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 stores and most markets as it is commonly used in cooking).
Now you have to be patient; once blended, just let those three key ingredients cool to room temperature. While they're doing that, measure out 2/3 cup distilled or floral water. You can find distilled water in any market, and floral water is all over the Internet, in specialized Indian or Armenian markets, or you can make your own. Also measure out 1/3 cup aloe vera juice (I even found organic a.v. juice at a members-only warehouse store), and approximately 1 teaspoon essential oil. That's the fun part. That's where you can really explore your individual preference for scent. Just begin by browsing in a health food store for essential oils with testers so you can give them the old sniff test, then go on-line and see what's available. Your moisturizer can smell like a blend of mandarin and rose if you want, or sandalwood, bay leaf, jasmine, or neroli. The possibilities are truly limitless.
Once all the ingredients are at the same room temperature-and this is important if you keep your aloe vera juice in the fridge, let it warm up while the other ingredients are cooling down-then you are ready to blend them all together (though you can hold off on adding the essential oil until the end; I'll explain below). For some reason, this cream blends better when you have the juice and water in the blender or bowl first and then mix in the melted beeswax and oils, rather than the other way around. You can use a standard drink blender or a handheld blender. It is important to keep blending until you have a homogeneous mixture, and if you see some liquid seeming to ooze through the now creamy (like thick yogurt) blend, just mix some more. If you think you're done, you're not; blend a few minutes longer. It will now be a lovely, luscious (even edible) naturally pure white moisturizing cream.
Pour the moisturizer (and it will be pourable at this stage) into clean glass jars, which again, you can purchase from many sources. Or, if you're not fussy about getting cool blue or green glass, you can recycle previously used jars. I use the jam jars that my son empties regularly for his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I sterilize them in a hot dishwasher and reuse them. Though, as I previously mentioned, you can blend essential oil in the blender with the rest of the ingredients, I usually hold off until I have the cream in the jars; this way I can make more than one fragrance of moisturizer at a time. Also, it keeps your blender from smelling like pungent essential oil. I just add a few drops to the cream in the jar and stir with a wooden skewer. A little e.o. goes a long way, and heed a warning from one who has screw up before: You can always add more but you can't take it out!
Now you'll want to let the cream "rest" for an hour or so before you use it; it just sets up a bit more. Or put it straight into the refrigerator. I keep my jars of moisturizer in the refrigerator because I tend to make large batches, and then I take out one jar at a time to keep in my bathroom. You can use this cream on your face and your body-all over; just slather it on. Sometimes, on a hot summer night, it is really refreshing to use the moisturizer right out of the fridge. And any evening, I may dab cool moisturizer under my eyes before retiring.
That's all there is to it. And you can easily double or triple the recipe. It is also quite forgiving if you wish to substitute another good skin oil for the almond oil, such as olive oil (I don't personally care for the aroma of this in my face cream but I have friends who do), canola oil, or apricot kernel oil.
You may never make your own moisturizer (though I hope you do), but at the least, please carefully read the ingredients in whatever you put on your skin. You'll start to wonder, as I did, What is that? Why is it in there? And do I really want to put it on my skin, the largest organ of my body? Probably not.