HARD LOTION BARS

Hard Lotion Bars

by Tammie on 

I first heard about making a hard lotion bar from Practical Ideas for Practical Moms and then I saw them at Passionate Homemaking!  I had all the stuff I needed for them since I had been experimenting with making my own Natural Deodorant so I thought these would be fun to try too!  If you don't want to make your own you can buy them at MadeOn  These are great for those extra dry Winter hands and feet especially for people who get the dry cracked sores on them.  Below is the recipe I used!  Enjoy soft silky hands even in the Winter!

Hard Lotion Bar

4.25 ounces Beeswax
4.25 ounces Shea Butter
5.5 ounces Coconut Oil
70 drops of essential oil, optional

Melt ingredients in crock pot or double boiler.  Mix well,  add essential oils if wanted once everything is melted.  Using a turkey baster or small ladle pour into molds of choice.  Soap molds, flexible ice cube trays, mini muffin tins, Tupperware, whatever "mold" you can think of will probably work.  I used 2 small soap molds that I had hanging around but since I only had two and this made about 6-8 bars I put the molds with the melted lotion in the freezer so they would set up faster so I could pop them out and use the mold again.  It was a little tedious but worked pretty good.  After all the bars were made I wrapped them in wax paper just like you would a present.  Then if you want to get creative you can print up your own fun labels for them!  Lots of fun and makes a great gift for all those people in your life with rough hands! ;)

http://www.simplehealthytasty.com/2011/02/hard-lotion-bars.html

THANKS TAMMIE!

FOOD WONDERFUL FOOD

Just thought I would show you a few things I have been working on today.  I guess I got up hungry or something........

My first project was making another batch of home made yogurt.   Its on the heating pad covered with a towel and a bucket on top to keep in the heat in.  It will be ready  to uncover and put in the frig in about another hour.   So no picture of that.  Just three more quarts of fresh wonderful yogurt.
 
 Number two project----- I decided we needed a fresh batch of bread.  So, out comes the Bosch mixer, found the recipe,   and gathered all the ingredients.   And a few minutes later, we had a huge batch of dough.   This is only my second time to do this,   and I  end up with one loaf larger than the others.  Go figure.  
   The kitchen was already smelling good form the aroma of the dough,  so I shaped the dough and put it in the bread pans to rise.     After 30 minutes or so , popped them in the oven and 25 minutes later............OMG!!!!!       Its Done !  The smell was heavenly.   My house smelled so wonderful!    And the bread, sliced up hot with real butter on it...................    Well there are no words to describe that.    It was wonderful.  

While nibbling on this off and on, I decided since it was 100 degrees outside, we might enjoy some frozen yogurt later this evening..

So out comes the cuisinart , and I just emptied the last of my previous batch of home made yogurt in a bowl, added sugar, milk, and vanilla.    Got the frozen bowl out of the freezer, added all the yogurt mixture, turned on the little machine and let it whirl away.   In about 30 minutes, we had frozen yogurt.    Of course we had to sample this as well.   We just drizzled  alittle frozen strawberry puree over the top and again..............OMG!   It was sooooooo good!

Maybe we might skip cooking the steaks and sausage on the grill.  Bread and frozen yogurt?  This sure looks wonderful and my mouth is watering right now.          Naw!     Start cooking the  steaks!!!

Here is another recipe for sunscreen.   I just ordered my kit, and the zinc oxide to make my sunscreen.  

How to Make Your Own Sunscreen Lotion

  

I have a small list of things I never thought I would make myself, and sunscreen happens to be on that list. It feels good to prove myself wrong, and realize that yet another product that felt so elusive and out-of-reach to me is actually dead easy to make.

Last week, a friend and I gathered in my kitchen with our oldest daughters to attempt to create some safe and chemical-free, SPF 30 sunscreen... without fancy equipment, without any previous know-how, without an FDA stamp of approval.

First things first... do we even need sunscreen?

Most of the time, I would say no. Our family rarely uses it because I don't believe it is generally helpful or even wise to use frequently. Particularly for us, living in the gray West Coast, we need the Vitamin D desperately (and I recently learned that it takes us until September each year to get back up to optimal levels after the winter!).

Instead of frequent sunscreen use, we employ a lot of common sense tactics to stay safe in the sun.

