Recipes with Videos
Are you more of a visual learner? No worries, all these recipes have accompanying recipes on my YouTube channel!
Green & Gold Body Butter Bars
These charming Green & Gold Body Butter Bars star two anti-inflammatory plant oils and one of my favourite soft butters for a beautiful skin-nourishing treat with a silky, non-greasy skin feel. You can make these bars as stand-alone things or package them in...
Transfer-Resistant Cream Foundation
The inspiration for this Transfer-Resistant Cream Foundation came from two places. Place #1 was my 2020 Second Skin Cream Foundation, which was inspired by RCMA's cream foundations. I love this formulation and have been using it ever since. My love (and use) was...
Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar with Rice Starch
This sulfate-free shampoo bar formulation blends super-sudsy shampooing with a rice water rinse in a long-lasting, no-fuss bar form. You can also use this bar as body wash, it doesn't require any heat to make, and you can have fun with the colour and scent. Let's dive...
Candlelight Creamy Hand Wash
This silky, shimmery Candlelight Creamy Hand Wash is like a cozy hug for your hands every time you use it. As soon as I had decided on this year's holiday themes, I knew I needed to include a Candlelight themed creamy, shimmery, gentle hand wash as I positively power...
Almond Oat Emulsified Body Butter
We're continuing our Almond Oat theme today with this perfect-for-autumn Almond Oat Emulsified Body Butter ❤️ Silky almond oil and rich shea butter star in the oil phase, with moisturizing and soothing oaty goodness from colloidal oatmeal and hydrolyzed...
De-Puffing Peppermint Aloe Facial Roller
The idea for this De-Puffing Peppermint Aloe Face Roller came to me as I was drifting off to sleep on a warm July night. It's part facial serum, part facial massage—designed to moisturize, soothe, de-puff, and cool your skin on hot summery days. A refreshing,...
Oat Cardamom Chai Emulsified Body Butter
Today's Oat Cardamom Chai Emulsified Body Butter smells just like a warm, sweet chai latte and is a beautiful treat for your skin. Its thick, glossy loveliness is reminiscent of whipped body butter, but you'll find it's far lighter—a moisturizing mid-point between...
Long-Wearing Shimmer Cream Eyeshadow
I am so excited to share this formulation with you guys! Today we are making Sephora-quality long-wearing shimmer cream eyeshadow. You will need three specialty ingredients, but if you love cream eyeshadows, it is absolutely worth it. Just as I did in my book, Make it...
Super Simple Oil-to-Milk Cleanser
Today's Super Simple formulation is the most super-ly simple of the super simple formulations I've shared with just two ingredients! I've also shared two different variations and discussed how to customize it to make it as accessible as possible (and also to hopefully...
Almond Oat Creamy Conditioning Face Wash
The almondy, oaty goodness continues today with this formulation for a gentle Almond Oat Creamy Conditioning Face Wash. This formulation features soothing colloidal oatmeal, vitamin-rich sweet almond oil, and conditioning BTMS-25 ❤️ It gently cleanses...
Summer Glow Body Oil
Today I'm sharing a Bee-Bettering of one of my most popular formulations on YouTube; my Luminous Summer Body Oil. The original formulation is almost exactly four years old, published on July 6, 2017 (!). I'd made shimmer oils before the 2017 version; the general...
Sweet Magnolia Natural Cleansing Oil
This exotically-scented Sweet Magnolia Natural Cleansing Oil gently cleanses the skin, leaving your face feeling soft and nourished. It uses a new-to-me natural emulsifier and has quickly become a favourite facial cleanser for removing layers of summer sunscreen (and...
Almond Oat Soap
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...
Summer Solstice Body Milk
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...
Almond Oat Powder to Foam Facial Cleanser
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...
Berry Glow Facial Serum
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...
Blackberry Lip Gloss
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...
Bi-Phase Hyaluronic Acid Hair Serum
This Bi-Phase Hyaluronic Acid Hair Serum is part leave-in hair conditioner, part hair serum. It features hydrating and luxurious hyaluronic acid, volume-boosting hydrolyzed rice protein, and ultra-light Neossance® Hemisqualane—I am loving working a few pumps through...
