Waste Not, Want Not

I've been on a DIY kick lately (obvs) (I find things like "obvs", "totes", and "adorbs" so totally obnoxious that I have decided I must use them); partially it's because it's kind of fun, but a lot of it is to save some money.  With my attempt at making Coconut Milk Shampoo I bought some ingredients I do not want to go to waste (there has been a Revised Coconut Milk Shampoo posted that I want to try soon since I have all the ingredients already).  One of the things I bought is Jojoba Oil, another Castile Soap.  Since I'd never even heard of Castile Soap until this past week (although once I looked for it and found it I realized that I had indeed seen it before), I decided to have a go at the Jojoba Oil first, since I'd least heard of that before.

The first thing I did was add some Jojoba to my conditioner, just a few drops into the glob of my Joico conditioner I had in my hand.  I noticed my hair was substantially softer and more, well, flowy.  I must add, however, that I also sprayed my hair with my new homemade detangler.  It most likely was the combo of the two, and I was very please with the results.  My hair tends to be dry, so I am thrilled.

My next attempt at utilizing this expensive ($12.99, and yes, I realize now I overpaid by like double) was to use it as a face wash.  I have extremely sensitive skin, especially on my face.  I decided to use some babywash and mix it with a couple drops of Jojoba right in my hand.  The results were wonderful.  I am going to mix this in a batch so I have it ready to use.  My face was well cleansed but very gently.  It felt refreshed and soft and smooth!

My last venture last night was to use it for my lips.  I'm a severe (and I mean severe) chap stick addict.  For years I used Carmex, but switched to Vaseline Lip Therepy (which is basically just Vaseline in a tube).  I decided that I would melt some petroleum jelly (which has the same ingredient: White Petrolatum) and add some Jojoba Oil to it.  I used a little container that my I.D. Bare Minerals sample size bronzer came in to put it in.  I nuked the jelly for like a minute, stirred and added a 1/4 tsp of Jojoba, then poured it into the little container (which holds about 3/4 - 1 tbsp total).  I like it, I think the Jojoba adds some suppleness to my lips and of course the jelly coats my lips and makes them all slippery (which is what I need in anything for my lips).

Overall I have to say that I LOVE Jojoba Oil, and even though the original reason I bought it was a bust, I'm glad it happened!  I'm loving trying out new things and even though I never intended this blog to be about anything like this (mostly because I never intended on doing any of these things), I actually think it's more interesting than talking about how many times I've been spit up on today (three, in case you DO find that interesting).

A DIY Success

I wanted to come back today and share real quickly a DIY success I failed to mention among all my failures.  I have been looking for a laundry bag type thing to hang on the back of my hall bathroom door for a while now.  It's not a very big bathroom and the laundry basket in there really just blocked the linen closet door and always was getting in the way.  I saw a laundry hamper on Pinterest that inspired me, but I didn't want to have to go buy anything, so I decided to use 2 hangers and an old extra large pillow case.  I used an wreath hanger I had to hang it:

I am pleased to say it is working very well.  It may not be the most attractive thing, but it is full of laundry and doing its job!  SUCCESS.  Hey, I'll take what I can get!

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DIY Fail

Pinterest has inspired me a lot to think about making more things myself, rather than buying them.  I have plans to make my own Laundry Detergent (after my current enormous bottle runs out), this is a recipe I've found everywhere and from the research I've done it seems great.  I ran across some home made shampoo recipes and in the mean time I found something called No-Poo that seemed so amazing.  I thought to myself, wow how awesome would I be if I could do this and save tons of money and also be so eco-friendly and low maintenance.  FIRST FAIL.  My hair was like, well, it was like, just awful!  Not for me at all, couldn't get a comb through it.  So I thought, ok fine, I had found another awesome sounding Coconut Shampoo recipe that sounded just lovely, tons of great reviews for it, and yes a few it didn't work for too.  I made it and used it.  SECOND FAIL!  O-M-G, my hair looked like it was in dreadlocks after it dried.  Just clumps of hair, it felt as though I had put a ton of wax in it.  Again, couldn't get a comb through it, not even my widest tooth comb.

THEN, one of my other DIY ventures, a closet ceiling wrapping paper storage (here's a pic for ya):

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I hear a CRASH, so I walk down the hall and see both cats on our bed all puffed up looking at the closet.  I look over to the closet and it looked as though the closet had thrown up Christmas.  THIRD FAIL.  Now yes, this one indeed was user error 100%, and it can be fixed, I just thought it was funny that within a 24 hour period just about everything I tried to DIY totally failed.  I am a little discouraged, but I am going to keep trying different things.  As far as the shampoo though, that I will just stick to store bought!