Occasionally, though, I feel like it's the right move to pull out a bottle, to avoid burning during long periods of sun exposure (like a day at the beach). If you've been around this blog for long, you've probably already guessed that I won't use the conventional sunscreen products lining the store shelves. I want something safer for my family.

So what does "safer" sunscreen mean?

From my understanding based on what I've read, the safest sunscreens are those with the same types of natural ingredients that you would want in any other type of skincare product. Nourishing oils like coconut, shea butter, jojoba, almond, etc. and potentially other ingredients like green tea extract or other antioxidants to protect the skin. Minerals (zinc oxide being the most common) provide the actual barrier between the sun and your skin.

This is just a very short list, but these are some of the ingredients we want to avoid:

• Oxybenzone (found in 65% of sunscreens)- a hormone disrupting chemical
• Retinol palmitate (a form of Vitamin A- fine in the body, but probably harmful on skin)
• Methoxycinnamate or Octinoxate
• Padimate O/PABA
• Nano or Micronized mineral particles

If you really want to learn more about what to avoid, and what to look for I would highly recommend the EWG Sunscreen 2012 Guide. In particular, take a look at the sunscreens that rated the best, and then some articles on sunscreen safety and efficacy, such as What's Wrong With the Sunscreen Protection Business,Health Agencies Question Sunscreen Efficacy, Sunscreens Exposed: 9 Surprising Truths, and Does Sunscreen Damage Skin?.

Additionally, Katie at Kitchen Stewardship has done some amazing research into sun protection over the last couple of summers. Of particular interest are her posts Do Mineral Based Sunblocks Work?, Sunscreen, Skin Cancer and Safety: How Much Do You Need?, and Natural Sunscreen Updates (on her VERY thorough and looong list of sunscreens that she has personally reviewed).

Which leads me to making my own sunscreen

This recipe intrigued me because it's the same basic list of ingredients in MadeOn's hard lotion bars, which are entirely pure and non-toxic (and which my skin loves). It's been adapted to create more of a smooth lotion texture, with the addition of zinc oxide power (not in nano or micronzied particle form), for UVA protection. If you're curious about the safety of zinc oxide, read more here.

It comes from the ebook, My Buttered Life: Summer Edition (which includes several other summer skin recipes, like bug repellant and after-sun skin conditioner). In the book, Renee addresses the issue of SPF and this is what she says:

According to an article on Badger Balmʼs website, zinc oxide should be 20% of the formula in order to get an SPF30. This recipe is right at 20% so this would be considered SPF30

Not bad. SPF 30 is as high as we really need. In my Skin Deep Database reading, I read that although many formulas claim even higher SPFs than that, they realistically may not be and provide a false sense of protection. If we think we need something higher, then maybe we shouldn't be out in the sun for that long.

Here's how we made our own sunscreen:

Our simple ingredients:

• 1/2 oz. beeswax granules/pastilles (I believe we found this to be 1/8 cup when we converted it)
• 1/4 cup shea butter (2 oz.)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil (2 oz.)
• 2 Tbsp. zinc oxide powder (1 oz.)

We added the two oils and then the beeswax to a glass bowl.

This is our makeshift double boiler, a glass bowl sitting on top of a pot with boiling water turned to a low simmer. It's a blurry picture, but I thought it may still be helpful to see how we did it. We just had to be very careful with the hot glass bowl when we lifted it off, but other than that, this worked fine.

Once the oils were melted, we removed the bowl (set it on a folded towel on the counter) and dumped in the zinc oxide powder.

The book had recommended a stick blender, but mine is broken and I couldn't find another one at the thrift store. So, I settled for using a regular hand mixer and it did the job just fine. The goal was to thoroughly blend in the zinc oxide until there were no clumps, and to whip the oils just a bit.

Once it was smooth, we poured it into glass mason jars.

The day we made it (after it cooled off) it had a thinner consistency. I took this picture on a cooler day, and you can see that it's quite a thick lotion now. I was worried that it might not rub into our skin well, but I shouldn't have worried.

This is how it looked as I first began rubbing it onto my daughter's arm, but within a few seconds it softened and went on very nicely.

I wondered if it would leave a pale, ghostly white look, but it didn't. You can see that the arm on the left is slightly lighter (this is the one with sunscreen). But, the difference isn't very noticeable.

