In The Lab: DIY Honey Facial Cleanser

Honey. The honey craze comes and goes…and always comes back again. I’m seeing a lot of skincare products hitting the market again with honey in them, and until I can get my hands on a few of them, I figured that I’d use what I have in the kitchen for now! This is just a quick recipe that should get you through until you can get your honey skincare products too!

 

Small batch (should last 1 week):

2 tablespoons honey (antibacterial, probiotic, removes dirt and impurities, gentle on skin)

1 tablespoon coconut oil (antimicrobial, has Vitamin E, antioxidant, anti-aging, hydrating)

1/2 teaspoon turmeric (antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-aging, improves skin elasticity, helps even out skin tone)

 

Mix thoroughly, You can put it in the refrigerator if you’d like (the coconut oil will make it solidify), but you don’t have to. If you are wearing makeup, remove this first, whether it’s with makeup wipes, liquid remover, or another facial cleanser. I use the Walnut Complexion Scrub from Ole Henriksen before using the honey cleanser, because as you all know, I am the exfoliation queen, thank you very much. 🙂

Take a small portion of the honey cleanser, rub it between your hands, and then apply to your face using gentle circular motions. It will smell like honey and turmeric. You will be okay. You will. 😉 Once you feel that your face has been cleansed sufficiently, rinse. When you pat your face dry (damp), make sure that you either use a washcloth that you don’t mind being slightly stained by the turmeric, or pat your face dry with a paper towel, preferably a soft one.

Your face should feel pretty soft and moisturized, and maybe even a bit glowy! Since I’ve been using this, I’ve had the problem of not being able to stop touching my face afterwards. It just feels so soft! But even though it feels nice and moisturized, make sure that you use an actual moisturizer of some sort when you’re done if you feel the need to.

As with anything, whether it’s store bought or DIY, results may vary. If you are allergic to any of these products, please do not try this, as your health is important! If you do try this out, please let me know what you think in the comment section below. Enjoy! 🙂

DIY Moisturizer…With Milk?

I clearly need to make a run to the store or place an order online or something, because I realized this morning that I’d run out of facial moisturizer. Now, I could have just used Egyptian Magic (which I LOVE!), but I normally use that at night. I don’t care to use it during the day, because it just makes you walk around looking extra greasy. That’s not cute. For some reason, milk kept coming to mind, so I had to search out and see if I could find a recipe for a facial moisturizer using milk. There were several out there, but I chose the most simple (and well known) recipe of the bunch. Mainly because I had all three of the ingredients here in the house. Yay, right? So I mixed it all up, tried it out, and my skin was instantly a bit brighter. That was eight hours ago, and my skin still looks pretty fab. This one may be a keeper! Will remember this when I run out of moisturizer again. 😉

Ingredients:

1/4 C milk (lactic acid for gentle exfoliation)

2 tablespoons lemon juice (exfoliating, brightening skin, evens out skin tone)

2 tablespoons olive oil (smooth complexion, soft skin, maintain elasticity, Vitamin E, and more)

Mix the milk and the olive oil until well blended. Then mix in the lemon juice, and that’s it! Use as the final step to your beauty routine. Make sure to keep this mixture in the refrigerator, as it does have milk as the main ingredient. Just pull it out of the fridge when you need it, shake it up, use, and put it back in the fridge when you’re done. This moisturizer should keep for a few days, and after that, the remainder should be discarded.

I will also say that this recipe yielded more than I will actually need or be able to use before it expires. If you think this will be an issue, consider halving the recipe. Don’t make more than you’ll actually use! 😀

Note: If you are allergic to lemons, don’t try this. Also, if you know that you will have prolonged exposure to the sun that day, you may not want to use this moisturizer, as the lemon can cause sun sensitivity. Be safe. 🙂

Sewing Projects On The Horizon…

Happy Sunday/Almost Monday! Vogue Patterns (http://voguepatterns.mcall.com) had another one of their lovely, lovely sales over the weekend – all of the patterns were $3.99, which is much better than their regular prices. I ordered four patterns, and when they arrive, it’s ON! I haven’t done any sewing projects in awhile, and I really need to get back to it. Here’s what I bought:

V1314

V8584

V8879

V8879 with open back

V8901

Hopefully these turn out well! We shall see. I will post each one when they’re finished! *thinking* I wonder if this constitutes as a Summer challenge…

DIY Cream Eyeshadow Update

Yesterday’s DIY cream eyeshadow experiment. Yes. I went ahead and tried it out today just to see how well it would show up with an extra light hand. The results?

Not too shabby! And that’s with me barely using any of it. Next time? Heavy handed! Hahaha! 😉

DIY Cream Eyeshadow

I…am a fan of black eyeshadow. I cannot get enough of it. Literally. I can’t get enough of it, because I have yet to find one that is dark enough to show up on my eyelids in photos as a true black. They show up really well in person, but no matter how much I pack it on, it will not show up well in photos. So I keep picking up eyeshadows, and eyeshadows…and eyeshadows. I was browsing around on YouTube and of course saw people using MAC Carbon, which is definitely dark, and came across Urban Decay’s Blackout, which is also super dark. But before running out to the store and throwing money around, I came across a few tutorials on how to make your own cream eyeshadow, and I thought that was pretty interesting. Which of course led to today’s experiment. 😉

What you will need:

Eyeshadow, moisturizer (lotion or facial moisturizer), a clean jar/container to store the concoction in, something that you can use to scrape eyeshadow out of its pan, and a mixing utensil.

I’m not sure if there’s an exact science to this DIY, but here’s how I did it:

1) Start with a small amount of moisturizer in the jar/container. You don’t want to start out with too much, because you may end up with more moisturizer than eyeshadow, depending on how much eyeshadow you want to use. You can always add more later.

2) Take your eyeshadow pan and scrape out as much of the eyeshadow as you think you will need for this project. As with the moisturizer, you can always add more later. I used the entire pan (plus another dash of moisturizer) just to see what would happen. Add it to the jar with the moisturizer.

3) Carefully mix the two together until it has a creamy consistency.

Honestly, this looks better in person.

And there you have it! You have now made your own cream eyeshadow! I decided to swatch what was left of the original eyeshadow and the creamy one to see how much of a difference it made:

Um, yes. Huge difference. The eyeshadow on the left is supposed to be a dark, matte black. Emphasis on “supposed to be.” Which is why it’s been sitting around after only being used once or twice. The eyeshadow on the right? Clearly it has no problems being seen.

If you decide to try this, please let me know how it turned out, or if you have any suggestions! And now that I have been enlightened, I will be busy emptying out all of the rest of the eyeshadow pans that I have not been using due to them not showing up very well in photos. 😀