the solid shower

November 7, 2017 ~ Gillie ~ 1 Comment

I was reading a satirical agony aunt page in the Sunday papers and a young man was concerned that following the arrival of his girlfriend into his flat on a “try before you buy” basis, a total of 52 beauty products had turned up in his bathroom. The agony aunt assured him that the girlfriend had not moved in permanently as 52 items was most certainly only a small selection of her collection. Amusing, but there is an element of truth in that.

I have never been a massive beauty product shopper. I will confess to being seduced every now and then, well perhaps quite a few times, but I have never had the time or energy to undergo a mini spa routine every day. Furthermore, deep down inside I didn’t really think they were up to the job and bearing in mind it was only as recently as 2010 that some shops unilaterally decided to ban parabens from the products on their shelves I was always uneasy about precisely what it was I was putting on my hair and skin. My mother brought me up to wash with a cloth and water, remove makeup with olive oil and tone with rosewater and witchazel. We made rosemary vinegar hair rinses and raided the fridge to make facemasks for a girly night in.

Since then I have flirted with commercial products but then another factor came into play. Packaging. Not only was I concerned by the content of the product, I was downright irritated by the packaging it came in. Rethink required. My paraben free EWG approved shampoo and conditioner came in a plastic bottle. The bottle can be recycled, but it can’t be refilled and in my opinion recycling should be the last option before landfill, not the first.

2017-11-06 22.17.25

This is our shower shelf now. From left to right, salt and almond oil scrub (home made), rosemary infused apple cider vinegar hair rinse (home made), cream block – solid conditioner (comes wrapped in paper from Funky Soaps), white block – rosemary Marseille soap (bought unwrapped from producer), dark brown block – solid shampoo (Funky Soaps again).

The salt scrub is merely almond oil mixed with sea salt. You can add essential oils if you like, I don’t bother. The ACV rinse is merely ACV in which I have infused fresh rosemary for a couple of weeks. Simples.

The proof of the pudding – does it work. Well my husband voluntarily commented how soft my hair was this week. Praise doesn’t come higher than that.

A final comment. I know that a lot of zero wasters swear by Lush solid shampoo. Personally, quite apart from the fact that I can’t pass by one of their shops without feeling a little queasy, any company that has only this year decided to use a seaweed based glitter in their products whilst spending the previous decades waxing lyrical about their eco-friendly approach and using plastic glitter in their bath products, is not going to get my pennies. We do not need glitter in our baths. In all honesty do we really need glitter at all?

Love Gillie x

Wear the Wild

November 28, 2016November 28, 2016 ~ Gillie ~ Leave a comment

Regular readers will know I am huge fans of Chris and Rose Bax of Taste the Wild. I have been on plenty of their courses from Herbal Medicine (where my recently macerated knee provided a live demonstration of how to make a poultice) two and a half days foraging in Staithes. We have also been mushroom foraging with them and Stuart learned how to butcher a deer. So you can imagine my glee on my birthday when I discovered I had a morning with Rose making cosmetics.

I make a lot of my own cosmetics and potions etc, but there is nothing more fun than doing it with other people and there is always more to learn. So last Tuesday I got up early, scraped the ice off the car and headed down to North Yorkshire. Boy was it cold so the cup of tea on arrival was most welcome.

Cop a look at this.

Infused oils and dried herbs and flowers all ready to be played with. First we made shampoo. Rose gave us comprehensive tables with the properties of the various herbs and flowers. She had already made a birch decoction which we would all include in our shampoo as birch is a wonderful all rounder for hair, then we chose three other ingredients.

We steeped our additional ingredients in the hot decoction and added it to pure castile soap.

And there you go. I don’t even use conditioner now, though do be careful not to get castile soap in your eyes!

Next up was a healing balm.

Melt pure beeswax into the infused oils of your choice. Note the clever homemade bain marie. When slightly cool add an essential oil of your choice.

Pour into clean pots and leave to set. Wait until it is almost set before putting on the lid so avoid contamination with condensation.

Next was lip balm, made in much the same way but this time with peppermint essential oil. We finished up with a bath bomb and some wonderful herbal bath salts which I used when I got home that evening and there were just the ticket.

Finally, as I was in the area I popped into Ripon for lunch on the way home!

Love Gillie x

hair and there

January 15, 2014January 15, 2014 ~ Gillie ~ 15 Comments

Today was “hair day” on 40+ Style Challenge. I challenge ANY woman to declare that she has not wasted hours wishing her hair was finer/thicker/longer/curlier/straighter. There is a lot that a good hairdresser and a good cut can do but few of us have a hairdresser at our beck and call. We are the DIY brigade, cut and colour at the salon and otherwise it’s up to us.

For many years I used shampoo. Only shampoo. No conditioner, no fancy hair packs, no serums, no oils, nothing. And my hair was fine. Then in my thirties it became rather listless. I succumbed and bought a conditioner, whooooo silky hair. I was hooked. I had oils, serums, conditioners, leave in conditioner sprays, heat protectors, sun protectors. My hair was better defended than Guantanamo Bay.

But the problem with all that stuff is that it doesn’t half take up a lot of space, and it all comes in plastic bottles etc etc. So I went on a detox.

I haven’t gone “no ‘poo” but I started buying whatever shampoo and conditioner was on special offer. One was pretty awful but the rest have been fine. I still have plastic bottles but I’m working on that. I am going to give solid shampoo a go.

The point is that my hair has not fallen out/gone green/turned to straw. I am old enough to remember beer and vinegar rinses, egg and oil hair packs and the magic of coconut oil. At the end of the day the stuff on the top of my head is dead keratin. I’m going to look after it, but I do not need to waste my money nor clutter my bathroom with a whole load of products.