Clearly, when we see the words “FTM Friday,” we need to think of them sort of metaphorically, you know, loosely, so when we see FTM Friday on Saturday  morning, we won’t be surprised, and we’ll just roll with it rather than think to ourselves “Janelle really should change the title of this gig.”

Or we can say to ourselves “There’s Janelle, refusing to obey the man! Defying all rules! Raging against the machine!”

Or, we’ll realize she was studying all day yesterday and lost track of time while simultaneously forgetting it was Friday and couldn’t bring herself to do it at 11pm, when the opportunity finally presented itself.

You choose.

Anyway, this week we’re making peppermint lip balm. If the body scrubs didn’t make you feel like a badass, making this WILL.

It is exactly, and I MEAN EXACTLY, like Burt’s Bees (only without the damn honey (more on that later)) or whatever the hell other $5.00 lip balm you’ve been purchasing at your local granola shop. It’s so easy. You’re gonna trip.

But you are going to need beeswax, which I doubt you’ll have lying around, so you may have to do a little work. You can buy beeswax in two forms: chunks or “pastilles” (little pieces). If you choose the chunks of beeswax, you’ll have to grate them. So duh. We’re going with pastilles.

This brings me to the topic of where to buy ingredients and lip balm containers. I offer you this list, with brief pros and cons.

Mountain Rose Herbs

• Pros: has everything you need to make anything (carrier oils, waxes, butters, containers, oils); gorgeous, natural/organic selections (If you buy something from Mountain Rose, you KNOW you’re getting quality)

• Cons: a little more expensive than other places; high shipping costs; kind of a long shipment times

Bulk Apothecary

• Pros: rapid shipping; HANDS DOWN the cheapest coconut oil, shea butter, carrier oils I’ve found anywhere (and they sell containers), even when you factor in the ridiculous shipping costs (for example: with shipping, 8 POUNDS of coconut oil was around $30.00). That’s a shitload of coconut oil. That will last me months (cooking with it and making body products with it).

• Cons: Must order a lot (which takes organization) to justify the high shipping costs.

Amazon

• Pros: free shipping (if you have Prime); super fast
• Cons: It’s Amazon. You could get crap. However, I’ve tried to beeswax linked above (on the word Amazon) and it’s great, and I’ve bought essential oils there too, as you know.

Or, look for a local place.

I found Sunburst bottle, a wholesale container place in Sacramento with no minimum orders, and they let me pick up my orders. So I get low prices and no shipping cost (other than gas). In other words, SCORE. So get on Google and find your special place.

Okay, here we go.

The first time I made lip balm I tried this recipe from Soulemama and it was amazing. For like 2 weeks.

AND THEN IT WAS NOT AMAZING. A couple weeks after Christmas, after I had given everybody I know a tin of this, I discovered the one I kept for myself was suddenly sticky and disgusting. Turns out the honey separated from the rest and started squeezing out the sides of the tins, causing a honey-covered tin of joy in my purse.

Yeah, sorry about that.

So I’ll never use honey again. I tried to remedy it for like five minutes (people say you have to make sure the honey “dissolves,” but I waited like an hour and my shit never “dissolved,” so I moved on to balms without honey), which brings me to this: basically to make lip balm you need 1 part beeswax to 3 parts carrier oil (coconut, almond, olive, etc.). Then you can add pretty much whatever you want to that (cocoa butter, shea butter, mango butter, Vitamin E, lanolin, whatever!). If you make it and it’s too soft, add some beeswax. If it’s too hard, add more oil.

A recipe that works FOR SURE (I adapted this from Soulemama (linked above) and Mountain Rose Herbs:

Peppermint Lip Balm

1 Tablespoon (or so) beeswax pastilles

3 Tablespoons coconut oil or almond oil or some combination of both (I like 2T coconut and 1T almond)

5-10 drops peppermint essential oil (more or less)

Optional: 1 Tablespoon shea or cocoa butter

3 capsules Vitamin E oil (cut open capsules & squeeze into mixture)

Melt all these things together and pour them into your containers. Then you let them harden. Then you use them.

THEN YOU BLOW MINDS.

Some people will tell you to use a double-boiler to melt them, others tell you to use a Pyrex measuring cup, or rest a metal bowl over a pan boiling water (what I like to call “ghetto double-boiler”) and these methods work, but the best method I’ve found is an old jar in a pan of water over medium – because it works beautifully and you don’t have to clean it. I just reuse the same jar every time I make a salve or balm or whatever, and I use a funnel to get it into the small containers. It really is difficult to clean beeswax out of anything (a pan, measuring cup, etc.).

BEHOLD:

You could also just put all the ingredients in a glass container and microwave them til they’re melted, but I feel way cooler when I’m using the stove and stuff. Whatever. Don’t hate. I get it where I can.

