Homemade kajal/Kohl/kadige/eyeliner - DIY and Natural

Eyes have been celebrated as one of the most beautiful organ, Any song you hear be it in kannada, Hindi or English there are atleast 20% of those dedicated to eyes.
Even with my no make-up stance, Kajal is one exception which has always been my personal favorite, but thanks to my super sensitive skin most of the store bought one's used to either irriate my skin or cause dandruff. I later got to know that it is because of hell lot of chemicals in it, yes some of even the most expensive/so called natural one's I have tried.

So here is a simple recipe of kajal.
Ingredients :
1. Almonds
2. Castor Oil
3. Ghee

Step :
1. Arrange the setup of tumbler plate and a diya as shown below.
2. Now using fork hold the almonds to fire and allow it completely char.
3. Let the smoke from burning go and settle over the plate.
4. Once you are done with all the almonds(2-3 is more than enough for 3 months), use a drop of ghee to mix the soot to get the right consistency( Add very little as you don't want a runny kajal which will smudge) and put it to a box.
5. You can apply using finger tip or cotton bud.

Benefits:
1. Almonds and castor oil are great for eyes.
2. It is completely homemade and natural thus has no harmful chemicals, A great relief!!
3. Smell yum with ghee.

Marigold - A natural Pest and Mosquito repellent

I got a chance to hear from Mr B N Vishwanath about organic farming, he gave a very insightful talk on organic farming and going easy on pesticides, Synthetic Pesticides does more harm in the long run than good. Also there are lot of good natural pesticides available.

So here is one such nice way, use of marigold as pest repellent, Yes you heard it right those bright yellow orange flowers which looks gorgeous but smells awful are one of the nature's best method to control pests and nematodes. But make sure you don't overdo it , as they would then act as weeds sucking the goodness of soil and not allowing good plants to grow.

Planting them such that there are at the end of the pots or one for every ten plant is a good idea. There is an added benefit, you could use those flowers for decoration or treat any bee stings.

Also it is easy to grow them, use the dried petals and sprinkle on ground and wait for it to sprout :-).They are are great mosquito repellent as well!!

DIY Rose Essential Oil - Homemade and Natural

I could call myself an oil person,My skin being dry it just loves oil. At one point I used to stick to plain Almond oil but then I wanted to experiment more, so started making my own light essential oils with coconut oil base at home.

Ingredients : 

1. Rose petals

2. Coconut oil( preferably cold pressed)

Steps:

1. I got some nice deep red rose(about 20), I know the smell is to delicious but don't smell.There will be those teeny weeny insects inside.

2. Now peel out those petals and wash them once.

3. Keep these peels in sun for drying for a day, until all the water drains out.

4. Now use these petal and give a coarse blend in blender.

5. Mix this 100ml oil and bring it to boil (Make sure it doesn't char).

6. Keep this oil overnight when the oil gets all the goodness.

7.  Now using a muslin cloth filter out the oil and use the rose petals in your bathtub for you next nice bath.

8. The filtered oil smells a little different from fresh roses, more like some delicious sweet and it ready to use!!

Benefits:

1. Rose is a very good antiseptic.

2. Ofcourse the smell is very relaxing.

3.  It is very soothing on irritated skin.