Following on from my post about why Caffeine is so wonderful I thought I’d share the recipe for my very first attempt at incorporating powdered caffeine into a cream. I have to say it’s turned out A-MA-ZING! I’m not sure if it’s because of the caffeine powder, or because of the oils and butters, but either way it’s my new favourite body cream. It’s left my skin feeling nice and soft and smooth and best of all it’s non greasy!
If you’ve never made lotion before I’d recommend you read this post first to get a general idea of lotion making.
Double boiler Thermometer
Two heat proof mixing jugs
Stick blender (or LOTS of elbow grease)
Scales
3 Cosmetic jars
Step One:
Weigh all your water phase ingredients into a heat proof container and place in the double boiler.
Step Two:
Weigh all your oil phase ingredients into a second heat proof container and place in the double boiler.
Step Three:
Heat the oil and water until they reach a temperature of 70C and hold for 20 minutes. This ensures any bacteria and other badies will be heated out of your mixture. During this time the caffeine powder will dissolve into the water so it becomes clear.
Step Four:
After 20 minutes of “heat and hold” combine the oil and water phases and mix with the stick blender, pulsing gently on low for 2-3 minutes. This is the stage that your lotion is emulsifying. The lotion will be a white watery texture. This is completely normal and it will turn into a creamy lotion consistency as it cools. Once your lotion has emulsified set aside for 10 minutes or so to cool, mix with the stick blender every few minutes.
Step Five:
Once the temperature reaches below 45C add your cool down phase ingredients and mix well.
Step Six:
Once the cream has cooled to room temperature spoon or pipe into jars then enjoy!
Lip balm is something that I’m never without. I have two lip balms in my hand bag (I have two so that it’s quicker for me to find lip balm in amongst the rest of the junk in there!) , one on my desk, one on my coffee table and one on my night stand. I literally have five lip balms on the go at once, not to mention all my lip glosses. I really, really hate having dry lips!
Luckily for me lip balm is super easy to make so I never have to run out!
Step One: Add the beeswax to a heat safe container and melt in the microwave for two minutes. Check to see if it beeswax has melted, if not put in the microwave for a further 30 seconds. Keep melting in 30 seconds bursts if needed.
Step Two:Add the cocoa butter and organic coconut oil. Melt in microwave in 30 second bursts until liquid.
Step Three: Add the castor and sweet almond oils and mix well. Melt in microwave in 15 second bursts if the base starts to solidify.
Step Four: Add mica and flavour oil. Mix well
{ Sorry no photo for this step, it was too blurry! }
Step Five: Pour into lip balm pots or slider tins, wait to set then smear liberally all over your lips!
Note: I personally wanted a lip balm with just the natural flavours from the coconut oil and cocoa butter, so I poured the base into one slider tin before adding the mica and flavour to the rest of the recipe.
My Mum doesn’t like us spending money on her. Especially for Mother’s Day. But it’s always nice to do something, even if it’s something small. It’s the thought that counts after all.
Mum loves nuts; who doesn’t right!? So I figured it would be nice to give her something that doesn’t cost a lot, but that shows I went to a little effort. Plus hand making gifts has to score brownie points over my other two sisters (the sibling rivalry never seems to diminish even now we’re all in our 30’s!)
Our mason jars are a great container to store these delicious nuts, and they make a nice looking gift too.
Ingredients:
500 grams of mixed nuts – I used cashew, peanut, almond, walnut and pecan
25 grams butter
1Tbsp honey
1Tbsp sugar
1/4tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp salt
Step One:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Add all your nuts to a greaseproof tray.
Step Two:
Add the butter and honey to a pan and cook on a medium heat until fully melted.
Step Three:
Pour the buttery honey over the nuts and toss until all the nuts are covered.
Buttery honey glazed nuts after baking
Step Four:
Bake the nuts in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes or until the nuts have browned, stirring every 2 – 3 minutes. You’ll want to keep a fairly close eye on the oven as the nuts can burn in an instant!
Step Five:
Remove nuts from the oven and stir making sure the nuts don’t stick together. Once they’ve cooled slightly sprinkle over the salt, sugar and cinnamon. You can add more or less depending on your personal preference. Put the try of nuts in the freezer, this helps them keep them loose instead of sticking together.
Once the nuts have completely cooled scoop them into your jar and enjoy!
This recipe makes enough to fill one and a half 8oz mason jars which means Mum gets the mason jar and I get all the leftovers… purely for quality control purposes of course!
