by Marie | Jun 18, 2018 | Conditioner, Recipes with Videos, Updated Recipes
One of the first recipes I ever shared on Humblebee & Me was for a “Super Nourishing Hair Balm“, all the way back in October of 2011. I’d actually made the balm months earlier, before I’d launched the blog, and had been testing it all summer and fall before I suddenly had a platform to share it on. Over the years many people have made it, and many more have asked about substitutions for items in the rather lengthy ingredient list. I thought it was high time I revisited this idea to improve on it—after all, I’ve learned a lot since 2011!
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by Marie | May 3, 2018 | General DIY
Today we’re looking at ten of my favourite recipes you can make with sunny jojoba oil (Simmondsia chinensis). There’s a good chance jojoba oil is one of the first oils you purchased—it’s very popular in the world of DIY/natural skin care, and is widely available. Unrefined jojoba oil is a beautiful golden colour, while refined jojoba oil is clear. It’s a bit more expensive than carrier oils like sweet almond or sunflower (depending on the amount you purchase and where you live you’re probably looking at spending at least $10–20 for 100–250mL), but well worth owning in my opinion. I used it throughout my book, Make it Up, for its long shelf life, silky feel, and wonderful emollient properties. It’s a very diverse oil that’s definitely worth having in your pantry!
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by Marie | Apr 2, 2018 | Beards & Mustaches
It’s been a while since I made a beard thing, and since I’ve been working with this lovely ginger oak moss essential oil blend quite a lot, I got to thinking… goodness. Beards should smell like this…. I could make beards smell like this. And here we are, with a lovely, simple beard oil recipe that will make beards smell like deep, sweet, mysterious goodness. Like wandering through a quiet forest in a plaid shirt, carrying an axe for no particular reason, with an unfailingly happy Labrador named Beau. Like cozy cottage bedrooms and sunsets on the dock and… I think I miss summer. But this beard oil is also lovely, and also makes a great body oil if you do not have a beard.
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by Marie | Jan 8, 2018 | Face Makeup
Over Christmas we had a positively frigid cold snap here in Calgary; waking up to temperatures below -40°C with windchill was not uncommon, and most days had “highs” no higher than -25°C. This lasted for about ten days, and while my preference would’ve been to sleep through it swaddled in flannel, that wasn’t really an option as I have a just-barely-one-year-old puppy. So, we walked—once a day at the “warmest” time of day. And Lottie loved it; seeing her frolic through the champagne powder like a furry lunatic was positively delightful. Anyhow, as I waddled along behind my snow-loving puppy, bundled up in a ridiculous amount of down and Gore-Tex, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful it all was. That was the inspiration for this Snowy Dawn Cream Luminizer.
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by Marie | Jan 19, 2017 | Face, Mother's Day Gift Ideas, Very Crunchy
Seaweed is pretty amazing stuff for skin care; it’s rich in vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. Its texture is a bit sandy, making it a great gentle exfoliant, and when applied to the skin it is said to be a fantastic detoxifying ingredient, drawing out impurities. It can combat irritation, acne, and eczema, and leaves the skin glowing. It’s also one of relatively few ingredients that can be sourced within Canada, which is pretty exciting! All in all, it’s not hard to see why I purchased a big ol’ tub of it fairly early on in my DIY-ing days. So, when I got a recipe request from Deb for a seaweed mask she’d fallen in love with from a spa in New Brunswick, I thought it was high time (high tide? 😝) to dig out my tub and whip up a mask!
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by Marie | Dec 19, 2016 | Mother's Day Gift Ideas, Salves & Natural Healing, Very Crunchy
Back in 2014, Bill wrote to me with a recipe request for a lavender salve he’d been really enjoying using. He described it as “terrific stuff, with a texture just slightly lighter than Vaseline, a quite pungent lavender aroma, and yellow in colour (like lemongrass soaps).” Oooh. And I just happened to have a vintage “Hendonia Ye Olde English Lavender Brilliantine” tin begging to be re-filled, and some brand new cera bellina burning a hole in my pantry. And roughly seven different kinds of lavender essential oil. All that is to say that this salve really needed to be made, and here we are with Bill’s Lavender Salve.
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