I want to tell you that we've been using it in the hot sun with great success, but where we live (the gray West Coast) we've had so few sunny days that I haven't been able to properly test it out. I intend to as soon as we get some sun, and then I'll update this post with how it works for us. What I do know is that in the past we've had success with natural-brand mineral sunblocks, so I expect that we will have a similar experience with this one. If anyone else has tried this, I would love to hear how it worked for you!

Update: We finally got a day to try it! We used it at the park on a very hot, sunny day. After over an hour of direct sunlight, plus another 45 minutes of on and off sunlight, no one was pink in the slightest, not even the baby with his super-fair skin (and we weren't covered up, using hats, etc). Next I'll try it on a water day and update again. :)

Want to try making your own sunscreen?

The recipe came from this book, My Buttered Life: Summer Edition.

The oils and zinc oxide powder came from a DIY kit from MadeOn Skincare. Use code "sunscreen" to take $5 off the cost of a DIY kit (if you bought one yesterday, just email and ask for the discounted amount back).

She also shares some ideas for purchasing the products yourself in the ebook, if you wanted to buy them individually and not in the kit. Two websites that you could use for purchasing these ingredients are From Nature With Love, as well as Mountain Rose Herbs (but it looks as though they do not carry the zinc oxide powder, only the other ingredients).

You can also try viewing the videos that Renee has made, this one for making the regular sunscreen that we made, as well as this one for making a different version that goes in a pump.
POST FROM      http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2012/07/how-to-make-your-own-sunscreen-lotion.html      Thanks for the recipe Keeper of the Home.

MEXICAN UNFRIED ICE CREAM

I can't wait to try this one.  This looks so good!!!!

Mexican "Unfried" Ice Cream
Skinnytaste.com
Servings: 4 • Size: 1 ball w /chocolate syrup • Old Points: 3 • Weight Watcher Points+: 4
Calories: 180 • Fat: 0.5 g • Carb: 36 g • Fiber: 1 g • Protein: 6.5 g • Sugar: 23 g
Sodium: 203 mg • Cholest: 0 mg  


Ingredients:

• 2 cups fat free vanilla frozen yogurt (Stonyfield)
• 2 cups Special K Cereal, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 tsp Hershey's chocolate syrup 
• cherry for topping (optional)
• Truwhip for topping (optional)

Directions:

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. With an ice cream scooper, scoop out 4 balls of ice cream 1/2 cup in size and place on the parchment-lined baking sheet.Freeze for 2 hours, or overnight, until the ice cream is very hard.

Meanwhile, in a shallow bowl, combine the crushed cereal and cinnamon. Using rubber gloves, roll the balls of ice cream in the cereal coating, packing them together into a smooth ball. 

Return the coated ice cream to the baking sheet and freeze until ready to serve.

To serve, drizzle with chocolate syrup on top with whipped cream and cherry, if desired.

ESSENTIAL OILS FOR YOUR DOG, LIST AND REMEDIES

Dogies,  Dogies,  Dogies,  Dogies  

THE FAMILIES BEST FRIEND


Did you know you can treat your dog with essential oils much like you use them for yourself and your family?  You can!  

Dogs tolerate EOs very well but just as humans vary in size, age and doses, so it is with dogs too.  Dogs can be treated aromatically, topically and internally.  When applying topically, a great choice is to massage oils into pads of paws and between toes.

