Happy New Year’s Eve! I know many of you will be off doing fun and exciting things with your friends and family, or perhaps hibernating at home alone with a good book and a cozy blanket, so I thought today I’d take a look back at the last year of projects I shared in 2018 and highlight some of my favourites.
I’ve learned so many things this year and grown so much as a DIYer! I finished my Formula Botanica Diploma of Organic Skin Care and travelled to give talks for the first time. I went to my first DIY-type conferences and hosted meetups in Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne, Calgary, Toronto, Portland, Pittsburgh, Seattle, London, Dublin, and Prague! I’ve met so many wonderful people this year 😊
These projects are some of my favourites from 2018; ones that represent new or refined techniques, newly beloved ingredients, things I use every day, and things you guys fell in love with. Thank you so much for all your support this year—I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to do so much making and share it with so many wonderful, encouraging, inquisitive people ❤️ You guys are the best!
Winter Solstice Facial Polish
After the annual colourful craziness of Christmas DIYs I've really been enjoying dreaming up something solstice-inspired these last few years. We've got a face cream, a soap, and a mask, and now we've got a star-studded charcoal-infused facial polish. This facial...
Sugar Plum Body Butter Bars
These silky, lightweight body butter bars are a wonderful accompaniment to our Sugar Plum series—and they’re quite versatile, too! You can present them in a tube or choose a mould you find suitable; you can make a few big ones or a bunch of wee ones. I’ve got a couple...
Sugar Plum Facial Lotion
I start planning out Christmas recipes in the summer and typically have everything more-or-less nailed down by the end of September. This formula wasn't in the original plan, but I am so in love with plum oil right now that I couldn't not make some sort of decadent...
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...
Hydrating Aloe Facial Mist
Today's facial mist recipe was inspired by a recipe request and a cult favourite herb-spiked super-hydrating face spritz. Anuradha requested "a facial spritzer... something calming [and] refreshing," and the product she linked to featured aloe vera and a selection of...
Sheer Satin Cheek & Lip Tint
This punchy red liquid cheek and lip tint has become a fast favourite of mine. On first glance it’s a thin, vibrant red liquid. It’s less red than you expect on application, and the slip is divine; lightweight and satiny, with a finish that is unexpectedly rich...
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...
Creamy Lip Balm
This rich, creamy lip balm came out of the experiments I did as I was developing my recipe for my Basic Moldable Lipstick Base. It was the far end of my "let's make this creamier" experiments, and while I loved how it felt, it basically glued itself to the inside of...
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...
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...
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...
Conditioning Super Nourishing Hair Balm
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...
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...
Lemon Rose Facial Lotion
This lightweight, hydration-packed facial lotion is one of my formulas from my Formula Botanica coursework, and it also happens to be the first recipe I'm sharing using hyaluronic acid! I tested this lotion through some of Calgary's driest winter months and found it...
Lemon Rose Facial Cleansing Drops
I seem to be on a bit of a "concentrated" kick, partially inspired by my recent trip to Australia. I brought shampoo bars with me (that also ended up doubling as body wash), and found that all the use (aka getting wet) and the lack of time to dry between moves meant...
Rose Micellar Water
I'm pretty excited to be able to share a micellar water recipe I'm happy with. I've been experimenting with micellar water formulas quite a lot over the last year and while the concept is simple enough in theory, it took quite a lot of fiddling and refining to create...
Sleepy Time Lavender Benzoin Lotion
This soft, sweet Sleepy Time Lavender Benzoin Lotion has become a fast favourite of mine. I look forward to smoothing it down my arms and legs before tucking into bed and drifting off with sweet vanilla-frosted lavender floating around me. I also find the oats in the...
Super Concentrated Lemon Dishwashing Paste
If you’ve been using liquid dishwashing detergent, prepare to have your world rocked. Seriously. Solid dishwashing paste kicks dishwashing butt in ways you didn’t think could happen. It’s so amazing that I was actually excited about washing dishes as I was developing...
Silky Volumizing Conditioning Shampoo
I am so excited to share this recipe with you guys. I've been working on it since shortly after new years, and sharing the progress on my Instagram stories as I've been testing and tweaking. This is a conditioning shampoo; more lather than a cleansing conditioner, but...
Ginger Oak Moss Solid Facial Cleanser
This Ginger Oak Moss Solid Facial Cleanser is the sister to my Ginger Oak Moss Cleansing Balm Stick; the two accompanied me all around New Zealand last December, and did brilliantly. The inspiration for this came from a product I stumbled across while perusing...
Snowy Dawn Cream Luminizer
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...
Ginger Oak Moss Cleansing Balm Stick
I love this fragrant, creamy stick of cleansing goodness. I took the first version with my to New Zealand, where I spent much of my time on the road, camping somewhere new each night, and this stick was brilliant. I was so happy to have something I could use quickly...
Thanks for a great 2018, Marie. I love your foundation – for the first time I look forward to wearing make up.
Cheryl
Woohoo, I am so thrilled to hear it! I made myself a batch as well and I also love it 🙂
You and your mad DIY skills have really hit a real creative stride, and it’s been such a pleasure to come along for the ride. For 2019 I simply wish you more of the joy you have had this year with creating, traveling, sharing, and living well. Cheers, Ardith
Thank you so much, Ardith! I’m really looking forward to this next year of creating 🙂
Hi Marie! Happy New Year!!! I can’t believe it’s been a year since I first found you haha. You’re amazing and I love all your work!
Thank you so much! <3
Thanks for the list of 2018 greats! I am getting ready to make the hydrating aloe mist. Sounds so lovely for my dry, flaky skin. I have a question about chelators. Do you find the need to use disodium edta in products containing lots of aloe, sea kelp bioferment, and botanical extracts (green tea, licorice, centella asiatica, etc)? I would be using Germaben II as a preservative. Do I need a chelator too?