Deodorant + Shaving Cream
After making the deodorant Amy made over at Angry Chicken a few months back, have been using it ever since and I have fallen in love with it. I’m not worried about an antiperspirant so this was awesome, lasts forever and works great. I mixed in Ylang Ylang and lavender in mine. Though, the essential oils were a bit strong the first few days (I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to strong smells) but they died down quickly. Or I got used to them.
It’s somewhat firm so I just use my finger to get out a little ball and then I squish it between my fingers which starts the oil and cocoa butter melting right away so it will smooth onto your skin nicely.
I bought all the stuff from Mountain Rose Herbs which Amy linked to in her post and bought most of the stuff in bulk so I could make other stuff, like shaving cream! After loving the deodorant I decided to try and make the other stuff I use a ton of in the bathroom…shaving cream. I found this recipe in “Better Basics for the Home” by Annie Berthold-Bond (who has a website with tons of great recipes on it here). You can find the recipe online here for the shaving cream.
I liked this recipe a lot because I had most of the stuff on hand or it can be easily found locally, and keeps its creaminess for a long time. It uses cocoa butter castile soap, water/rose water, cocoa butter, glycerin + essential oil. You can get the 4 oz. liquid pure glycerin from your local drugstore (I picked up mine at CVS) and the cocoa butter Catile soap was at my local supermarket, Kroger. The recipe used 2 bars of the soap (4 ounces each, 8 ounces total). You grate the 8 oz. soap with a standard cheese grater and mix it in with equal amounts of water or rose water as called for in the recipe. It took 3-4 hours for the soap to get saturated by the water. The 2 oz. cocoa butter I just melted in the microwave with the glycerin for 30 seconds. Then added that to the soap + glycerin mixture, some drops of essential oil and mixed in my blender until it got all fluffy.
The shaving cream sets up and is surprisingly pretty firm and even after the cream has been razored away, the shaving cream has a great smoothing + moisturizing texture on the skin. I just store it in a tub with a top in our shower. It lasts me about 2 months even though I used darn near daily. There is another recipe for a shaving cream I may try next here but it uses more ingredients and I don’t have them all on hand so I think I’ll likely be stuck on this one.
Entry Filed under: craft
8 Comments Add your own
1. Lisa M | September 19th, 2008 at 10:35 am
The shaving cream looks amazing! I did read about Amy’s deodorant. Hopefully I will one day get around to making them :) Thanks again
Cheers,
Lisa
2. mushroommeadows | September 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
wow! I really want to try these recipes out! Thanks :)
3. I Wonder Woman | September 19th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
So, question about the deodorant. Does it leave a film on your clothes? We wear undershirts in this house, and have a horrible problem with waxy build up in the underarms of the shirts.
I’m interested in trying the shave cream. I just use conditioner (yeah, not quite eco friendly but it works well and I’m using it on my hair anyway…), but my husband uses traditional gel.
4. sarah | September 19th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
As to the film on the clothes, I haven’t noticed any on mine (but we don’t wear undershirts). It’s essentially just cocoa butter + shea butter and it is absorbed so well I imagine all you’d get is some of those vegetable fats on the clothing that should break down easily in the wash.
With commercial deodorants, I always got a stain and not so much a waxy buildup which Wikipedia says is from Aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly that is a common antiperspirant. It is a chemical compound that when mixed with sweat leaves a yellowish stain on clothing. So if that’s what you mean then you definitely won’t get that on your clothes with this stuff.
5. I Wonder Woman | September 20th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Well, even just eliminating that “rust” stain would be an improvement! I recently switched to Tom’s, to avoid the aluminum, but it doesn’t work well for the husband. We’ll have to give this a shot! Thanks!!
6. April | September 20th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Hi!
love love love your blog. I just wanted to say thank you for the brilliant idea about the lazy susan. I just put one on the bottom of a sectioned pencil cup for my desk. IT TOTALLY ROCKS. I also put a piece of the no-skid shelf liner stuff on the bottom of it (the part that will sit on my desk). I thought about felt, but then it is a glass top on the desk so the non skid is better. Thanks again!
-april in Schaumburg
7. maryellen | September 21st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Hi. I’ve been using this deodorant recipe for about a month. I’m not getting any stains on my white tank top, and I find that this absorbs into my skin really well. It’s been a real revelation to sweat freely and smell great. (I also used lavender and ylang ylang, and you do need a lot.) This stuff works way better than Tom’s for me. I think I can cut down on the laundry too because my clothes smell better after I wear them! Will try shaving cream next. Thank you!
8. ohthecuteness | September 25th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I’m going to try this as soon as I use up my old one. Love that garland in there, did you make that?
I'm curious about your two cents. You smart cookie!
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