MYO body scrub (low price, spa quality!)

I love to make my own bath and body care products for many reasons, the main reason being that I can control things like consistency or scent. It bothers me how many chemicals there are in your typical drugstore body care products. Making them myself means I can add exactly what I need without excess preservatives, colorings and such. I can also make a brand new scrub any time I want, without having to drive to the store!

All natural body scrub, homemade in jar

The first time I made a hand scrub scrub I used liquid soap. Sounds weird, I know...but it really cleans stains well. Especially the gross stains I get from cleaning chicken coops and gardening! Over the years though I have experimented with various ingredients to make my own body scrubs. Now I don't even add soap. 

Seriously! I got the idea from a lip scrub that I bought in a store. Using it I realized that it had no soap or detergent type product, just oil, sugar and color. That's honestly all that you need...though many of those types need washed off, which adds another step to your process.

I've been dabbling in homemade beauty products for probably a dozen years now. Don't get me wrong, I loves me some Lush...but I'm cheap remember? So while I love the smell of loveliness that high end natural beauty products have, I know I can make it much cheaper (and healthier) myself. 

When you make your own body scrubs, hand butter, lip balms, creams, cuticle oil etc. you can also control just how much chemical your body comes in contact with too. Did you know that your skin is your body's largest organ? It absorbs the stuff we put on it, and I'm just not comfortable putting tons of chemicals on my skin on a regular basis. Are you?

Body scrubs are one of the easiest body care products to make at home and very customizable. You can use sugar OR salt! Since there are no added preservatives I only mix up enough for a few weeks at a time, though I have stored these for a year or more and they were fine. (ok...I forgot they were there! lol)

Point is, they do keep if you make a bit too much!

Raising poultry? 5 ways to use them in your garden

Gardens and chickens just seem to go together! Many people that have one, have the other and that's a great thing because they can have a mutually beneficial relationship! The garden can provide food for the chickens and they can provide fertilizer for the garden. Actually, there are a few different ways that raising ducks or chickens can benefit your garden.

chicken helping in the garden

Raising backyard chickens and growing a garden started the homesteading craze! 

Of course we all know that chickens need kept out of the garden or they will destroy it! I mean, sometimes they can get in when the garden is well underway...but mostly they cause a mess! They like to uproot sprouts (and eat them) dust bathe in the cool dirt under busy plants and take bites out of tomatoes and pretty much anything that looks appetizing!