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Homemade aloe lotion
I made aloe hand lotion yesterday and it turned out soooo good! My skin is silky smooth, and since the lotion is completely lacking in any chemicals or fragrances or toxic ingredients, you could use it on any part of your body including your face or lips. And it was pretty easy.
I've got an incredibly fertile aloe vera plant (well, it started out as one aloe plant) that makes babies CONSTANTLY. Thus I've ended up with pots of aloe plants all over the house. So I sacrificed one of the plants and stripped the juice from its leaves by cutting them open and scraping them with a spoon and a butter knife. This was the most difficult and time-consuming part by far -- if I do this again, which I probably will because I love the results, I need to come up with a better/quicker/less PITA way to do this.
I used the juice from one plant, and melted some coconut oil (enough to mostly fill up the little half-cup jelly jar that I was using for the lotion). Then I added a splash of olive oil to give it a bit of creaminess. I've never made lotion before and have no idea what I'm doing, but coconut oil is solid at room temperature, so I thought olive oil might make a nicer end product. :D I tried stirring it by hand with a popsicle stick, but the aloe glooped together and wouldn't mix with the rest of it, so I dumped it into the blender and blended the heck out of it. Then I poured it into my jelly jar and put it in the fridge to set up.
It's great! The only problem is that the texture is a bit weird -- it's crumbly and mostly solid at room temperature, then a bit sticky/slimy when you first put it on. I don't mind, and the sliminess goes away quickly, but I'm thinking this would be less pronounced if I'd used less aloe for the amount of coconut oil; there is A LOT of aloe in this. And there are little green flecks because I accidentally got some bits of leaf into it. But I really love the results -- my hands are soooo silky smooth, even after doing dishes, and it is 100% natural with nothing toxic or chemical in it, as well as cheap and relatively quick to make. (Like I said, stripping the aloe leaves was the only hard part, and even that didn't take me more than an incredibly slimy half-hour or so.) It soaks in quickly, and my hands aren't greasy at all.
The only thing I would warn you about is that raw aloe leaves apparently contain latex, so you shouldn't do this if you have a latex allergy. Otherwise, aloe is basically non-toxic; you shouldn't eat the stuff (apparently it's a strong laxative) but a small amount of accidental ingestion isn't a problem.
You could also add fragrances if you like that sort of thing. I used deodorized coconut oil because that is what I keep on hand for cooking (I use it in lieu of lard or Crisco for making cookies and pie crusts and such), but regular coconut oil with the coconut scent would probably make a lovely, mildly coconut-scented lotion.
I've got an incredibly fertile aloe vera plant (well, it started out as one aloe plant) that makes babies CONSTANTLY. Thus I've ended up with pots of aloe plants all over the house. So I sacrificed one of the plants and stripped the juice from its leaves by cutting them open and scraping them with a spoon and a butter knife. This was the most difficult and time-consuming part by far -- if I do this again, which I probably will because I love the results, I need to come up with a better/quicker/less PITA way to do this.
I used the juice from one plant, and melted some coconut oil (enough to mostly fill up the little half-cup jelly jar that I was using for the lotion). Then I added a splash of olive oil to give it a bit of creaminess. I've never made lotion before and have no idea what I'm doing, but coconut oil is solid at room temperature, so I thought olive oil might make a nicer end product. :D I tried stirring it by hand with a popsicle stick, but the aloe glooped together and wouldn't mix with the rest of it, so I dumped it into the blender and blended the heck out of it. Then I poured it into my jelly jar and put it in the fridge to set up.
It's great! The only problem is that the texture is a bit weird -- it's crumbly and mostly solid at room temperature, then a bit sticky/slimy when you first put it on. I don't mind, and the sliminess goes away quickly, but I'm thinking this would be less pronounced if I'd used less aloe for the amount of coconut oil; there is A LOT of aloe in this. And there are little green flecks because I accidentally got some bits of leaf into it. But I really love the results -- my hands are soooo silky smooth, even after doing dishes, and it is 100% natural with nothing toxic or chemical in it, as well as cheap and relatively quick to make. (Like I said, stripping the aloe leaves was the only hard part, and even that didn't take me more than an incredibly slimy half-hour or so.) It soaks in quickly, and my hands aren't greasy at all.
The only thing I would warn you about is that raw aloe leaves apparently contain latex, so you shouldn't do this if you have a latex allergy. Otherwise, aloe is basically non-toxic; you shouldn't eat the stuff (apparently it's a strong laxative) but a small amount of accidental ingestion isn't a problem.
You could also add fragrances if you like that sort of thing. I used deodorized coconut oil because that is what I keep on hand for cooking (I use it in lieu of lard or Crisco for making cookies and pie crusts and such), but regular coconut oil with the coconut scent would probably make a lovely, mildly coconut-scented lotion.
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I think if I didn't have cats I'd stop by the home garden section at Lowe's and pick up an aloe vera plant to try this out. :) I have coconut oil already (mostly for popcorn) and I'd be curious to see if it works better than the body shop stuff I have. I think I'm a new convert to the semi-solid lotions. :)
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Apparently you can buy already-made aloe gel - just the gel part of the leaf. Or so the Internet told me when I was looking up how to extract the aloe-ness from the plant! I don't know if there would be any stores in Anchorage that sell it, though. But you might be able to order it online or something.
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Your descriptions make me wish I was a lotion person. :D
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I wasn't a lotion person even when I lived in a genuine desert and spent hours outdoors. I was genetically blessed (erm) with the kind of skin that oil companies ought to be investing in as a biofuel source. :D At their worst, when I had my hands in water scores of times a day in the dead of winter, the worst that happens is that the backs of my knuckles break; a night with a layer of Neosporin repairs them to like-new.
Posts about making things are always awesome, and this one in particular brought back fond memories of having flocks of aloe plants everywhere (see: lived in a desert) and how handy they were in the case of sunburns!
If I still had my aloe flock, I'd try this just because I love knowing how to do stuff like that. So cool! Like learning to spin yarn and make soap, I'm fascinated by how "everyday stuff" is produced.
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But yeah, I love knowing how to make these things myself. I think they're useful skills to have, even if they aren't strictly necessary in the modern world.
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think they're useful skills to have, even if they aren't strictly necessary in the modern world.
Heh. I seem to fail at modern world skills in general, as my hobbies are horseback riding, fencing, and making chainmail. :D