Homemade Dish Soap: Lessons Learned

I'm on my third batch of homemade dish soap now. I'm still tweaking it, but I've learned a lot so far. The first thing I've learned is that most of the people who make up recipes for soap are full of crap. Rather than putting my chemistry degree to good use and coming up with my own recipe, I relied on the advice of others. Here, then, are the consequences of my trusting nature.

After the first batch, which was way too goopy and didn't want to come out of the bottle, I looked for other recipes. All of them suggested adding lemon juice or vinegar, because the acid "helps cut grease." With batch number two, the consistency was much better. I basically did the same thing, 1/4 cup of soap flakes and 2 cups water, only this time I added several teaspoons of lemon juice. After doing a load of dishes, I noticed that all of my glasses were covered in this greasy film, and no matter how much I scrubbed, it was still there.

It soon clicked in my brain: the lemon juice did it. Very simply, the soap I'm using is made by adding a strong base to vegetable oil. So, the equation goes something like this:

oil + base -> soap

Simple enough. But adding the acid sends the reaction in the reverse direction:

soap + acid -> oil

Duh! The oily film left behind was actually oil. The solution in the bottle even separated into two phases. So, lesson learned, don't add acid to soap. My four years behind a lab bench finally paid off!

My current batch is made from 1/2 cup of soap flakes, 2 cups water, and the zest from one tangerine. It smells absolutely lovely and leaves my dishes sparkling. The tangerine does add a bit more cost, but it's still far cheaper than a commercial dish soap. I'll continue experimenting, and post some results when I come up with an optimized recipe. 

February's Project: Gone Vegan

I've been vegetarian for the majority of my life now. I quit eating meat at the age of ten for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I just never liked it, so it's never been a big temptation. My decision to quit eating meat came in the mid '90s, at the height of the mad cow disease panic, and being a sensitive and thoughtful kid, I was worried about this and other food-borne diseases. On top of all that, I've always had a soft spot for animals, and the thought of something dying for my dinner just ruined my appetite.

Despite 17 years of vegetarianism, however, I've never been able to completely make the transition to vegan. Growing up in the deep south, it was tough enough eschewing meat, let alone dairy as well, and my already thin teenage self probably would have starved in that environment. Ever since then, it's been more an issue of convenience -- college cafeterias and boyfriends expecting "manly" meals are just not conducive to a vegan diet. I've managed to keep it up for several months at a time, but I've always returned to dairy. On top of all that, cheese is too damn tasty.

But years of reading about the consequences of the dairy industry have taken their toll, and I'm finally fed up. I've gone vegan, and this blog is my witness, the change is permanent. If it means going hungry sometimes, particularly when I go back home, so be it. Convincing the fiance to eat what I cook will be a challenge, but if I give him the option of eating this food or going hungry, I think he'll start to see things my way.

Making meals is going to require a bit more planning for the next few weeks while I adjust to this new routine, though not nearly as much as if I had been a meat-eater. Here are some meals I'm planning on making.

Breakfast

I've never been a big breakfast person, mostly because I'm not a morning person, and it's just not worth it to get up that much earlier. I know that breakfast is important, though, so I'm going to try and make something. I bought some oatmeal at the store today. I have some overripe bananas to eat with it, along with almond milk. As cold as it's been lately, it'll be nice to leave the house with something warm in my stomach. I'll also start making thermoses of green tea to take with me -- a cheaper and healthier alternative to my usual giant cup o' Dunkin.

Lunch

I had a tasty vegan lunch today that came from, of all places, 7-11. Because it's a store on a college campus, they have a much better selection of quality foods than the average convenience store. This particular one has a variety of vegan wraps and sandwiches, and I chose an "egg salad" sandwich. It never occurred to me before that tofu and boiled egg have almost the same consistency, and it was really convincing -- maybe even better than the real stuff. I'm going to look for a recipe to make my own, because at $4 apiece, these sandwiches would be much cheaper to make at home.

Dinner

This is where the big challenge is, because I have to cook something that will entice both of us. I picked up some Boca ground burger at the discount supermarket. I'm going to make a batch of chili that will hopefully satisfy the fiance. I usually make it in pretty big batches, so this should last most of the week.

Snacks

I've got several kinds of dried and fresh fruit in the pantry, and I bought a big bag of almonds. I also need to remember that I have about 5 bags of edamame in the freezer -- a vastly healthier alternative to chips when I want something salty and munchy.

