DIY Peel Off Mask

 I'm pretty low maintenance when it comes to my looks, especially make up and skin care.  I tend to do the bare minimum.

I'm sure in 20 years I'll regret my mis-treatment of my skin when I look like this. 

But by then I'll be very rich from not spending money on high end skin care products that I will be able to afford plastic surgery.

  Every so often I will actually treat my skin to a little spa treatment and on one of those recent occasions I did a face mask

Peel Off Face Mask
You Will Need:
Egg white
Thin tissue
Brush

Directions: slightly beat the egg white. Apply the egg to your face with the brush. Place thin tissue on your egg white brushed face and gently pat.  Apply another layer of egg white over the tissue. Leave it until it completely dries.  Gently peel off the tissue in an upward direction.  Rinse with warm water and pat dry.  

My first thought when reading this was "what do they mean by 'tissue?'" I was not alone in that thought process because there were many comments asking the same thing.

Tissue can be tissue paper used for wrapping, 1 ply toilet paper or 1 ply Kleenex. Basically some sort of really thin paper.

I grabbed what I needed then proceeded to paint my face with egg whites.  Did you know it's possible to get a brain freeze when not eating something cold?  Neither did I.  In the future I will be leaving the egg whites out a bit until they get to room temperature.  

Once my face was properly painted I put on the 1 ply toilet paper.  It was originally really thick and soft t.p but I pulled it apart to get the 1 ply needed.  I tore the toilet paper into pieces and placed the pieces around my face.  

 Once my mummy make up for a B rated movie was complete, I painted on another layer of egg whites.

  A little egg went a long way.  I used the egg whites in the carton, but I'm sure one egg would be plenty.

Some of the thicker places where the t.p over lapped took 30 minutes to fully dry.  By then I was getting pretty impatient because the other parts of my face were getting really tight and itchy. 

Once it finally dried I peeled everything off. 

 The Verdict: Every piece came right off with very little effort and it didn't hurt as much as I thought it might. The best part though is that my face was SO soft!  Some black heads had even disappeared. It might not be pretty, but this one is worth trying. 

DIY Chapstick

Hello, my name is The DIY Guinea Pig and I am a chapstick addict.  I'm not kidding, I am obsessed with chapstick and I'm always using it.  You know it's bad when, with no help at all, my 2 year old picked out chapstick for me for a present. 

 Homemade Lemon Lime Lip Balm
You Will Need:
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped beeswax
 5 drops lemon essential oil and 5 drops lime essential oil (substitute these for other essential oils if you wish)

Directions:
Pour the mixture into a double boiler. The lip balm mixture needs to melt slowly over low heat. Melt the ingredients over medium-high heat. Add color Add a chunk of your favorite lipstick, blush, or eye shadow color if you wish. Mix it in with a spoon.Pour the mixture into containers. Allow the mixture to cool completely. Use the balm and decide how you like the texture. If you want a firmer balm next time, use more beeswax. If you like it softer, use more oil. 

I got all my ingredients and used a food processes to break up the beesewax so it would be easier to use.

I don't have a double boiler so I used a glass measuring cup and put it in a pot.  It worked great and didn't leave any residue.  It took several minutes for everything to melt. I didn't want color so I skipped that part, and I didn't have lime essential oil so I just used lemon essential oil.

I poured some into an old chapstick tube and poured the rest into a small container.  I could probably fill 3 or 4 tubes with what I had.

The Verdict: I like it.  It's sort of a cross between lip balm and lip gloss.  I feel like I am getting the deep moisture of a chapstick with the shine of gloss.  A little goes a long way so it lasts for several months.  The only down side is that it can melt very easily, so you probably want to keep it in a cool place, unless you enjoy cleaning up grease stains. 

Listerine Foot Soak

Many moons ago I saw a Pin about a Listerine foot soak.  Since then I've heard a few people saying that they love it.

I wanted to wait until my feet were really dry and cracked before I tried it, but summer is coming to an end and my feet are still in good shape. 

No, I'm not blessed with wonderfully self healing feet,  I mow the lawn in flip flops each week (I live life on the edge), and the only way to get the green stain off is to scrub my feet with a pumice stone. 