Add some pretty ribbon to the jar and they’re ready to send!
P.S – Mum received these today, and when she called to thank me she asked if I had actually made them myself! She thought I’d just repackaged some bought nuts and tried to pass them off as home made – the cheek of it! She tried a few when she first opened the jar and said there definitely wouldn’t be any left by Mother’s Day! So that’s a big tick for success!
Dad’s complaining now that he didn’t get to try any before I sent them away so I’m sure I’ll be making more again… looks like I’ve got Father’s Day already sorted.
For my first project I thought I’d tackle something simple, yet still useful.
I have loads of ribbons, they’re all dumped in a basket just waiting to tangle with each other. With my nifty mason jar ribbon holder they’re now safely stored in a tangle free zone.
My inspiration came from a post I found on ‘A Casarella
Mason Jar Bakers Twine by ‘A Casarella
My finished product definitely doesn’t look as cute, or tidy as hers, and I don’t have one of those fancy flower cut out lids, but it does the trick!
Hammer
Nail
Power drill & various drill bits
Metal file
Step One:
Take a non permanent marker and draw four lines crossing each other to establish where to drill the centre and ribbon holes.
Step Two:
Take your hammer and nail and gently tap the nail until it pierces the lid. Be very gentle as it doesn’t take much to get through the thin metal lid.
Step Three:
Use a small drill bit to drill a pilot hole through each of the nail holes, I used a 4 size drill bit for this step – this will make it much easier for the big drill bit to cut through the metal without warping the lid. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of this step!
Step Four:
Use the larger drill bit to drill the full size holes, I used a 8.5 size drill bit for this step. After drilling you may have some sharp edges – I did and I found out the hard way how sharp they actually are! Use a round metal file to get rid of these.
Step Five:
Thread your spools of ribbon onto the bolt and feed the end of the ribbon through one of the holes in the lid. Once you have all your ribbon on the bolt, slide the bolt through the centre hole in the lid and secure with a washer and nut. Viola, you’re done!
Mason Jar Ribbon Holder
I’m wondering if there might be a problem with the ribbons getting caught up with each other, but so far so good! It’s not the prettiest thing but you could definitely decorate the jar to jazz it up a bit if you felt like it.
I’ll be working on my next project this weekend, just in time for Mother’s Day…. stay tuned!
I’ve recently received a big shipment of beeswax sheets and wanted to come up with a creative way to use them that wasn’t just a boring old rolled beeswax candle… enter the beeswax flowers!
I love using beeswax because it’s a 100% natural product that can not only be used in candle making, but an important ingredient in balms and other skin care products. Beeswax is made by honey bees when they are gathering nectar and is used to build the honey comb in which the nectar is stored. Our beeswax sheets are made from 100% pure beeswax that have been filtered to remove all impurities ensuring the candles will burn cleanly, then they are coloured with special dyes so we can have nice vibrant candles.
How to make Beeswax Flower Candles
I chose to make a my candles with 50:50 beeswax and soy wax. You can of course make a 100% beeswax candle, but I find adding soy wax to the beeswax makes a softer candle that doesn’t burn as hot.
Measure out the beeswax into the melting pot and place in the double boiler to slowly melt. Once the beeswax is nearly melted, add the soy wax. Soy wax has a much lower melt point than beeswax so it doesn’t take much to melt the wax and for your mixture to become completely liquid (approx 70 degrees).
Melt the beeswax then add the soy wax
Step Two:
Remove the melting pot from the double boiler. If you would like to add essential oils, fragrance or colour do so at this stage. Make sure you mix them in well. I prefer to leave my candles 100% natural and keep the sweet honey smell of the beeswax.
While your wax is cooling, prepare your glass jars by attaching the wick to the centre of the jar using a wick sticker. Hold the wick in place by using an icecream stick, bobby pin or peg.
Secure the wicks to the centre of the jar
Step Three:
Once your wax has cooled to about 60 degrees pour carefully into your jars. Fill the jars about 3/4 of the way – you need to leave room for your beeswax flowers to go on top! Set aside to harden.
Pour the wax into your jars and set aside to harden
Step Four:
You can use any colour beeswax sheet to make your flowers. I went for more of a “succulent” look for one candle so I used green and natural colours, but for the other candle I made calla lillies so I chose vibrant pink and red.
