DIY

I've posted before about some of the ways we've changed what we eat over the past year, like Sean making his own peanut butter.  In that case, there was a definite trial-and-error component involved, not so much in the recipe (put nuts in a food processor, add a small amount peanut oil, and blend till consistency achieved, or your wife starts bleeding from her eardrums from the racket) but in the selection of nuts.  Sean sampled jars of both regular and honey-roasted peanuts from every brand we could find, plus all the store brands, before finally settling on the Target unsalted plain peanuts as his preferred choice.

Experimentation has also been a big part of my attempts to create reliable household cleaners that aren't full of harsh chemicals.  I liked the first all-purpose cleaner I got from Green Clean, but the problem was that it left really obvious whiteish streaks on the counters, probably residue from either the borax or the soda.  To get rid of them you had to wipe everything down again with a wet cloth.  :-/   This was especially problematic since that recipe was one of the few I'd found that didn't require vinegar, Sean's bete noire.  Happily, I recently came across a ridiculously simple recipe that works like a charm: equal parts water and hydrogen peroxide, with a few drops of lemon oil.  I moved the spray bottle with Version 1.0 to the hall closet upstairs; it's still a good cleaner, so I'll use it in the bathroom where you don't have to worry about seeing streaks on the porcelain.

I've also tried making orange oil, with better success the second round than the first.  Cara Cara oranges were on sale at the store for weeks, so I had all these huge peels.  I dried them by the heating vent, then packed them into a Ball jar and soaked them with vodka for about a week.  Strain out the liquid, allow the alcohol to evaporate, and voila, you should have orange essence. The first batch smelled somewhat sour; I think that was because I had a lot of thin, not-great tangerine peels that I'd been saving.  The second, which was all thick, fresh Cara Cara peels, came out much better.  I put a little bit of it in my furniture polish, which is just olive oil and lemon juice.  This requires more effort than store-bought polish, since you really have to buff it nicely to get all of the oil residue off, but it seems to be the best option.  Never again will I allow Sean to purchase so much dark wood furniture.  Especially the black bedroom set!  Our house spits up dust continually from the heating vents, and you only get about 1 day of things looking clean till they're covered in very visible dust again.  I use a microfiber cloth to just brush things off mostly, but every once in a while things actually need to be cleaned.

My next adventure will be moving from household products to personal care.  Once you start casting an eye on all of the shit that's in the products that we consume or apply to ourselves, you may start getting kind of concerned.  Nothing seems simple; everything from toothpaste to shaving cream requires a laundry list of chemicals that you can't pronounce.  I was especially annoyed by this in food products because I realized (after reading Sugar Salt Fat) that often those chemicals are introduced because they create the proper taste more cheaply than would real ingredients; that's a clear case of how the consumer gets screwed with lower-quality goods in order to benefit the corporations that make them.  Cosmetics and other personal products are a little trickier.  It's easier to recognize what should and shouldn't be in a jar of peanut butter, for example (nuts, oil, possibly salt; why is there 'soy lethicin' or caramel coloring?) than it is a bottle of Moroccan oil conditioner.  But the same principle applies: it feels good to know exactly what's in the stuff you're using, and it feels good to have made something yourself using basic ingredients, rather than having forked over cash to multinational corporations that use an ingredients list that's longer than Santa's.

Right now I'm in the process of assembling the ingredients that I'll need for some of these items.  Beyond the basics that I can buy at Target, like hydrogen peroxide and with hazel, I need things like coconut oil, pure aloe vera, and citric acid, as well as essential oils like peppermint.  Recipes I'm going to try include toothpaste (baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and peppermint oil); mouthwash (aloe juice, witch hazel, baking soda); conditioner (coconut milk, honey, olive oil); and shaving cream (aloe vera gel, olive oil).  Ironically, the product that I most wanted to make for myself, facial moisturizer, seems to be one of the most difficult and expensive to make, particularly if you want its base to be jojoba or argan oil; Sean also pointed out that he expects sunscreen in his moisturizer, which I theoretically could accomplish by adding zinc oxide, but then we're really getting into chemistry stuff.

The funny thing is, I remember being sort of bemused years ago when Heather would post various recipes she was trying out for face washes and other assorted items on her "urban homesteading" blog.  Now here I am, doing the same thing.  Sean and I have often joked about how we don't really have hobbies; I look at cats on the internet, he plays card games on his computer while not-watching TV.  Now he has the piano (and has made incredibly quick progress in learning to play) and I have my "potions" as we're calling them, haha.