DIY Homemade Oat and Coffee scrub for Glowing skin

Winter marks a bad period for people with Normal-Dry skin, skin becomes scaly, itchy and most of all loses it's natural glow. So what do we do ? We people with dry skin can't  even think of scrubbing with coarse salt/sugar ! But how do we ensure a healthy glowing skin? Here is one a nice gentle scrub recipe just for you!

Ingredients:

• Oats which is ground to fine powder.
• Coffee powder which is neither too fine / coarse.
• Honey (A boon  to humanity!)
• Milk Cream ( Use milk for normal skin)
• sandal wood powder (Optional but adds glow)

How to:

1. Mix oats powder, coffee powder and sandal wood powder.
2. Add Honey and milk cream to it and blend.
3. Allow it to settle for some time so it is not harsh on skin.
4. Now apply the paste evenly on skin(face) in circular motion and allow it on skin for upto 1 hour and wash off.

Skin will thank you for this luxurious treatment !  Mine did :-)

Click here for chocolate face mask.

DIY Simple One Ingredient Hair conditioner

There is atleast one hairy tale in fairy tales from various folklore's, Who doesn't like nice bouncy hair which feels like silk to touch ?  So what to do now ?
There are 100's of conditioner from various brands available but what if there is one simple ingredient which can  spin the same magic costing a lot lesser and does a whole lot of other great things too ? Sounds like a ad ? Well let me not build up more. Here is the recipe!

Ingredients :
Apple cider Vinegar!

How to:
Mix one teaspoon of Apple cider Vinegar (Any other natural vinegar is fine) With One cup of water (you can add essential oil if you can't stand the smell)
Apply this mixture on scalp and ends of hair and leave it for 5 minutes after shampooing the hair (See here for homemade shampoo) and then  either allow it to dry or wash off.

It not only makes your hair soft but also curtails growth on scalp and protects against dandruff and best of all it is free from harmful chemicals.

DIY Homemade Simple Winter lotion for Dry skin

Every time i read the ingredients list in most of the day creams/lotions etc with all the chemicals my heart skips a beat and takes me towards going natural albeit a little expensive.

I feel homemade one's are the best because even the lotions and creams claim to be ayurvedic/natural have a list of preservatives like ethanol's/ paraben's as preservative.  You can read about their ill effects!

I have started experimenting with my own lotion  a I have been successful so far. If you have tried my lip balm recipe this should be a breeze

So without much ado i present my lotion recipe.

List of Ingredients for about 20ml of lotion (Lasts about 15 days)

• 1 teaspoon(5ml) of beeswax
• 4 teaspoon of the oils, I used a blend of coconut oil and almond oil in 1:1 ratio
• 3 teaspoon of pure rose water(distilled)
• 2 drops of honey
• 1 drop of neem oil
• 3 drops of Vitamin E oil
• 5 drops of lavender essential oil(optional/ use any essential oil of choice) 

How to:

1.  In a double boiler, keep a clean sterilized bowl either stainless steel / glass.
2.  Add beeswax, coconut oil and almond oil and allow them to blend and melt.
3.  Then take it out and allow to cool but not solidify
4.  At this stage add rose water and blend (you can either use hand blender or blend in mixer)
5.  While blending add neem oil(it has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal properties) make sure you add a little unless you are ok with the strong nutty smell), Vit E oil and other essential oils( I added a blend of 20 drops of lavender with 2 drops of clove* essential oil) and then transfer the whipped cream to a jar.

*use caution when using clove oil with kids/pregnant woman.
 If you use a sterilized process then the cream even with rose water should last about a month.

Please discard if you find the smell odd or see any mold growth.

DIY How to make your own decongestant/vapor rub

I have been a vapor rub addict ever since my childhood. When the eucalyptus/Wintergreen oils are very strong and can be difficult on a sensitive skin vapor rub is just perfect!

But just a look at the ingredients on any popular brand lists petroleum jelly as a base or key ingredient.

The very thought of applying anything related to petrol on skin is just disgusting, Also it clogs the pores and hence not great for skin as well.

So here is a recipe for an all natural, preservative free decongestant/Vapor rub.

Vapor rub

List of Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoon(5ml) of beeswax
• 4 teaspoon of the oils, I used a blend of olive oil* and almond oil in 1:1 ratio
• 1 drop of neem oil(optional)
• 3 drops of Vitamin E oil
• 10 drops of winter green oil
• 10 drops of eucalyptus oil
• 5 drops of clove essential oil *(optional)
• 5 drops of peppermint essential oil
• 5 drops of camphor essential oil 

How to:

1. Set up  a double boiler with clean sterilized bowl on top of it preferably stainless steel/ glass.
2. Now add beeswax, olive oil and almond oil and allow them to blend and melt. Then take it out and allow to cool but not solidify
3. Once cooled but still in semi-liquid state add all the essential oils and blend
4. Allow it to solidify and your own vapor-rub/decongestant is ready!!                                   

*Use caution when using clove oil on pregnant women/Children.

Homemade DIY Natural Lip Balm - Chocolate

As always I prefer using a natural alternative to anything that I use on my skin.
My mantra has always been simple, Don't apply to your skin what you can't eat!
Lip Balm has been in my list for a long time now, I had to keep this on hold because of  not getting the Organic Cosmetic grade Beeswax in Bangalore.

I usually have trouble finding the lip balm because, if it has a tint of color it is either too dry or loaded with chemicals, If it is nice and smooth it is seriously pale and makes you look sick. So What better idea than making it yourself to suit your own skin! Let me not drag on and give the recipe! Trust me it's super simple!!

Ingredients :
1. Beeswax  - 3/4th of spoon if solid, 1 1/2 spoon when melted
2. Coconut oil  - 1 spoon if thicker, 1 1/2 spoon if melted.
3. Almond oil - 1 spoon
4. Olive oil - 1/2 spoon
5. Honey - 1 spoon
6. Castor oil - 3/4 th spoon ( if you want it a little glossy)
7. Cocoa powder - 1/2 spoon ( If you want some color)
8. Essential oil - of choice 5-6 drops( Can be skipped)

Steps :

1. Melt the Beeswax in a double boiler,
2. To the liquid Beeswax add all the oils(coconut, Almond, olive and castor oil) and stir it well till it blends.
3. Now add few drops of essential oil, if needed, I added lemon oil, it gives a very nice smell to the lip balm.
4. Once this is blended add cocoa powder( for chocolate brown) , you can change it to beetroot powder for red, or any color of your choice, or you can have a plain lip balm without any color.
5. Remove the tumbler from the double boiler and add honey to it and stir(honey also acts as preservative)
6. With honey it starts to solidify, when warm pour it into a clean box of your choice and allow it to cool.
In about 10 mins it solidifies and you have your nice creamy lip balm ready!

When i was done with mine, my niece commented that it smelled and looked so delicious that she wanted to eat it!!

Note: Castor oil adds a little bit of gloss so it's upto you to add it, If not you can the same quantity of any other oil.

Organic Sanitary pads!

One of the most not talked about topic is about the sanitary pads! It's mostly a taboo to talk about it in public. When we take care to not put in a lot of chemicals via food/cosmetics into body , It is often ignored how we stuff in a lot of harmful chemicals using these sanitary pads loaded with chemicals, plastic and perfume.

You can read more about it in this journal , But once i read about it, it was very hard to find a good substitute, It is too messy to use the old school methods, so thankfully found this alternative. After the experience with the organic one, I would never ever go back to the chemical laden one's!

Note : I don't have any affiliation with the company that sells it.

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.

Copper tongue cleaner why and how

Word detox is one of the most happening word in the present day, So we are ready to pay thousands to get a detox done from external agency but if we step back and think , we don't follow some of the most basic everyday detox mechanism.

Our body is infinitely intelligent, The very body which knew how to grow from a single cell to how we are today, tries to detox naturally every single moment, One such mechanism is elimination in the form of deposition on tongue, Yes you read  it right, deposition on tongue  is full of toxins, it is known as ama in ayurveda, Ama is one of the biggest reason for a lot of diseases. Failing to remove tongue deposition has more adverse affect on the body than we can imagine, the reason behind is that when the colon does not reabsorb the waste of digestion, the toxin deposited on the tongue is reabsorbed by the body.

This was known to our ancestors and thus we can since time immemorial that it is followed as a ritual in india, where a neem/mango stem is still used to clease the tongue in rural india, neem being a good ani-bacterial explains it. Unfortunately we are not that luxurious in cities to get neem/mango stem everyday, Thus we resort to plastic one's or at best stainless steel. Although it serves atleast some purpose of removing the ama, there is a chance of bacterial growth, so there is a way :-), using metals like gold/silver.

©NaturalOrganicandHappy

I know after reading all this if I propose using gold/silver  as a solution you are going to kill me, So there is a very good cheap and best alternative : Copper tongue cleaner :-) , Read why copper is good here.It is easily available in most of the supermarkets.

Homemade Chocolate Popcorn

We all have a sweet craving time and again, but at the same time there is another part of our brain which is calorie conscious, which chides us from eating high calorific food, So here is a recipe which you can eat to your heart's content as it is low in calorie and can be made in ten minutes. Too hard to believe ? Yes but true. Read more about benefit of popcorn here.

©NaturalOrganicandHappy

Now the Recipe is here

Ingredients :
Homemade popcorn
Honey - As per taste
coconut oil(yes you read it right :-)) - 1 spoonful
cocoa powder - 2 spoonful

Method
1. Mix cocoa powder, honey and coconut oil in a bowl
2. Blend it using a blender or whip or ever in small jar in your mixer, but be careful not to overdo, as the oil would bleed otherwise if overdone.
3. Now to this mixture add  just baked homemade popcorn mix it well until all the popcorn's are coated. Allow it to cool.