Dog Care Essentials

_______________________________

1.  Frankincense:  Anxiety, Colitis, Inflammation, Infections,  Insect-Snake bites, Scarring, Tumors, Warts

2.  Helichrysum:  Bleeding, Liver Issues, Nerve Damage, Wound Care

3.  Lavender:  Abscesses, Anxiety, Allergies, Burns, Conjuntivitis, Inflammation, Tumors, Vertigo, Wound Care

4.  Lemon:  Anxiety, Electrolyte Balance, Immune Boost, Infections, Lymph Function, Claw Strength

5.  Melissa:  Anxiety, Chronic Cough, Depression, Flu, Herpes, Immune Support

6.  Oregano:  Bronchitis, Colds, Infections, MRSA, Ringworm, Strep, Staph

7.  Peppermint:  Asthma, Bronchitis, Diarrhea, Fever, Heatstroke, Inflammation, Muscle Pain, Ulcers

8.  AromaTouch:  Circulatory Issues, Heatstroke, Overworked Muscles

9.  Balance:  Anxiety, Displasia, for joint issues: add Lemongrass and Deep Blue

10.  DigestZen:   Allergies, Diarrhea, Digestive Parasites, Ulcers, Vomiting

11.  Immortelle:  Anxiety, Bleeding, Inflammation, Nerve Damage, Scarring, Tumors, Wound Care

12.  On Guard:  Abscesses, Colds, Flu, Immune Support, MRSA, Oral Health, Parasites, Spider Bites

13.  Serenity:  Anxiety, Burns, Inflammation, Wound Care

14.  Zendocrine:  Kidney and Bladder Infections, Liver Support

Additional Remedies

________________________________

Fly and Flea Spray (dogs & horses):  

4 to 6 drops each of Purify and Thyme in a 16 oz spray bottle, fill with distilled water.  Spray lightly, avoiding the eyes

Tooth and Gum Loss Health:

8 to 10 drops of On Guard in a 2oz glass bottle, fill with fractionated coconut oil.  Apply to gums and teeth morning and night.

Kennel Cough:

Combine 25 drops each of Breathe, Lime and Thyme.  Diffuse!  Apply topically with a drop of Balance to paws 4 - 6x daily.

Essential Oils Truly are for.....Everyone!

http://campwander.blogspot.com/2013/05/dogs-love-essential-oils-too.html

Strawberry Butter

This sounds wonderful.

Strawberry Butter

Strawberry Butter   

  

I LOVE strawberry butter and it is good for me!

I found this version at the lunch box bunch blog and it is perfect!

5 Tbsp virgin coconut oil

5-6 strawberries
pinch salt
2 tsp maple or agave syrup

To Make: Add all ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend until creamy. Spoon mixture out into freezer-friendly container. Place in the freezer for at least ten minutes - longer for firmer spread - serve. The spread should be served firm yet spreadable. Place back in fridge to store. Use within a few days.

* Do not blend coconut oil with slightly cold or chilled liquids or you will be left with bead-y, clumpy butter. Room temperature to warm liquids work best.

* If you get stuck blending smoothly, add a few splashes of warm water.  You can use refined or unrefined coconut oil. Refined has a stronger coconut essence.
* Always use coconut oil that has been warmed to room temperature - or slightly softer - for easiest blending.
* For a "lower in fat" spread - add in a few tablespoons of non-dairy milk (warm in microwave before adding.) The butter will still firm up nicely, but be a tad less "oily." You can also add in other "fillers" like silken tofu, soy cream cheese, nuts, nut butters, avocado, creamy fruits and more. So many options!!

* If making ahead of time - allow at least 10-20 minutes for coconut butter to soften to room temp before spreading-. this avoids "waxy" spread. Try warming in microwave if needed.

Source: http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2012/04/coconut-butter-spreads-cacao-goji.html

Other flavor ideas:  banana, cacao, goji berry, peanut butter fudge….

Photo source:  purplefoodie.com

FLAVORED WATERS

LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD.  TRY ALL KINDS OF FRUITS FOR SUMMER TIME WATERS.   HOW REFRESHING AND OH SO GOOD FOR YOU!

Here is a delicious recipe from MySpaWater.com that you may prepare with your kids this summer:

Rainbow Spa Water

Ingredients:

• Fresh or frozen organic peaches – sliced
• 1 pint of organic strawberries – sliced
• 1 pint of organic blueberries
• Fresh or frozen organic green and purple grapes
• Fresh or frozen organic cantaloupe balls
• 1 -2 gallons of cold water
• Ice

Instructions:

Alternate layering ice with fruit in a large pitcher or beverage server (you may even layer the fruit like the colors of the rainbow- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple). Fill your beverage server daily with this recipe and keep it on a counter/table that is easily accessible. You will be amazed by how quickly your kids will drink-up this delicious and nutritious beverage. It is also perfect to serve at parties!

Spa Water Note: Adding fruit to water is another way to get your kids to increase their daily consumption of fresh produce – effortlessly. Just remember to properly cleanse your fruit before adding to a pitcher or beverage server.

Health Note: Most frozen fruits are picked when they are ripe and then frozen through special techniques that preserve their nutritional value. You will find that they maintain the same amount (sometimes more) of vitamins and minerals that are found in fresh fruit.