by Sydney J. Baily

Created on: May 01, 2008

A few years ago, I learned a secret: It is as easy to make your own quality, all-natural face and body moisturizer as it is to whip up a batch of brownies. Once you are led down the path toward making your own moisturizing cream, you will never turn back. At least, you will never blindly buy a bottle or jar of skin moisturizer without scrutinizing the label. Just as with the food you put in your body, if there are too many ingredients whose names you can't pronounce or don't know what they are, then you probably shouldn't be putting the cream on your skin. And remember, nearly all of what we apply to our skin ends up in our bloodstream fairly quickly.

So what will you find in most moisturizers, from the economically priced to the most expensive? To start with, there is always alcohol in some form, such as benzyl alcohol and cetyl alcohol. What's it doing in there? Benzyl alcohol can be used as a solvent and a preservative, but it is also considered a toxic substance and has caused respiratory failure and other significant health problems. Cetyl alcohol is at least a lubricant, which used to be derived from whale oil, but it is now an end product of the petroleum industry. Speaking of which, you'll often find petrolatum in there, too, a jelly-like substance discovered not by some brilliant cosmetologist but by workers on oil rigs.

Some other common ingredients are methylparaben, which is an anti-microbial (read anti-fungal), diazolidinyl urea, which is a preservative created by a chemical reaction of allantoin and formaldehyde (yes, formaldehyde), sodium hydroxide, which you may know more commonly as lye and can be used as drain cleaner or paint stripper (ooh, love your clean pores!), and of course you'll find fragrance, usually something synthetic, a lab technician's idea of what you should smell like. Have you tossed away your moisturizers yet?

If the ingredients in most premium brands of cream are more suited to household chores than moisturizing your skin, then what's a body to do? Simple really. It all starts with the base, which is easy to make: In a double boiler, or in a regular saucepan sitting in a larger pot filled with gently boiling water, melt and blend together 3/4 cup almond oil (which has almost no scent, won't clog your pores, and is easily available in health food stores, upscale markets, or on the Internet), ounce of beeswax (easily available on the Internet or ask your local farmer), and 1/3 cup of coconut oil (also available in health food

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