Homemade Night Cream – DIY

15th June 2017
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My friend (Bear’s mum to protect her identity) is getting married soon! She has asked me to do her makeup! How terrifying! I have never been asked to do anyone’s makeup for anything before, so I was really flattered to be asked but then immediately daunted by the prospect of ruining the photos! We decided that the best thing to do would be to get some professional advice and started ringing round department stores to see what they offered. If you’re getting married on a shoestring budget then listen up – this is what to do! DO NOT MENTION YOUR WEDDING! I am sure that as soon as that one little word is uttered the £ signs start spinning in people’s eyes.

We settled on Debenhams and we got ringing round the beauty counters to see what they could offer. The Lancome counter could do a makeover on Bear’s mum for £25 – however, if a product of £25 or over was purchased the makeover was not chargeable. This was an excellent deal for us – we knew that a great foundation would be essential for the day and that was bound to cost over £25 and we would have some advice on how to create the look for the day. The lady was really friendly and gave us lots of advice and free samples too, and colour matched both Bears’s mum and me for foundation (bonus for me!). Anyway, I’ll write more about the wedding make up after the big day, I really wanted to talk about moisturiser today!

What? Wait? I have super dry skin?

I was really surprised when the makeup lady said that I have really dry skin. She asked me about my skincare routine and blamed the fact that I use a face oil rather than a moisturiser on my regular break outs. She then tried to sell me a moisturiser. I’m pretty keen on avoiding palm oil where possible, because it is often not produced sustainably and causes deforestation issues, destroying the habitat for orangutans and other wildlife. You can read more about palm oil here. I was really surprised that she couldn’t tell me what was in the moisturiser (in fact, she didn’t even know if they listed ingredients on their packaging!) but she passed me a box to look myself. Palm oil comes under many names and I could see at least four different names for it amongst the absolute MOUNTAIN of ingredients. I hate using products that have ingredients with names I cannot pronounce. I then remembered “cold cream” – a cheap moisturiser that has been around for years (I then got quite sidetracked and ended up reading this article) and was originally made with olive oil, beeswax, rose water and rose oil – this isn’t a hard and fast recipe though as throughout the years different manufacturers tried different formulas.

rich 4 ingredient moisturiser

This is my first attempt at making my own moisturiser, which was far cheaper than a shop bought alternative, smells great and is really rich and hydrating for my (apparently super dry) skin. A of word of caution – this moisturiser has NO SPF – please, if you use a day cream that has SPF and you need it – I would not use this cream in the daytime, just use it in the evening as a rich night cream.

So, here it is, my first recipe for a homemade moisturiser:

Ingredients

1 tablespoon shea butter

1 tablespoon natural yellow beeswax pellets

2 tablespoons coconut oil

2 tablespoons sweet almond oil

4 drops sweet orange oil (optional & not pictured)

moisturiser ingredients

Method

Combine all ingredients (except sweet orange oil) in a bowl over a pan of water (bain marie) until melted together.

Take off the heat and stand in a bowl of cool water. Add orange oil, if using.

Whisk for 5-10 minutes with an electric whisk, scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go. You should find that the ingredients have whipped into a rich moisturiser.

If you want to buy any of the products needed for the moisturiser, the carousel at the bottom of this post has the exact sweet almond oil, shea butter and beeswax I used (there was loads left for other homemade beauty treats!). I buy my coconut oil from Aldi as we use it for almost everything at home, but Vita Coco is a great brand also. I had sweet orange oil already at home so can’t recommend one – but next time I buy one I will review it!

(In the interests of honesty, I may earn a small commission from the sales of any ingredients should you purchase them above)

15th June 2017
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About Mione

I like cooking and love eating. Sometimes I share my recipes here, sometimes on my instagram. I dislike the word bae and clean eating