DIY Whipped Shea Body Butter

In the midst of my first Apple Cider Vinegar adventure which will be another week or so there are a couple other things I wanted to try, one of which is whipped shea butter.

I. Love. Lotions. I love to make things for my skin, I love to  make things that smell delicious and feel delicious and make my skin feel softer than a newborn baby's fragile fetus skin. I recently discovered that using coconut oil on my face makes me break out, and then I discovered that it's actually really common for that to happen because coconut oil is very comedogenic. Don't worry, I too had never heard that word before in my life. This blog spellchecker is giving me the red squiggly under comedogenic, but it's damn wrong. Spellchecker needs to go back to school.

Comedogenic basically means, "a tendency to create acne." Oils and products that are comedogenic clog pores, and create breakouts. So while coconut oil can be used for tons of different things including moisturizing the skin, it should not be used on the face and if it is, should be wiped off afterwards like if you are using it as a makeup remover, which I recommend.

Shea butter is another wonder product, and I know that most women have heard it before because it shows up in various products for hair or skin that are super-moisturizing and usually very thick and rich in texture. The problem with store bought mixtures is you can't control what other chemicals go into the butter, which doesn't sit well with me because my skin is extremely reactive and I get to learn about new allergies all the time.

What is Shea butter? It's fat sucked out of the African Shea Tree. Thanks wikipedia. Obviously, since it's a type of fat, it is  beneficial for skin and hair, you can even eat it. I'm not going to eat it, I'm going to slather it all over my face.

Steps to whipping Shea butter:

First, decide what type of texture you want. If you want a creamy lotion-like texture, you are going to need liquid oils to add to to the mixture. I didn't have much on hand so I settled for having a slightly harder texture to my finished product. The less liquid oil, (olive, almond, avocado, whatever) the harder the texture. The ratio should be about a quarter liquid oils to whatever else you have in the mixture.

My ingredients:
Teaspoon Vitamin E oil
Half cup of shea butter
Quarter cup of coconut oil
Vanilla Essential Oil

1. First attempt

Melt the shea butter in a double boiler or a makeshift one like mine, which is a pot with a pyrex baking dish on top. Just make sure that there is room for steam to escape.

When the butter is melted, allow it to cool entirely before adding your carrier oils, if any. I did not do this at first, I added a ton of essential oil but could not smell it whatsoever and I think it's because I did not wait for the oil to cool. Should take about 30 minutes and no longer feel hot to the touch.

After you've added the oils, pop the mix into the freezer for about 20 minutes until the edges start to harden and turn white. The centre may be runny.

Then throw that shit in a mixer and start whipping.

I was amazed, success! The mixture will continue to harden a bit however after you've mixed, moreso if you use less liquid oils or none.

While it technically worked, this was too hard of a texture for me, i wanted to make a more lotion-like mixture. I scooped our about 80% of it and went to re-melt it, keeping a small amount to use for my face since my second attempt, I'd be adding coconut oil. This mixture feels amazing on my face, and has officially replaced my piss-cream.

2. Attempt two

Original mix with coconut oil on top. This time I waited until the oil was cooled until I added the vanilla, and I added a shit ton of it, like 200 hundred drops, and it's a very subtle vanilla scent.

Creamy like pancake batter, oh yeah.

I adore shea butter, and I'll be experimenting with more mixtures in the future for sure and making more of my own body butters.

No-Poo, Episode 1: Hair Rinse

Back in the day I heard about using apple cider vinegar for shiny, healthy hair, and being a stupid kid with scraggly short hair, longing for victoria secret model waves from the confines of my angsty pimpley teenage life, I went ahead and just straight-up dumped pure apple cider vinegar I found at 7-11 on my head.

So obviously it didn't do anything beneficial, my mom yelled at me for staining the tub, and I abandoned the idea until I grew a brain and read about it a few months ago. After thoroughly researching and reading testimonials of the trusty women on my favorite organic hair care subreddit, and from a recomendation from a specific user, I decided to make a 2 week long challenge out of it, much like my honey challenge.