SO YOU POUR:

AND YOU SPILL:

YOU WILL SPILL

You’ll see some big white containers as well as small lip balm ones, that’s because I like to keep a big one in my purse for lotion as well as balm. They’re used quickly.

Try it. Tell me what’s up.

I will get my act together, I promise. And by “promise,” I mean “vaguely hoping,” of course.

Welcome to FTM Friday, and it’s actually posted ON FRIDAY. Somebody stop me. I’m obviously on fire.

Okay, body scrubs. The gateway drug. Let’s do this. (this is a very long post, because I’m talking about many things, so sorry.)

First I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I may have to turn in my DIY-wannabe-blogger card, but it’s worth it, for you guys.

You know why there are SO MANY RECIPES on the interweb for body products? And these brilliant bloggers seem to create recipes out of nowhere and they’re wonderful and gorgeous and you’re like “oh my god how do they come up with this shit and I’ll never be there and WHY EVEN TRY?”

Yeah. Lemmetellya something. The reason everybody is able to come up with recipes is because it doesn’t really matter what you put into these recipes, they pretty much always turn out.

With the exception of a fatal lip balm experiment, which we’ll discuss next Friday, and a few subpar (from an olfactory perspective) essential oil blends, I pretty much just throw shit together at random and somehow end up with something that impresses people. Too bad life isn’t more like that.

For example, body scrubs. Here’s the deal. You base them in sugar or salt. And you can use any freaking kind of sugar or salt. You’ll see recipes call for “raw organic turbinado sugar” or “pink Himalayan salts” or “coarse kosher salt,” but I’ve used all of the above and more and found that all of them work. The only difference between turbinado sugar and plain old white sugar is that the turbinado is coarse, and consequently a little rougher on the skin. Also you may need to add more or less oil depending on the type of sugar or salt you use. But mostly it’s all a matter of preference, not success.

Ya feel me?

And so you take your sugar or salt (and some have said they find salt drying, so again, it’s just preference) and you add what they call a “carrier oil” (look, I told you I was going to start from the beginning). Again, recipes will say “grapeseed” or “almond” or “olive” or “sunflower,” but the fact is you can use one of these or all of these (blend!) and the results are lovely. As you use the oils you find you like some more than others. For example, I made a scrub with sunflower oil and really didn’t like it. I found it too oily and filmy for me, but since I have a bottle I dilute it with grapeseed or olive. Also, olive oil has more odor than other oils, plus a color, which I don’t love in every scrub I make, so if I had to choose one oil as my favorite (in color, scent, price, and feel on my skin), I’d have to go with grapeseed. They sell it at Walmart for cheap. Horrors! Did she say “Walmart?” I know, I know. But sometimes, one must serve the devil.

You add enough oil to the sugar or salt that the mixture sticks together but isn’t dripping oil. Or maybe you like more oil; that’s cool too. Your call. But you don’t want the mixture not sticking together at all, because, well, it might be a little annoying to have to reach in the container 179 times to gather enough scrub to wash your body.

Then you add essential oil(s), in whatever blends you like. If you’re starting out, just buy peppermint and lavender. Then if you want to branch out, maybe buy rosemary and bergamot. If you want a little “starter kit” type thing, I can suggest this on Amazon. It’s $20.00 for 6 oils, and I’ve been happy with the quality. But I’m not a professional, so you’ve got to take everything I say with a grain of salt. Basically, if it smells good, I’m happy with it. Not very deep.

If you’re interested in essential oil blends and uses, I’ve found this website to be pretty useful, not to buy oils (they’re really expensive on that site), but rather to read about them. At the bottom of the page for each oil, there’s a list of complementary oils.

And so you’ll notice these recipes are vague. That’s because you can’t mess them up and I mean it. Well, if you dump 3 cups of oil into a cup of salt, you aren’t going to have a scrub, so…short of the cap falling off while you’re pouring, I promise you’re going to like what you get. So here are three of my favorites. After the recipes, we’ll talk for a minute about containers and “presentation.” Try not to get too excited.

The bottom two scrubs have been adapted from the following blogs: Local Kitchen and Coordinately Yours. I have no idea where the first one came from. Probably a fusion of fifty recipes. But it’s nice.

Peppermint Sugar Scrub

1 cup turbinado sugar

1 cup white sugar

(or 2 cups turbinado or white sugar)

3/4 – 1 cup carrier oil

5 – 10 drops peppermint essential oil

Optional: spoonful or 2 of honey (nice on the skin, holds scrub together nicely)

 Put all this stuff in a bowl, stir it up. Boom. Body scrub.