Aloe Mint Hand Wash
Today we're mixing up a sudsy and fresh Aloe Mint Hand Wash, made with peppermint essential oil and a lovely gentle surfactant blend. I'm loving the combination of crisp & cool peppermint essential oil, soothing aloe vera, and moisturizing vegetable glycerin as...
Macadamia Vanilla Emulsified Body Butter
This decadent Macadamia Vanilla Emulsified Body Butter is lovely; it is rich and indulgent without being heavy or greasy. It smells softly nutty with a warm vanilla base note, and it's scoopy and soft like a decadent custard. If you're anything like me, you'll...
Skin Brightening Toner Mist
This all-natural Skin Brightening Toner Mist formulation is part hydrating toner and part serum, featuring some fantastic soothing, moisturizing, barrier-boosting, and brightening ingredients. It's quite simple to make, with just a wee bit of heating, and you can...
Radiant Berry Hand & Body Cream
Today's formulation stars three utterly lovely carrier oils to create a richly moisturizing Radiant Berry Hand & Body Cream. It smells fresh, tart, and juicy, and includes a few of my favourite moisturizing ingredients to leave your skin happy and hydrated. This...
Argan Plum Body Oil
This simple, all-natural Argan Plum Body Oil features two of my favourite carrier oils and some stunning antioxidants for an ultra-lovely skin treat that you can make in just a few minutes. You don't need any heat—just measure, stir, package, and you're done! I...
Almond Oat Balm to Milk Cleanser
Today's rich and all-natural Almond Oat Balm to Milk Cleanser is a gorgeous way to gently wash your face, and it pairs wonderfully with my Gentle Oatmeal Almond Body Wash Bar! I've been using this softly oat-scented cleansing balm to remove eye makeup and wash the...
Soothe and Glow Facial Gel Cream
This beautiful gel cream delivers a double dose of glow—both from boosted skin health and a touch of softly shimmering mica. This formulation includes some of my favourite skincare goodies to deeply hydrate the skin and support barrier function, and a coloured mica...
Summer Stone Fruit Creamy Face Mask
This Summer Stone Fruit Creamy Face Mask is part face mask, part gentle scrub, part cleansing balm—it's really whatever you want it to be. You can use it as a mask one day, a cleansing balm the next, and a gentle scrub later that week. A beautiful blend of stone fruit...
Double Butter Conditioning Hair Mask
Today we're blending up a rich and creamy Double Butter Conditioning Hair Mask that was inspired by the hair mask made by the Bum Bum cream company. My Patron Bianca introduced me to it (thank you!), and not only did the ingredient list look downright lovely, but it...
Super Simple Natural Foaming Hand Wash
Today I'm sharing a formulation for a Super Simple Natural Foaming Hand Wash. You'll need just five ingredients, and I've tried to be really conscientious of global ingredient availability so hopefully you can make this hand wash no matter where in the world you live....
Rose & Tea Ultra-Light Conditioning Hair Balm
Today I'm sharing a formulation for an all-natural Rose & Tea Ultra-Light Conditioning Hair Balm. This hair balm was one of my final projects for my Formula Botanica Diploma in Organic Haircare Formulation (I shared the other one back in January; you can check it...
Strawberry Kiwi Cleansing Conditioner
I'm continuing our Strawberry Kiwi theme today with a formulation for a creamy and gentle Strawberry Kiwi Cleansing Conditioner. A cleansing conditioner is a lovely, indulgent way to gently cleanse and condition your hair with just one product. This one is creamy and...
Cran Cherry Scalp Scrub
If you're looking for something to remove buildup and deeply cleanse your scalp, this Cran Cherry Scalp Scrub is just the thing! It's a sudsing salty scrub that will leave your hair refreshed and bouncy. I've had tons of requests for a scalp scrub, and I had a lot of...
Happy Hemp Hand Cream
Today we're blending up a product I've had a lot of requests for! I'm calling this pale green lotion Happy Hemp Hand Cream, and it was inspired by The Body Shop's Hemp Hand Protector. My version is a bit lighter and more slippy, but it still includes many of the same...
Apricot Powder-to-Foam Facial Cleanser
This Apricot Powder-to-Foam Facial Cleanser needs just five ingredients, and it's pretty cool! It's a smooth, dry, orangey powder in the bottle, but once you get it wet it transforms into a silky foaming cleanser with just a hint of exfoliation. To make this cleanser...
