Al Naturale...

Six months - All natural

And by all natural I mean taking every single product in your bathroom and replacing it with a handful of honest to goodness, natural products, and in doing so, massively improving everything from your skin to our Earth.

I have included a recipe for:

toothpaste

concealer

powder

mascara

and what I use for everything else.

I have always LOVED the idea of an outdoor bathroom, and even though I don't currently have one, I am determined to make it a part of my future.

My bathroom is however, wonderfully Green,

and all that open shelf space is so simple and clean,

I just love it - more space for plants :D

I'll start with a list of ingredients that you'll need:

Organic cold pressed coconut oil

100% aloe gel (or straight from the plant)

activated charcoal

Bicarbonate of soda - pure

Himalayan salt

Arrowroot

Roughly 500g of each ingredient cost me less than £30 in total, and so far, 6 months in,

I've barely made a dent in any of them, so they will last a really long time.

Can you hear the Earth sigh with relief?

So let's talk about the switches I've made

So first big switch is that I now wash myself with water,

no soap, or shower gel or even natural soap.

Even after a 2 hour session of weight training/yoga, I wash with water and I'm clean.

This means my skin doesn't dry out, and I never need body lotion.

My face also just gets washed morning and night with warm water and I follow that up with some avocado oil or aloe straight from the plant.

Eliminating the need for chemical face washes and moisturisers.

I also don't wear deodorant anymore -and yes I was really nervous about this at first,

because I walk and move around a lot, so I can be quite a sweaty-betty sometimes,

but I just went for it,

and I honestly never smell like anything.

I do sweat and I get the wetness,

but just no smell.

That means my clothes smell like nothing, and can be worn again,

instead of having deodorant smell and marks all over them, making them dirty.

Now I should mention that I do eat a fairly clean diet, and this will make a difference to the way you smell.

Obviously sometimes at the end of the day if I really get my nose in the pit of my top I can smell sweat, but it's never anything that would emanate off me.

The skin under my arms has also become very soft, with no discoloration or blocked pores.

Another switch I've made is toothpaste.

I make a toothpaste powder that has honestly been the best trade of all for me.

The activated charcoal is the best teeth whitener that you get, while at the same time removing toxins.

The bicarb takes care of odour and the abrasiveness is also great for whitening,

while the salt and coconut oil are both powerful antibacterial cleaners.

You can add peppermint drops for a minty flavor if you want,

and add more coconut oil if you want a paste instead of a powder.

But I just keep it as a powder and leave it with a salty taste.

Here is the recipe for the toothpaste powder and a few other recipes for natural products I have started making.

Toothpaste

1/4 cup of baking soda

1 teaspoon finely ground Himalayan salt or you can use sea salt

1 teaspoon activated charcoal

1 heaped teaspoon coconut oil

combine everything with a pestal and mortar and store in clean dry sealed container.

For make-up replacements I've gone SUPER simple.

Concealer/face powder

Combine arrowroot powder with things like tumeric, cocoa powder, cinnamon to get your desired shade,

and for concealer just mix it with coconut oil to form a paste.

Not everybody gets on with this recipe as it is very basic and doesn't contain any clay or zinc oxide, but for me its perfect.

It gives me a gentle evening of skin tone, while at the same time allowing me to embrace my natural skin.

Putting this on my face instead of conventional concealer and powder has made a huge difference to the look and feel of my skin, because I know my skin is being nourished by my make-up, I never have to worry about what's sitting on my face all day.

Mascara

1 teaspoon coconut oil - melted

add 3 teaspoons of aloe gel (for this I use natural aloe gel I buy from amazon)

and add 1 teaspoon of activated charcoal

mix together and pipe or scoop into a clean dry mascara container.

It can be fiddly to get into the container at first, but you figure out a method that works best for you.

You also need to apply 2-3 coats to get a nice thick coating, but the relief that I don't have any strange chemicals near my eye all day, everyday, is a wonderful feeling.

And again, because of the simplicity of the mascara and it obviously not being a long lasting hold, I find myself becoming more and more comfortable with my natural beauty :)

Last on the list of natural switches is shaving.

I started off just shaving with no soap in the bath, with my old razor,

and that worked totally fine - the same as shaving with soap really.

When my blades were finished, I invested in a straight razor

(those folding knife things that men get hot shaves with)

and watched a you tube tutorial on how to shave legs with that.

So now I shave with that and coconut oil, resulting in a very close shave and soft moisturised legs.

And if you get a leather strap with your straight razor then it'll last a lifetime.

No more razor blades regularly going off to the landfill for smooth legs.

So as you can see, my routine is very basic, and my shelves only ever have a jar of aloe on them.

The only thing that I had to get use to,

was smelling like nothing.

But don't confuse the absence of soapy smells with not being clean,

the best way to take care of that is to use fresh plants like lavender that have a strong smell and just put some in your bath or hang some in your shower.

Or invest in some essential oils.

It's such a big deal to me to do whatever I can to reduce my carbon footprint, and to take control of what I put on and in my body.

I cannot express what a wonderful and surprising effect this routine has had on my skin, my conscience and my wallet.

Best decision I ever made and the only con is not trying it sooner.

If you have any questions then please leave me a comment or send me a message.

#BathBeautyproducts