For the purposes of motivation, I watched the documentary Vegucated on Netflix. It's really given me some encouragement, even when the going gets tough, to stick with it. I'll try to get the fiance to watch it too -- maybe it'll get him more on board with this lifestyle. As the weeks go by, I'll keep making updates with my progress, and any interesting meal ideas or recipes I stumble across. That's it for now. Go veg!

January's Project: Simplifying my Cleaning Routine

Keeping the house clean takes longer than it should, even though I don't have that much stuff and it's only a two bedroom apartment. Being busy gets the better of me, and I put off chores until the house is a wreck. I then spend my entire day off cleaning, which is no fun for anybody. Some people genuinely enjoy housework. I am not one of them. So, in order to make more room in my life for living, I am going to minimalize my housework.

I'm already working on my cleaning products, so it's time to tackle the chores themselves. Regularity is the key to simplicity in this case, and so I will try and come up with a regular schedule for each chore so it doesn't consume my rare day off.

Weekly Chore Schedule:

Monday: Dusting sucks, but somebody has to do it. Lucky me!

Tuesday: I usually have half of the day free on Tuesdays, so this large block of time is devoted to my least favorite task: laundry. While the clothes are going, I will work on general tidying up and and hopefully gathering up more stuff to give away.

Wednesday: Thursday is garbage day, so I will gather up all of the trash and recycling to take out on Wednesday night.

Thursday: I also usually have half days on Thursdays, so I will use this time to clean the bathroom, as well as any residual laundry left over from Tuesday.

Friday: I have a bad habit of forgetting to use food that I buy, and I don't want this to happen. On Fridays I will take an inventory of the fridge, clean out anything that's gone bad, and plan meals for the next week. I will also do a general tidying up of the kitchen. This is a good day for it, since we usually go out for dinner, and I won't be dealing with cooking on top of the rest of it.

Saturday: I will get the grocery shopping done on Saturday. It has to happen fairly early in the morning because the supermarkets around here are a madhouse on the weekends.

Sunday: On Sundays I will attend to the floors. I love my hardwood floors but they show dirt and dust so easily. I guess it keeps me honest, but it requires regular maintenance. Once a week should work well.

A few other general habits:

• I once heard somebody say that you should never leave a room empty-handed, which I've found to be extremely true. There's always something that isn't where it belongs, and this helps to combat the chaos. I don't do this as often as I should, but I will make an effort to tidy up as I go about my daily life.
• My mother absolutely refuses to go to bed with dishes in the sink. I try to do this, but it's much easier when you own a dishwasher like she does. From now on, the dishes will be clean before I go to sleep, no exceptions.
• I will look for ways to make chores more fun, whether it's listening to music while I clean, or trying to get my fiance in on the action.

The goal here is to keep chores from overwhelming my life. As it is, whenever I'm not cleaning something, I feel guilty that I'm letting my house be messy. With the schedule, I know that everything will be done in a timely fashion. Once my chore of the day is complete, the guilt will be gone and I can enjoy a walk in the park, a good book, or a long phone conversation with an old friend. I'll report back after my first week of the chore schedule to see how it's going.

Detoxing Cleaning Products and Homemade Dish Soap

January's project of detoxing my household products is underway! The first thing I did is take everything from under the kitchen sink and sort through it. Apologies in advance for the picture quality; my camera is AWOL at the moment so I'm using my phone.

I've been pretty serious about keeping cleaning products nontoxic for a few years now. Most of this stuff was here when I moved in, and I just hadn't gotten around to getting rid of it. I used the Household Products Database which is run by the National Institutes of Health to sort through everything. I got rid of everything that was scary and/or I don't use, and here's what's left.

It's a lot less, and I'm glad to have some of that junk out of my house.

Although the things I actually use are fairly nontoxic, you can see that most of it is still commercially made products. I like them, but they're expensive and come with too much packaging. As stuff runs out, I'm going to try making my own cleaners. Conveniently today I ran out of dish soap, so it's time to cook up a batch.

I used this recipe from Hillbilly Housewife (the second one). I went to Target first, where I found an olive oil dispenser bottle for about $3.

I looked for a bar of simple, cheap glycerin soap but everything that wasn't full of fragrances was stupidly expensive. So I went onto Whole Foods and picked up a bar of their unscented store-brand glycerin soap for $1.99.

The next step is to grate or slice the soap. After contemplating the godawful pain it would be to clean soap flakes out of my cheese grater (and the sad prospect of soapy-tasting cheese) I decided to slice thin slices of it with a knife instead.

