Yesterday was a good day for making bath and beauty products. I tried the lotion recipe again and had better success with it -- made a really smooth, creamy, white lotion with an Allure for Men dupe. I'm making a series of products for a friend of mine, and tried out this fragrance in body spray, lotion, and castille soap.
The bath and beauty products production started as both a hobby and a way to save money on things like shampoo. The hobby part is fine but I'm not sure if I really save money, at least on shampoo. I have to admit, Suave makes a damn fine shampoo that costs practically nothing. Even so, making your own bath and beauty products is a way to get away from things like extra packaging because you can reuse your old corporate containers. It is also a way to get away from branding, because you can take the labels off the old containers and/or use your own.
Some friends who I make products for are totally into the "lather, rinse, reuse" philosophy and give me their old bottles to fill for them. I'm even collecting old deodorant tubes for when I start making lotion bars/deodorant. With other friends, like the one I made the products for yesterday afternoon, I give them new bottles to start with and ask them to return them when (and if) they want more of the products. I know this contradicts what I was just saying about reusing old bottles, but when you think about it, reusing old containers is a radical idea and takes some getting used to. We're so used to throwing away or recycling containers through city waste management.
I'll get into more of recycling part of this later, as well as posting some recipes and techniques for getting started in making your own heatlh and beauty aids, or HABA (as a friend once called it).

sewing projects...
I've been itching to do some sewing -- Jo-Ann's is a-calling, but I've vowed not to buy any more fabric until I've actually used some of the fabric I already have. So little time, sigh... one thing I need to do is make more underwear. I've started using old T-shirts and a basic underwear pattern in my size. The great thing about using old t-shirts is you can find some pretty goofy t's at the thrift store and put, like, Alice Cooper on your butt -- which I did (it was actually an old t-shirt of my old man's). So, instead of finally parting with that beloved KISS baseball concert tee you can put those dudes right smack on your butt. You'll be smiling all day, I promise.

Darn, I just couldn't wait to create this blog. There are two other women who will join me in this endeavor, and already I'm setting the tone by choosing the template. The name of the blog comes from one of the as-yet-unamed bloggers and she has graciously consented to let us use it as the official name.