Fresh-Picked Beauty

My handcrafted batches of Olive Oil Hand Salve for gift giving this holiday season.

I CREATED THIS POST IN 2012 AND DECIDED TO REPOST IT. If you are thinking about handcrafting your holiday gifts, this recipe is a great idea.  Enjoy!!! -Shannon

Every year I craft a handmade beauty product for my family and friends.  Last year I made Calendula Healing Salve and my friends and family truly loved it.  This year I made a bigger jar of my Organic Olive Oil Hand Salve.  I ended up making a total of 20 four-ounce jars, but I think I might need more!! I am sharing the recipe with you, and due to popular demand, I have created the recipe using common U.S measurements instead of metric.  My recipe makes enough salve to fill 3 four-ounce amber jars. If you need more, you simply multiple the recipe.



The base of this salve uses three Organic oils.  I chose organic extra virgin olive oil, organic sweet almond oil and organic sunflower oil.  The best price I have found on the olive oil is at Costco. I got the sweet almond oil from Mountain Rose Herbs and the sunflower oil from Whole Foods. 

I thickened the salve with beeswax pastilles from Mountain Rose Herbs. You can order it HERE.

To help keep the oils fresh and avoid them turning rancid, I enlisted the herbal power of Rosemary Leaf Extract and Vitamin E Oil. 

I chose to lightly scent the salve with lavender, eucalyptus and rosemary essential oils. 

Organic Olive Oil Hand Salve
(makes enough to fill three 4-ounce jars)

4 ounces Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 ounces Organic Sweet Almond Oil
2 ounce Organic Sunflower Seed Oil
3 ounces Beeswax Pastilles
80 drops Lavender Essential Oil
30 drops Rosemary Essential Oil
20 drops Eucalyptus Essential Oil
40 drops Rosemary Leaf Extract (antioxidant)
40 drops Vitamin E Oil

Combine the olive, almond and sunflower oils along with the beeswax in a large glass measuring cup that has been placed in a simmering water bath.  Heat until the wax and oils melt. Remove from heat and stir in the remainder of the ingredients. Carefully pour into the heat-safe glass jars. Cap and cool completely.

Photo of the oils and wax in the simmering water bath.

Carefully pour the hot mixture into the glass pots. I use an oven mitt when pouring the hot salve.

Notice the cracked middle? This is totally fine and happened to about 1/3 of my pots after they cool.  It does not affect the product at all. I am not for sure why this happens, but if it happens to you, don't worry about it at all!!!

I designed these vinyl product labels which fit perfectly on the four-ounce jars. I bought them from Moo.com. I really like that these labels will not smudge and are water-proof.

I found some pretty green fabric and did a quick-sew reusable gift bag and attached my personalized tag with draw string.


All snug in the gift bags and ready to be passed out to my family and friends for the holidays.


There is nothing that I enjoy more than sharing my herbal knowledge and handcrafted gifts with my family and friends!! I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful gifts from Mother Nature!! Green Blessings & Happy Holidays!!!

-Shannon

It is so sad for me to admit, but I don't have the greatest eyebrows in the world! They are super light and fine and very sparse! I won't leave the house without applying my DIY Long Wear Brow Wax. Sometimes I only have time to moisturize my skin and apply my brows, but I won't leave home without at least my eye brows done!

See! I told you my eyebrows are almost non-existent! Here I am without a stitch of makeup on.

Here are my eyebrows after using my DIY Long Wear Brow Wax. Not only does it tint them a beautiful rich brown, it tames them too.

My formula is very thick and waxy and stays put all day long.

Add the following ingredients into a small glass beaker.......

3 grams Stearic Acid
2 grams Cera Bellina (use beeswax if needed)
2.5 grams Castor Oil
0.5 grams Cetyl Alcohol

Place the beaker into a few inches of simmering water until fully melted.

I have seen some DIY recipes that use only straight iron oxides like brown and/or black. I find this to be very boring and the product does not offer much depth. I like to use a base iron oxide such as brown and add in some sericite mica and a few pretty mica blends. For my medium brown eye brow wax, I chose to use TKB Trading's Espresso, Moonstone Mica and Brown Oxide. You can shop HERE.

You will need 1 gram of brown oxide, 0.3 grams of Espresso blend, 0.2 grams of Moonstone Mica blend and 0.2 grams of Sericite Mica. You will need to grind these together. I use this small grinder to fully grind the pigments. 

See how beautiful this color grind turned out!

Once your wax mix is fully melted, turn off the heat but keep the beaker in the hot water.

Add your color grind into the melted wax.