I sliced 1/4 cup of soap flakes, as thin as I could. I added them to 2 cups of water in a pan and heated it on medium heat, stirring until the flakes dissolved. It took longer than I expected -- almost 10 minutes -- probably because my slices weren't as efficient as grating it, but it eventually dissolved. I let the mixture cool for awhile, then added 1 teaspoon of bottled lemon juice (the acidity from which supposedly helps cut grease). After cooling it completely I poured the mixture into my bottle. 

Et voila, the finished product! One batch of soap (minus the bit I spilled) completely fills the bottle. It seems to work pretty well so far, though I haven't used it on any seriously dirty dishes yet. The recipe says you can add some essential oil for smell, but it has a fairly neutral, vaguely lemony scent that I really like. It is more watery than commercial dish soap, so that may take some getting used to. This recipe used 1/4 of a bar of soap; the rest of the ingredients were of negligible cost, so one bottle of homemade dish soap was $0.50.

If this were etsy and I were some sort of creative dork, I'd put a cutesy label on it and decorate the bottle. But this isn't, and I'm not, so there it is -- dish soap. It looks like laundry detergent may be the next thing to run out, so I'll probably be making that next. Until then, adios.

UPDATE: After sitting overnight, the soap thickened considerably. I had to give it a good stir in the bottle to break it up a bit, and now it works great. I also used it on a sink of dirty pots and pans, and it cut the grease like a champ. Looks like this will be my go-to soap recipe from now on.

UPDATE #2 (1/19/2013): I just made my second batch. This time I used my microplane grater to shred the soap. It dissolved really quickly and it was actually very easy to clean the grater afterwards. I also added more lemon juice this time, maybe a full tablespoon, and this made the consistency similar to commercial dish soap and thus much easier to work with.

New Years and New Ideas

I realize that the new year is almost a week old now, but I've been avoiding posting anything because I was trying to coalesce my thoughts about what it means to me. This is going to be a big year - the beginning of law school and my wedding loom large, and I'm open to any other adventures that may lie on the horizon.

Rather than set a series of vague goals that will go unaccomplished and abandoned by February, I've decided instead to make a list of actions and projects that I intend to undertake, along with dates for implementing each. Without any further delay, then, are my projects for 2013:

January: Before the end of the month, I will detoxify and simplify my cleaning products, similar to what I did with my beauty products. I will sort through everything and dispose of all but the best ones. For now I'll stick with commercial products as necessary, but I will investigate homemade alternatives later in the year. I'll also make a regular schedule for housecleaning so I don't waste another whole Saturday on it.

February: I have been putting it off for far too long, and I'm getting serious about going completely vegan starting February 1. I will experiment with all kinds of recipes, and post pictures and assessments periodically.

March: I should be well into the swing of veganism by now, and it should be the perfect time to tackle a simplified kitchen.

April: My desk and work materials are perpetually in disarray. I need to come up with a new record-keeping and email sorting system. I will investigate various productivity systems and hacks, and implement some kind of system with periodic updates on how it's going.

May: As an update to my beauty products project, I will evaluate where I am, and consider some homemade beauty regimens. I will post my experiments and results.

June: Raw foods! It'll be summer, and I'll be hot, and no longer craving soups and other warm yummy things like I am now. I'll give the raw diet a good month and of course some updates.

July: My last full free month before starting law school, and I plan to spend it being more spiritual. I'll have to devote some more thought as to what exactly this means to me, but it's an undertaking I've been delaying for some time.

August: Sociability! I'm looking forward to being in law school and having an easy way to make friends. I've always been kind of a wallflower, but I will make an active effort to get to know

September: Productivity, part deux. As an addendum to April's productivity project, I'll tackle school work, and staying on top of things, to see how the tools I found apply to students.

October: I should be well into the swing of wedding planning by now, so I'll take some time to explore the true meaning of marriage and the theme of a simple wedding.

November: With the change of the seasons brings a re-sorting of the wardrobe, and the perfect opportunity to pare down mine. I try to do this periodically anyway, but I will make a concerted effort to really pare down things and clear out stuff I don't like or doesn't fit.

December: I know that simple holidays is a kind of trite theme in the blogosphere, but it's one I really need to undertake for myself. Even though I've tried to do things as locally sourced or handmade as much as possible, people are really damn hard to shop for, and they all seem to want expensive stuff from the mall. My Christmas bills are just now coming in, and it's a nightmare. For the 2013 holidays, I will undertake simplifying in earnest.