ACV has tons of uses, skin, hair, externally, internally, so while I can't show you with photos how it aids in my digestive process (and I think I should limit poop talk to about once every 6 months or so) I can give you photo evidence of what it does to my hair and skin.
This week I will be trying two things: Apple Cider Vinegar After Shower Skin Toner, and Apple Cider Vinegar Hair Rinse for after shampoo.

What the hell is NoPoo and why would people want to not poop?
"Going NoPoo" refers to stopping the use of shampoo and conditioner, and rarely washing your hair at all. The concept derives from the notion that washing your hair often dries out the scalp and hair by stripping it of it's natural oils, thus making it compensate by overproducing oil, creating greasy hair and causing you to wash more. By going NoPoo the idea is to 'train' the scalp to revert back to its natural order of cleaning itself with the natural oils it produces, at a normal rate, so that you no longer have to use shampoo and your hair adjusts to being cleaned by it's own natural oils. It takes a long-ass time to adjust and many women say that it's a grease-fest for months before it adjusts. There is also the idea of "LowPoo", using organic shampoos that do not contain sulfate or parabens like most shampoos that we use, and our scalps are used to.

 I've been eyeing the NoPoo (no shampoo, no conditioner) method for a few weeks now, and it's been recommended that before going NoPoo to slowly ween off washing your hair and introduce ACV, which is a popular method of cleaning hair instead of using shampoo and conditioner. The last 6 months I have been washing my hair every other day, because I have an overly greasy scalp and dry ends. I often go longer than that on weekends and holidays from work. My issue is that while my hair might look okay when not washed, it feels like I've dipped my head in wax and drives me crazy.
The funny thing about wax-head though, is that it's safe to say that it correlates to my shampoo use, in a horrible vicious greasy cycle.

Now I will document my experiences last night with this ACV Hair Rinse Recipe.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar per cup (200 ml for my metric pals)
Handful of rosemary
2 tsp green tea
Mint Leaves

The ACV is necessary, the herbs are not, but have read that rosemary is very good for hair, also it smells rad. it is VERY important that you use organic, unfiltered, ACV. Heinz apple vinegar is not going to do anything for you hair.

 This time around I gave myself a well rehearsed pep talk.

"It isn't guaranteed to work for everyone.
Every woman has a different type of hair.
It will not burn your hair off.
This isn't 2003, you're not an idiot anymore."

The tea i used is a mix between green and black, green tea is great for hair growth and black tea is apparently great for brunettes. Awesome, cause I didn't have any pure green tea, just my Arabian Night.

First bring the water to a boil, I used 4 cups and 4 Tbsp of ACV, Then add the herbs. Turn the heat off, cover and steep for 15-30 minutes. Strain the herbs out and either put it in a container or spray bottle.

Two days of unwashed goodness. You can either spray the mixture on your hair after shampooing or pour it. I poured the mixture on mine, and next time I'll try spraying. First I dipped the ends of my hair into the container and then poured, to be sure I got it all. Then, massage into the scalp. The directions for the rinse I found said I could either rinse it out with cool water or leave it in for "deeper conditioner", aw hell, I'll leave it in.

Dry hair before rinse.

Dry Hair after rinse

and different light that makes my color look weird.

When my hair was drying I panicked, because it was the first time in ages I didn't put smoothing cream or oil in it before I let it air dry, but it soon calmed down. Next time I will try spraying and adding some coconut oil to the ends to give it a little more moisture. I'm a bit skeptical though, while my hair looks shiny and nice, it feels rougher than usual, but I will attribute that to it being the first time I've used it and my being used to drugstore products. I was also worried it might effect my color, which it did not, in fact, it made it a little richer, especially in the back.

For more info on ACV Rinses, mosey on over here: http://www.chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com/idascorner/shampvinegar.aspx

Dope-ass Green Smoothies

And there is yet another tab added to my scatter-brained blog!

After seeing my doctor about my cyclical mood swings, I decided to try a few things to help improve my mood while waiting for my neurologist appointment all the way in August. These include: coming off hormonal birth control, being outside/active more, and re-hauling my diet according to my specific dietary needs as told by my doctor and body stats - needless to say, shit got real in the form of an excel spreadsheet.

