Fun in the Kitchen

Not cooking this time though.  Last week I took Josh for a haircut and was bemoaning my dry hair to my hairdresser.  I mentioned I'd been putting treatments from the supermarket through it to no avail and she admonished me for using the particular brand I'd been using and suggested I just put olive oil in my hair.  The thought of using more natural products was, as always, appealing to me so yesterday I mixed some olive oil with some cider vinegar (a natural hair softener believe it or not) and added some essential oils of rosemary and clary sage and massaged it into my hair and covered it with cling wrap much to the amusement of my family.  It got me thinking about other homemade bath and beauty recipes.  I have a divine sugar scrub that I bought from my favourite company, "Mor" that is quite expensive.  I decided to have a go at making one with just olive oil, raw sugar and essential oil of rose with jojoba oil.  Then I made some bath milk with milk powder, some Epsom salts, cornflour, glycerin and lemongrass essential oil.  Emily got in on the act and suggested we make some bath bombs.  I happened to have all the ingredients in the kitchen so we got to work and found a recipe which was carb soda, citric acid, sweet almond oil, essential oil and some food colouring.  We made two different types, one was peppermint, with peppermint essential oil, which we tinted green and the other was rose, with some rose geranium oil which we tinted pink.  We made them in a silicone muffin pan and weren't sure if they'd work as we didn't have quite enough citric acid but this morning they are quite hard.

That's the expensive scrub on the right.  I tried the homemade one and it was wonderful, my skin was so soft afterwards.  I think I will try it with some lighter oils, perhaps macadamia or peach kernel.  I will never buy body scrub again that's for sure, and I have plans to make a facial one with brown sugar and sweet almond oil.

I washed out the olive oil hair treatment, with baby shampoo doctored with more rosemary and clary sage and my hair was finally soft again and not greasy at all.  So no more bought hair treatments either.  And it was fun.

The date is set for the family weekend in late March and the place we're going on the south coast looks lovely, right on the water so we can tie the boat up outside our cabin hopefully and not have to keep taking it on and off the trailer.  Ali and Matt are coming which is great, Matt works so much we don't see him very often.  He will finish his uni course mid year and finally become a teacher which will be great for Ali, she can stay home with the kids and let him be the breadwinner.  We're going to get a little life jacket for Harvey so he can go in the boat with his dad.

Well I have beds to strip and sheets to wash, the world gets back to normal today.  Well as normal as it can be around here.