Tag Archives: DIY

Natural Skin Care – Coconut Oil as Replacement for Beauty and Skin Care Products

January 11, 2018 Suzana Vukcevic 2 Comments

Coconut Oil Instead Of Many Beauty And Skin Care Products!

Once you realize that majority of beauty and cosmetic lines contain extremely toxic and cancerogenic substances, you may find yourself lost in deciphering the ingredient lists and trying to figure out which products are safe.

How about throwing away your dangerous and expensive creams and products and go get some virgin coconut oil?

Oh Lou Lou! Natural Skin Care Using some high quality virgin coconut oil as base/carrier and adding some essential oils and couple of other ingredients you can literary replace majority of skin care products. Plus it will save you lots of money!

When applied topically, coconut oil will reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by keeping your connective tissues strong and flexible. It will also help with exfoliating the outer layer of dead skin cells. As a result, your skin will look fresh, younger and smoother.

Contrary to many claims that you can see lately on social networks, VIRGIN coconut oil is non-comedogenic (it does not clog pores)!

In fact, when used in its purest form it works wonders for any type of skin including acneic! This is because Coconut oil is anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal. For example, Candida, Staphylococcus aureus, and other pathogens, fungi, bacteria and viruses are destroyed by coconut oil.

DIY recipes on how to use coconut oil as base ingredient for different beauty and skin care products are posted daily all over the web.

Also, the entire concept of many handmade organic small-batch skincare start-ups including ours http://ohloulou.com is based on using mostly VIRGIN coconut oil as a base for its products.

If you don’t have the time or desire to learn about it and make it, we can gladly make it for you – see our range of purest possible organic skincare products Oh Lou Lou!

Coconut oil can be used in hundreds different ways, here are some of them

Make-up remover. Apply some coconut oil with a cotton ball and clean your make-up just as you would use a regular make-up remover. Wash off with some warm water and pat dry.
Facial cleanser. Massage some coconut oil onto face and neck. Wash off with warm water and pat dry.
Shaving lotion. Massage some coconut oil on area to be shaved, and shave as usual. Coconut oil is a good antiseptic due to lauric acid and helps with shaving cuts.
Face and body moisturizer. Mix some coconut oil and essential oil hydrolat (the water collected when plants are steam-distilled to gather essential oils).
Deodorant. Apply some coconut oil directly onto your armpits. I mix coconut oil with a small amount of baking soda and it works perfectly.
Facial/Body Scrub. Mix coconut oil with baking soda, or oatmeal with a dash of cinnamon, for a gentle facial scrub. Add organic cane sugar for a good body scrub.
Insect repellent. Mix coconut oil with essential oils known as insect repellent: peppermint, citronella (Java), rosemary, tea tree oil, geraniol, catnip oil etc.
Natural Sunscreen. You can find here a Quick Recipe for Natural Sunscreen
Facial Cream. Ladies, instead of throwing tons of money on big brands you can try this 5 min. DYI Anti-age Facial Cream

Just make sure to look for organic, cold pressed, unrefined, virgin Coconut oil. Refined coconut oil is indeed comedogenic (pore clogging) and we don’t recommend it for skincare products.

For true lovers of DIY you can find a bunch of more sophisticated recipes like for example Top 15 Coconut Oil Skin Recipes

Check out a great free resource on the benefits of coconut oil Coconut Oil Ultimate Guide

Remember – what you can’t eat you can’t put on your skin!

Food On, Beauty Out 🙂

Sources and Credits

Flu and Cold Remedies, Natural Remedies & Cures

Natural Homemade Alternative to Vicks Vaporub

January 26, 2015 Suzana Vukcevic Leave a comment

Natural alternative to Vicks Vaporub, only without controversial ingredients like petroleum jelly and turpentine oil. DIY, it is easy 🙂

Creating your own homemade all natural Vapor Rub with essential oils is easy!

