All Eyes On Her

I’ve been working on a DIY beta hydroxy solution that doesn’t contain any alcohol, and I pestered the chemist over at The Personal Formulator about solubility, and they were pretty informative:

Salicylic acid is only slightly soluble in water, one gram dissolves in 460mL water. To incorporate salicylic acid to a formulation, the following methods can be used:

1) it can be added to the oil phase of the emulsion and heated to 80-85C

2) it can be added to a water phase containing sodium phosphate, borax, alkali acetates or citrates to increase its solubility in water

3) it can be combined with a glycol, such as propylene glycol

Since I’m not gung-ho about using borax, glycols or any other unnecessary chemicals, I went ahead and tried to dissolve it in oil alone. However, the crystals seem to re-crystalize once the oil returns to room temperature. I’ve been shaking the solution vigorously and applying it anyway, and I haven’t had any problems — but I’m just not convinced it works well.

Blast it, I wish I knew more about solubility and other basic chemistry concepts! Next time, I’ll be trying to add it to a lecithin-emulsified solution to see if that helps. If any other skincare gurus have ideas, please share them!

In my continuing obsession with 100% Pure products, I’d like to highlight their delicious body cream collection. I’ve sampled their pineapple, nectarine, honey almond, and coconut scents, and I loved them all! (Though I have to admit, I was partial to the coconut — it made me smell exactly like a fresh-baked macaroon.)

I expected to hate some of these creams, because I usually can’t stand a lot of fruit fragrances, even if they’re allegedly natural. But I was pleasantly surprised every time with these guys! The pineapple and nectarine smell closer to the real thing than anything else I’ve tried. (And as an aside, their strawberry lemonade shower gel smelled drinkable, that’s how accurate it was. It’s kind of eerie.)

I’m not sure exactly how they derive their fragrances, but whatever they’re doing is working for them. The scents do last a long time, but they’re not so strong that they overwhelm your normal fragrance products. (They’re just noticeable up close — but be careful, you may be tempted to lick them off your skin!)

The consistency of these creams is just dreamy — softening and moisturizing and yet it sinks in great. It’s a very thick cream, so it’s nice and concentrated, but it doesn’t feel greasy at all after you apply it. I’ve found that they help a lot with my dryness-prone skin.

I can’t wait to try out some of their other dessert-like scents, such as chocolate mocha, white chocolate, and vanilla bean. I’m a sucker for lotions that smell like baked goods, I guess! I’ll definitely update if I try out these scents, but for now I’m not even halfway through my bottle of Organic Virgin Coconut — it’s that potent!

For many years I’ve cautioned readers against bubble baths, singing the tune that skin soaking in harsh detergents is only going to get dried out and flaky. Instead, I’ve said, you should use a body oil, and apply it directly to your skin before you slip into the tub. (Or go for a therapeutic bath additive, like Epsom salts for muscle tension, or aromatherapy essential oils for mental tension.)

That’s all well and good, but sometimes you gotta indulge those old-school cravings. And ever since I started using 100% Pure’s bath gels, I’ve been shocked by how non-dry my skin has been! (Their lotion ain’t half bad, either — I’ve been meaning to post a detailed review of their products, and I promise I will soon!) These babies truly are pure, with no icky fillers like dimethicone or harsh detergents like sodium laurel sulfate (SLS). So I decided to give them a whirl in a bubble bath, on the off-chance that I had finally found a cleanser that was gentle enough to soak in for an hour.

I have to admit, my expectations were low since these don’t cause much foam during shower time. But I think that must be largely due to their liquid-like consistency, because BOY was my bath bubbly today! I was surrounded by fluffy, light, nectarine-scented foam that took me back to my days of pretty princess dresses and My Little Ponies. A much-needed escape! I still recommend the other, more skin-friendly baths I’ve prescribed for so long. But on those days when you just wanna jump in rain puddles and play with makeup, I finally have a go-to bubble bath option! My inner child is grinning. :)

Makeup Alley is a skincare and makeup discussion board similar to the Essential Day Spa Forum, but because I discovered MUA second, I’ve never really participated in their forums.

