avocado oil Archives

DIY Cleansing Balm with Avocado Oil

September 22, 2023 Filed Under: Soaks & Scrubs

🌿 Embrace Moisturized, Protected Skin with DIY Cleansing Facial Balm!

Unmask your natural beauty with this easy-to-make, cost-effective Cleansing Balm! Designed to seamlessly melt away makeup, this balm stands out as a practical alternative to commercial formulas. For those new to the world of solid cleansing balms, consider this your gateway to a realm of skincare enriched with nourishing ingredients. 🌾🍐

This project is fueled with a mixture of lightweight Avocado Oil, soothing Chamomile Extract, and enchanting Natural Juicy Pear Fragrance Oil, allowing you to experience a symphony of refreshing and hydrating sensations. This formula is engineered to loosen makeup effortlessly and ensures that the balm washes away without leaving any greasy residue. 💧🌟

The instructional video included in this blog post is your visual companion to crafting this smooth cleansing balm, guiding you through each step with precision and clarity. 🎥

What You’ll Learn:

How to blend essential ingredients like Emulsifying Wax and Polysorbate 80 for a smooth application.
The art of incorporating scents and preserving agents, like the Natural Juicy Pear Fragrance Oil and Optiphen, to enhance the cleansing experience and ensure your product remains mold and bacteria free.
Detailed application methods focusing on areas with stubborn makeup.

Benefits of this Cleansing Balm:

Holistic Care: The combination of Avocado Oil and Chamomile Extract nurtures your skin, offering a holistic cleansing experience.
Eco-Friendly & Cost-Effective: This DIY approach grants you the freedom to control the quality and quantity, proving to be an eco-conscious, economical choice.
Customizable Scent: The recipe can be modified to include your preferred fragrance or be left unscented.

Whether you’re a seasoned skincare enthusiast or stepping into the world of DIY skincare, this cleansing balm promises a journey of creativity with a useful end product. So why wait? Dive in, create your personalized cleansing balm, and elevate your skincare routine! 🍃💄

Remember, once your skin is free from makeup, follow up with a DIY facial oil to lock in the freshness and let your skin breathe freely. Enjoy the path to clearer, happier skin!

DIY Lavender Clay Face Mask

January 9, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Lotion

Usually clay masks are designed for oily skin. Because clay absorbs oil, it’s a natural fit. This Lavender Clay Face Mask was specifically formulated for dry and sensitive skin. Don’t let the list of ingredients intimidate you – it’s surprisingly easy to make! Transforming the clay, water and oil into a luxurious mask is a satisfying and rewarding creative process.

This Lavender Clay Mask recipe contains a luxurious blend of argan and avocado oil to moisturize the skin. Argan oil is well known for its nourishing properties, and contains high percentages of vitamins A and E. The oils and distilled water are mixed together with Polawax Emulsifying Wax and BTMS-50 Conditioning Wax. These emulsifiers create a smooth, creamy, lotion-like texture, and prevent separation of the oil and water.

A mixture of kaolin and purple Brazilian clay is added to the water and oils. The majority of the clay in this mask is kaolin clay, which is very fine and gentle. Purple Brazilian clay adds a beautiful color and helps create a thicker mask. Lavender 40/42 Essential Oil adds a light scent, but can be omitted if your skin is extremely sensitive. Evening primrose extract adds skin-loving properties, but can easily be swapped for any other extract you may prefer. Find out more about extracts here.

Overall, this mask has a lotion-like texture that spreads easily on the skin. Because it’s formulated with dry skin in mind, it contains a fairly small amount of clay. If you apply a very thin layer to the skin, you’ll find that after about 10 minutes it will dry. But if a heavier application is used, it may not fully dry and will continue to have a wet, lotion feel. If you prefer the mask to fully dry on the skin, increase the amount of total clay in the recipe to about 6 ounces.

A few notes about recipe substitutions and changes:

Polawax Emulsifying Wax is a highly reliable and strong emulsifier. It could be substituted for the generic version, Emulsifying Wax, if you prefer, although this recipe was not tested with Emulsifying Wax. Due to the clay in the recipe, we splurged and used Polawax Emulsifying Wax to avoid any chance of separation.
This recipe calls for avocado and argan oil. Other oils can be used instead if you prefer; we recommend staying with liquid oils that absorb easily into the skin. Changing the total amount of oil in the recipe will change the overall texture of the mask.
Because this recipe is essentially a lotion and contains a large amount of water, a preservative is necessary to prevent mold and bacterial growth. We chose Optiphen, but other water soluble preservatives will work. Learn more about preservatives here.
Increase the total amount of clay if you want it to be better suited for normal to oily skin types. Decreasing the amount of clay may create a thinner product with more moisturizing properties.
If you prefer to use different clays, feel free to swap them. Clays have different absorbing properties, which will affect how it feels on the skin. Learn which clay is right for your skin.
If you have very sensitive skin, fragrance and essential oils can be irritating. Omit from the recipe if you prefer.

