Make or buy: personal care products

I'm always pleased when I can figure out how to replace one of the products in my personal care routine with a homemade alternative. It's not just that these homemade products cost less than store-bought alternatives; they're also more sustainable. Since I decide what goes into them, I can make them with nontoxic, low-impact, cruelty-free ingredients, and they produce no packaging waste whatsoever. As an added perk, I know they can never be discontinued—something that invariably seems to happen to any commercial product I get really attached to.

But much as I like to make my own products, I don't do it for everything. It's possible to find recipes online for almost any kind of product (with one exception that I'll get into later), but some of them are so much hassle that I can't imagine the savings would be worth it. Others aren't that hard to make, but they just don't work very well. And a few DIY recipes call for ingredients so costly or hard to find that once you add up all the costs, including shipping, it's actually more expensive to make a product than to buy it.

I've written several blog entries over the years about my successes and failures with homemade personal care products, but I've never gathered them all together into one place. So, for this entry, I thought I'd offer a complete rundown of which products I do and don't make for myself, and why. And since Brian and I share a lot of the same products, I figured I might as well cover his choices as well.

So, starting with the basics:

Soap: Buy

For showering and washing hands, we use Trader Joe's honey-oatmeal bar soap. It costs $1.99 for two four-ounce bars, and the packaging is minimal: just a thin plastic wrapper. And while it does contain some palm oil, I've discovered that this ingredient isn't actually so harmful as it's made out to be. The reason it's used in so many products is that oil palms are a lot more productive than other oilseed crops; if we replaced all the palm oil we use with alternatives like coconut or soy, we'd need a lot more land to grow those crops, possibly resulting in even more deforestation. So making my own soap from a recipe like this one, which calls for a mixture of olive and coconut oil, wouldn't necessarily be greener. 

What it would definitely be is a lot more work. Not only would it involve working with lye, which is highly hazardous stuff, it would also require a bunch of special equipment—including molds, a soap cutter, a candy thermometer, an immersion blender, and a set of spatulas—all devoted exclusively to soap-making use and never used for foods, because lye. And how much could it possibly save me? According to this soap-making site, the ingredients alone come to roughly $1.22 per bar, which is more than we're paying now for the TJ's stuff. The only possible advantage would be to avoid a couple of grams of plastic waste, and when you weigh that against all the stuff I'd have to buy, I find it hard to believe it would be a more sustainable choice.

Face wash: Make

Unlike soap, face wash is incredibly easy to make from scratch. In fact, I just whipped up a batch and the entire process, from getting out all the ingredients to cleaning up and putting everything away, took 8 minutes—less time than it would take to go to the store and buy some. My recipe calls for only three ingredients, all of them easy to find in stores: aloe vera gel, honey, and olive oil. A half-cup batch of it costs me about $1.50 and lasts at least a month. And it leaves my skin smoother and softer than any commercial face wash I've ever tried. Making my own is an absolute no-brainer.

Moisturizer: Buy and make

During the day, I use a moisturizer that contains sunscreen. The way I see it, if I didn't do this I'd just have to buy a separate facial sunscreen anyway, and this way is less work and less irritating to my skin. I also don't consider either sunscreen or SPF moisturizer to be something I can reasonably make myself. Although there are recipes for homemade sunscreen online, experts generally say you shouldn't trust them. So I just use e.l.f. Holy Hydration SPF 30, which I can buy at the local drugstore. It costs around $13 for a little pot that lasts me a couple of months, and it works well for my often finicky skin. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that they'll never discontinue it.

At night, however, sun protection isn't a concern. I've tried various night creams containing different ingredients, including some that claimed to miraculously halt the signs of aging (spoiler alert: they don't). As far as I can tell, none of them works any better than straight aloe vera gel, which costs me around $5 for a 16-ounce bottle at Target. So that's what I use now, on top of my rosacea meds. It's not a miracle cream, but it does keep my skin moist, which is all you can really expect a moisturizer to do.

Shampoo: Buy

I don't generally use shampoo on my dry, curly hair, but Brian uses it on his long, flowing mane. He recently traded in his store-brand shampoo from Target, which cost around 4 cents per washing, for a low-waste bar shampoo from Trader Joe's that's even cheaper: about 3.5 cents per washing. There's no bottle to throw away, only a cute little cardboard box that can be reused. And it's much easier to use up every drop than it is with the liquid shampoo: he simply presses the last flimsy sliver of the old shampoo bar against the new one, the same way we do with our bar soap.

