Aloe Vera Cream

This is the mamma that started it all. Years ago, my friend Gwen gave me a tiny Aloe Vera plant from her gigantic one. This grand lady is prolific and so are her offspring. I've sold literally hundreds of babies at the markets and this winter, as usual, I've got a farm in my window waiting for the spring markets to start.

Today, as I was tending to my little Aloe farm, I pruned several leaves. I've been wanting to make some moisturizing cream forever now, so I decided this would be the day.

I looked up several sites about how to make your own creams and lotions and set to work. I was a little skeptical about how it would turn out, but I persevered! 

The first step was to harvest the Aloe gel. To do this you first cut along the side of the leaf with a sharpe knife. 

Then open the leaf to expose the soft jelly inside.

Use the back side of the knife to scrape the jelly-like substance off the green part of the leaf.

Once I had this egg white consistancy substance gathered into a container, I tried to pick out most of the green leaf that was left. It's about as easy as getting broken egg shell out of an egg white. I gave up at one point and decided just to forge ahead. It was an experiment after all!

Then I made a double broiler of sorts with an old pan and a jar. I didn't want to use anything good because I was a little afraid of the wax I'd be adding to it, but it turned out not to be a problem.

I added an equal amount of coconut oil and a little bit of shaved beeswax and boiled it all until it was all liquid. 

Once everything was melted, I removed the jar from the boiling water and used my stick wand on it as it cooled. I was a little afraid of adding to much beeswax, so I had only added a small amount. It didn't set up very well, so I added more and returned it to the boiling water. I probably ended up using a 2 or 3 tablespoons full of shaved wax by the time I was done, but I didn't measure cause that's how I roll. 

I couldn't be more pleased with the result of this "experiment". I wound up with a beautifully creamy substance that feels just awesome! It's probably a little to greasy feeling for Grampa Tom, but I love it!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue  

Homemade Toothpaste

Over the past couple of weeks, I've seen several recipes for homemade tooth paste so I thought I'd try my hand at it.

There are several recipes out there that vary here and there, but the basic recipe seems to consist of 3 parts egg shell powder or baking soda to 4 parts coconut oil and 10-15 drops of essential oils. 

A while back, I read about making your own calcium supplement from egg shells so I had some egg shell powder around. To make it I washed several empty egg shells and then dried them in the oven on the lowest temperature for 2 hours. Then I ground them in my coffee grinder. The toothpaste I made with the egg shell seemed pretty gritty, so I tried the baking soda recipe. It's much better. 

I decided to use Thieves Oil from Young Living for my essential oil since it did such a good job on the sinus infection I had the other day. I thought if I use it on a regular basis, I might have a chance at preventing one. If you missed the post and are interested click here. 

The coconut oil you see there isn't actually the brand I use. Back when I first started using coconut oil, I bought the el cheapo brand from Wal-Mart and saved all the containers. Then I bought a 5 pound bucket from Tropical Traditions last year and filled the containers with their oil so I could store some in the freezer just in case I didn't use it fast enough. I shouldn't have worried. I love the stuff and find all kinds of uses for it :)

It's pretty easy to mix the ingredients together. I decided right away that the blender wand was pretty much over kill and switched to a fork. It's not something you need a lot of power for. 

I'm happy with the final product. It is different than commercial toothpaste, but my 3 y/o grandson used it and didn't spit it out!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue