Welcome to Humblebee & Me!
I’m Marie—the “me” in Humblebee & Me. I love to make things—cosmetics, soaps, lotions, lip balms, and most of all… messes. I’m on a journey to ditch shop bought body products and cosmetics and swap them for homemade, high quality, natural alternatives. I post new recipes twice a week (every Monday and Thursday), and I’ve already got over 1000 formulas up here for you to look at, plus an FAQ and an Encyclopedia. I’d love it if you DIYed with me!
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New Recipes
White Chocolate Peppermint Shampoo Bars
This beautiful cream-coloured White Chocolate Peppermint Shampoo Bar delivers oodles of bubbles and a wonderful minty-chocolate scent in one elegant package (so to speak—shampoo bars are packaging-free!). I've called it a shampoo bar, but it also makes a beautiful...
Cranberry Orange Tinted Lip Balm
Deep red cranberries lend themselves beautifully to a Christmassy tinted lip balm, so it's no surprise that this lip balm hit my to-do list as soon as I knew one of our holiday themes would be cranberry orange. Today's silky tinted lip balm gives the lips just enough...
White Chocolate Peppermint Body Butter Bars
Once I decided that White Chocolate Peppermint would be one of our holiday themes this year, I knew I'd have to do a White Chocolate Peppermint Body Butter Bar. Ever since my very first order of cocoa butter arrived at my dorm well before Humblebee & Me existed, I...
Cranberry Orange Whipped Sugar Scrub
’Tis the season for sugar scrubs—in my opinion, at least. With colder temperatures, any excuse to spend time in a hot bath is very welcome! This cheery orange scrub smells all kinds of tangy-citrussy-fruity, and delivers a fabulous dose of exfoliation in a base that...
A Quick Guide to Ozokerite Wax and Liquid Oil Ratios
Today we're getting better acquainted with ozokerite wax—a very hard mineral wax similar to ceresine wax. Historically "ozokerite [is/was] a naturally occurring fossil wax found near soft shale", but today what we call "ozokerite wax" is made from petroleum waxes like...
Creamy Autumn Grounding Lotion
Last month I shared a Creamy Autumn Grounding Salve, starring an intoxicating blend of essential oils—patchouli, lavender, benzoin, and ylang-ylang. I'd intended for the salve to be a one-off, but after sniffing away at it for a few weeks I knew I needed to use that...
White Chocolate Peppermint Christmas Soap
Welcome to Christmas theme #2 for 2019—White Peppermint Chocolate! This theme will feature lots of deliciously fragrant cocoa butter and fresh peppermint essential oil, plus complimentary clays, micas, hydrosols, and other fun things. Our first foray into White...
Cranberry Orange Body Oil
Today we're mixing up a simple, fragrant Cranberry Orange Body Oil that I devised to give beautiful cranberry seed oil a chance to shine. Since it's a new-to-me ingredient, I wanted to get to know it in a simpler formulation. I've used it neat on the skin, and that's...
Shine & Detangle Conditioning Hair Rinse
Today's project is a Bee Better for the Shine & Detangle ACV Hair Rinse I shared back in 2013. I had a lot of fun revisiting this one, taking lots of inspiration from the name rather than the original ingredients, and working in lots of what I've learned about...
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My Most Popular Posts
Pemberley Hand Lotion
I'm really excited to share this formula with you guys—this Pemberley Hand Lotion was my Formula Botanica final project, and I received a mark of 100% for it! The project was to create a product for a specific customer. I designed this gorgeous hand lotion for...
Soothing Hyaluronic Acid Facial Serum
Today's recipe is kicking off a new soothing skin care series that is perfectly timed for the driest, darkest, and often coldest part of the winter here in Calgary. The formulas in this series star a beautiful selection of wonderful, effective ingredients that have...
Formulating and DIYing with Spreadsheets
Today I want to talk about something that really isn’t all that sexy or exciting, but it is super useful—using spreadsheets for your DIYing and formulating! Even if you don't formulate I'd recommend stepping away from online recipe calculators in favour of...
Sugar Plum Cleansing Conditioner
This Sugar Plum Cleansing Conditioner is a wonderful continuation to the fun I've been having making cleansing conditioners over the last few months. My aim with this one was to create something lighter that could work better for anyone with hair that can be easily...
Sugar Plum Conditioning Body Butter
I'm having a hard time deciding if I can give this Sugar Plum Conditioning Body Butter away. I mean... it's just so nice. I really want to keep it for myself. I really should give it away. I am a one-woman skin care stuff factory and I am not due to need another body...
Rose Witch Hazel Facial Toner
This sweetly fragrant, refreshing facial toner has become a fast favourite of mine. It smells deliciously of roses, features several soothing and lightly hydrating ingredients, and leaves my skin feeling revived and gently cleansed. It's also crazy easy to make (no...
Oil Cleansing Gel
When I was in Montreal last year I visited Coop Coco, a local DIY supplier, and poked around, looking for things I didn’t have that would fit in my suitcase. I ended up picking up a bottle of Sucragel, a cold-process emulsifier I’d never worked with before, brought it...
Creamy Stick Lip Tints
When it comes to makeup I actually wear on a regular basis I find I tend towards subtle, easy-to-apply stuff (read: stuff that goes on easily and lightly enough that it disguises my amateurish makeup application skills). These lip tints were born of my initial...
Coconut Massage Butter
Massage lovers everywhere: prepare to fall in love. This silky, glide-y Coconut Massage Butter gives you eons of working time on the skin for a luxurious, satiny massage. It isn't oily or greasy, but you'll find your hands gliding over skin with a wonderful, soft...