The View From My Fishbowl

So now that I am posting about all these ways of going natural with my bath and beauty products, I feel obligated to give you updates as I go along.

Hair:

Currently, I am washing my hair with baking soda twice a week (usually Sunday and Wednesday), rinsing with vinegar and hibiscus tea almost every day. About once a week, I use a conditioner that I have sitting in the shower…this usually happens on Friday or Saturday, when I’ve run out of vinegar/tea rinse and feel too lazy at the time to make it up. I’ve starting adding a few drops of jojoba oil to my rinse. I haven’t got the proportions quite correct yet, but it does make my hair super soft! If I feel like my hair is especially dry, I rub in some coconut oil at night, and then add a squirt of castile soap to my baking soda when I wash my hair the next morning. That seems to work well for me.

I’m still on the same batch of orange spray even though it’s been more than two weeks. I smell it each time before I use it, and it’s still good! As a hair spray, this batch totally did not work. Though it seemed a little sticky for the first few times I used it, it doesn’t any more. I use it more as a ‘finishing’ spray…after I’ve either blow-dried my hair (if I’m short on time) or let air dry and then scrunched curly with aloe gel. The orange spray is great for controlling frizz and adding a nice shine. It’s just enough of an oil on the ends of my hair that they don’t get tangled up throughout the day. It really works nice when I go curly. In place of a hair spray when I need the hold (for putting my hair up), I’ve been using aloe gel. I just rub it in before putting my hair up. Since I don’t really have bangs anymore (still contemplating that…), it works well enough.

Deodorant:

Still using the same basic recipe, only I added a couple tablespoons of shea butter to my last batch. With the heat we’ve been having, even leaving the deodorant in the coolest bathroom of the house still leaves it runny (we don’t have central air…so the ‘coolest’ bathroom is still rather warm!). Within a couple days of adding the shea butter, it firmed up to a nice consistency and I haven’t had any more problems with that.

Toothpaste:

I noticed that my sink was draining slowly. My SIL (who was starting to have the same problem) and I both agreed that it was probably the coconut oil in the toothpaste. It solidifies at 70 degrees, so even though you are brushing your teeth with warm/hot water, at some point it hits a cool pipe or puddled water in the pipe, and will start to solidify. So we’ve both discontinued using the coconut oil toothpaste. I went back to baking soda for about a week, and then decided to order a big container of tooth chips. Honestly, I couldn’t believe how much cleaner my mouth felt after brushing with them. I thought that the toothpaste was doing a good job (and it probably was) but the overall enjoyableness of using the tooth chips definitely ranks higher…they taste better than straight baking soda and are less messy than the toothsoap I had made.

Facial:

So, in keeping with the ‘not rinsing coconut oil down the drain’ theme, I’ve not been using it for the OCM method. I use a dab of coconut oil with a tissue to rub off eye makeup, then rinse and scrub my face with hot water and a washrag. Then I slather it with coconut oil and let it soak in. Once it has had a few minutes, I wipe off the excess with a tissue. About twice a week I use a baking soda scrub and then rub my T-zone with tea tree oil. I’ve only been doing this for a week or so, and haven’t noticed much difference. If it doesn’t work out for me, I will try with some other oils that won’t solidify in the drain…I have almond, jojoba, and olive oils all on hand, so I’ll probably start my experimenting there.

So…that’s the latest of the natural updates for me! Anyone else try anything new recently?

After coming across several variations of a hairspray recipe, I decided to venture out and try it for myself.

I had been using Honeybee Gardens Wheat Therapy Hair Spray, which I’ve loved.

Although it can be used as a hair gel too, it leaves my hair a bit too crunchy, so I’ve been sticking with aloe gel for that. I don’t go through a lot of hairspray – maybe a bottle every two or three months. I usually put two or three spritzes on my hair every day, just to hold down flyaways, and I use it lavishly when wearing my hair up (the finer strands tend to slip out otherwise). But still, at over $8 a bottle, this was one area I was looking to cut expenses.

So after reading this recipe online in several different places, I decided to give it a try.

Here is what you need:

• 1 orange
• 2 cups water
• 1 Tbsp. rubbing alcohol (optional)
• Stove, saucepan (also strainer and spray bottle, not picture)

Slice 1 orange and cover with 2 cups of water in a saucepan. (I ate a couple chunks of this particular orange – so it was really like 3/4 of one!) I started out with big chunks, then cut all these in half.

Bring to a boil and allow to simmer until 1/2 of your liquid is evaporated. I used a potato masher right before taking it off the heat to mash up the rind and be sure that every little bit of goodness was squeezed out.

Allow to cool then strain well. As you can see below, I got just over 1/2 cup liquid, which means I boiled it a little too long. I went ahead and added water up to the 1 cup line. If I was using this exclusively as a hair gel, I probably would have left it thicker, but I didn’t want it to gloopy as a hairspray.

If you add a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol, this can be kept at room temperature for up to two weeks. Otherwise, it must be kept in the refrigerator. I opted to add the alcohol this time, just so I didn’t have to bother with the refrigerator.

Cost? The cost of 1 orange, 1 Tbsp rubbing alcohol, and a few minutes of my time. Much better than $8!

This recipe can also be used with a lemon. I used an orange for two reasons: it is more moisturizing than a lemon (especially since I was adding the rubbing alcohol), and lemon juice can react with sunlight to bleach your hair (a mild reaction, really, but I didn’t want to bother with that).

So, how did I like it – that is really the question. I like it as a hairspray. It smells a little bit sweet and sticky when you first spray it on, but once dry, it isn’t any different than any other hairspray. (And I’ve had no problems with attracting bees…which is usually the next question!) The oils in the orange have actually been really good for my hair. It makes my hair silky smooth and gives it a nice shine. As a gel, it hasn’t worked for me. I think that I thinned it out too much. If I put it on my hair while wet, the oils make it act almost as a conditioner, but not a gel. But aloe gel really works well for me, so I’m not so worried about that at this point. It does work as a hairspray, which is what I intended, so that’s good.

I’ve already been thinking of what I want to do next time. I happened upon this site, which has a lot of recipes and ideas to peruse. I’d like to find some way to preserve it without the rubbing alcohol. I found a recipe with glycerin, but haven’t done much research on it, so I’m not sure that that would be less drying than alcohol. My sis-in-law suggested trying grapefruit seed extract as a preservative, so I may look into that. I love room for experimentation.