If you’re good a freestyle cutting, great! But if you need a little help print out the flower template from the PDF up top. Place the template over the beeswax sheet and cut around the lines using your craft knife. I cut the larger flower out of green and natural beeswax, and the smaller flower out of ivory beeswax. I also cut just the petals of the smaller flower to add a little extra dimension. You can be as creative as you like here, using as many colour and shape combinations as you fancy.
Use a ball point pen to cut a hole out of the centre of each flower.
Cut the beeswax using the PDF template
Step Five:
Slide each flower over the wick and gently stick down onto the candle. Bend the petals up slightly to create extra dimension. Once you’re happy with your flower trim the wick to 1cm above the flower and you’re done!
Layer the beeswax flowers
I’ll be sharing the tutorial on how to make the calla lily flowers soon, but in the mean time, I hope you have as much fun making these as I did!
This is by far one of the most popular soaps I ever sold. I think people love it because it’s 100% natural. I don’t add any colours or fragrances, which makes it a perfect soap for people with sensitive skin. The oatmeal makes a lovely exfoliator too!
If you’ve never made cold process soap before, I recommend watching Anne-Marie’s beginner guide to cold process soap making videos. They’re a great resource and a must watch for newbie soap makers.
I have a custom size wooden loaf mould which my Dad made for me that I use for most of my soap making. It makes 13 x 140 gram (approx) bars of soap. The total oil weight for my mould is 1200 grams, when you include the water, lye, fragrance etc the total size of my soap loaf ends up around 1850 grams.
In order to adapt my recipe to fit your mould, I’ll include the percentage of the ingredients so you can calculate the exact weight of the oils you’ll need to fit your own mould. If you make any adjustments to the recipe below, make sure you run your recipe through a soap calculator to ensure you use the correct amount of caustic soda. I recommend this calculator.
163.8g Caustic Soda
396g Distilled Water
30g (3 scoops) Goat’s Milk Powder
1/2 heaped cup Oatmeal (ground)
45g Manuka Honey
Preparation
Before we can get on with making the actual soap, we need ground oatmeal. You can buy it already ground, but I like to do it myself. That way I can control how fine the oats will be – the chunkier the oats, the more exfoliating your soap will be.
Making ground oatmeal is simple. Just add your regular breakfast oats into a food processor and blitz until you get the desired consistency! I do a few cups of oats, then just store what I don’t use in an airtight container for next time.
Oats – before and after
Step One:
Slowly and carefully add the lye to the water and gently stir until the lye has fully dissolved and the liquid is clear. Set aside to cool.
Step Two:
Combine the coconut, olive, canola, rice bran, palm oils and shea butter, heat in the microwave or stove top until the oils are melted.
Combine and melt the oils
Step Three:
Add the honey to the oils. If your honey is too firm, pop it in the microwave for 15-20 seconds until liquid. Blend until combined.
Add the honey to the melted oils
While I’m waiting for my lye and oils to cool, I usually tidy up a bit and line my mould if I haven’t done so already.
Step Four:
Once the lye water and the oils have cooled to about 50 degrees (I like to make this recipe at a cooler temperature because it heats up a lot due to the milk and honey!) Add the milk powder to the lye water and mix very carefully with the stick blender until fully combined. You’ll notice the lye starts to turn a horrid yellow colour and smell pretty awful, don’t worry this is normal!
Step Five:
Add the lye water/milk mixture to the oils and stick blend until medium trace.
Add the lye to the oils and blend.
Step Six:
Once at medium trace, add the oatmeal and combine using a spatula.
Step Seven:
Pour into the mould and tap down to get rid of any air bubbles. I like to sprinkle the top of my soap with oatmeal for decoration.
Put your soap away to cure before cutting in 24 hours. Do not insulate this soap as it will heat up a lot due to the milk and honey! Cure for 4-6 weeks then enjoy!
Note: This soap can smell a bit funky for a while because of the goat’s milk, but don’t worry this will eventually go away and you’ll be left with a lovely natural bar of soap that’s excellent for your skin 🙂
Anne-Marie from Soap Queen has make some great beginner soap making videos. These are a must watch for anyone that is new to cold process soap making! I recommend watching all four videos in the beginner series before attempting to make your first batch of cold process soap.
Even though butters are so good for our skin, and provide excellent moisturising properties; I personally find straight body butters a little on the heavy and greasy side. That’s why lotions are so great! You get the moisturising benefits of oils and butters, but adding water cuts down the greasy feeling.