So that's the monthly breakdown of projects. I also have a few actionable steps I'm going to take in 2013:

• I will read a book a week, at least until law school begins. Hopefully this will pare down my shelves from the influx of books I received as Christmas gifts.
• I will meditate every day, even if it's just for a few minutes. I need to center myself and this seems like the best way to do it.
• I will go to the gym every day unless I have a good reason not to. Laziness, bad weather and something good on TV are not good reasons.

So that's the outlook for me. Be on the lookout for my cleaning products detox in the next week or so.

Bonus!

I forgot to mention, when I cleaned out all of that stuff yesterday, I randomly found a Starbucks gift card among all of my toiletries in the closet. It's only five bucks, and I'm not sure if it even has any money left on it, but I guess there's only one way to find out. Sorting through stuff is really paying off.

Simple Living Project #1: Downsizing my beauty products

Beauty products are one category where women just straight-up can't be as minimal as men. Between society's expectations of a higher appearance standard, and the fact that most of us look like hell with short hair, you can't just buy one bottle of soap, use it on all body parts and call it a day. I like to think of myself as being fairly low-maintenance in this department, but boy was I wrong. I emptied out my shower, medicine cabinet, and closet, and this is the result:

Holy moly. I am clearly guilty of goo hoarding. Let me organize all of my goo into distinct categories and see what happens.

So much better (not). I'm going to sort through stuff, and toss out whatever I don't use or like, as well as anything that's too old. I'll also be using the Environmental Working Group's Cosmetics Database to toss the nastiest stuff. Keep in mind that a fair bit of this belongs to the fiance. I won't throw out any of his stuff without permission, though usually he doesn't care, and just uses whatever I buy for him. There's a lot of crap to sort through, so this is going to be a long post...

How on earth did I end up with seven things of sunblock? I know how. I used to live in Florida, where I was a lifeguard and competitive swimmer. It just tends to accumulate. The Up and Up stuff is probably no good. Gone. The face sunblocks, both the brand name and generic, are pretty bad too. Toss. The Hawaiian Tropic is pretty bad, and I can't find any info on the Caribbean stuff, but it has most of the same ingredients, so it goes too. Lastly, we come to the Blue Lizard, which was recommended to the fiance by his dermatologist. It's actually really good, although it was pretty dang hard to find in a store. It was a bit more expensive than a normal bottle, but because we rarely get out in direct summer sun for long periods of time, I'm going to try to get more and use it when we need sunblock. 

The aloe stuff saved my butt in Jamaica when I was out without sunblock for maybe 90 minutes. I underestimated the impact that being closer to the equator would have, and I burned so badly that I went straight past red to purple. I couldn't even sleep under a sheet that night because it hurt so much. Still, it has a bunch of bad crap in it. Next time I'll get a thing of pure aloe vera. The insect repellent is frightening - 25% DEET, 75% "other." Gee thanks for the informative disclosure on this bottle of poison you're wanting me to spray on myself. Not happening. It goes.

With the eyecare stuff, there isn't any such excess. The extra lens case has my spare contacts. The only thing I can toss is the little jar my new lens came in, so it's gone.

Next we come to deodorants, which I forgot to get a picture of. For some reason I have this mortal fear of running out of deodorant and smelling bad, perhaps another relic from life in the Sunshine State. So to be careful, I stock up whenever it's on sale, which is how we each ended up with three spare deodorants in addition to the one we're using, for a total of eight. The Secret is what I'm using now. It's not spectacular, and it smells like Candy Land threw up, but it's almost empty so I'll just finish it. The Lady Speed Stick is about half full, and it's not great either, but I'll deal with it because the toxicity issues with deodorants are more pertaining to allergies, and I don't have those problems. The Almay is surprisingly good for a drugstore brand, so when I need more, I'm going to buy this. I also have the Crystal deodorant, which totally doesn't work, but it's completely nontoxic, so I'm going to try to use it more in the winter when I won't sweat. The vain attempt to use this stuff year-round is why hippies smell.

As for him, he has four sticks of Degree. Not great, not terrible, but he hasn't had any issues with allergies so I won't worry about it for now. I'll look into replacement options when he finally needs it, which may take a couple of years at the rate it goes.

