Body & Skin Care Recipes
Lotion, lip balm, salves, body oils, and more—oh my! You can make it all with these awesome recipes.
Making Substitutions
Don’t have the oil or butter called for in the recipe? Here’s a guide on how to choose a good alternative from what you do have.
What's with the waxes?
Beeswax, carnauba wax, candelila wax, bayberry wax—how are they different? Can you use one instead of another?
Help, I made a mess!
My best tips for cleaning up your DIY messes 🙂
Christmas Tree Foaming Whipped Body Scrub
Today's DIY is a super-fun Christmas Tree Foaming Whipped Body Scrub. It's a creamy white base speckled with green and gold VitaBurst beads. It smells like a Christmas tree and is a super fun way to pamper yourself (and your giftees!) come bath time. You can customize...
read more
Christmas Tree Foaming Hand Wash
If you've got guests coming to stay with you this holiday season I highly recommend whipping up a jumbo-sized batch of this hand wash so you can all have clean, holiday-scented hands in the midst of this busy season. Out of everything we're making for this holiday...
read more
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...
read more
Candy Corn Bath Bombs
These pretty tri-coloured bath bombs are a fizzy, bath-friendly tribute to the rather ubiquitous candy corn. If you're not familiar with candy corn, it's a triangular candy with a white tip, orange center, and yellow bottom. And, to state what might be a controversial...
read more
Sugar Plum Body Oil
This is our second Sugar Plum recipe for holidays 2018 making, and it makes for a delightful gift (or, you know... keep it for yourself!). It's easy to make, can be dressed up with a pretty bottle, and feels really quite expensive and posh. The recipe is easy to...
read more
Citrus Burst Hand Wash
Today's a project is a simple, no-heat hand wash that I'm making 500g at a time these days because I can't seem to keep hand wash around for long. There are just six ingredients, and since nothing needs to be heated up it's a very easy weigh-mix-voila project—perfect...
read more
Whipped Minty Foot Scrub
I really like going barefoot during the summer. My bathtub and typically clean floors really wish I wouldn’t. There’s something about dirty feet that just end up being a whole different level of dirty. You’ll give them what feels like a fairly dedicated sudsing with a...
read more
Lavender Patchouli Body Butter
I've been playing with lots of more complex DIYs lately, and I was itching to get back to something a bit simpler. Something made with wonderful plant-sourced oils and butters that are accented with essential oils. The sort of thing that isn't intimidating, and really...
read more
Soothing Aloe Aftershave Cream
Today's recipe comes from a recipe request from Felipe; he was looking for an "aftershave balm that is easily absorbed on the skin and helps the skin recover after the shave". He also included a link to a product he liked, and a quick look at the ingredients showed...
read more
Foaming Coconut Bath Milk
Last year I made some bath bombs that contained both milk powder and a surfactant, and while I loved them, I found that any large amount of milk powder negatively impacted the structural integrity of the bath bombs. I wanted more milk, dangit, but the bath bomb format...
read more
Oatmeal & Milk After Shower Oil
This lightweight oil is post-shower (or bath) perfection. It perfectly melds with your soft, damp skin to lock in moisture and leave your skin feeling velvety, conditioned, and downright pampered. Soothing colloidal oats and rich coconut milk play starring roles, with...
read more
Foaming Shaving Cream
One of my clearest memories from early adolescence was the discovery of shaving cream, and how utterly wonderful it was. A thin stream of colourful gel would transform into abundant, creamy lather for an utterly decadent shaving experience that usually smelled like...
read more
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...
read more
Whipped Shea Citrus Body Butter
This marvelous body butter is many things I thought it couldn’t be. It is rich in skin-loving shea butter, but not at all greasy. It smells deliciously of citrus, but isn’t photosensitizing. It is lightweight and whippy (and stays that way!), but you don’t have to do...
read more
Lemon Rose Foaming Hand Wash
It would seem I cannot get enough of all things rose and lemon these days. I'm ok with it 😄This foaming hand wash smells delicious, foams up into a wonderfully silky lather, doesn't use too many fancy ingredients, and requires no heating! You can just measure...
read more
Lightweight French Lavender Hand Lotion
One of the first products I ever really wanted to dupe was a lavender scented hand lotion from L'Occitane. The scent was the first thing that drew me in—a soft, powdery lavender with hints of citrus and vanilla. It was also a wonderfully light lotion, but still...
read more
Five Alive Citrus Bath Parfait
I will happily admit that I motored through my Unicorn Bath Parfait very quickly—the luscious, silky bubbles and bath water was far too lovely to pass up if there was still some parfait in the jar! So, when Ivan from YellowBee dropped by with some very cool screw-top...
read more
Lavender Spruce Shower Gel
This fun, bright shower gel emerged out of a series of experiments I did last summer when I got a bag of Sodium Coco Sulfate for the first time. I basically tried combining it with a variety of different liquid surfactants and transforming those blends into shower...
read more
Soothing Cedarwood Ointment
This soft, creamy ointment features an intoxicating blend of essential oils designed to soothe skin and nerves. It was inspired by a for-purchase essential oil powered ointment I spotted on Pinterest and after perusing the ingredients I quickly figured I could whip up...
read more
Mom’s Creamsicle Hand and Body Lotion
I thought I'd do something a little different for Mother's Day this year. Instead of sharing recipes your moms might like, I'm sharing a recipe I made with my mom, based on what she likes! My parents live on the coast, where it's much more humid, so when my mom visits...
read more
Aloe Rosemary Spruce Foaming Hand Wash
One of my favourite things about Humblebee & Me is hosting meet-ups; I usually have them when I travel, but I've also had a few here in Calgary, where I live. Renée came to my most recent one and we ended up chatting about foaming hand washes quite a lot—her kids love...
read more
Fizzy Unicorn Bath Parfait
If you've been out in the world lately you'll know that unicorns are de rigueur. From onesies to lattes to inspirational posters to holographic eyeshadow palettes, you can unicorn-ify every aspect of your life. I even found unicorn printed toilet paper for anyone who...
read more
Vinolia Lemon Rose Bath Bombs
Every year from April 10–15 I observe what I call Titanic Week; the anniversary of the maiden voyage and sinking of the RMS Titanic. It's not much of an event, but it is a thing I remember, and have every year since I was about 11. In honour of Titanic Week 2018 I...
read more
Eucalyptus Mint Foot Butter
In theory, sandal season is on its way. I say "in theory" because right now the concept of spring seems more like a sad, mocking joke rather than the (supposedly) current season. It hasn't been warmer than -10°C at 7am for weeks. Our highs are 10–20°C colder than is...
read more