52 Weeks To A Better Me -Week #1/Frugal Friday...Make Your Own Make-Up Remover Wipes!

This is my first goal/project. I recently came across a tutorial to make your own Make-Up remover wipes. I love those they are so much more convenient than using face wash when it comes to removing make up. I prefer to use wipes to take off my makeup at night and to use regular face wash in the morning. So when I saw the tutorial I was very excited, you know me I love to make anything most people would buy and especially if it turns out cheaper and better than I could buy.

You need 4 simple ingredients: a container, paper towels, coconut oil, and water.

Coconut oil can be eaten, used as a butter substitute, massage oil, has natural antibiotic properties. It is used in several natural health and beauty product recipes that I want to try.

I used the container from my store bought face wipes.

Step 1. Cut a roll of paper towel to fit your container. Since the face wipe container is short I only used 1/4 of the roll. It is important to use a NON-SERRATED knife to cut the paper towels, unfortunately I didn't see that note until after I had cut my towels so I had a lot of  extra fluff come off my roll. Using a straight edged knife to cut my roll would have eliminated that.

Step 2. Mix 4c of warm water and 2 tbsp of coconut oil(if making the whole roll's worth into wipes) I just made 1/4 of a batch (although I forgot to cut the coconut oil in fourths instead of halves so my batch has twice the liquid, I'll let you know how it turns out). Coconut oil has a really high melting point so it's solid like shortening or butter. I put tap water and the solid coconut oil in a microwave safe dish and microwaved it in 30 second increments until the oil was melted.

Step 3. Pour the liquid over the towels in the container.

Step 4. Let it sit at least 5 minutes. The cardboard tube will separate from the towels and will be easy to pull out.

Step 5. Grab the towels from the center of the roll and pull up. Since my container has a pop open lid I just shoved the towel through the hole. When you need one you just have to tear it off.

The tutorial said to use the select a size towels and that's what I had anyway, but I think regular would work just as well.

They are easy to make, but are they cost effective?
I was able to find all my ingredients at Walmart. Of course I had the container at home, but really any type of plastic container would work.

The coconut oil I got cost $10.
The paper towels I used are VIVA 6 pack of Giant Rolls at Walmart they are $7.62(online).

I calculated how many batches you could make if you only used the ingredients to make the face wipes. Surprisingly the amount of towels I have and the container of coconut oil I got equal out almost perfectly if I were using them solely for this purpose so it was easy to calculate the price per wipe.

Each roll of paper towels has 100 wipes, cut the roll into 4 pieces and you get 400 wipes. Six rolls equals 24 batches making a total of 2400 wipes. The cheapest make-up remover wipes I found at Walmart were the Equate brand. You can get a 2 pack of 120 wipes total for $5.97.

If you buy the Equate wipes the price per wipe is $0.05/wipe, which is not bad at all really. The homemade wipes are less than $0.01/wipe! Not only are they cost effective, but they are better for your skin.

I just started using them, but love them so far. I'll let you know in my monthly recap how they work long term.

Frugal Friday - Make Your Own Foaming Hand Soap

For this Frugal Friday Post (I know it's Saturday, I tried to post it yesterday but it wouldn't let me for some reason) I'm going to show you how to make your own foaming hand soap. I love foaming hand soap but hate to pay the price for it. I quickly found out how to make it and I've been making my own for years! It's SUPER cheap and you can make it in the time it takes you to refill your dispenser. And the best part is you can use your favorite regular soap or body wash! For the last several years I have gotten several little gift baskets/bags that had small bottles of body wash in them. I hated to throw them out but I simply couldn't use them all up so I turned them into hand soap! I haven't had to buy soap for over a year!

WHAT YOU NEED:
Foaming Soap Dispenser (This will cost some money. I just bought one with soap in it and once the soap was gone made my own to refill)
Liquid Hand Soap or Body Wash
Water

HOW YOU MAKE IT:

1. Pour a small amount of soap into your soap dispenser. Less than an inch.



2.  Fill the dispenser with water.

3. Give it a little shake and let it mix together. This will take a few hours to get fully incorporated, but you can still use it in the meantime just give it a good shake before using. Once the soap is all mixed (you can no longer see a separation and it's one solution) it's done!

Enjoy!



Frugal Friday - Homemade Laundry Soap

This is a recipe I have not made myself, but have used. I saw no difference in the freshness or cleanliness of my clothes after using it. It's extremely cost effective. One batch makes enough for SEVERAL loads.

Homemade Laundry Soap
4 cups Hot Tap Water
1 Fels-Naptha Soap bar(I have seen recipes that say any bar soap you have will work I have not tried it though)
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (NOT BAKING SODA)
1/2 cup Borax

Grate the bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir Continually over Medium-Low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap then fill the rest of the way with water. Shake before each use (will gel).

Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: Lavender, Rosemary, Tea Tree oil.

Top Loading Machines: 5/8c per load (approx. 180 loads)
Front Loading Machines: 1/4c per load (approx. 640 loads)


Let me know if any of you try it and what you thought!

Frugal Friday-Homemade Face Wash

I came across a recipe for homemade face wash on Money Saving Mom. It uses the Oil Cleansing Method I had not heard of that before yesterday but it looked intriguing. Basically store bought face washes completely strip your skin of all oils, which either completely dries it out or makes your skin produce way too much oil to compensate making you wash it more often. That makes the problem worse rather than better. Personally my skin is extremely dry, so much that I have red scaly patches that don't go away until humid summer time, no matter how much moisturizer I use. When I do put on moisturizer it burns my skin because of the dryness. There were several comments of people that had tried it and loved it, so I thought I would give it a try too! It's made up of two simple ingredients: Olive or Sunflower oil and Castor oil. I used Olive oil because that's what I had. You just mix different proportions depending on your skin type.

OILY: 3 parts Caster oil to 1 part Olive oil
NORMAL: 1 part Caster oil to 1 part Olive oil
DRY: 1 part Caster oil to 3 parts Olive oil

The Caster oil has cleansing and purifying properties in it.

I made some last night I used 1 tsp Caster oil to 1 Tbsp Olive oil and just filled a travel size bottle and shook it up together, so easy.


To Use:
1. Pour a quarter-size amount on your palm, rub your hands together, and slowly massage your face with your finger tips. Do not splash your face with water first, put it on your dry face. Work it into your face for about a minute. Don't scrub, just rub.
2.Wet a soft washcloth with hot water, (but not scalding), and put it over your face for about 1 minute or until it feels cool on your face.
3. Rinse and wring the washcloth and gently wipe off the oil.

I did it last night in the shower. It was very relaxing. My face felt a little oily right when i got out of the shower but with in 10 minutes, if even that, it just felt very smooth. Usually my face feels very tight and almost irritated from dryness after I shower, last night it felt refreshed and soft. I went to bed right away and when I woke up this morning I could immediately feel and see a difference in my skin. It is so soft and smooth and my dry patches are probably 50% better after just one use! I am totally sold on this and it's so economical to make! It cost me $5 for all the ingredients including the bottle to put it in! I love that its made from natural non-toxic ingredients, makes a lot for little money, and works better than anything I've ever bought from the store! You really only need to use it once a day and it is supposed to remove make up too(I wasn't wearing any so I can't weigh in on that). I even crocheted a cotton washcloth last night to use with it! It was so cool to be using a face wash I made in 5 minutes on a washcloth I made in 20 minutes and LOVE the results!

You must try it, if you don't like it you can always go back to your regular stuff, but I don't think you will want to!

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