I've decided to finally bite the bullet and see how it works.

There are two different soaks I've seen on Pinterest so I tried them both, one on each foot.

Listerine and Vinegar Soak
You Will Need:
1/4 cup Listerine
1/4 cup vinegar
1/2 cup warm water

Directions:
Soak your feet for 10 minutes and when you take them out the dead skin will practically wipe off.  

Listerine and Shaving Cream Soak
 You Will Need:
Shaving Cream
Listerine
Warm water

Directions:
In a bucket, combine equal parts Listerine and warm water.  Soak a towel in the mixture.  Cover your foot with the shaving cream then wrap the soaked towel around your foot. Soak your foot for 30 min then use the towel to rub everything off.  

 Apparently any Listerine will work, but the blue kind is the most popular.  So I grabbed some of that then started with the Listerine and vinegar soak on my right foot.

I had to double the recipe to get it deep enough to cover most of my foot, and I wish I grabbed a bigger bowl.  My toes were cramping by the end of the 10 minutes.

The Verdict: The bad news is, it stained my skin a light blue.  It's hard to see in the photo but if you look closely you can see my toes on my right foot look a bit sickly, but it was gone by the next morning.

The good news is, it worked pretty good.  My foot was really soft and most of the dry dead skin came off. 

Before

After

Eventually I stopped admiring my right foot and started on the left with the Listerine and shaving cream soak.  

I got the cheapest shaving cream I could find and slathered it on my foot.  

I wrapped the soaked towel around my foot and sat back to relax for 30 minutes. 

I got all cozy then reached for my book, which was still across the room where I left it. Crap!

No problem, I'll read the book I have on my Kindle.... which I left on the counter by the fridge. Dang It!!

I was pretty annoyed at myself for not being more prepared, then I spied the TV remote a few feet from me.  I did an awesome scoot shuffle maneuver to reach it then enjoyed this while I soaked.

The Verdict: About 10 years ago I got hypothermia, it's a long story.  I thought I was cold then, but that as NOTHING compared to the cold my foot experienced.  As the menthol slowly seeped into my skin my foot got colder and colder.  I made it 25 minutes before I couldn't stand it anymore, but I quickly realized I couldn't do anything about it.  The cold I was experiencing was coming from the core of my foot where the menthol had set up camp.  My foot was burning cold for an hour.

But it worked, beauty is pain right?

 Overall Verdict: The shaving cream soak took more dead skin off then the vinegar soak, but it's not worth losing a limb over.  I'll be sticking with the vinegar soak. 

Whiten Those Nails

About 2 months ago I spent half a day in the front yard working on the landscape. A majority of the work I did was digging up two dead bushes and replanting new ones.  By the time I was done my "I am woman, hear me roar" mantra had turned into "I am out of shape, hear me moan." Sean T would be disappointed in me

Even after I scrubbed off several layers of dirt and skin, my fingernails were still looking pretty gross.  Over the years I've heard of a few different ways to get your fingernails white so I chose two of those and tried them out.

Baking Soda and Hydrogen Peroxide Nail Whitener
You Will Need:
Baking soda
Hydrogen peroxide
bowl

Directions:
Mix the two together until you have a thick paste.  Dip your nails into the mixture and let them soak for 10 minutes.  Rinse

 I put my left hand into the bowl and wiggled my fingers around until my nails were completely covered in the mixture.  Then I kicked back and enjoyed a frustrating game of Candy Crush

 The Verdict: It worked great.  My thumb was still a bit dark but I don't think the mixture had gotten to the inside of the nail.  The down side to this was the pain from all the fresh cuts and scratches I had from working in the yard.  The mixture found it's way to each tiny wound and was not sympathetic. 

Lemon Juice Nail Whitener
You Will Need:
Lemon juice
bowl

Directions:
Place your fingers in a bowl.  Pour in enough lemon juice to cover your finger nails.  Soak them for 10 minutes then rinse. 

I got my right hand situated in the lemon juice then went back to Candy Crush, determined to finish the level I was stuck on. 