Sea Glass Salt Scrub
Today we're stirring up a lovely Sea Glass Salt Scrub, made with a sparkling blend of salts and a beautiful fragrance. It's a brilliant and beautiful body scrub, and you can easily customize it to use whatever salts you have on hand. You don't need any heat, either,...
Summer Stone Fruit Facial Oil Serum
Today we're blending up a wee taste of summer in the form of a Summer Stone Fruit Facial Oil Serum. It smells softly of marzipan and stars oils from three of my favourite summer stone fruits, plus a solid dose of some potent anti-oxidants for skin-loving benefits....
Birthday Suit Solid Body Wash
This formulation is a really fun and interesting one; it's a solid, self-preserving body wash that I'm calling Birthday Suit Solid Body Wash. You can customize the colour and the scent, and play with different moulds for all kinds of fun! It's also easy to make—mix,...
Strawberry Kiwi Body Yogurt
Today we're whipping up an ultra-light, super-slippy, richly moisturizing Strawberry Kiwi Body Yogurt. I've had a ton of requests for a body yogurt formulation, and I had lots of fun working on this DIY. The scent comes from a juicy strawberry distillate, and the kiwi...
Simple Creamy Almond Body Butter
This formulation is incredibly simple, with just three (or four) ingredients and an almond-y theme. 99.5% of this formulation is almond-derived ingredients; you don't have to keep to the almond theme if it doesn't appeal to you, but you might want to re-name your...
More Mango Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar
Today I'm sharing my first shampoo bar Bee Better project—this More Mango Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar is an update on the Mango Mango Shampoo Bar I shared in March 2019 (almost exactly two years ago!). In writing, the differences between this updated formulation and its...
Honey Bee Mine Body Lotion
Brr! This week has been frigid; as I type this, it's -37°C with wind chill outside. It's the first proper cold snap we've had this winter. Along with that cold, it's also very dry. I currently have four (4!) humidifiers running in my home, and they barely make a dent...
Conditioning Valentine’s Hand Wash
Today we're getting sudsy and clean with a seasonably pink Conditioning Valentine's Hand Wash! I went through a lot of handwash in the beforetimes, and that has easily doubled or tripled in the last year. Lots of handwashing + dry weather is pretty hard on my hands,...
Silky Soothing Facial Gel
Today's formulation is a richly moisturizing, cold-processed, Silky Soothing Facial Gel. It was inspired by a La Roche Posay product—their B5 gel. This DIY is definitely more "inspired by" vs. attempting to duplicate their product as I don't have all the same active...
Rose & Silk Clarifying Shampoo
Today I'm sharing a formulation I've had a ton of requests for; an all-natural, sulfate-free liquid shampoo! This Rose & Silk Clarifying Shampoo was one of my final projects (if you'd like to read my full review of...
Shealoe Emulsified Body Butter
Today I'm sharing my first Bee Better 3.0 project; a soft and creamy Shealoe Emulsified Body Butter that's an evolution on a shea butter and aloe vera heavy formulation I first shared in 2014, and then revised in 2019. This updated 2021 version uses a new emulsifier...
Rich Lavender Shower Cleansing Cream
Today we're creating a Rich Lavender Shower Cleansing Cream—a luxuriously creamy body wash that still kicks off some lovely bubbles. It's part lotion, part body wash, and all-around lovely. I've scented it with lavender essential oil, but you could easily customize...
Creamy Almond Lip Balm
This rich Creamy Almond Lip Balm has a gorgeous ointment-gel consistency, and it's an evolution of the Almond & Olive Creamy Lip Balm I shared last autumn. A combination of a pseudo wax and a true wax gives us an end product that's a bit reminiscent of petrolatum...
Sun Bum Body Cream
Over the years I have received a lot of requests for a Sol de Janeiro Brazillian Bum Bum Cream DIY. I found a 2018 request from Nichole and a 2020 request from Leslie in my records, and I'm pretty darn sure there have been others that have been lost in the shuffle of...
Phryne’s Milk of Roses
Last year I positively devoured Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Mystery series. Set in Melbourne in the late 1920s, the novels star the glamourous and clever Miss Phryne Fisher, who solves all kinds of mysteries in style. I first discovered Phyrne in the TV show based...
