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Mon Apr 21, 2008 10:14 am  |
I'm into really simple DIY recipes- like mixing milk and honey for a mask, as I've just posted in the honey thread. So my idea is for a semi-DIY cleanser. My goal is to make a both fantastic and super cost effective cleanser.
I wanted to my main ingredient to be honey, because honey is absolutely fantastic for the skin, and it's really cheap too (seven bucks for a huge 80 oz jar at Costco). Also I chose lemon to be my harshest cleansing type ingredient. I've researched lemon and it's actually pretty good for the skin- it has citric acid and vitamin C. Lemon can be used to lighten skin discoloration; if you just rub pure lemon on your face you'll probably be irritated, but that would be the case with any strongly acidic product. The proportion of lemon can be adjusted-there doesn't need to be a lot and if you do like a lot of lemon, just make sure you wear sunscreen, which you should be doing anyway.
I love the dermalogica ultra calming cleanser and it just occurred to me that the first two ingredients are water and cetearyl alcohol, and this is also the case with most hair conditioners. I had a hair conditioner that I was sick of using (Dove moisturizing conditioner) so I just added a whole lot of honey to it and squeezed some lemons and shook well. I also added the remains of a cleanser that I had lying around that's normally too drying (juice beauty cleansing gel)
Anyway, the result was fantastic. I've been using this for about a month and I'm very happy. Also I've minimized any other exfoliation/peeling products- I still use the dermalogica microfoliant twice a week and that's it. However, naturally I'm not satisfied and I want to change it as well as figure out the ideal proportions of each ingredient. I wasn't paying attention to how much honey, conditioner, and lemon I was using and I'll pay more attention in the future.
I'm already fantasizing about the recipe I'm going to use once I've used up the current batch. I'm probably going to use the dermalogica ultra calming cleanser instead of the dove hair conditioner, for one thing. I'm also going to add some really strong green tea to the mix. I'm thinking I'll use 1 part strong green tea mixed with lemon, 2 parts honey, and 1 part dermalogica ultra calming cleanser and see how that works for me.
I do want to still use the dermalogica ultra calming cleanser because I think it's really great but this way since I'll be mixing it with other stuff I'll be using it really slowly and since honey, lemon and green tea are all cheap it'll be a fairly cost effective cleanser.
So anyway I bet that you can adapt this recipe by using your favorite cleanser (or hair conditioner) and mixing it with strong green tea, some lemon, and a whole lot of honey. |
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Tue Apr 22, 2008 1:08 pm |
Great Idea!
I will try doing that today. |
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Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:10 pm |
| jones10021 wrote: |
Great Idea!
I will try doing that today. |
Cool! Let me know how it comes out and what proportions you used and what you used for the cleanser/hair conditioner ingredient. |
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Sun Apr 27, 2008 9:28 am |
I've realized that it'll be a while, if ever, until I get to make this according to an actual recipe. This is probably going to continue to be how I use up products that I want to use up but not throw out. I'm pretty good at using up (or sometimes giving away) skin care products- I hate waste!
For example, there's this "pure simplicity" pumpkin mask that I bought at bath and body works approximately last year. I hope it's not more than a year ago. Anyway, I didn't like it as a mask- it feels slimy, and it didn't feel like it actually did anything, so I never actually wanted to use it. It's a mostly full 8 oz container, so there's a lot of it. But it didn't irritate me or anything like that and from what I can tell (hopefully!) it's still ok to use freshness wise. Instead of throwing it out or letting it continue to sit there, I'll just dump this into a cleanser, so my next few cleanser batches will be:
pumpkin mask + honey + green tea + lemon |
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Wed May 07, 2008 7:28 am |
Ok, I've just made the latest batch and it didn't work well, texture wise. I had green tea, lemon, and the rest of the pumpkin mask and I just kept on adding honey, a whole lot of honey. The problem with honey is that it dissolves in water and you need very very little water to not wind up with something watery. Next time I'll use only a small amount of lemon juice and an even tinier amount of green tea. I wound up also dumping all I had left of my dermalogica ultra calming cleanser into the mix. So now I have a couple of bottles of this stuff. I'm using it, but it's more watery than I would like for a cleanser, so I'm reconsidering the plan. I'm really tempted to go back to using plain dermalogica cleansers, but I'm not giving up.