The Verdict: For some reason my right hand had no little cuts, so this soak was much more enjoyable, but it didn't work well.  The stains were lighter, but still pretty noticeable. 

The Overall Verdict: Three cheers for baking soda and hydrogen peroxide!!!

Body Scrub

The very first DIY I did was a body scrub.  I loved it so much that 5 years later I am still making my own body scrub and I frequently give it away as a gift.

While there are many pros to homemade body scrub, the main reason I love it is because I can customize it a thousand different ways. 

Homemade Body Scrub
You will need:
Some sort of abrasive substance such as salt, sugar or Epsom salt
Some sort of oil such as olive, canola, almond etc. 

Directions:
Mix two parts of your abrasive substance to 1 part oil.  If you use an oil that is hard, like coconut, melt it before adding the abrasive substance.  Don't get it to hot or your salt or sugar will dissolve.

You don't have to be exact with the measurements, but you want to have a consistency similar to this.

 The oil will settle to the top, but you can give it a quick mix with your finger before you use it. 

Customize:
Now comes the fun part. You can add food coloring, essential oils, dried flowers etc.  Throw in anything you want to make it look cute and smell good.  The soap making section in craft stores usually have great scents and dried plants that work great with body scrubs.

The Verdict: I have made countless batches of this stuff and I have found that sugar and coconut oil are the best combination.  Epsom salt can be a bit rough and table salt is very unforgiving if you have any sort of open wounds.  Coconut oil isn't as greasy as other oils and it absorbs into skin pretty quickly. 
 The bad thing about coconut oil is that it will re harden.  I keep my scrub in a sealed container in my shower and by the time I'm ready to use it, it's usually soft enough that I can grab a handful. 

This is a citrus blend I made and gave away to several people.  I got a lot of complements on this one, unfortunately I can't remember how I made it.  I just sort of threw stuff together without paying attention. I need to be more organized. 

Dry Shampoo or Halloween Makeup?

Personally I have never understood the purpose of dry shampoo.  I figure if my hair looks like it needs a cleaning, then I should clean it...... or put a hat on. Even on those days when I've hit the snooze button to many times and my hair looks like it's been dunked in oil, I will still wash it, give it a quick blow then put it up in a pony tail.

I did try a store bought dry shampoo once, but it didn't seem to do anything.  When I saw a Pin about making your own homemade dry shampoo I decided what the heck, I'll give it a try. There have been a few times were it would have been nice to just slap something in my hair and run out the door.

Homemade Dry Shampoo
Choose one or combine them if you’re feeling frisky:
Cornstarch
Cornmeal
Baking Soda
Ground Oats

For one application, you need only use a tablespoon or two. Take the powdery substance of choice and apply it to your hair roots. Scrub it in with the tips of your fingers, and run your fingers through the length of your hair. With a fine-bristled brush, briskly brush the powder out of your hair

I didn't have any cornmeal, so on two separate occasions I decided to try the cornstarch, baking soda and ground oats.

My hair can go about 2 days without washing it. On the third day it always looks nice and shiny and in desperate need of a shampoo.  So I picked one of those mornings to try out the baking soda and corn starch.

Baking Soda Verdict: My camera didn't go a good job of emphasizing the greasiness of my hair, but if you look closely on the left picture you can see the shine by my ear.  Because I was doing this on one section of my hair, I used 1/2 Tbsp.  I rubbed it into my roots, shook my hair, brushed my hair and was left with hair that looked like I had put baking soda in it.  My roots were several shades lighter then the rest of my hair.  I let it sit for an hour and kept playing with my hair and brushing it but it still looked pretty gross.

Cornstarch Verdict: This one was my favorite.  Not because it worked well, but because it was so bad. After rubbing in 1/2 Tbsp of cornstarch I looked in the mirror and had a good laugh.  My DIY dry shampoo turned into a DIY powdered wig.


















After an hour of flipping, shaking, brushing and combing, my hair looked a lot better then it was, but it was still pretty bad looking.  I had streaks of white and a lot of little flakes. 