I won't bore you with all the details of my specific needs, but basically I am vitamin deficient in addition to (like most humans) being everything-else-deficient and consume way too much fucking sugar. Also, I'm way low in fiber, but that's because I hate vegetables and whine about how gross they are like a five year old. Which means my digestive tract is not having an easy go, and I've replaced toilet paper with baby wipes. So I did some research on what my dietary intakes of fat, protein etc should be and tailored them according to various articles written by Christian Thibadeau on the website www.t-nation.com, specifically the 'muscle with attitude' branch, which is directed towards female fitness of all types. I used it back in my athletic hay-day before college replaced my blood with kraft dinner cheese powder. Don't be put off by the fact that it's a bodybuilding website, the articles have always been very up-to-date with their information and all of the authors are highly respected in their field, in other words, ignore the words "bodybuilding" and "testosterone", because these people are healthy for a living and they know their shit.

Anyway, after tailoring my diet, and by tailoring my diet I mean making sure I have what I need but not completely sacrificing things I like, which is (according to C-Tibbs, and I believe it) one of the best ways to ruin your mood and your motivation. Also, it's just plain unrealistic to deny yourself of simple pleasures, that in itself is considered unhealthy. Healthy means healthy all around, physically as well as mentally. Obviously I'm going to hate life if I can't eat a baguette every once in a while, I live in europe, do you know how impossible it would be to NEVER consume bread? My god. I avoid it as much as possible but its like, "I'll take a coffee to go please," "okay, would you like a small bale of wheat and a litre of wine to go with it?"

Anyway, I decided to try out Green Smoothies. It's kind of a fad right now, and I thought it was really dumb when I first heard of it because of the various; "DRINKING THIS WILL CURE CANCER AND MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE JESSICA ALBA WITHOUT LIFTING A FINGER", articles, and it always puts me off when I see anything diet related promoted by a person who gets paid to run infomercials and tries to sell you books about why vegetables are good for you.

Warning: I am going to talk graphically and lovingly about poop in this paragraph.
Truth is, I love green smoothies. I love green smoothies because they make me feel amazing, and are actually beneficial. I hate vegetables. I hate cooking them, I hate trying to make them taste good, I hate them. I hate eating them raw, I hate looking at them in my fridge because when I see then I taste them in my mind and that makes me angry. But I need veggies, because I'm a human. So I found a few recipes, tried them out, and what I thought would taste like ground up asshole with artificial sweetener on it actually tasted pretty good. Granted, weird at first, because you are drinking a garden, but pretty good, and you know what? I love them. I love them for how they make me feel, how easy they are to prepare, how they are surprisingly tasty  but I love them even more because since drinking them I have had the absolute most comfortable shits in my entire life. Soft, easy, sliding-right-out poops that no other supplement/medicine has ever given me, it's incredible. I'm sorry, I wish that talking about poop quality was a more socially accepted practice, because after having years of college-microwave-meal uncomfortable poop quality, being able to have a pleasant shit is just about the greatest feeling in the world, right up there with freshly washed sheets and pulling off dead skin.

A lot of the time I looked for recipes on pinterest but gave up on it, because sometimes when it comes to things I don't know much about I need to be told exactly what to do, and pinterest was giving me too much freedom. The basic premise is repeated, "Pick 2 handfuls of fruit, your favorite leafy greens, a source of good fats/protein and a clean liquid!" NO. Just tell me what exactly to put in it. I'm an unhealthy fuck that needs to be walked through this.

My recipe:

1/2 cup of Coconut Milk
1/2 cup raspberries
1 whole orange
1 inch cube fresh ginger
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 handfulls of fresh spinach leaves (about half the mixer jug)
(you can also use frozen but I personally think fresh tastes better, also kale is better than spinach but it's not in season here at the moment UGH.)
Little bit of water so it's not too thick.

The nutritional result?

Calories:	295
Fat(g):	30
Carbs(g):	25
Protein(g):	21

I pretty much only taste the cinnamon/ginger.
Coconut milk is great for this stuff, but I've heard people have the same success with almond milk/butter, or avocado.

I recommend Green Smoothies for all! your skin, hair, nails, digestive system, and bum will thank you.