Now it ready to savour.

Let me know how it came  out :-).

HomeMade Chocolate Face Mask DIY

Cocoa is one of the best foods for skin, If what you eat is what you are is one statement,  skin being one of the biggest organ, what you apply on your skin is what your skin and in turn body will be. You can read more about benefits of cocoa here.

©NaturalOrganicandHappy

So in this blog let me write about one such luxury with cocoa that is quick to do and also easy on pocket.
Ingredients :
Cocoa Powder any brand  1tbsp
Milk cream 1 tbsp
Honey 1 tbsp

Steps:
1. Mix all these ingredients into a nice blend.
2. Apply it on your face in circular or upward motion.
3. Leave it for an hour and then wash,I am sure your skin would look very well hydrated and super soft, Mine did :-).

Let me know your experience. 

DIY Face Powder - Talcum Powder Alternative

One of the most commonly used beauty product is face powder, Majority of them are made of Talc, There is a lot of controversy surrounding Talc with regards to health impact, So that led to me trying out recipes that works as well as good. It is extremely easy to do and smells like a delicacy.

NaturalOrganicandHappy

Steps:
1. Take 100gms of Arrowroot powder , It is a fine powder made using tapioca. This is available in most of the medical shops.
2. Now to most of the Indian skin tone white powder looks like a patch when applied, so now you can add cocoa powder, add it enough to give a light brown tone to the powder. This can be replaced with cinnamon or casia bark powder(known also as chakke), Ground it to a fine powder and sieve it, leave out the bigger pieces and add it to the powder.Cinnamon gives a very nice aroma to it and it is also anti-septic.
3. This loose powder made of 2-3 ingredients feels very smooth and can be stored in air tight container.Treat yourself to this absolute luxury :-).
Let me know how it feels.

Tulsi/Basil Infused oil DIY

Tulsi also known as basil, In India it is considered very holy.It is also known for a lot of medicinal properties.You can find more about it's properties here.

Tulsi is also know for skin care properties, So this post is about using it to create a light essential oil at home.

©NaturalOrganicandHappy

Steps:
1. Get about 2-3 bunches of tulsi, wash and allow it to dry, preferably in sun for 2-3 hours.
2. Now crush them so that the juice is out and the pleasant aroma spreads.
3. Use any of the base oils which does not have strong smell of its own, Like sunflower oil, coconut oil, olive oil etc. Given the availability and fresheness in India, I have always prefered coconut oil.
You can add about 150ml of oil.
4. Now there are two ways, one is double boiler method. which is explained here , or there is a simpler way where you add crushed tulsi leaves to your base oil, and boil the mixture, but here you have to be careful and remove it when the fumes just starts coming.
5. At this time you can add a little bit of pacha karpoora(edible camphor which you can get in pooja stores).
6. The color of the oil is light green , this is not as strong as store bought essential oil, but it is very pure as done by you, also the cost to make this is fraction of store bought one's.

This oil is very good for skin irritation or to give general glow especially for dry skin, Also the aroma is very soothing you can give yourself a massage after a long workday to alleviate stress,I added  Pacha karpoora because it reduced body/muscle ache. It is an absolutely delightful treat you can give youself. 

Amla shikakai and Reetha shampoo DIY

Having used very less beauty product myself I have loved ayurvedic recipes and products always, When I read few articles about harmful effects of some of the ingredients in shampoo like SLES, parabens I started looking for Organic options in India, but to my dismay most of Organic variety also had these components, that's when i stumbled at this homemade variety.

It is a very simple century old Ayurvedic recipe with just 3 ingredients and from my personal experience very effective.You can these in most of the pooja shops that you find in India.

Steps : 

1. Coarsely crush about 200 gms of  Reetha(soapnut), 150gms of Shikakai and about 100-150gms of Amlaki (Dried Indian Gooseberry)  in a tumbler.

2. Soak this in about 2 litres  of water overnight.

3. Next morning heat it till the mixture comes to 3/4th its level, that is if you have added 2 litres, boil it till the level of water is about 1.5 litres, Allow it to cool and when it is lukewarm just mash all the amla, reetha and Shikakai to a pulp to extract the satva(content or goodness) at this point it will be a little frothy  and its actually fun to extract the liquid.

4. Now move it to a container and refrigerate it, The refrigerated mixture lasts for upto 2 months.

Usage:

1. Take the liquid and apply it on the scalp and massage it , allow it to sit for 2-3 minutes, It will not lather if you have applied oil before.Repeat the process atleast 3-4 times. Now in your last attempt it would start lathering a bit.You can stop then.

2. You can stop at this but if you are someone who likes some scent, you can rinse your hair in lemon solution or add some essential oil and rinse.

This is a completely safe shampoo, as you know all the ingredients and it works well, as good as any store bought, but allow your hair to adjust for sometime.