Make Your Own Lotion
Know exactly what ingredients are going into your lotion and save on single-use bottles.
We’re calling bullshit on commercial beauty products. The well-designed packaging and great marketing content will drag you in, but when flipping over to the ingredient list, the first item is almost always water. (That’s a lot of money for mostly water.) And many of the other ingredients are hard to pronounce, let alone, knowing what they are or what they do to your skin is a big question mark. We think it’s just as important to be aware of what you’re putting onto your body (beauty products) as it is to know exactly what you’re putting into your body (food). Let’s get rid of the garbage!
We’re sure there’re companies out there that produce clean lotion products, but our solution is making our own. It takes a little more effort, but the creation process is fun! By making it homemade, we can save on plastic packaging by buying ingredients in bulk and using jars from around the house as containers. This is our go-to recipe. (Here’s another we’ve wanted to try after our batch runs out.)
From our go-to link above, we prefer jojoba oil. We’ve also tried apricot oil, but like the smoothness of jojoba. As for scent, my favorite is a combination of peppermint and lavender, and Michael prefers something more manly–a mix of sandalwood and cedar.
When searching for ingredients:
We look to buy in bulk to reduce on the plastic used in containing the ingredient,
search for them locally to save on non-recyclable shipping materials,
and/or if there’s a store that sells the ingredient in recyclable containers or biodegradable packaging.
If you can’t find your ingredients locally, here are some options we’ve ordered online in the past:
Vitamin E Oil (will last you forever)
We know we’re not perfect or completely waste free with this method, but we do the best we can to purchase in the most eco-friendly way. We would love to hear your eco-hacks to keep improving!
