Looking for ways to ease into a natural beauty routine? Get tips for making your own products, using items you likely already have at home!
By Tiffany, Contributing Writer
When people talk about natural living, eating healthy food is most often the first thought. Yes, eating real food is important to a healthy body, but harmful ingredients show up in other parts of the house, too.
Have you turned over your shampoo bottle lately? Or read the ingredients in your face wash? You might be shocked to learn that some of the most dangerous chemicals we can consume aren’t in the boxed foods in our kitchen – they’re in our beauty and skincare items!
Our skin is the largest organ in our body, and readily absorbs whatever we put on it. It’s important to give serious consideration to the soaps we wash with, the lotions we moisturize with – even the ingredients in our toothpaste!
Fortunately, switching to a more natural beauty routine isn’t all that difficult, and you can take a lot of baby steps with items you might already have on hand!
Washing the Face & Body
Perhaps the single most important aspect of a natural beauty routine is the soap. Instead of using harsh commercial soaps, start with a high-quality, all-natural soap like goat milk soap. In bar form, it’s perfect for the shower. With a little bit of water and patience, you can have your own all-natural liquid facial cleanser for just 30¢.
Other natural living blogs have recommend washing with olive oil for the face, or using a castile-based soap for the body, but I personally like to save money and consolidate with just one product that can do it all.
Note: If you struggle with acne like I do, I can’t stress enough how important finding a gentle yet effective soap is. Switching to goat milk soap was the first change I made that actually made a difference! If you’d like to read more about this natural beauty journey, read how I healed my acne-prone skin.
Exfoliating the Face & Body
Those little “scrubbing beads” sound great and all, until they get stuck in your pores and lead to breakouts! Bypass expensive exfoliating scrubs and switch to a washcloth. Yes! A washcloth!
Simply wash your face with an all-natural soap, then rinse and scrub with the washcloth at the same time. Don’t worry about circular motions or going in any certain direction. Just scrub every other day, or as often as you need to.
If you use what you already have on hand, this natural beauty switch is free. If you’re in the market for washcloths, I recommend the dollar store. The thin, inexpensive wash clothes tend to work better than the thicker ones anyway!
Moisturizing the Face & Body
Lotions and moisturizers can contain ingredients that strip your body of natural oils, leaving artificial ingredients in their wake. Coconut oil is the simplest of all moisturizers. It’s also been known to naturally soften, soothe and improve the texture of skin.
For your face, make a batch of homemade tinted moisturizer with coconut oil as its base. This recipe costs only 80¢ and includes specific essential oils to help heal acne-prone skin. It can be applied daily under make-up, or by itself with a little bit of homemade foundation powder on top for a minimal yet polished look.
For the rest of the body, or if you aren’t prone to skin problems, use plain coconut oil. A little bit goes a long way. You’ll only need to work with a pea-sized for the face and a dime-size for the body. At just 50¢ per month, this is a very affordable option.
Note: Harsh winter months can really do some serious damage, so that’s when I pull out this recipe with extra moisturizing oomph.
Moisturizing Lips
The majority of lip moisturizers out there aren’t THAT bad, but if you can make your own with what you already have at home, then why not, right?
A simple homemade lip balm can be whipped up in a few minutes, and you can choose from almost any flavor you want. My favorite is peppermint, but you can choose another essential oil like lemon and substitute easily.
Shampoo
Some of the most common chemicals in commercial shampoo mimic our body’s natural hormones. With littles under my care, it’s all the more reason to seek a more natural option.
For those just starting to make their own products, this homemade herbal liquid shampoo is perfect. There’s only four ingredients, one of them being water, and the most complicated step is making herbal tea. Each batch costs less than 50¢ and lasts 2-4 weeks.
For the more adventurous, consider making your own shampoo bar. It’s a bit more complicated, but the step-by-step tutorial walks you through how to make it using your slow cooker. Each bar costs about $5 and lasts about one month.
Conditioner
Just like shampoo, there are plenty of chemicals worth avoiding in conditioner as well. For many of us, skipping conditioner would mean a mess of tangles… and tears if you’ve got a daughter with long hair. Fortunately, a simple diluted apple cider vinegar rinse is all you need.
This leave-in conditioning rinse seals the cuticles of your hair and help you achieve that soft, shiny and manageable mane without doing any harm. Plus if you make your own apple cider vinegar, your cost per month is 9¢!
Toothpaste
The biggest problem with toothpaste is fluoride. Now I’m not trying to open a debate of whether or not fluoride is bad – you’ll have to draw your own conclusions – but we avoid it in our natural living routine.
Instead, we make our own clay-based toothpaste and have created the perfect formula that tastes just like Earthpaste! My husband likes the peppermint flavor, my son likes lemon and my daughter and I like the orange – it tastes just like a tic tac!
Not only have we eliminated fluoride (and artificial sweeteners) from our toothpaste, but our dental health has improved drastically! Since we made the switch, my husband healed his gum disease (even though the dentist said it would be impossible) and my dentist told me that despite not having a check-up for over two years, my mouth looked pretty good!
The best part is that one batch lasts about two months and costs just 92¢ to make!
Mouthwash
We avoided mouthwash for a long time because of the glycerin (which has been reported to prevent the re-mineralization of teeth), but after dosing up on honey-infused garlic to ward off a cold, we needed a little something to combat the garlic breath!
Homemade mouthwash is incredibly easy to make with just a couple of ingredients and essential oils. One cup costs 74¢ to make – compare to Tom’s of Maine at $2 per cup!
Just like a journey to real food, a journey to natural living is filled with smaller baby steps. Take one, and choose just one beauty item to make yourself.
If you need help with taking baby steps to a more natural beauty routine, I encourage you to download Simple Beauty, Healthy Home – a free eBook with the most popular DIY recipes and tutorials walking you through every step of the way!
For more natural skincare recipes and information, check out these posts!
Marina
This is such a great post! I will definitely try to make some myself!
Tiffany
Thanks Marina! I hope you enjoy the homemade items!!
Jill York
I absolutely love DIY! I have made toothpaste in the past, but have been wanting to make my own skincare for a while. Thanks so much for sharing! I’ve pinned this for future reference.
Erin
You’re so good at DIY, Jill!
Angela
Love all the recipes! Thank you so much for this post. I have teenage daughters and they are forever looking through Pinterest for these type of recipes. Go YL!
Erin
I bet they will love these!
Anna @ Feminine Adventures
Love these ideas Tiffany! I have started making my own foaming castile soap and using coconut oil as a moisturizer, but have a long ways to go with my natural beauty supplies. Thanks for the helpful ideas!
Erin
We love foaming castile soap in our home too!
Heather @ My Overflowing Cup
Thanks, Erin and Tiffany, for sharing this post!
I love making my own beauty products because we can use better products and save money.
I do make my own facial cleanser w/ olive oil (recipe is on my blog). I also use a washcloth to exfoliate! Why buy a product when a washcloth works so well?
Thanks for sharing your recipes for clay based toothpaste and mouthwash. Pinning and trying soon!