by Marie | Jun 28, 2021 | The Basics
In the wide world of “body butters behaving badly”, I think graininess is the challenge I get the most questions about and have personally encountered the most throughout my formulating journey. It’s such a bummer to create a beautiful body butter and find it’s gone grainy or mealy on you 💔 I love butters, but dangit, they can be divas! So this post (and partner video) are all about graininess in body butter—why it happens, how to fix it, and how to prevent it. Let’s get started!
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by Marie | Jun 24, 2021 | Bar Soap, Projects with Videos, Very Crunchy
This creamy Almond Oat Soap came with a rather baffling (and completely unexpected!) mystery! When I sliced it after leaving it to saponify for a day I was delighted to find it was a completely different colour than I expected. Not just a bit darker or lighter (or grey-er, as can happen with saponification), but a totally different colour! One of my awesome patrons solved the mystery—keep reading to find out what happened, and why!
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by Marie | Jun 21, 2021 | Lotion, Projects with Videos
If you’ve been looking for an ultra-light, low-viscosity, super-hydrating summer moisturizer, I think this satiny Summer Solstice Body Milk might just be it. It smells softly of sunshine on a meadow in July; drizzle it over dry skin and massage it in for feather-light hot-day hydration. You’ll need just nine ingredients, and you can easily customize the formulation with different hydrosols and oils to create something that’s perfect for you. Let’s get started!
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by Marie | Jun 17, 2021 | Chewy, Facial Cleansers, Projects with Videos
This soft, silky powder transforms into a creamy, sudsy cleanser when you work it up with a bit of warm water between your palms. It stars soft and velvety kaolin clay and skin-soothing oats, and you can blend up a batch in just a few moments from just six ingredients. You can customize the exfoliation level and easily make it nut free if you want to. Let’s get started!
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by Marie | Jun 14, 2021 | Facial Serums & Balms, Projects with Videos
Today’s formulation is a bit of a formulation love song—an ode, if you will. A loving ballad to beautiful, fruit berry oils. A syllable-free sonnet to anti-inflammatory, barrier-boosting, antioxidant-rich oils that smell wonderfully of fresh air and make me think of cool summer mornings… and also sorbet. Let’s dive into the first verse 🎶
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by Marie | Jun 10, 2021 | Lip Makeup, Projects with Videos
Lip gloss is one of the first things I ever made (this post from late 2011 is nearly a decade old, wowza), with my first batches pre-dating Humblebee & Me! I’ve experimented with many different ways to get that characteristic soft creamy, glossy consistency, and today I’m sharing another one 😄 Deep green blackberry seed oil stars in this luxurious gloss, with a small amount of colourant to give it a blackberry-hued tint. I’ve shared two variations of this formulation, each featuring a different thickener, leaving you to choose your version based on what you can get. One thickener creates a more glossy end product, while the other makes for a creamier gloss. I swatch both versions in the full video tutorial so you can see how they differ!
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