With dental stuff, most of this is the result of the largesse of my dentist, who bestowed nine containers of floss and six free toothbrushes on me. Most of the toothbrushes are worn out and will go in the cleaning stuff box. The floss reminds me, I need to floss more, so it will get used. As for the rest of it, I know that regular toothpaste and mouthwash aren't great, so as soon as I use up all of this, I'll switch to something more non-toxic.

Now we're onto soap. The Old Spice stuff is pretty bad, and just a small sample size, so it goes. The rest of it is totally fine -- Burt's Bees and Dr. Bronner's are two brands I completely trust. The two loose bars are from Whole Foods 365 line. The conditioner bottle is actually just diluted Dr. Bronner's that I use every day. The hand soaps are antibacterial and I don't even know where they came from, but I'm tossing them because triclosan is just bad.

Here's where it gets really dangerous -- hair goo. Another leftover habit from my days in Florida's humidity, I'm continuously looking for stuff to make my curly, frizzy hair behave. It's actually completely fine most of the year where I live now, but I still try new stuff all the time, and only some of it works. I have two things of smoothing stuff, the Citre Shine and Garnier Fructis. The Garnier is rated better, so I'll hang onto that one, but I will explore more natural alternatives. I was surprised to see that the Garnier smoothing cream was rated quite well, so that one will stay. I can't find any info on the Kinky Curly stuff, but the ingredients are just aloe and a bunch of plant extracts, so no worries there. The Herbal Essences flat iron spray is really old and I don't use it anyway, so it can go. I also have the dry shampoo, which is similar to this stuff (i.e., not great) but I'm using it temporarily to wean myself off of daily shampooing, so I'll hang onto it. The Frizz Ease isn't listed in the database, but their other stuff isn't too great, and this stuff is full of silicones, which really weigh my hair down. Gone.

For shampoo/conditioner, the samples are gone, and the Organix stuff is okay but not great. The CVS conditioner is just the generic of Organix. My main objection to those is the price, but I'm going to replace them with more of the cheap stuff from Whole Foods when I get a chance to run up there. The other two bottles are medicated stuff from fiance's dermatologist.

With hair removal stuff, the Gillette shaving cream has to go. It's really not that terrible as a product, but it leaves rust rings all over the edge of the bathtub, plus it smells like my grandpa, which is a real turn-off. The Burt's Bees stuff is good, and even though it's a little more expensive, he's not very hairy so it lasts a long time. The Surgi-Wax is good, but the Sally Hansen never worked anyway, so it goes. I never use the epilation oil, and there's only one razor left in the bag, so both go.

Onto the face stuff. Here's where I'm scared. I know some of this is probably bad, and I've been putting it near my eyes for years. The pore strips are fine, the L'Occitane stuff not so much. The Clearasil sample came with a coupon that expired in 2005, so that should go for safety's sake. With the eye creams, the L'Oreal is alright, but the Aveeno isn't listed, though other products in that line are OK if they're not SPF, so I'm going to assume it's alright. My daily use Burt's Bees moisturizer is surprisingly bad, but it seems to have more to do with allergies and reactions to the acne-fighting ingredients, which again isn't an issue for me so I'm ok with that. The oil mattifier is alright. The Olay isn't so great, and it's greasy anyway, so it goes. He doesn't use the Mary Kay men stuff, so it's gone. My particular toner isn't listed, but none of Neutrogena's toners are very good, so it goes. The CVS acne wash always left my skin feeling greasy, no more. The clay masque isn't great, and it doesn't do anything besides make your skin gunky and green for awhile, so I'm tossing it. The St. Ives apricot cleanser isn't great and has those microbeads that are bad for the environment, so it goes. Lastly, the Clean & Clear acne gel is good, and it's amazing at clearing up pimples literally overnight, so it stays.

Next is hand sanitizers. I went back and forth on them, reviewing the ingredients, but ultimately just came to the decision to toss them all. I don't use them, and everyone agrees that hand-washing is just better anyway. I like easy decisions.

Now onto various other skin stuffs, which I don't have a picture of. The foot lotion and body refresher are both from Bath and Body Works, and all of their stuff stinks to high heavens, so they're gone. The Aveeno lotion is surprisingly good, so it stays. The Mederma isn't terrible, and it's from fiance's dermatologist, so it stays. I can't find the other foot cream online, but I don't use it so it's gone. The last two containers are just pure Vitamin E and Vitamin C, so they're fine.