I am making it with a blend of 4 essential oils (eucalyptus, peppermint, rosemary and manuka) all famous for their health benefits in helping with different respiratory conditions provoked by cold and flu.

EUCALYPTUS radiata essential oil is a potent anti-viral essential oil that stimulates the immune system and enhance the activity of the white blood cells. Excellent for colds, flu, infections of the respiratory system, including bronchial infections and pneumonia.

PEPPERMINT essential oil helps clear nasal congestion and relieve cough and cold symptoms. Acts as expectorant and decongestant, and may help clear the respiratory tract.

ROSEMARY essential oil is an antiviral oil that can boost mental energy and is also efficient in clearing the respiratory tract.

MANUKA essential oil (New Zeland Tea Tree Essential Oil) provides relief and helps respiratory conditions such as nasal congestion, cold and flu, and cough and bronchitis. If you don’t have access to manuka essential oil, you can substitute it with tea tree EO.

The recipe is enclosed below – in case you are not into “Do It Yourself”, we can make it for you – follow this link to make an order All Organic Homemade Vapor Rub

Vapor Rub Homemade Recipe

10gr beeswax*
20gr shea* or olive oil*
50gr coconut oil*
10 drops rosemary essential oil*
10 drops eucalyptus essential oil*
6 drops peppermint essential oil *
4 drops manuka essential oil*

*Make sure to use organic ingredients whenever possible.

Melt the beeswax, shea and coconut oil in a double boiler. When beeswax is fully melted, put aside and cool down and then while it is still liquid, stir in the essential oils blend. Transfer to a glass container with a tight fitting lid.

Let it sit for 24 hours.

USAGE: Rub your upper back, chest and the bottoms of the feet for a quick relief.

SHELF LIFE. Provided you use the fresh ingredients, it will be good up to a year. Do not touch it with wet fingers. Keep at room temperature.

CAUTION

This recipe creates an essential oil dilution that is a little bit below 2%. I have seen many recipes calling for doubling the amount of essential oils which is in general fine for the age of 12 up to 65 years old. I primarily created this for my 6-year old and suggest trying this lighter version of the recipe first – you can always make it stronger by adding few more drops of essential oils or even doubling the amount.

It is wise to perform a skin patch test before using any product: apply a little to your forearm and give it a little time to make sure you are not allergic to some of the oils.

SPECIAL CAUTION

This is NOT a safe essential oils’ dilution for children under 4.

Natural Skin Care, Quick & Easy DIY Beauty Recipes

Vanilla & Cocoa Lotion Bars – An Original Idea for Christmas Gifts

December 5, 2014 Suzana Vukcevic Leave a comment

Looking for an original idea for Christmas gift? How about making some scented lotion bars?

Lotion bar is very similar to body lotion. The difference is that the bars are solid at room temperature and look like bars of soap. When rubbed on the skin, the lotion bar will melt leaving a thin, nicely moisturizing layer.

They are big hit all over the net because it is relatively easy to make them and they have long shelf life.

You can make them in all kind of variations and using different combination of oils and essential oils, here is one of my favorite recipes. Whenever possible use the organic ingredients.

In case you would rather buy them here is the link where to buy Vanilla & Cocoa Lotion Bars.

Ingredients

30g raw organic shea butter
30g cold pressed organic extra virgin coconut oil
25g of natural unrefined yellow beeswax
Two pinches of vanilla/cinnamon powder
1 TBS of naturally infused vanilla almond oil
5 drops of vitamin E

Instructions

In double boiler melt the shea butter, coconut oil and beeswax. When melted, cool a little and add the rest of the ingredients. Pour in the mold and put in the fridge until they become solid.

I like to make them in different sizes and small so I use one piece in its entirety rather than reusing it few times, although many people do that.

Shelf life is up to a year when stored properly. Avoid touching the bars with wet fingers. They should be stored at the temperature below 24, otherwise they will melt. In this case you will need to put them again in the mold and refrigerate.

Food In, Love Out