Ground Oatmeal Verdict:I put the oats into the blender on high until I had a fine powder then rubbed it into my roots.  The only thing the oats did was leave little flakes in my hair that kept showing up for several hours.  My hair was just as greasy as it was before. 

Overall Verdict: Even though these failed miserably, I now have a method to create my own powered wig , give myself a lovely dandruff look and I now know what I will look like with gray hair..... it's not pretty.

Have Eyeliner On Your Walls? Try This.

I was getting out of the shower one day when I heard my son yell, "Mom!!! mumble mumble Eliza mumble the wall!"

Even though I could only understand a few of the words, the fact that he said 'Eliza' and 'wall' in the same sentence could only mean one thing, she found something and drew on the wall again!

I threw on my oh so unflattering mom bathrobe, ran out the door and saw this

She was down the hall holding two eyeliner pencils and looking very guilty.  I wish I could say that I reacted calmly and rationally, and that I lovingly corrected her behavior in such a way that resulted in a beautiful mother daughter bonding moment that is worthy of a Folgers commercial from the 80's, but I didn't. I pretty much reacted like this.

 That afternoon I grabbed my mayonnaise to try and clean it up but it didn't even smudge the eyeliner.  I tried make up remover, but surprisingly that didn't do anything either.  So I got on yahoo.com and posted a question on one of their forums.  I got several suggestions and decided to try a few.


 Baby Oil's Verdict: It came off very easily without taking any paint off, but left a nice greasy spot that wouldn't come off. Pass

 Nail Polish Remover Verdict: It worked so well that the paint came off with it. Pass

Hand Sanitizer Verdict: It got a little bit off but I had to scrub pretty hard and it started to take the paint off. Pass

Witch Hazel Verdict: It just smudged the make up a little bit. Pass

Rubbing Alcohol Verdict: This was a big fail.  A couple of rubs and I had wiped off all the paint and primer.  Big Pass

Hot Water and Soap Verdict: We have a winner! It took a little scrubbing but it got the make up off without hurting the paint. The cloth I was using had to be hot.  When it started to cool off I would have to scrub harder and harder until eventually nothing would come off.  I would rinse the towel in hot water, throw a little more soap on and start scrubbing again. 

I hope this is the last post I have to do about getting things off the walls, but the odds are slim.

A Quick Definition Of Essential Oils

Do you know what would be really awesome?!?!?!  If I spent 2 hours typing a blog post that I was really proud of, came back to edit it and just when I was about to hit post somehow the whole thing got deleted!

GRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGG!

To add insult to injury, blogger decided to do it's auto save right at the same time.  So I lost it all. The whole blog post gone *poof* 



So, instead of re-typing my entire post  I'm going to change gears and give you all a quick tutorial about essential oils. They are used in so many homemade products that I guess now would be a good time to give a quick run-down for anyone who may still be in the dark about what the fuss is all about.

An essential oil is the natural oil that is extracted from a plant. There are many, many oils and countless ways to use them, but mostly they are used for medicinal purposes, or for making your own products. 

Of course their are pro and con arguments for essential oils, but the basic argument is that oils are natural, so they are much healthier for you and there are no side effects like medicine or cleaning products can have. 

While you can buy essential oils in most health food stores, doTERRA is usually the most popular place to buy oils.  Young Living is another popular place to get essential oils. 

Personally, I think of myself as a low end oil user. My knowledge is pretty basic.  I have about 5 different oils that I use, but not on a regular basis.  Except for my melaluca (or tea tree oil) I use that stuff by the gallon and it is in a lot of my homemade cleaning products.

If you want to learn more about them then Camp Wander is a great blog to start with.  Or you can check out this facebook page about using doTERRA products.

So there you go, you can now jump into an essential oil conversation and pretend you know what people are talking about.  

Wax On, Yank Off

I have three sisters.  You have met my oldest sister through her homemade cough syrup, and you have met my youngest sister through her amazing ability to pull hideous faces, but today I am going to introduce you to the second oldest.  Lets call her Andromeda because she took on the 'beautiful princess' roll in our family.

