Lighten up Research

No pictures today - just a quick update on some of my R&D efforts. And this should come with a long post warning!

Lip gloss - I have a version of this that still isn't quite lip gloss, but it is a very nice lip treatment. It has glycerin (which is a plant oil based goop), Vitamin E oil, Vitamin C oil, Hazelnut oil, and pomegranate. The good news is that it works. The Vitamin C stimulates collagen, so the skin of my lips actually comes out of this smoother and fuller. The bad news is that it still separates- I'm hoping to fix that in the next iteration - and it doesn't stick like I would like. I have to reapply it regularly. It looks like this will be an ongoing experiment! I'll keep you posted.

When I was researching lip gloss, I found some recommendations for skin and eye treatments. I'm washing my face with one now. I removed the castile soap from this recipe, since I'm trying the oil method on my face. I'm not sure if this recipe just needs tweaking for my skin or if my face doesn't really like the oil method, but there is still more work to do before I'm satisfied with my face wash. This also looks like an ongoing thing. It is a good thing that I enjoy research!

The one skin thing that I am quite pleased with at the moment is the eye treatment that I created. This is purely based on a combination of ingredients that I found in other research. The current mix is almond oil, apricot kernel oil, licorice root (for lightening dark circles) and, once again, Vitamin C. My recipe will probably get modified slightly with further iterations, but I'm in no hurry on this one. This combination works for me. I'll just need to add something to "tighten" this skin a bit in the next round.

And now, for something completely different! I'm also experimenting with house cleaning stuff. I have a strange looking spray bottle filled with vinegar, a few drops of tea tree oil and several cinnamon sticks. I've tried it on a bunch of stuff to date and here is what I've found.

Best ever:

1. It is better than anything I've ever tried for dealing with hard water/mineral deposits. I know that this isn't that important for most of you soft water living people, but WOW! It is VERY exciting here. A lot of our kitchen and bathroom "dirt" is either just the deposits or deposits that have dirt embedded in them. This is huge for me!
2. Cleaning the cat water bowl. This deals with a combination of our hard water problem and the slime that naturally builds up when cool water comes in contact with anything else. HTH is really excited about this development because this is very similar to the slime that occurs in ice machines. (If you value the food in your stomach, NEVER look behind the service panel of any ice machine. Trust me on this one!) Current commercial cleaners are so nasty that - despite all the time rinsing the machine after cleaning - the first batch of ice has to be harvested and thrown away just to be safe. Since this is all food grade material, that would not be necessary. And if it works on ice machines? It will work on any slime ever! I'll happily mix up a batch for that test when the time comes!
   

Good enough:

1. Floors - I've been spot cleaning with the spray bottle and using vinegar to mop instead of bleach. The advantage is mostly no longer being careful about mop water near where the carpet touches the tile. Also, with the flu/cold season hitting HTH pretty hard, the vinegar is less irritating than bleach to already annoyed lungs.

Meh - you know, not impressed, not annoyed - just Meh:

1. Glass - I've only done this twice and don't feel very strongly about it either way.
2. Shower walls. I'm thinking about switching to straight vinegar for this one. The tea tree is supposed to be antiseptic and the cinnamon is supposed to add a little more anti-fungal power, but I'm not sure that I need it here. And I think the cinnamon is darkening the grout slightly - not like mold or anything, just turning the white grout to a lovely cinnamon color. This is starting to bug me, so I'll try the vinegar alone and see.
   
3. Tile counter tops - same as the shower walls. But I'm adding a straight peroxide spray after the vinegar based on articles like this for serious antibacterial cleaning.

With the week I foresee at work (loving the President's Day holiday today!), I thought I'd get this all out of my head and into the blog. I hope to be able to update on the herb bed this week, but no promises that I will be able to work on it AND write about it. If nothing else, I should be able to post when I hit New York on the 25th - since I won't be able to do anything about all of this stuff then!

Lighten Up R&D

In the research that led to me my hair care solution, I found a number of very alarming studies on basic cosmetics. While some of the sources could be considered questionable, there were a wide variety of issues brought up - lead in lipstick, personal care items with chemical content like my former favorite lip balm (which scores pretty clean but has all KINDS of garbage in it!) or even, from the more balanced but still cautionary article at WebMD, the following quote on how the FDA regulates cosmetics.

"The act does not subject cosmetics to premarket approval," says FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek. In addition, the companies are not required to substantiate performance claims or conduct safety testing. What it does require of companies is that cosmetics be "safe when used as directed in the labeling or under usual customary conditions of use."

The fact of the matter is that nobody really knows what is or isn't appropriate for everyone. But I can make some decisions about what is appropriate for me. Enter my current Research and Development project. I've decided that, since I can taste my lip glosses, I'm effectively ingesting their ingredients. And, if I'm doing that, then those ingredients better be things that I am OK with eating.

So, on a trip to one of my local "natural foods" store, I picked up some food grade items and mixed a few of them together in the bottle that you see to the right there. To be honest, this batch is more about seeing how the coconut oil (that solidifies at 78 degrees F) will do when mixed with other oils. Will it stay liquid on my counter? (2 days in, the answer is still yes.) Will it separate and get all funny looking? (Again, so far, so good.) As first attempts go, it is even an OK lip gloss.

For my next attempt, I'd like to make the gloss a little stickier, and therefore longer lasting (so I'm looking at how glycerin is made). And I have another oil to try as a base as well.

To be honest, though, there were really only 2 tricky parts to the whole thing. 1) Figuring out what ingredients worked with the oils - without separating or looking gross. 2) Finding the roll on bottles. I had to order them from Tucson.

Now I just need a formula that I really like (that actually DOES something for my lips), with a way to add color (I already have some ideas) and I'm good to go! Yes, I know, it probably won't be quite that simple. But at least I won't be wondering what the RDA for paraffin is or what chemicals that lipstick uses to make it's unidentifiable "Fragrance". Besides, it is vastly entertaining to wander the grocery store looking for items to make lip gloss. Trust me. It is definitely one way to lighten up!