Cosmetics is among bestselling items in stores. You can see meters of cans, tubes and spray bottles in the cosmetics department of any supermarket. Most probably you have sometimes wondered about the necessity of all that amount of chemicals. Who needs so many products and what for?
Cosmetic business spins around money and our consumption. People really want to buy and consume incredible amounts of chemical mixtures. Otherwise you wouldn’t find them in stores.
Have you ever looked at how many almost identical products can be found side by side in stores? There is hardly any difference in the products. If you compare the ingredients you will find that there are rarely any major differences.
Then the question is, why make the beauty cream by ourselves, if there are 20 different versions already available in the store. It is so easy just to buy the right product and use it. Buying raw materials and making the product take time, money and efforts. Just buy the small can or jar and enjoy – easy and simple?
Why You Should Make Your Own Beauty Products
1. You can influence the composition of the product yourself.
You will get exactly the kind of product your skin needs. In industrial products, the raw materials are always selected according to some other factor which is not your skin. The raw materials should have a very good shelf life. That’s why industrial cosmetics use a lot of mineral oils as well as heated or otherwise contaminated fats. Natural cosmetics often use cold pressed oils, but are they optimal for your skin? Many natural cosmetics creams are based on olive oil. However, olive oil is not suitable for many but causes blocking of pores.
2. You can choose the freshest ingredients you can
When you buy a cream from the store you cannot be sure how old the ingredients used in the cream are. Sure, the shelf life is marked on the product, but does it say anything after all? The shelf life/best before -date tells you that the structure of the product should remain unchanged until the end of that time. Also, the product will get spoiled, meaning it should not get germs or moulds before the end of shelf life. But what is the level of preservation of the flavonoids and fatty acids contained in the cream? All the complex phytochemicals in the cream you bought will be dead for sure sooner than best before -date.
You can and you should choose every ingredient in your DIY lotion by yourself. Keep all oil bottles in cold and dark. Keep herbs dry and in the dark. Observe the dates of the ingredients and use only the freshest ingredients possible. The difference between fresh ingredients and ingredients for industrial creams is similar to canned and fresh fruits. So, stop using canned food and start using fresh ingredients.
3. You get new cream quickly
No more running around in the shops. You can make your own product easily, as long as you are familiar with the formulas of the creams. All you have to do is know what you want and what raw materials you need. After all, the cream itself is ready in a very short period of time.
4. You can change the product on a daily basis if you wish
Buying an industrial cream is usually a big thing. You search and test the cream for a long time, and when you finally find yours, you use it for at least 3 to 6 months. Usually people do not throw away half-empty jars of cream and just buy new one. What a waste and very unecological.
By preparing creams yourself, you can just make very small amounts and you can change the cream you use often. Of course, very small amount like a day’s lotion is hard to prepare. That would be too little. However, you can make a base cream that you can tune on daily basis. If you find that your skin needs more moisture, add a drop of glycerol to the cream. This way, you can get a high-performance moisturizer for just a day. In this recipe I have told how you can tune creams by adding glycerol.
5. Tune the creams up!
If you make a very neutral base cream, you can make many versions of the cream for many different uses. Exclude scents, colours and active ingredients. Here’s how to get the base cream. Divide the base cream into portions and tune each portion for different purposes. By using active ingredients, moisturizers or great scents you will always get a new cream.
6. At the same time, you can study the structure and ingredients of the products
When you make your own cream and buy all the ingredients separately, you really need to pay attention to what the product contains. You definitely want to think about what oil you want to use. You find out the composition of the oils, etc. You want a certain structure for the cream and you wonder how it will work. You are thinking about preserving and wondering if preservatives are safe. You will surely study deeper the world of raw materials than if you were buying an industrial product. Gradually you are almost professional with the INCI listings for creams and you can also demand more from industrial creams after all these investigations.
7. DIY products are always a greener option
When looking at the rows of cosmetic bottles in stores, you can see the endless rows of plastic. Plastic can be found in the packaging as well as in the contents. Yes, plastic used in packages can be recycled, but in reality, only a very small percentage of plastic packages is actually recycled. For example, Lush has a lot of cosmetics that are not in plastic bottles but as beauty bars, without any packaging. Really ingenious business idea from them. Of course, you can make beauty bars of your own like the one I introduced in my recipe – wind protection bars. However, home cosmetics is always greener, even in terms of packaging. You can use almost all kinds of glass jars you have at home for packaging your products. If you have small glass jars, you can use them endlessly as long as you wash them occasionally.
Raw materials are often packed in plastic bags and bottles. You can buy oils in glass bottles instead and recycle them.
DIY cosmetics contain no plastics. In general, people do not add any artificial colours or toxic preservatives to DIY products. In contrast, industrial chemicals used in beauty products contain numerous substances that we have no idea about. All of them add strain on our skin and also in water systems.
8. You will save money
For sure you have notified that creams are generally very expensive. First thing you will notice, when preparing the cream by yourself, is the fact that how inexpensive it is. This is important: A can of good quality, toxic-free cream. Naturally you can find cheap creams from the shop but they are no quality products.
9. Make bigger set – you have gifts made by you
Many of us have already bought the Christmas gifts but cosmetics is a nice gift anytime. You can prepare a bigger set of cream and there you go – no more thinking what to give to your friends. It is great fun to invite a group of friends, get raw materials and prepare several different products at the same time. By doing this, you and your friends can save money because when you buy bigger packages, the price/ounce/gram is cheaper. And you do not need so much of the stuff yourself.
10. Making home cosmetics is real fun!
Yes, making cosmetics is fun. As an example, invite friends and so on… you can also prepare cosmetics by yourself in long winter evenings. You will not need so many ingredients than you think. After you have done some time your own cosmetics, you will have always enough raw materials in your closet.
In case you have kids, either your own or visiting, make something simple with them where you do not need hot pots. Children like to join mixing things and sort of a “cooking” sessions. 12-years old daughter of my friend is preparing creams and beauty bars by herself.
The benefits I mentioned above is the reason why I make home cosmetics myself. I would like you to get excited as well. I will tell more about making cosmetics at home later on.
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