Andromeda is a fashionista.  She is the type of person that can walk into a Good Will store with $5 and come out looking runway ready.

Now, imagine this type of fashion sense in a teenage girl.  Looking good was her top priority back then and as much as I love her , I would have gladly sacrificed her to the Kraken when we were teenagers.   I'm sure the feeling was mutual since she was stuck with a fashion disaster as a sister.  I was a late bloomer..... a really late bloomer. I didn't care how I looked for a good chunk of my teenage years.  Andromeda once told me that my wardrobe looked like it came from a truck stop gas station. It was a pretty accurate description.

Being seen in public with me was very hard on Andromeda and she did everything she could to try and help me out.  She tried gifts, bribes, embarrassment, anything.  One year for Christmas she gave me an eyebrow waxing kit and I immediately put it in the back of my closet.

Several years later, when I actually started to care about my appearance, I found that waxing kit and decided to give it a try.  The instructions were long gone but I figured I could wing it.  How hard could it be to melt the wax, put it on my eyebrows and pull......

The results were about what you would think, horribly uneven eyebrows covered in 1st degree burns. Needless to say I have avoided waxing ever since.

There is a pin that I keep seeing about homemade hair wax.  At first I ignored it, but darn it if that little pin didn't wear me down.  After it popped up on my pinterest feed for the millionth time I decided to give in and try it out.

Hair Removal Wax with Honey and Sugar (This link will take you to a youtube video that is very helpful)
 You Will Need:
For Eyebrows
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp honey
1 tsp water
non stretchy cotton fabric cut into small pieces
Popsicle stick.

For Legs
2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice

Directions:
mix everything together and put it in the microwave. Monitor it every 15 seconds. Around 20 seconds your mixture will start to bubble.  Take it out immediately and let it cool for 10 minutes.  (for bigger batches heat it on the stove.) Using the Popsicle stick, apply a thin layer of the mixture onto your eyebrows. Place the fabric strip onto the wax and smooth it down with your fingers stroking in the directions of your hair growth. Hold your skin tight with one hand and quickly pull off the fabric in the opposite direction that the hair grows. 

I followed the instructions exactly due to fear of burning myself again, and started with my eyebrows. I mixed my ingredients and put it in the microwave.

 It took about 25 seconds for it to start bubbling. I took it out and stirred it again.  It was very thick.

After it cooled for 10 min I got my Popsicle stick and.... chickened out.  So I stirred it again while trying to pump myself up, brought the Popsicle stick to my eyebrow and...... nope.  It took several tries before I had the guts to apply the honey.  It didn't burn at all, phew!

 I put the fabric over the honey, pulled my skin tight and yanked as fast as I could...... huh, shouldn't that have hurt?  I was expecting a lot of pain, but nope.  It just stung a little.  Pulling a band aid off is more painful then that was.

 The Verdict: My eye brows are pretty blond so it's hard to see the hair on the fabric, but every little hair came out, even the little fuzzy ones that I didn't realize were there.

 I quickly did the rest of my eyebrow, then the other one, and loved how quick and easy and effective it was. Now it was time to get really daring and try my legs.

I mixed all the ingredients and stuck it in the microwave.  This time it took a few minutes until it was bubbling. Since it's winter, my legs were already prepped.  They were nice and hairy and ready to go. 

I slathered on the wax, put on my fabric and gave it a yank. 

The Verdict: Nothing! Not one hair came off. I tried again, and again, and again.  Nothing!  After about 7 attempts all I had to show for my hard work was a red leg and a huge sticky mess all over the bathtub.  My hands were so sticky that I felt like the scene in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation when Clark is sticking to everything, the magazine, the lamp, his wife's hair. 

I was really surprised that it worked so well on my eyebrows but not on my legs, but the ingredients are different between the eyebrow mixture and the leg mixture so that could be why.  I was tempted to make a big batch of the eyebrow wax to try on my legs, but then I looked around at the mess.  I had no desire to scrub myself clean just to make more wax and get all sticky again.  I may revisit this in the future though. 

I know I will never have the fashion sense that Andromeda has, but I have come a long way since my truck stop wardrobe days.