uses for corn starch (recipes, too!), including, among many others:

• as an underarm deodorant - just wipe your underarm first with rubbing alcohol to kill bacteria, then apply corn starch
• to patch plaster walls
• to shine your car
• to clean your silver
• to make powdered sugar
• to make finger paint or "play clay"
  
• to remove grease stains
• as a facial cleanser
• to thicken gravy
• to make homemade baking powder
  
• to soothe sunburn
  

I'll still use foundation and under-eye concealer for dressy occasions (ok, well the concealer is mandatory until my toddler starts consistently sleeping through the night!), but I'll ditch the department store powder and head to the grocery store instead.

Bonus: a box of corn starch costs about a buck, which is a savings of about $30 versus what I used to pay - maybe more since the box is so big.

Score!

Fighting My Child's Eczema

From the day my first child was born we have battled his eczema. It's not severe but it is persistent. I can't say I was surprised since I've got a number of family members with allergies, asthma and eczema. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

He was sensitive to dairy as a tiny baby but outgrew it by the time he celebrated his first birthday.

That's when we discovered the massive egg allergy. It was not respiratory in nature but the first time I gave him scrambled eggs after he turned one was quite scary (his whole body turned red and his face and ears swelled -- see photo at left). I became very skilled at baking without eggs. By the time he was two and a half he had outgrown that sensitivity. Whew!

All along the way, I've been trying to untangle the mystery of the occasional tiny patches of eczema that crop up on his arms, lower back and lower legs.

At various times I've kept a log of his diet, done some elimination diet testing, carefully reviewed what environmental allergens he's encountered. I know that some of it is hereditary, some of it is seasonal (it gets worse in the winter when the air is dry) and some of it is food-related (he doesn't handle artificial colors well).

His eczema isn't bad enough for me to put him through exhaustive (and painful) tests right now. He can decide about that for himself when he is older. For now, I just find that keeping on top of it is vitally important - dry patches that are left unaddressed quickly worsen.

I think some of my preventive measures have helped. In the winter, we use a humidifier in his bedroom. All year round, we try to eat as organically as possible. I also take precautions to keep contact allergens to a minimum:

• changing our sheets and air filters frequently and vacuuming all of our carpets weekly to reduce dust mites
• not wearing shoes inside the house so we don't track in pollen and dirt
• not having pets
• using biodegradable, unscented, dye-free laundry detergent
• using organic shampoo (Jason Natural Kids Shampoo or California Baby Shampoo) and Aquaphor Healing Ointment (especially after bath!) rather than complicated skin lotions
• using non-toxic household cleaners
• using good sunscreen (click here for a website that rates the safety and efficacy of sunscreens and other personal products)
  
• using hydrocortisone cream (1%) sparingly
• rinsing off chlorine right after swimming

Please leave a comment to share what methods you use to battle eczema!

I Love Our Coolaroo Sail Shade

We live in a part of the US that is very hot from July through September. People joke about how they don't see their neighbors at all during this time frame because everyone stays indoors. It's no joke, though, when it's humid and 110 degrees F for days on end.

For this reason, swimming pools are very popular here. But with small children, the risk of sunburn is really high. I get a tan even wearing SPF 50. Since it is windy, umbrellas frequently blow over. So I figured I'd find something to securely hang over the pool.

At Costco.com, I found the Coolaroo sail shade you see in the picture. They come in various shapes and sizes. It came with all of the mounting hardware and it now provides excellent supplemental/relief coverage for our wading pool. If a big storm comes, I can just unhook it and tuck it away.

Live Green - Wash Your Hands!

Over 4th of July weekend, we traveled to visit relatives in another state. Before boarding the airplane, I visited the ladies room. As I stepped forward to wash my hands, I saw two ladies leave their stalls and walk directly out of the restroom without washing up. Cue the gag reflex. I did not need to see that just as I was about to be trapped on an airplane for 3 hours with 75 other potential non-handwashers.

I will admit it. I am a bit of a germophobe. I have always been that person with a bottle of hand sanitizer on her desk. I do not like shaking hands. Traveling by air or train is not fun for me. Taking a cruise is completely out of the question. But let me ask this question: why would you allow yourself to get sick when you could easily prevent most illness by washing your hands? Seriously.

I started teaching my kids good hygiene right from the start - a bath every night, teeth brushed twice a day, hands washed at all critical junctures of the day, sneezing and coughing into a tissue or your sleeve rather than your hand or straight into the room, don't put your fingers in any bodily orifice. I also set a good example for them by taking proper care of myself, too.

Wait, do I need to elaborate on when to wash your hands? Hmm. Oh right - the airport restroom - guess I do! Wash your hands after using the restroom, before eating, before preparing food (and after handling any raw poultry, meat, fish or eggs), after changing a diaper, before and after caring for someone who is sick, after taking out the garbage, after sneezing or coughing into your hands, after cleaning the litter box, when you come into your home, etc., etc. Think about this - did you handle money or a menu and then eat with your hands? Do you know how many people have touched that money or menu, and how many of them wash up after using the restroom? Carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer.

While the kids are little, I also do two more things to keep us from bringing illness into the house: we don't wear shoes indoors (the kids still roll around on the ground) and we use hand sanitizer as soon as we enter the car after we've been out and about. We leave the playground at the playground, the grocery store at the grocery store, the school at the school, the zoo at the zoo. If they catch something airborne, that's just the way it goes. But we do our best not to catch the really nasty stuff that winds up on our hands.

What is green about all of this? Not having to see the doctor quite as much, consuming fewer antibiotics, not creating a ripple effect of illness. But here is one more green tip about handwashing: ditch the antibacterial soap. It contributes to the rise of drug-resistant bacteria. It also typically contains triclosan, which is absorbed into the skin and is a known endocrine disruptor. Triclosan also reacts with chlorine in tap water to create chloroform, which is toxic to the environment. Just use regular soap and thoroughly lather up for 15-20 seconds each time.

(My friend Rich will think it's funny that I'm writing this - the germophobe in me was all about the anti-bacterial this and that years ago, and he scoffed at it. You were right, Rich!)