I do, I just have been wanting to make up these projects for a while now and I decided today was the day.
First off I made a Magnesium Leg Butter, based on a Magnesium Body Butter recipe, because I think I'm magnesium deficient and it gives me leg cramps and other unpleasant feelings in my calves.
There are a lot of recipes out there, but I pretty much followed the one from Wellnessmama.com; but used a bit of Dr. Axe inspiration by adding some Frankincense essential oil and some Peppermint essential oil.
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| This looked so much better on my phone! |
So this is the way I made it:
Magnesium Peppermint and Frankincense Restless Leg Butter
Magnesium oil:
1/2 cup magnesium flakes
45mL (3 Tbsp) boiling water
* this gives a more concentrated solution, if you don't have flakes on hand, just 1/2 cup magnesium oil.
"Butter":
1/4 cup virgin coconut oil
2 Tablespoons emulsifying wax (found at Aussie Soap Supplies - I used this one)
45g Shea Butter
20-25 drops dōTERRA Peppermint Essential Oil
drops dōTERRA Frankincense Essential Oil
To make the magnesium solution pour 45mL (3 Tbsp) of boiling water in to the magnesium flakes in a glass jar and stir until the flakes are dissolved. Set it aside to cool.
I use my setup shown in the video below to melt my emulsifying wax and Shea butter, then I add the coconut oil to the melted was/butter to help it cool slightly faster. My coconut oil was liquid though, if yours isn't, maybe add it to melt at the last minute. Melt this blend on medium heat, being careful so no water gets into the wax, oil and butter.
Some people whack a Mason jar at the bottom of the pan, with about an inch of water in there. I never feel very comfortable with that idea, I prefer a bit of buffer (maybe because I've been known to have temperamental stove tops, the kind that go to FULL POWER when they are on "simmer"!)
When your stuff is all melted, remove the jar from the pan and let the mixture cool until slightly opaque (usually room temperature will do that, if it's in the middle of an Australian summer, you can cool it in the fridge a bit).
Put the oils in a medium bowl and using your hand blender (I have one I use only for soapy stuff, but I couldn't find it so used the regular food one and cleaned it properly, since I'm using CPTG essential oils which are also OK for ingestion (I use only dōTERRA) and not fragrance oils, I didn't have a problem with that). Blend your oil mixture and start adding the magnesium oil a bit at a time, sort of like when you make mayonnaise; continue blending until all of the magnesium oil is added and it is well-mixed, add your essential oils and give it another good blending.
Put in the fridge for 15-20 minutes and blend again to get this soft fluffy body butter consistency! It's almost like magic.
You can keep this in the fridge in Summer months, it makes for a nice cooling lotion, or keep it at room temperature (without preservatives it should last about two months, if you want to learn about preservatives you can go see the lovely Susan at Point of Interest she has a bunch of posts on preservatives and which to use in a solution like this one).
This is how I like to melt my stuff :)
The other thing I made was Toilet Freshener/Cleaner bombs.... The water is quite "dirty" here, I don't know very well how else to put it, but my water filter gets this muddy slime on it, and that makes toilets dirtier than they should be as well, so I finally made some toilet bombs and hope it'll help us keep our toilet cleaner than usual, plus they smell really nice!
Whenever I want to do anything remotely soapy, I usually visit The Soap Queen first; and then spend so much time looking at all the pretty and clever things that I don't usually start my project that same day, but that's ok because I always learn something there!
Anyway, when I was ready to make my toilet fizzies, of course I turned to Anne-Marie at The Soap Queen.
This is what I used to make mine:
Toilet Freshener/Cleaner Bombs
1 cup Bicarb soda (baking soda, bicarbonate soda, sodium bicarbonate, "la p'tite vache", or whatever else you know it as)1/2 cup citric acid (I don't know if that has any other names! you can find it in the baking area of your supermarket, but I just bought a huge quantity of it when it was on special at Aussie Soap Supplies
and
20 drops of dōTERRA Purify Cleansing Blend
If you've never made bath bombs before, it's quite easy, mix the bicarb soda and the citric acid together (the citric acid is a powder, it won't burn your skin, but may dull your nail polish, so you might want to wear gloves), I always put my dry ingredients through a sifter to remove any lumps, makes the job easier. Then I add my essential oil (or oils, depending on what you feel like using. On Guard would be a great blend to use, Peppermint and Lemon would smell really fresh).
Then you spritz whitchhazel onto the mixture, a couple spritz at a time, the idea is to get the dry mixture just wet enough to hold together. When it does (a bit like damp sand) you compress as much as you can in your moulds. The recipe above filled one heart and one "flower" sets of Ikea's Plastis ice cube trays (hmm, looks like they are out of hearts at the moment. The heart ones are my favourites to make chocolates!). When you have packed the mixture in the trays, let it air dry overnight.
TIP: don't make them when the temperature is humid... your chances of failure greatly increase. I've had bath bombs start to "bomb" while I was making them... can quickly turn into an impromptu volcano experiment, or a really good clean of any sink or toilet you can find!
If you need troubleshooting your bath bomb experiments, see this page on the Soap Queen's blog. I can't even begin to explain it as well as she does!
There you go, re-purpose a jar, and set somewhere you will see them and remember to use them!
and this is how they fizzed, the idea is either you let them fizz in the toilet and the citric acid does its stuff, or you give the clean a bit of a hand with the brush, to freshen the sides as well. I just thought posting a video of my toilet was a bit... weird!
Please get in touch with me via mydoterra.com/fstewart or via the contact button on this blog, if you would like to buy any of the dōTERRA oils mentioned in this post as I can help you figure out the best way for you to order. If you have questions you can also ask in the comments!
Thanks for stopping by!