However, they have a couple of fabulous features that EDS does not — namely, a wishlist function, and a swap function. These two work in conjunction with each other — you place items you’re yearning to try (or just stock up on) on your wishlist, and you also post items you’re happy to get rid of on your swap list. People take a look at your swap list, and offer to trade you for stuff they want and you don’t. And you can search other people’s swap lists for items on your wish list, and try and get them to trade.

Sure, the system has some flaws — many members have complained of “swap-lifters” who receive but never send, and you never know if the item you receive will be in the condition described. But there’s a pretty good system in place for rating users and giving feedback, kind of like eBay. And so far I’ve only had experiences ranging from medium to great — never overtly bad.

A couple times now, I’ve gotten ahold of items I was dying to try, but didn’t want to shell out money for. And my main goal was to pare down my excess surplus of beauty goods, which I’ve definitely been able to do. I’m still getting rid of things all the time, and the shipping cost is usually pretty nominal.

Swaps have been great for me, and I just wish I weren’t so insanely picky — but since certain ingredients always send my skin haywire, I’m fairly conservative about what I’ll swap for. A couple times I’ve just sent users items of mine without asking for anything in exchange, just to put some good swap vibes out there and to see products I never use go to a good home. When you’re as invested in products as I am, it’s nice to see them appreciated!

You do have to create an account to use Makeup Alley for these purposes, but accounts are free and totally private. Nothing but pluses in my book!

Turns out, tagetes is STINKY! My package from Nature’s Gift arrived recently, and I mixed up a little vial of tagetes essential oil in a neem and avocado oil base. I started anointing dear Grant’s toes with it, and I was wowed by how smelly it is. Not like anything else I’ve smelled, and certainly not as offensive as neem, but very… strong.  It’s also a very bright yellow color, kind of like turmeric or saffron, and it does kinda stain the skin/nail bed.

I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of results we get. I specifically designed this toenail fungus treatment for Grant, because he can’t stand the smell of vinegar. So the normal vinegar bath method was kinda out of the question, if I wanted him to be a willing participant. Here’s hoping this vinegar-free method makes all the stink worth it!

I’ve always considered myself fairly savvy with essential oils, but I’m learning more and more as I go. I had the basics down, but now I’m delving into some lesser-known oils, like manuka (below) and, this time, tagetes.

Tagetes is the oil from a type of marigold, and it has powerful anti-fungal properties. I’ve been trying to come up with an effective essential oil blend for toenail fungus for a while now, so that people can avoid taking those awful and side-effect-riddled oral medications. I had a mix of neem and tea tree, which is great for some other fungus-type problems, but which never seemed to do the trick for toenails.

But I was turned on to tagetes oil thanks to a couple of EDS members, and I started looking into it more. This stuff is renowned for killing fungi! Bye-bye, sad toenails. (Not my own, thankfully, but those of a certain someone close to me who was reluctant to wear sandals all last summer.) I’m hoping by this summer, that certain someone’s tootsies will be good to go, thanks to tagetes.

I’ve been working on my homemade deodorant for several months now, and I think I finally hit the jackpot with today’s batch. I made a couple of targeted adjustments that really improved the overall product.

I cut out the neem oil entirely, because even though neem is great for antibacterial and antifungal purposes, it’s too stinky! I also switched from tea tree to manuka oil, which has a slightly less over-the-top smell. And lastly, I added a lovely fragrant EO blend that doesn’t have any beneficial purpose in a deodorant, but that helps it smell nice (and masks the smell of other ingredients).

Combine that with better ratios of ingredients, a more finely-milled version of an herb powder I wanted to use, and a general better hand at blending all this stuff in the right order, and presto! I’m very excited by my new recipe, and I think it’s going to become my standard. Never again will I have to suffer underarm irritation, not to mention the potential risks of Alzheimer’s and breast cancer. I’m so pleased!