Very Basic Lotion (makes 100 grams)
Oil Phase
20 grams of oil (sunflower, soya, apricot kernel, rice bran are all good oils to use)
5 grams of emulsifying wax
Water Phase
75 grams of water
Cool down Phase Fragrance
Preservative
Measure your oil phase ingredients into a heat safe container.
Measure your water phase ingredients into a separate heat safe container.
Heat both containers until they reach 70 degrees Celsius and hold for 20 minutes. This ensures any bacteria is heated out of your mixture.
Pour your oil phase into your water phase ingredients and mix with a hand blender for 3 or 4 minutes. Your oil and water will now emulsify together.
Leave to cool until 45 degrees. You can keep mixing during this stage if you like.
When the temperature reaches 45 degrees add your cool down phase ingredients.
Pour into your bottles, but wait until completely cooled until you put the lid on your jar as you don’t want condensation to drip back into your lotion.
Infusing oils is a great way to incorporate the medicinal properties of herbs into your soaps and skin care products. It’s easy to do yourself at home, and if you grow your own herbs you can make infused oils with plants dried straight from your garden!
There are many different herbs you can infuse that are beneficial for our bodies. These are some of my favourites.
Rosemary helps relieve an itchy scalp and dandruff. It is also thought to encourage hair growth. This is stimulating and invigorating herb.
Calendula (marigold) is healing and used commonly for sunburns, itchiness, rashes, inflammation, and slow healing wounds.
Lavender is calming, healing, and anti fungal, it promotes the growth of new cells, and is useful for skin inflammation.
The best oils to use in an infusion are olive, sweet almond, or jojoba as these have a long shelf life. They’re also a staple in many soap makers recipes.
There are a couple of different ways you can infuse your oil, (my favourite is the fastest way as I have no patience to wait 6 weeks for the herbs to infuse in the sun!)
Fresh Calendula Flowers
What you’ll need
Dried herbs
Oil (Olive, Sweet Almond, or Jojoba)
Vitamin E oil (optional)
The ratio of oil to herbs is approximately 10:1. So if you have 250ml of oil you would use 25g of herbs. Depending on the herb this can be alot, so I tend to just eyeball the amounts. As long as the herbs are completely covered by the oil then you should get a nice infusion.
Do not wash the herb or use any water in any way, don’t use a wet jar or wet spoon for mixing either. Water can cause your herbs to grow mildew!
Method 1: The Slow Way – Solar Infusion
In a clean, sterilised glass jar add your dried herbs and cover completely with the oil of your choice. Gently stir the mixture making sure that all the herbs are well covered with oil. Screw on the lid.
The herbs are infused into the oil by heat, so place your jar in a warm spot but out of direct sunlight.
Leave the oil steeping for 4-6 weeks. Check on it every few days and give it a gentle roll back and forth. This helps to release the herbal properties and keeps everything well covered.
After six weeks the oil will be ready to strain. To strain, pour the oil from your jar into a jug, through strainer that has been lined with a cheesecloth (or if you’re like me and don’t have any cheesecloth, use a coffee filter). You don’t want to only use a regular strainer as you’ll get small bits of herb in your oil. Squeeze the cheesecloth/filter to get every last drop! Pour the oil into prepared bottles or jars and add a couple drops of vitamin E oil to help preserve your infusion. Keep this oil in a cool, dark place. Most infused oils generally last for a year or longer depending on which oil you used.
Method 2: The “If You’ve Got All Day” Way – Stove Top Infusion
Fill your jar with the herbs and oil as described in method one. Place the herb filled jar in a sauce pan that has been filled about ¼ full of water, simmer for 4-8 hours. Remove jar from saucepan and allow to cool. Strain, bottle and keep in a cool dark place.
Method 3: The Quick Way – Double Boiler Infusion
Place the herbs and oil in a double boiler and bring to a slow simmer. Slowly heat for 30-60 minutes. For a stronger infusion, keep the heat nice and low for a longer simmer time to help release medicinal properties. Strain, bottle, and store following the instructions above.
Make sure you label your finished infusions with the date, type of oil and herb used. Now you can use the oil in your soaps and skin care products to make them a little more special!
Step 1: Measure out the oil and lavender into a heat safe glass jug.
Sweet Almond Oil and Dried Lavender Buds
Step 2: Put the lavender into the oil and stir well until combined. Place your jug into the double boiler on a low heat and leave to infuse for 30-60 minutes, stirring every so often.
