- Bath, Beginner, Body, Candles, Face, Hair, Home, Safety, Soaps, Summer recipes, Tips and tricks, Tutorials and recipes, Winter recipes, Zero waste
10 golden rules for making your own products
There are so many benefits to making care and household products yourself: you save money, while ending up with beautiful natural products that are good for you and the environment. But there’s a lot to learn when you start out! With time, DIY becomes quite easy, you just need to pay careful attention to the trickier steps and get to know your ingredients and key techniques. If you take the time to learn and understand the basics when you start out, you’ll set yourself up for success and you’ll be free to experiment later. So today, we’re here to help you take your first steps on your journey into the…
-
Dermocaustic and photosensitizing essential oils
Essential oils are great, but use them with caution! Essential oils are very useful ingredients in homemade care products. They confer benefits to your DIY cosmetics, while imparting their lovely scents. However, they can’t be used willy-nilly! It’s important to read up on the essential oils you want to use. Some are dermocaustic or photosensitizing, meaning that they can irritate your skin or make it sensitive to sunlight. You might be wondering why we use these essential oils in our recipes at all. Well, you can still use them as long as you take specific precautions and use them in the right products. As long as you stick to…
-
Understanding UV rays and sun protection
For the most part, we love basking in the sun on beautiful summer days. As well as being enjoyable, reasonable sun exposure with sufficient protection offers several benefits, for example by activating vitamin D production. Nevertheless, overexposure and poor protection can lead to premature aging of the skin or even skin cancer. To avoid these serious problems, let’s take a closer look (figuratively speaking!) at these notorious UV rays in order to understand them better and learn how to protect our skin from the sun. What are UV rays? The sun emits several kinds of electromagnetic waves: infrared, visible spectrum, and ultraviolet. The shorter the wave, the greater its energy—and…
-
Using Sodium Hydroxide Safely
Always wear safety goggles (eyeglasses will not suffice). If sodium hydroxide comes into contact with your eyes it can cause permanent blindness. Always wear nitrile gloves (not latex) and long sleeves. Cover as much skin as possible. Chemical burns caused by sodium hydroxide are “slow” burns. These burns cause itchy, stinging sensations that feel less intense than thermal burns. Nevertheless, it is important to act quickly and treat the burn as soon as you feel these sensations. If you feel any itching or stinging, rinse immediately with cool water for 1 minute. Use only stainless steel, plastic or silicone tools when handling sodium hydroxide. Sodium hydroxide will erode pans made…