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Neon Pink Lip Tint Tutorial

June 16, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Lip Products

Summer is the perfect time to try bright makeup colors. If the idea of bright cosmetics makes you feel a little intimated, sheer lip colors are one way to try the look without committing fully. This Neon Pink Lip Tint has a sheer yet buildable color. Use your fingers or a brush to apply a thin layer for a tint of color, or apply more with a lip makeup brush for a more bold look.

I designed this recipe to be simple and easy to make. Avocado oil and cocoa butter are added to moisturize lips, while beeswax gives the tint a solid texture. The tint gets its hot pink hue from Fired Up Fuchsia Colorant. It’s mixed with some of the avocado oil using a Mini White Plastic Mixer. This helps get rid of any clumps and mix in smoothly.

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Apple & Sage Salt Scrub DIY

May 17, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Soaks & Scrubs

With summer quickly approaching, now is the perfect time to prep your skin for swimsuits and tank tops. Scrubs help get rid of dry winter skin. They also help moisturizer absorb, leaving your skin soft and smooth. Handmade scrubs are even better because you can customize the ingredients and create a fun design, like the green and white layers in this Apple Sage Salt Scrub.

The recipe features the new Apple Sage Fragrance Oil, which has notes of juicy apple, sage, pineapple and coconut water. It’s a perfect blend of sweet and herby. Evergreen Mica and Apple Moss Green Mica complement the fresh notes in the fragrance. The scrub also has Epsom salt, avocado oil and Stephenson Organic Liquid Castile Soap for a cleansing, gently exfoliating texture that also moisturizes the skin.

This scrub works great for the body. In our tests, we found the micas wash off and don’t stay on the skin. Epsom salt is finely grained, so the recipe may be gentle enough for the face. If you have sensitive skin, you may prefer to use it on the body only. Because the scrub will be applied near the nose, you may want to decrease the fragrance amount so it’s not as strong.

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DIY Soaking Salt & Scrub Wedding Favors

March 17, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Soaks & Scrubs

If you have a lot of wedding favors to create, the task can seem a bit daunting. I recommend keeping the project simple to avoid unwanted stress. When you need to make a lot of individual favors, soaking salts are a great option. Simply mix the salts with colorant, fragrance and a small amount of oil to create adorable gifts. Best of all, you can make them well ahead of time or days before if need be.

For this project, I created ten jars at once using two different scent and color combinations to make five jars of each. One combination features Sweet Pea Fragrance Oil and Rose Gold Mica for a feminine option. The other combination uses King’s Gold Mica and Tobacco & Bay Leaf Fragrance Oil for a more unisex or masculine choice. These soaking salts can also be used as a body scrub by applying it to damp skin rather than adding the salts to bath water.

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Sunday Night Spotlight: Avocado Oil

January 10, 2016 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

Avocado oil is a great choice for a wide variety of bath and beauty products. It is processed in a similar way to olive oil. First the skin and seed are removed. Then, the oil is extracted from the creamy green pulp. Non-refined avocado oil can appear dark green and has a natural smell, while refined avocado oil is light in color and scent.

Avocado oil is known for its moisturizing properties, and is rich in vitamin A, B, D and E. It absorbs easily into the skin, making it a staple for lotions, balms, massage oils and more. Avocado oil is also commonly used for cooking due to its nutritional value and high smoke point. Keep in mind that the avocado oil sold at Bramble Berry is not edible, as our warehouse is not considered “food-safe” by the FDA. Avocado oil has a shelf life of about 1 year.

Avocado oil is not to be confused with avocado butter, which is solid at room temperature. Avocado oil is shown on the left, avocado butter is shown on the bottom right.

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Easy DIY Cranberry Sugar Scrub

October 20, 2015 Filed Under: Soaks & Scrubs

Handmade gifts are a special treat around the holidays. However, handmade gifts can require a bit more work. That’s where this Cranberry Sugar Scrub comes in. It’s easy to make and ready to use right away. Your family and friends don’t even have to know how simple it is to make!

Along with being easy, the scrub also feels amazing on the skin. Sugar and cranberry seeds exfoliate, which make your skin feel clean and fresh. The cranberry seeds also add a pop of red. Avocado oil and potassium cocoate moisturize the skin without feeling greasy. Glycerin is added to help draw moisture to the skin. To complete the festive look, the scrub is colored with Merlot Sparkle Mica and scented with sweet and tart Cranberry Fig Fragrance Oil.

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