Now, it's theoretically possible that we could find a homemade shampoo that would cost even less and produce even less waste than this bar shampoo. Unlike me, Brian has never tried (and failed) to wash his hair with plain baking soda. But since he already has a shampoo that's quite cheap, produces little waste, and agrees with his hair and his scalp, I don't see replacing it as a high priority.

Conditioner: Buy

Although I don't use shampoo, I use quite a lot of conditioner. In fact, it's pretty much my only styling product. After showering, I let my hair dry until it's just damp, then comb in some conditioner with my fingers. A quick finger-fluff, and I'm good for the day. 

Since conditioner is such a major part of my beauty routine, I'd love to be able to make my own. Over the years I have attempted several different recipes, from extremely simple (apple cider vinegar, pure olive oil, canned coconut milk) to more complex concoctions (coconut oil with shea butter and honey, coconut oil with distilled water and guar gum). But sadly, none of them gave me good results for more than one day. 

So, for now, I'm sticking with Suave Almond and Shea Butter, which costs about $5.50 for a 28-ounce bottle. I've never timed how long this bottle lasts me, but it's at least a couple of months, which means it costs around 9 cents per use at most. As far as I'm concerned, it's not worth trying any more DIY recipes unless they can meet or beat that price.

Hair tonic: Make

Conditioner isn't the only product I use on my hair. As menopause descended upon me, I noticed my hair was growing decidedly thinner, and I considered shelling out for a product with Rogaine. But given that it costs around $55 for a 3-month supply and you have to keep using it forever, I wasn't sure it was worth it. Instead, I decided to try another treatment I'd read about online: rosemary essential oil. At least one study suggested it worked just as well as Rogaine and caused less scalp irritation. And at just $8 for a 10-mL bottle, it would certainly cost less to try.

Unfortunately, the articles I found online about rosemary oil were a little bit vague about how to use it. They said to dilute it with a carrier oil and rub it into the scalp a few times a week, but they didn't specify how strong to make the solution and they disagreed on how long to leave it on. (The Cleveland Clinic suggests applying it at night and washing it out in the morning, while Elle says leaving it on that long can cause irritation.) So, taking a wild guess, I mixed ten drops of rosemary oil into two tablespoons of coconut oil and started applying that every evening at bedtime.

I've been doing this for about six months, and it does appear to be working. There's less of my scalp visible and more short hairs growing in on the top and at the temples. And I still have most of that initial $8 bottle left. On the down side, it does seem to be causing a bit of scalp irritation, so I've backed off from using it every night to every two or three nights. That means my $8 investment will last me even longer, making it decidedly a better value than Rogaine.

Toothpaste: Buy

Toothpaste, even more than sunscreen, is not really possible to make at home. Sun-blocking ingredients such as zinc oxide are at least possible to buy over the counter, even if they're hard to distribute perfectly throughout a homemade mixture. But cavity-fighting ingredients such as fluoride are not. Thus, although there are recipes for homemade toothpaste online, I would never consider using one. 

We've been relying for years on Trader Joe's toothpaste, which is one of very few brands that (a) is cruelty-free, (b) contains fluoride, and (c) does not contain sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), which tends to give Brian canker sores. And, until recently, it was also available at any Trader Joe's store for a very affordable price: just $3 for a 6-ounce tube. 

But about a month ago, we went looking for a new tube of toothpaste at Trader Joe's and couldn't find any. We thought it was just temporarily out of stock, but a friend of ours who works there said that the store has actually had problems with its supplier and needs to find a new one. Unless it finds one before our current tube of toothpaste runs out, we will have to find a different brand. 

We have a couple of sample-size tubes of SLS-free Sensodyne that we got from our dentist, and we can use those as a stopgap measure, but I don't want to buy it because it's not cruelty-free. So we might end up having to switch to a pricey, hard-to-find brand that has to be specially ordered. Needless to say, I am not happy about this, but I'm not unhappy enough to risk my teeth on a homemade toothpaste.

Deodorant: Make and buy

I've always found it frustrating to buy deodorant. It's very difficult to find a brand that's cruelty-free and actually works. And even the few brands that meet these criteria come in plastic tubes that can't be recycled and that inevitably make it impossible to use up every bit of the product.

I've tried many homemade deodorants over the years, most of which either didn't work (baking soda, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide) or had unfortunate side effects (milk of magnesia). Eventually I figured that I could get pretty decent results with alcohol-based hand sanitizer. During the pandemic, when hand sanitizer became incredibly difficult to find in stores, I learned to make a homemade version from rubbing alcohol and my trusty, multipurpose aloe vera gel. But even that wasn't a truly waste-free solution. 

So, earlier this year, I switched to a simple DIY deodorant made from baking soda, cornstarch, and coconut oil. It works about as well as the hand sanitizer, costs even less, and produces no waste at all. Its only fault is a tendency to separate a bit, but I can easily remedy that by stirring it up with a toothpick before applying it.

Brian has also had problems over the years with commercial deodorant. He dislikes most of the scents that it comes in and finds them irritating to his skin. For a while he tried just going without it altogether, but that proved not to be satisfactory on days when he was riding his bike to work. So for now, he just switches off between the two brands he can find that come in a fragrance-free version (Speed Stick and Arm & Hammer), stocking up on them whenever he can find a good price. 

However, I've suggested that he should also give my new baking-soda mixture a try. If it works for him as well as it does for me, maybe he can also strike this commercial product from his shopping list. Watch this space for updates.

[UPDATE, 9/30/24: Brian has found that the new baking-soda deodorant does indeed work reasonably well for him. He has now finished up the last of his commercial deodorant, and we won't be needing to buy any more.]

Perfume: Make

For most of my life, I wasn't in the habit of wearing perfume regularly. I'd tried a few different brands over the years, but I never found one that really felt like my own signature scent. But early in the pandemic, feeling in need of a mood booster, I decided to try experimenting with creating my own. I sent away for a few bottles of essential oil and a little roller bottle and experimented until I found a ratio I liked: 20 drops of sandalwood, 10 of vanilla, and 5 of cinnamon, then fill the bottle up with carrier oil. (At first, not knowing if I would like the results, I used plain canola oil out of the pantry, but eventually I invested $4 in a little bottle of sweet almond oil from the drugstore.) 

I paid $4 each for the essential oils, and the supplier threw in an extra bottle of the sandalwood for free, so that initial supply has lasted me through the entire four years since. So, all told, I've paid $16 for four years' worth of perfume—a price I doubt any commercial fragrance could beat. And it's a signature scent that is truly my own.

Cosmetics: Buy

There are only two cosmetics I use at all regularly: concealer to hide any stray pimples and white nail pencil under my fingernails. I use the pencil not so much to whiten the space under nails as to create a barrier there so dirt doesn't accumulate. Otherwise, my fingernails always seem to get dirty by the end of the day, even if I haven't touched dirt anywhere.

I'd be happy to make either of these products from scratch—particularly the nail pencil, which is increasingly difficult to find in stores—but I've never found a good recipe for either one. Recipes for DIY concealer always call for too many hard-to-find ingredients, like "non-nano titanium dioxide" and "zeolite ultrafine clay," and I've never found any recipe at all for the nail pencil. When I search for "homemade nail pencil," I find lists of tips on ways to whiten my nails with baking soda or lemon juice, which isn't what I'm trying to do. And when I search for "how to keep dirt out from under nails," I find tips on how to clean the dirt out after it accumulates, which isn't what I want either. I've experimented with substitutes like white crayon, which isn't exactly homemade but would at least be easier to find in stores, but it doesn't seem to work. 

Fortunately, neither of these store-bought products is all that pricey. I think I paid $4 for my last tube of Wet N Wild concealer, which has lasted me quite a while, and $10 for a set of three nail pencils. So my beauty routine isn't exactly breaking the bank.

Conductive gel: Make

My one major concession to vanity over the past couple of years was shelling out $150 for a mini microcurrent device. Every evening, I spend just a couple of minutes running this little gadget over my neck and jawline in the hope that it will help me keep my over-50 skin firmer. Does it work? Hard to say for sure, but at least my skin doesn't seem to be getting any saggier since I started using it, and that's enough for me to keep at it. 

However, I would not be willing to stick with this routine if I had to shell out $59 an ounce for the fancy "conductive serum" that the manufacturer recommends. Before buying the device, I searched online to see if there were cheaper alternatives, and many people said all you really needed was plain aloe vera gel with a pinch of table salt. That's what I currently (har!) use, and I can't detect any difference between it and the (tiny) sample of pricey serum that came with the device.

And that's it for my personal care routine (and Brian's). It's not as complicated, and certainly not as expensive, as many people's, but I'm still happy to learn about ways I could make it even simpler and cheaper. So if you happen to know of any fabulous DIY recipes for the few products I'm currently buying, please share them in the comments.