Homemade Beauty : Mistakes Were Made

I fear in my enthusiasm, I’ve forgotten to mention a couple of things. Making your own skincare/haircare products and household recipes will most likely include a few “what the hecks.”

Yesterday’s odd post had a purpose. It had a master plan. It illustrated how it’s entirely possible (and probable, if you try as many things as I do) to go wrong with homemade beauty recipes.

Not everything works for everybody, and not everything works at all. Just like buying products from the store, sometimes there are things you feel like you can’t live without, and sometimes there are things that you want to throw at the person whose car alarm won’t stop going off in front of your house.

The good news: There are a lot of things that are pretty foolproof. Salt or sugar scrubs, the majority of masks (including the Egg White, Honey, and Lemon Juice facial mask), body powder, and bath recipes, just to name a few.

Luckily, even though I had major issues with pineapples on my feet, and even though that fail led to not starting this blog for two more years, I didn’t stop mucking around with recipes. In fact, that one stupid day gave me the incentive to keep trying, because I made a mistake. I saw the pits of pineapple hell. And I came back from it stronger, more determined, and crunchier.

All I’m saying is: You’re going to find that some things don’t work for you. Sometimes. You’re also going to find things that work like magic. Don’t let a couple of screw ups put you off. The good will come.

And things like the oil cleansing method? They take a while to work. I’d give things like that, so “shocking” to your system, a good two weeks before you throw in the metaphorical and literal towel. The same can be said with hair treatments. When I switched to natural/organic shampoos and hair rinses, my hair revolted for a week. There were even talks of a strike. But once it accepted its new, healthy, (mostly) chemical-free environment, it loved me for it. We have a much healthier relationship now.

Here are a couple of big oopses I’ve made in my crunchy reincarnation. REMEMBER! What fails for one person will work wonderfully for another. So don’t stop believin’. Hold on to your crunchy feelin’.

My Homemade Beauty Fails

The Pineapple Foot Scrub. I think I’ve covered that well by now. Read it here, if you haven’t yet.

Cocoa Hair Mask, Pt. 1. I mentioned this particular hair mask here. I also gave it a glowing recommendation. Why? Because I tried it not once, not twice … SOLD for three times! I learned that the recipe I read (from Body & Soul, as well) did not work for my hair. It told me to prepare the mask (with more honey than I needed), put it on, and then shampoo and condition. When I shampooed and conditioned, though, after the mask, my hair looked like a limp tribute to Medusa. So I tried it again, and again, and stopped the conditioning, and it worked. It worked! It really, really worked!

Garbanzo Bean Flour Facial Mask. Have you ever had a million red ants trying to gnaw the flesh from your cheekbones? No? Me either. This mask probably came close. It has to be me – a sensitivity or allergy – because this is a staple beauty recipe in countries all over the world. If you’re interested in trying it, do this: Take garbanzo bean flour, pour a little bit of milk in it to make a paste, and spread a little tiny bit on the inside of your arm. First. See if it itches. If it does not, spread it on the face and let it dry.

Nourishing Mango Mud Mask. Wait. What? WHAT? I thought I just posted this the other day and said it was lovely! Well, it was lovely for me. Perfect, really. I wanted to make the entire world touch my face. But I gave some to my friend Turu, and she broke out the next day. When we were discussing why that might have happened, her mother chimed in and said SHE was allergic to mangoes. Turu had never eaten a mango before. She had no idea. Conclusion: She is, as is her mother, allergic to mangoes. Just goes to show how important it is to know your allergies. They don’t just pop up when you put foods in your mouth.

Vinegar and Black Tea Glass Cleaner. This may not be a beauty recipe, but it sure was a fail. I brewed a very strong pot of black tea and added vinegar to it at the behest of one glass cleaning recipe I found on the internet. I then sprayed it on my mirror. What ensued? A mirror with a black fog covering it. Took me five rounds of cleaning with my natural store-bought glass cleaner to get that gunk off. And it was putrid smelling. Skip it.

So there you have it. Mistakes will be made. Recipes will be tossed. Just like cooking (or purchasing) you’re going to find things that don’t work for you.

One of the best ways to find what you want – in homemade beauty and in life – is to find what you don’t want and go from there. For me, that means going through a bunch of recipes instead of buying conventional beauty products. Because what I KNOW I don’t want is chemicals and products that hurt rather than nourish.

So I ask you (in a bit of trepidation), have you ever tried to make something at home and ended up with a giant, headache-filled fail?