**********

Lavender Mint Scrub

1 cup sugar or salt

½ – ¾ cup oil

10-15 drops lavender

3-5 drops peppermint

½ teaspoon or so of lavender flowers

 Put in bowl, stir, the end. You can also just make a wonderful lavender scrub by leaving the mint out. Plain lavender is one of my favorites.

*************

Rosemary Mint Body Scrub

1 cup sugar or salt

½ – ¾ cup oil

10-15 drops rosemary

3-5 drops peppermint

½ teaspoon (or so) of dried rosemary

You know the rest.

**********

Here are a couple Instagrammed photos of these scrubs. I like to use Instagram to mask the fact that I have no photography-related talent.

lavender mint body scrub

peppermint scrub, trying to show consistency

the lavender and rosemary scrubs together make an amazing gift

And now, containers. The easiest and cutest and cheapest ones I’ve found are jars. Mason jars, jam jars, whatever. I just save all the jars we use that seem like the right size. Now, some of you safety minded people are going to say um, glass in the SHOWER? To which I answer: “Yes.”

We will just hope the recipients of these gifts put them on the floor of the shower as opposed to up high (as I did in my shower, until one of them fell off its perch, nailed me in the shin and somehow didn’t break, but gave me the epiphany that perhaps GLASS was a BAD thing to set high in the shower).

You think I make this shit up, but I don’t. I’m really that sad.

But check it out: here’s how you’re going to get containers to accommodate your new body product obsession. You are going to drag your screaming offspring into every thrift and second hand store you know, and you’re going to waltz over to the glass section like you own the place, and you’re going to find craploads of containers that will work beautifully: swing-top jars that sell for $6.00 a piece at World Market (for .50), Mason jars, jam jars, hexagon jars, square jars. For cheap, baby. Cheap.

But what about the lids, you say? Ah, yeah. We’ll get to that in a moment.

After you’ve cleaned the place out of the jar collection, you’re going to walk over to the weird ass housewares section (where they chuck all the things) and you’re going to look for small, gift-sized baskets. And you’re going to buy those too. And after that, even though your children are even WORSE than before, and you’re 90% sure you’d rather die than remain the store, you’re going to walk over to the textiles section, and you’re going to buy cloth napkins that aren’t super stained. And then you can leave.

But you have to go to Target or Walmart or some local hardware store (if it has a baking section) and you will buy Mason jars “lids and bands” (here they are on Amazon), and you’re going to flip out cause check this out: pretty much all jars use the same damn lid. Boom. FTM. They are either “regular” or “wide mouth,” and that’s pretty much it. (For obvious reasons, I prefer “wide mouth.”) If you’re a lazy ass like me, and it irritates you that there are two pieces to the jar, you can super glue them together before using them. So much for chemical-free. Ha.

While buying those lids, you will also buy baker’s twine (sold in the same section as lids usually) or raffia. Also, you might want to buy this large funnel thing (in the jar section). It’s ridiculously helpful. Getting these scrubs into the jars is more annoying than you might think.

Please note the laundry pile in the background. That’s what I should be doing, but I’m NOT, because I’m making body scrubs.

Now you’re ready to make this:

The tag is a paper bag (I got that idea from somewhere but for the life of me I can’t remember where). I’m serious. NONE of this is my own idea. I have no ideas when it comes to this stuff.

And if it’s a gift for somebody you can make this, which I stole from A Sonoma Garden (along with the thrift-store-ransacking for napkins and containers and baskets).

So you make these scrubs and you wrap twine or raffia and add a tag and stick ‘em in a basket with a napkin and you give them to your friend, for her birthday or new baby or get well or whatevs.

And you feel like a badass crafty crunchy goddess, which is, of course, everybody’s goal, right?

NOW GO. DO IT.

(And tell me how it goes.)

Welcome to the first installment of Fuck the Man Friday! Henceforth, we shall refer to it as “FTM Friday,” because it’s more open and inviting and proper.

I just wet my pants laughing.

And yes, I realize it’s Saturday.

WHAT? I’m not a miracle worker here.

Anyway, for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with FTM Friday, here’s a rundown: In the last couple months, I’ve become obsessed with making my own body care products, and I’d like to tell you all about it, share what has worked, what hasn’t, link to recipes I’ve used, adapted, etc.

It all started with some damn body scrubs. Body scrubs are the new gateway drug. One day you’re making body scrubs; two weeks later you’re washing your hair with fucking baking soda.

But I digress.

I’ve managed to replace shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, shaving cream, face wash, face lotion, facial toners, body washes, hair/dandruff tonic, baby shampoo, baby massage oil and deodorant with relatively inexpensive, chemical-free homemade versions. To illustrate, I give you this:

Did you notice how I put the “before” stuff in a cute little basket? Yeah, I know. IMPRESSIVE. We won’t talk about how it’s sitting on the toilet seat.