Somehow, the Dove hair conditioner based cleanser had a better texture but I don't want to use something so fragranced on my skin. (In all fairness, I was using the dove based cleanser mix and my skin looked great) So next I will experiment with a high quality sensitive fragrance free hair conditioner as a base. This is not something for which I want to pay for shipping, so I'll look around in my local health stores to see what's there, but from looking online I know such hair conditioners exist and have good ingredients for the face. And even a moderately expensive hair conditioner is still cheaper than even an inexpensive facial cleanser (and a whole lot cheaper than a high quality cleanser like dermalogica ultra calming cleanser)
I'm going to use up what I have, but maybe eventually I'll add stuff into it to adjust the texture. At least I feel confident that all the ingredients in my mix are good for the skin. Another thing, about keeping it fresh- I'm fairly confident that my mixture is stable and is going to be fresh for a good while. Honey has natural preservatives in it and does not need to be refrigerated. Lemon is highly acidic and can be actually used as a preservative. Of course the cleanser/hair conditioner base has preservatives in the formulation. It's only green tea that doesn't have preservatives of its own, so I'll just use a minimum of this ingredient, which I'm going to do anyway in hopes of achieving a thicker texture. |
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Thu May 08, 2008 8:53 pm |
Earlier I said I wasn't happy with the texture. Today I bought Jason thin to thick hair conditioner, it was 50% off at Duane Reade, so it was about 4$ for 8 oz. That's too expensive for a hair conditioner in my opinion but ok for a facial cleanser.
Anyway, I mixed in the conditioner into some of my honey/tea/lemon/pumpkin batch and I'm happy with the results. The texture is much nicer. The jason conditioner smells really minty and that wound up dominating the cleanser scent wise. My impression is that the Jason conditioner has ingredients that are good for the skin, I hope I'm right!
Ingredients:
Hawaiian Sea Kelp (Algae Extract), Soft Water (Purified), Ceteareth 20, Aloe Vera Gel, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Chamomile Extract, Acetamide MEA, Marigold Extract, Comfrey Extract, Panthenol (Pro-Vitamin B5), Lecithin, Glyceryl Stearate, Planthenol 3, Stearyl Alcohol, Horsetail Extract (Organic Silicone), Cocodimonium Hydroxypropyl Hydrolyzed Keratin, Ginseng Extract, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Wheat Oligosaccharides, Biosaccharide Gum 1, Mucopolysaccharides, Steardimonium Panthenol (Pro-Vitamin B5), Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Allantoin, Vitamin C (Ester C), Jojoba Oil, Phyto-Complex of the Following:, Juniper, Cedarwood, Cypress, Yarrow, Burdock, Lavender, Retinyl Palmitate (Vitamin A), Rice Protein, Benzophenone 3, Soy Protein, Tocopheryl Nicotinate, Folic Acid, Methylparaben, Cysteine, Propylparaben, Citric Acid (pH Balancing), Essential Oils |
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Mon May 12, 2008 8:23 pm |
The cleanser mixture I'm using now is ok, but I'm not satisfied and in the future I will go in a different direction and probably abandon the conditioner idea.
I'm am going to try mixing just the shower gel from 100% pure and honey. The lemon shower gel already has lemon juice as an ingredient, so I won't have to add it. It's 15$ for 16 oz, so although that's too expensive for a shower gel for a base for a facial cleanser it sounds ok.
Ingredients: Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice, Gentle coconut cleanser (coco betaine), Concentrates of Black Cherry, Pomegranate, Vitamin C (calcium ascorbate), Vitamin E
(a-tocopherol), Extracts of Grapefruit Seed, Lemon, Blueberry, Raspberry, Blackberry, Strawberry and Rosemary, Pure Lemon Essential Oil, Sodium Hydroxymethylglycinate (natural plant amino acid), rose ether Sorbate) |
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Mon May 26, 2008 8:52 am |
I'm really amused by this thread, since I'm always going in new directions, but I know I should be keeping it in one thread since I'm still perfecting a honey based cleanser recipe. I have faith that somebody's getting something out of it- I did have 1 person respond favorable and I know I lurked at this place for a long time and I lurk at natural DIY recipe discussion places all the time looking for new info.
Anyway!
I recently gave a whole bottle of the current cleaner batch (the one with the Jason Naturals conditioner) to a friend who is struggling with acne! Yay! I'm happy about this for several reasons-
1. I'm helping my friend
2. That batch doesn't smell that great because the Jason conditioner just doesn't mesh flavor wise with the honey, so I'm really glad my friend is willing to overlook that and instad just focus on the benefits, since it is overall a good gentle cleanser
3. Since I gave so much away, this means I'm so much closer to using up the current batch, and that much closer to making a new, improved batch! I love mixing new stuff, trying new recipes.
For the future, I'm going to nix the green tea element- it's not worth it, it's too much hastle and it really messes up the texture. It's also the only ingredient that neither has preservatives added to it nor has any natural preservatives of its own.
I am going to use honey, a shower gel from 100% pure, aloe vera, and lemon.
I'm looking at the blueberry shower gel from 100% pure:
Ingredients: Organic Blueberry Juice, Organic Rose Hydrosol, Coco Betaine (gentle coconut cleanser), Raw unrefined Lavender Honey, PureBlueberry Aroma, Extracts of Blueberry, Rasbperry, BlackBerry, Cranberry, Grapefruit Seed, Rosemary, Oregano, Golden Seal, Thyme and Organic Green Tea, Vitamin C (ascorbyl palmitate), Vitamin E (a-tocopherol), Natural Food Preservatives from Cranberries and Salt (0.1% of Sodium Benzoate, Potassium Sorbate)
It's 15$ for 16 oz, which isn't bad, it has a gentle coconut based cleanser in it and it's supposed to be foamy.
I've noticed that aloe vera is a good natural and inexpensive ingredients, so I should throw it into the mix, I've ordered some Lily of the Desert Aloe Vera Gelly. I'll continue to throw in a little freshly squeezed lemon juice because I like lemon. Again, I really don't pay attention to how much of each product I'll be throwing in but this will be at least 50% honey.
Another reason why I'm really excited to make a new batch is that for the past few batches I've been throwing in stuff for the sake of not throwing them out- like the pumpkin mask. I've been much pickier in only buying items that I'm actually going to use, so hopefully I won't have to do this that much anymore.
Also I'm really going to try to make a smaller batch, instead of making a giant batch again. Last time, my batch got so much bigger than it was supposed to be because the texture was so off and I kept trying to fix it. I'm gonna start with reaaaally small batch this time, and maybe I'll even pay some attention to the proportions of the ingredients. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:54 pm |
| Basically I've realized that I HAVE TO add some kind of thickening ingredient to the cleanser to make it nice. I'm definitely ordering cetyl alcohol because I know my skin likes it. |
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Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:19 am |
I ordered a thickener (cetearyl alcohol) and a gentle surfectant (PEG-7 Glyceryl Cocoate) from lotioncrafter. I added some of both (about twice as much cetearyl alcohol as glyceryl cocoate) to the cleanser until I had a texture I was happy with. I mixed it in the blender, and that made it stay smooth.
So, now this is my recipe (in order from greatest to least concentration):
Honey
100% pure shower gel
Cetearyl Alcohol
Glyceryl Cocoate
Lemon |
_________________
24 yrs old. favorite sunscreen right now: Burnout [now 35] |
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