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Today is my 7th Mother’s Day – and I decided to treat myself by going shopping. Nothing extravagant, mind you.
I went to Thrift Town where I got a few containers that I may be able to use for cosmetics and a couple of little baskets. Some are very cute, and I want to take a picture of them after I dry them (I just washed). Stay tuned.
Then we went to a hardware store and got a bunch of plants to, well, plant. We’ve never been able to grow something before so I’m not very optimistic, but the kids want to do it and I’m willing to give it a try. I got lavender, chamomile, oregano and parsley for me, flowers for the kids (including some daisies). Let’s see where we can put them.
Now Mike and the kids are off to Seussical and I’m having a cup of tea before doing some cleaning/laundry. Yeah, not the ideal way to pass mother’s day, but if I don’t do it today, I still have to do it tomorrow.
I’m sad to say that while Camila loves making cosmetics with me (just as she loves baking/cooking with me), Mika has not been very enthused about it. I’m not really sure why, but she’s also not into baking & cooking, so it’s probably related.
In any case, after buying some more cosmetic-making supplies, I checked out The Girls’ World Book of Bath & Beauty back from the library and looked through it with Mika. She liked the idea of making “Glitterbug Body Glitter”, so we did that after she came back from school today.
The results were pretty good, the glitter was much more liquid than I thought it’d be, even after we added quite a bit more glycerin, and we did add quite a bit of glitter, but Mika was happy. Interestingly, she put the glitter on me rather than her š
Body Glitter Recipe
3 Tbsp. aloe vera gel
2 Tbsp. witch hazel
1 Tbsp. glycerin
6-12 drops soap/lotion color
3-6 drops essential or fragrance oil
a pinch of soap glitter or more
Mix the aloe vera, with hazel and glycerin in a zippered sandwich bag. Add the color and mix well. Add the fragrance and mix again. Finally add the glitter and mix.
Make a small cut in the corner of the sandwich bag and pour the glitter lotion into a 2oz cosmetic bottle.
Rub all over your skin.
Update I don’t know how this has happened, but the glitter has disappeared from the body glitter. I kid you not, you can’t see any of the glitter when you apply it to your skin, or when you look through the bottle. How this has happened, I cannot say. Maybe it was simply dissolved in the aloe vera/glycerin mixture. I bought the soap body glitter at Michael’s, so perhaps it was just bad quality glitter. Next time, I’ll try getting it online. The kids are, of course, disappointed.
I’m not fond of my face cream, so I wanted to try to make one and see if I liked it better. Plus, I wanted to make some to give to Camila’s teacher – whom I adore – for mother’s day. She’s truly like a second mom to my children. After looking and looking and looking for recipes, I settled on this one because I had all the ingredients, including home made rose water. The recipe also looked more complex than other ones.
I followed the recipe quite closely. I think it may have been a mistake to make all the substitutions mentioned in the recipe, however. I substituted part of the water with aloe vera gel and part of the oil with jojoba and avocado oils. I also added phenonip, a preservative, so that it wouldn’t need to be refrigerated/used immediately.
The cream emulsified very nicely, had a lovely pastel pink color and a nice, light consistency. At first I thought I’d wanted it thicker, but then I think it would have been too difficult to apply.
I was quite unhappy with the cream at first because when I applied it to my face and arms, it was not just super oily, but super sticky – so much so that it made my skin feel very tight. I had to wash it off.
Later, I tried applying just a tiny bit of the cream to my face (rather than the lot I’d originally applied), and while it was still oily, the sticky sensation wasn’t there. I was still unhappy with the oily sensation – but then I compared it to my usual face creams and realized that they were just as oily. I guess that while a body lotion is supposed to be absorbed quickly, a face cream should take longer to absorb so that it provides you with longer protection.
I’ve decided that I’m going to use it as a night cream, after I run out of my usual one. With so many different oils and ingredients, I think it will be very nourishing. At night, it won’t matter much that it’s greasy, and, as it doesn’t have any UV protection, I shouldn’t use it during the day anyway. I gave it a test drive last night and my face is moist and soft this morning, not at all oily.
Now, for the recipe. I wasn’t sure if the measurements were on fluid ounces, or regular ounces. I decided to weigh all the ingredients, except for those given in teaspoons. I also halved the recipe from the original, as I didn’t need so much of it. That meant I had to modify some quantities a little bit. I’m giving the quantities in grams, as, given the light measurements, it’s easier.
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