Perfume is next, and this is going to be tough. I know a lot of these are probably terrible, and I almost never wear them, but they were expensive and I'd hate to just throw out almost-full bottles of smells I like. But there's no avoiding it, so here it goes. 

First, my perfumes. The Clinique Happy isn't as bad as I thought. As infrequently as I use it, it's okay so I'll keep it. I can't find either of the Gap perfumes on there, so I'm going to settle for blissful ignorance on those. The Bath & Body Works body splashes are all terrible, so it's gone. 

Now for his stuff. The Armani Acqua di Gio soap and eau de toilette aren't great, but it's mostly allergy concerns, which hasn't been a problem for him. The Armani Code is even worse, so I'll mention it to him, but I bet he won't care. I'm not sure what that New Musk crap is, but it smells like Leisure Suit Larry, so I'm tossing it. Lastly is the Spongebob cologne I got him as a joke. It isn't listed but he doesn't use it anyway so I'm not worried. 

That's pretty much it for hygiene products. Makeup is the next thing.

I have a confession to make. I have a lip balm problem. No, I'm not addicted to it, though apparently that is a thing. I have a problem with acquiring them, though to be fair, the majority of these were stocking stuffers and not purchases of my own. Nonetheless, I have too many, so I need to sort through them. The Burt's Bees ones are all okay. The No-Ad stuff is ancient, so it should probably go. The Blistex is no good. The Vaseline stuff is fine, and it's his anyway so I don't have to deal with it. The Carmex stuff is not great and smells terrible, so I'm tossing it. At least that gets rid of three of my dozen tubes. I'll have to be careful not to acquire any more until I'm finished with these, probably sometime in the year 2030.

As a rule of thumb, you're supposed to throw out mascara after 4-6 months, and this one is more like 4-6 years. Gone. The gel eyeshadow is really old, and the light purple one (not shown) is broken, so they go. The concealer is also really old. Other than that, everything seems to be okay.

Next is beauty tools, and the main issue here is duplicates. I recently got a set of high-quality Eco Tools brushes, which I love, especially the kabuki brush, and I recommend everyone spend a bit of money to get. I need the eye pencil sharpener. He and I each have our own tweezers, and I don't like him touching mine, so I'll keep both. The eyelash curler only looks scary, but in real life it's very useful so it stays. I forgot to include my foot pumice thingy, toe separators, nail file and nail buffer but they're in there too. For some reason we have three fingernail clippers. He keeps his, and I'll keep the better one of mine. I also have two of the exact same manicure scissors, so I'm keeping the one that's in better shape.

I've never been huge on doing my nails, so it shouldn't be hard to part with some of this stuff, which I also forgot to photograph. The purple stuff is bad, and it looks kinda trashy. I can't find exact matches for any of the other three, though none of the nail polish results are good. I'll hang onto the clear, pink, and red for now. As for the remover, ironically, the non-acetone ones appear to be worse than the acetone ones, so I'll keep what I've got. Last in this category is the Burt's Bees cuticle cream, which works great and smells delicious.

So clearly, we have a hairbrush situation. The two on the left are his and he uses them every day. Fine. The problem is the other seven, which belong to me and most of which don't ever see the light of day. I mostly use the wood one. I'll also keep the biggest round brush and the comb with the hook for the shower. That's it. The others all go.

No big surprises with the medicine, though I was able to consolidate some packages. The brown paper bag is a ton of cough drops, no idea where those came from.

With the first aid stuff, again I consolidated containers, and threw out some stuff that was really expired. I checked out his nasty, stinky Tiger Balm, and unfortunately it's perfectly safe, so it stays. The Skin Shield stuff is fine too. Everything else is pretty much straightforward, so I stuck it back in its basket, and back it goes.

And that's the last of it. Between sorting through all of this crap, and blogging about it as I go, it has literally taken six hours of my Saturday. Because of this, I am going to make two resolutions:

1. I will not buy any new personal care products unless I am about to run out.

2. I will investigate the safety of stuff before spending good money on it.

With all that said, here's my new, pared-down, detoxified daily routine.

Also note the flat iron, without which I would look like a poodle, as well as the jar of baking soda, which I use to exfoliate my skin. I'm going to be on the lookout for more ways to make my beauty routine more natural, but I'm going to use up all of the products I have before buying new stuff, I swear.  I'll keep the blog updated on these efforts, as well as the more specific effort to cut down on, if not ditch entirely, shampoo. That's all for now. Is anybody interested in two boxes of random goo?