Oil and Lavender combined in the double boiler
Step 3: Place a sieve over a clean jug and pour the oil and lavender into a cheesecloth, or in this instance, a coffee filter. If you pour directly into the sieve you will get small bits of lavender in your oil which you don’t want. Wait for the oil to filter through then squeeze the filter to make sure you get all the oil out of the lavender. Add a drop or two of Vitamin E and stir.
You can use the oily lavender buds in another project if you don’t want to discard them, but you must use them the same day to avoid contamination.
Straining the infusion
Step 4: Fill your clean, sterilised jar and screw the lid on tight. Label, and store in a cool dry place ready to be used in your soaps and body treats. Enjoy!
For some people, (especially those in the United States!) Valentine’s Day is a BIG deal. It’s often expected of you to spend a fortune on overpriced flowers and other romance themed gifts.
Personally, I think the best gifts are those that have some actual thought and effort put into them. I personally prefer wild flowers picked by a roadside than a bunch of expensive roses from a florist.
So with that thought, I’ve got a recipe for an easy massage candle that will be ready to use within 24 hours. It’s an inexpensive handmade gift that can be used again and again, but really only requires minimal effort to make. Make it the day before and enjoy it with your partner on Valentine’s Day, or any other day for that matter!
Ingredients
(makes 1 x 6oz Metal Tin)
1 x 6oz silver tin
1 x CDN14 wick
50g Soy Wax GW464
23g Shea Butter
22g Cocoa Butter
10g Coconut Oil
10g Sweet Almond Oil
3ml Angel Fragrance Oil
(or any other skin safe fragrance oil)
Directions
Combine the soy wax, coconut oil and cocoa butter in a heat safe jug.
Microwave for 30 second bursts, stirring in between. For this single candle I only needed 2 x 30 second bursts to melt the wax and oils enough. Once your cocoa butter is almost melted just keep stirring until the cocoa butter is fully liquid. You don’t want to overheat the cocoa butter as it can damage it’s skin loving properties.
Once your cocoa butter is fully melted. Add the shea butter. You don’t need to microwave it, just keep stirring until the shea butter is completely melted. Note, if you add the shea butter in small chunks it will melt faster!
Add in your sweet almond oil and skin safe fragrance then stir well.
Dip the metal tab on the bottom of your wick in the wax mixture and press into the centre of the tin. Use a skewer, pencil, or whatever you have laying around to keep the wick standing straight in the middle.
Slowly pour the wax mixture into the tin. Try to pour in the centre of the tin so you don’t get drips down the insides.
Put aside to cool. Once the candle has hardened trim the wick to 1cm.
Directions for Use
Light the candle and let burn for about 15-20 minutes, or until a pool of melted wax, large enough for your use, forms around the wick.
Extinguish the flame and pour the melted wax onto your hands. Don’t pour directly onto the skin unless you have tested the temperature of the wax first! You don’t want to burn your partner with hot wax!!
If I was only allowed to have one beauty product for the rest of my life, I would choose lip balm. I can’t stand having dry lips! Which is why over the last 20 or so years I’ve spent a fortune on various lip balms. It feels like I’ve tried every flavour and brand out there!
A little while ago I decided to try making my own for the first time. I was kind of shocked at how easy it was, and a bit miffed that I’d spent so much money in the past buying commercial products which have ingredients that I can’t even begin to pronounce, when I could have been making my own, natural product, all along.
I have a few different lip balm recipes which I make depending on the season, but this is my all time favourite…
Combine the Beeswax, Palm Oil, Cocoa and Mango Butters in a heat safe container.
Put in the microwave and heat in 30 second bursts, stirring in between, until the oils start to become liquid. Be careful not to burn! Once the oils and butters are nearly melted, keep stirring the mixture until it becomes completely liquid. Put back in the microwave for 10 seconds if you still have any lumps.
Add your castor and sweet almond oils, they will start to harden the mixture as the cool oil hits the warm oil, just stir this in until it’s combined. If you can’t get rid of all the lumps by stirring, put the container back in the microwave for 5-10 seconds until the mixture is nice and smooth.
Add your flavouring and mica and mix well until there are no clumps.
Pour into your lip balm containers. If you find your balm is too thick to pour nicely, put the mixture back into the microwave for 5-10 seconds until it becomes slightly more liquid.
Tip: For a nice smooth finish, gently go over the tops with a heat gun on low, or a hair drier until the lip balm is nice and shiny.
Let the lip balm harden, then enjoy! These little lip balms are fantastic stocking fillers, wedding favours, or a perfect treat for yourself.
