Homemade Deodorant--

Tonights activity was making deodorants. My 14 year old has been bugging me lately. His new favorite scent, is Wild Orange, so of course he needed a deodorant to go with his new found smelling adventure. He likes to bring a little bottle to school, and share with his friends during class. Crazy kid!

I've made deodorants for a few years now, as the commercial ones scare me a little. Making your own is very easy peasy. I found a really easy recipe online a while back, and that's the one I always go back to. I get containers here. I usually reuse them a few times. They're a little tricky to clean, but you can do it.

Here's a list of ingredients:

1 TBSP Cocoa Butter
1 TBSP Coconut Oil
1 TBSP Shea Butter
1 TBSP Bees wax (white)
2 1/2 TBSP Arrow root powder
1 TBSP Baking soda
1/4 tsp. Vitamin E oil
2 Capsules powdered probiotics (shelf stable)
15 - 20 drops of essential oil

Heat up the oils and bees wax in a double boiler. I usually put my oils and wax in a mason jar. From personal experience, make sure you use white bees wax. The yellow will stain your clothes, and it will not come out.... Take it off the heat and add the arrowroot powder and the baking soda. Give it a good stir, and add the vitamin E and the probiotics. I usually wait a few minutes here to let the mixture cool a little. The properties of oils gets easily damaged by heat. After adding the essential oils, pour it in a container - you're done. I usually put mine in the fridge to harden up faster. After it's hardened it will stay that way. It's a little softer than a store bought deodorant, but rivals the best in beating that nasty BO:)
I get my oils and butters at pinemeadows.net except for the doTerra oils.

And here is the finished product.

Yummy Spaghetti Sauce

One of the ways, we try to stay healthy, is by eating unprocessed foods, so I wanted to make my own spaghetti sauce. I wasn't worried about having a specific recipe, as I just wanted to freeze it, not can it.   I got a 25 lb. box of roma tomatoes from Bountiful Baskets - love their stuff!  You can check bountifulbaskets.org to see if they are in your area. I also got the fresh herbs to go with it. It turned out pretty great.

I haven't done this before, so it was a fun experiment too. I just quartered the tomatoes and cut the flower part off. I boiled them in a little bit of water. After they were soft, I gave them a whirl in my vitamix - none of my kids like too many lumps in their sauce. Next time, I think I'll put them in the vitamix first and then heat them up.

After the tomatoes had simmered 45 min. or so, I sautéed an onion with some garlic, and chopped up some fresh, basil, oregano, and rosemary. I then let it simmer for about 2 1/2 hours, to cook some of the water off.

After it was all done, and ready to be packed, I actually added a few drops of doTerra's basil, rosemary and oregano. Watch out for the oregano. While I did several drops each of the basil and rosemary, I did as small of a drop as I could of the oregano. It's very strong. Don't get it on your hands! My kids loved it and gobbled it up. We froze the rest for us to enjoy later.

Starting out!

I decided to start a blog about the ways we try to live healthy as a family, and also make it easy. I will mostly share things we do with doTERRA oils, but also a recipe here and there. I have used the oils for about 4 years. I love to use them, and find that they help me and my family stay healthier, and avoid side effects of medications.

DoTERRA oils are CPTG certified. That means they are Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade, which in turn means, they are safe to take internally. A few of them are not recommended for internal use though. Just try and smell peppermint from another provider, and then doTERRA, and you will instantly know they are pure.

Right now I'm using them for my allergies. I choose to diffuse a mixture of lavender, lemon and peppermint at night as I sleep, to help with congestion. I could also take it in a capsule several times a day - using 5 drops of each oil 2-3 times a day. My allergies aren't that bad, so the diffuser works for me.

Have you had any experiences with essential oils? DoTERRA oils?