Rinsing my hair with beer?!

Oh! I almost forgot! You know what that very expensive BeneTint is made of? For like £22? [drum roll] Cochineal, glycerin, and rosewater!!!! Cochineal is, you know, like, food coloring. Glycerin and rosewater costs pennies at the drugstore. That's all it is. There is nothing else to it. Nada. Zip. Zilch. 22 bloody quid!!! I have a little bottle of Tel3Tint on my dressing table. It cost £1.97 for the ingredients, which are enough to make two dozen bottles. I liked it so much I made a pink version, too, because it's worth splurging on the good stuff.

I ran across an article from Not Martha a while back about how to make a http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2009/05/27/diy-hair-styling-spray/, and it's AWESOME. I have naturally wavy hair and this just makes it...beachier? It's also really awesome for travelling with carry-ons: epsom doesn't count as a liquid, so all you have to take is a few tablespoons of the gel, and then use water at your destination. Fun thread!

You know how people use lemon juice to lighten their hair? You can redden your hair with cranberry juice (it at least works very well on brunettes). I'd recommend to combine equal parts cranberry juice and olive oil, to avoid drying out your hair with the cranberry acidity. Mix, lather, keep on your head for maybe a half our (smells delicious!), and rinse out. It won't make you clown-red, but gives really nice reddish/auburn highlights.

Deodorant! Mix equal parts baking soda and cornstarch (or arrowroot), add just enough coconut oil (melted) that you can form a paste. Add essential oils like tea tree or lavender if you want, for scent and added antibacterial properties. Mix it all up and apply to underarms. In cooler weather the paste will harden and you'll have to let a little of it melt in your armpit before you spread it on. I don't experience any underarm odor when I use this stuff - it's better than drugstore brands. You will have more moisture than if you used a commercial antiperspirant containing aluminum, but less than you'd think. This is better than any natural deodorant I've ever used and it costs pennies. My husband uses it too and we live in a hot, humid climate.

I like to rinse my hair with vinegar but it was annoying to have to dilute it with water and then try to pour it over my head in the shower. So I bought some Xanthan Gum (a thickening powder) from http://www.essentialwholesale.com--you only need a tiny amount--to make the vinegar-water solution the consistency of creme conditioner. (If you over-thicken it, just add more water.)

Go to http://makeupalley.com/ product reviews section, click on "Best Values," and choose "Unlisted Brand." If it's in your kitchen, someone's put it on their hair or skin and written about it there. My favorite discovery is using plain cornstarch as face powder - it's the first ingredient in quite a few commercial powders. I used to snag packets of Sugar in the Raw every time I went out for coffee; you can mix a packet with a dollop of shower gel for an on-the-fly scrub. I also use a variation of the salt spray that stellaluna describes - you can also use sea salt instead of Epsom salt and add a tiny bit of conditioner if you like. And I second aspirin; it's either almost or exactly the same thing as the active ingredient in many anti-acne/clarifying products (aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid and face products contain salicylic acid and I don't have a good enough grasp of chemistry to explain the exact difference). The $1 uncoated kind dissolves into a grainy paste with just a little water, and you can use it as a scrub or a mask.

I have been experimenting with the http://crunchybetty.com/nitty-gritty-on-the-oil-cleansing-method which I learned about here. It's great for both acne AND dry skin, how amazing is that? You massage an oil mixture into your face, steam it with a hot washcloth, then wipe clean. It really is pretty amazing for cleansing and moisturizing! There are a lot of different blends and oils you can use, which you can tweak to your own specifications. I finally settled on 75% jojoba oil, 20% castor oil, and 5% tea tree oil.

The missus puts coconut oil (from the grocery store) on the ends of her hair to keep them in place. She also swears by yogurt/aspirin masks for her face. If her skin is dry, she also adds a little honey.

Aspirin applied to the skin could get burny, so it's better to use a commercial wash with 2% or more salicylic acid. In general, I find - as a person with very difficult skin and multiple scalp problems, that commercial products are superior to anything I might find in the kitchen. However, there are a few things that I do recommend. Baking soda is too harsh for the face, but would make a good body exfoliator because of the fine evenness of the grains. Once, when I was going crazy from an outbreak of acne on my scalp, I tried this http://www.pioneerthinking.com/beauty/hair/shampoo/shampoo1.html, but with green tea instead of camomile. (Also use glycerin & rosewater rather than just glycerin). Now, this is just anecdata, but I was stunned at how quickly my scalp was soothed by it. Please understand that I'd been clawing miserably at my scalp and scratching at the horrible bleeding sores that were all over it. Then I washed my hair in it last thing at night, and the itching and irritation stopped right away. In the morning, the acne was not healed, because it's impossible for acne to heal as quickly as that. But it was soothed and smoothed beyond anything I ever thought possible, and my itchy days were gone. I never again got such a dramatic effect from using the green tea shampoo, and whatever effect it had seemed best when it was very freshly made rather than a few days later. But what an answer to prayer it was, that one time. Green tea is a good source of antioxidants, and there's no proof (yet) that wiping straight-up green tea over your skin would be good for it, but it certainly won't hurt. It would be worth leaving it for 30 minutes before applying anything else. Re cornstarch: Leichner Blending Powder is the only stuff on the market that is not too yellow for me. But, it's also too dark. Since cornstarch is a major ingredient, I matched it against the much more expensive Rimmel translucent loose powder and I now mix it with 1 part powder to 4 1/2 parts cornstarch to get the closest match to my skin tone. A disadvantage of cornstarch is that, being a foodstuff, bacteria can feast on it; I haven't personally had a problem and I consider it an acceptable risk. On my very pale face, I use Sudocrem zinc oxide diaper rash cream as a physical sunscreen. Obviously this wouldn't work for darker skin tones, but it might be worth experimenting with mixing it with foundation. The advantage is a) price and b) broad-spectrum protection, and being a physical block, it doesn't need time to bind to the skin. You can put colour cosmetics on right on top of it. I moisturize, wait 10 minutes, and then blend the Sudocrem on with a sponge and follow with the blended loose powder. Last thing at night, to prevent ragged cuticles, I use almond oil. For foot spray, I have been using rosewater, but I'm told that the stink of cheap rosewater is worse than the smell of feet, so I'm going back to 4711.