Spend about 5 minutes to fully blend the pigment into the melted wax base. You want to make sure there are no clumps at the bottom.

I like to use a small glass pot with a lid to store the eyebrow wax in.

Carefully pour the hot wax into your container and allow to cool and harden at room temp.

I use a small flat brush to apply to my eyebrows.

Here it is swatched on my wrist in natural light.

Super quick to apply and stays put all day long! For best results, clean your brush after each use.

Cheers!

Shannon

There is a really wonderful tinted face oil by Kosas Cosmetics that is basically a combination of various carrier oils, some pigments, mica, clay and other botanical extracts. The reviews of this product have been super positive and I have watched a few video reviews. I am impressed and just had to make my own version. Success! I am in love with this super cushioning and moisturizing foundation. It is light coverage and just three drops was enough to do my entire face.

One of the ingredients I used is Thickening Clay from TKB Trading. You can shop HERE.  It is a special clay that when used at about 3% of the formula, it helps keep the other oils and pigments suspended evenly and prevents them from sinking and separating.

Start with the following oils:

6 grams Triglyceride
4.5 grams Jojoba Oil (I like to buy mine from Mountain Rose Herbs) (Shop HERE)
1 gram Squalane
1 gram Hazelnut Oil (Mountain Rose Herbs has a great one) (Shop HERE)
0.15 grams of Vitamin E Oil (Shop HERE)
0.15 grams Argan Oil (Shop HERE)

Add these oils into a small glass beaker.

Measure out the following ingredients:

0.45 grans TKB Trading Thickening Clay
1.5 grams Sericite Mica
1.5 grams Silica Microspheres

You will need to add the Thickening Clay into the carrier oils and blend with a stick blender until fully blended.

You have to use a stick blender for best results because just stirring with a spoon will not work that well!

I bought this little hand held blender for about $15 from Amazon and it works amazing at making different cosmetic formulas.

After blending, it will look similar as the photo above.

Add in the mica and silica.

Blend for about one minute.

Time to add in the pigments to color match your skin tone. I like to use the pre-dispersed pigments in castor oil instead of using the iron oxides. It is just easier and I don't have to make a color grind. I have a few other posts showing how to use these pigments to make YOUR color. Find them HERE and HERE. I ordered these from TKB Trading.

I started with white, a few drops of yellow and a couple drops of brown.

I blended it for about 30 seconds and it was just a little bit too light.

I added just a tiny (half-drop) of brown and red. You really have to go slow with the pigments. It is easier to add little by little because you can't take pigments out.

Pretty close in the photo above. Still a little too yellow so a tiny drop of brown and red should help.

Success! It matches the way I like.

Place the tinted face oil into a 15 ml glass dropper bottle.

Here it is swatched on my arm in natural sunlight. This is just two drops.

Here it is blended out. Pretty good match!

Just three to four drops is plenty to cover your entire face.

I made Perfect Pressed Powder today! I am wearing it in the photo above. I applied my moisturizer and used a buffer brush to swirl the powder into my skin. Really lovely texture!

To start you will need to add the following ingredients into a makeup-only coffee bean grinder. If you are new to my blog, a "makeup only coffee bean grinder" simply means that you only use it for making cosmetics and not grinding spices and/or coffee.

**time to put your dust mask on!
5.3 grams Sericite Mica
2.3 grams Rice Powder
0.5 grams Silica Microspheres
0.5 grams Magnesium Stearate
0.6 grams Titanium Dioxide
0.15 grams Yellow Iron Oxide
0.04 grams Orange Iron Oxide
0.03 grams Brown Iron Oxide
0.01 grams Red Iron Oxide
*****your perfect shade may require more or less of the iron oxides that I used. Start slow and go up in small 0.01 gram increments.

Place the ingredients into your grinder and grind for about 45 seconds.

This is the perfect shade for my light with yellow undertone skin.

I used 0.2 grams of Leucidal Liquid PT to preserve the product. I just sprayed it over the powder and gave it another 30 second grind.

I used 0.5 grams of squalane and 0.6 grams of 190 proof vodka to moisten the powder and get it ready for pressing. I added it into the grinder and turned it on for about 30 seconds.

You will get the texture of moist sand when it is ready to press.

You will need an empty pressing tin, a pressing tile, a pressing tamper and an empty compact.

Fill the pan up with a layer and spread out evenly. Place the pressing tile over the powder and press with the tamping tool.

Pack it in firmly by applying pressure to the pressing disc.

Pop it into the compact and you are ready to rock and roll!

In the photo above, I only have on moisturizer and the pressed powder. I also have on my homemade brow wax, cheek blush and lip gloss.

Cheers!

Shannon