But check it out, considering I once referred to Soulemama as “Soule-Crushing Mama,” it may seem rather hypocritical, out-of-character, or JUST PLAIN WRONG that I would one day, when nobody’s looking, turn into some over-zealous eco-friendly body-product-making SouleMama wannabe, like it’s nothing.

And I agree. There are multiple possible interpretations of this. One is that I’ve been lying to you this whole time and I’m actually a super-organized power woman who just pretended to suck at homemaking and life. I, for one, wish that were true.

But alas, the truth is this: We got poor. And disillusioned.

[And this crap is so easy even I can do it. It requires no precision, creativity, or talent.]

So yeah, we got so poor I started feeling every penny I spent, and I started thinking about how much money was going out and out and OUT, for everything, and I started wondering if I really needed to be doing this. It all just started feeling wrong and excessive and ridiculous. $9.00 for deodorant (or $5 for the kind with aluminum)? SERIOUSLY?

I was getting more and more bitter every time I went to the store – 10 bucks for this or that or $20 or $30 – it was no longer fun; I was just “over it.”

So when I started making body scrubs for Christmas presents (in response to the poor thing), and I found out how easy (and absolutely freaking lovely they are), I started feeling a little more confident in my ability to make shit that smells nice. (And may even be, ahem, enters into the realm of cute.)

Oh God help me.

And the truth is that over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with American materialism in general, beyond body products. The whole uncritical consumer thing. Not in a holier-than-thou sense, like I’m above it or something, but rather because my house was full at one point of stuff STUFF STUFF I didn’t need and plastic and crap, and my husband and I were working, day in and day out, for WHAT?

To have a bigger house? To have more stuff we don’t need? To have a better car?

Ah, screw that. As Tyler Durden says: “You are not your fucking khakis.”

And I believe that. And yet, it was hard for me to take the TV off the wall and donate the excess toy collection to the Goodwill. Well it was hard at first. It’s not as hard now. I guess I’m becoming a little more detached.

So yeah, like many other people, I’ve become disillusioned with it all: the food we’re provided, the idea that success is money and power, the idea that I need to pay a bunch of big ass corporations a bunch of money to take care of my body and hair. And unless I want to expose myself and my family to a bunch of chemicals with unknown consequences, I had to pay ridiculous amounts of money. Seriously, the hippie brands are OUT OF THEIR MINDS. There’s a hand salve that sells at our local co-op for $15.00. NO JOKE. I make literally the same one (same ingredients, friends) for $2 or $3, and half that is the cost of the container. Trip out.

See what I mean? FTM.

So there was a little fire was lit under me and fueled by the gateway drug, I found myself searching for body scrub recipes and I found TONS AND TONS of recipes for everything. Lip balm! Shampoo! Lotion! Hair tonic! Shaving cream!

Turns out you can make it all, folks, easily and cheaply.

After body scrub, I made lip balm.

It was a disaster (sorry to those of you who got that first batch as a Christmas gift).

I made hand salve.

It was perfect.

And then I was “on.”

Also, the reason I was able to devote the initial time & energy to this is because I was off work and school for SEVEN WHOLE WEEKS. That’s the literal reason it happened. Frankly, I’m so used to running around like a maniac all the time, when I found myself with no school and no work for weeks on end, I got a little bored. Cleaning the house lost its appeal after like 10 minutes.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m like a border collie. I NEED A JOB.

And so this isn’t just about being eco-friendly or getting chemicals out or saving money (although it’s about those things, too). It’s about being independent. It’s about the satisfaction of using a face wash I made for a dollar (and have better results), knowing I never need to spend $10.00 on it again. It’s about making laundry detergent that costs $5.00 for 100 loads, and not worrying if my baby eats the counter spray (NOT THAT THAT HAPPENED).

Also, people, it’s so fun you’re gonna trip. I mean it. Get ready to turn to the dark side. And seriously, if I can do it, you can do it.

Your house may look worse than it ever has in its existence, but you’ll have amazing healing salve to fix your kids’ wounds, and you’ll feel like a damn renegade anarchist badass.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Whatever, we have a mascot (see below), so obviously we’re the real deal. Thank you, Lisa, for that little fella, we love him.

See you next FRIDAY (I promise) for our first recipe. We’re going to start with Super Fucking Easy (body scrub), because that’s where I started. Each week after that I’ll give you a new recipe, and we can FTM together.

But if you want to be ready for next week, you can prepare by making sure you have white sugar or kosher salt, grapeseed or almond oil (can buy at any grocery store), and some essential oils (lavender and peppermint are the ones I probably use the most). Optional items are raw, organic honey and baking soda.

Here’s to critical consumerism, and body scrubs.

And Tyler.

AND THIS GUY, who understands: