Customer Reviews

Homemade: How-to Make Hundreds of Everyday Products Fast, Fresh, and More Naturally

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought my book from a book fair at work, and I am quite pleased with it. My book is hardcover. It gives me recipes for tons of products that I use everyday, from facial moisturizer to ketchup to lip balm. It also shows you how to make cleaning products, pet treats, and tons of other things. I recommend this book to anyone looking to save money on everyday items. Or you can use it to make products for yourself and your family that are more natural that contain less chemicals and additives. I've decided to stop buying things like commercial bath & body products. This book has shown me how easy it is to just make my own. And I know *exactly* what I put in everything!

Over 1/2 of the book are food recipes. Wow, did *you* know you could make *muffins* at **home** and *save money*? Wow. I know *I* sure didn't. (sarcasm_mode:off)

Seriously, this book would have been better (and cheaper), if they focused more on the last parts of the book, making homemade remedies, cleaners, pet food, etc.

I agree with the one reviewer who was talking about the beer shampoo. It was, well, kind of lame. Some of the other recipes for cleaners and such are really good ideas. I would have given it a higher rating if they did more homemade remedies/etc.

While some of the products are questionably cheaper than commercial products, most of the recipes I have tried are solid, reliable, and effective. I personally like the homemade laundry soap recipe out of here; it's as effective as the premium brands, but costs about as much as the bargain brands to make.

While I doubt I buy the fresh tomatoes to make and process my own ketchup, there are still many other treats that I will continue making. A good purchase for the price.

This is a great book and I'm glad I bought it. That being said, a few points:
Just because something is homemade, that doesn't mean it is good for you or good for the environment. The book doesn't claim it's "green", but you kind of get that impression from comments on certain recipes.
Alot of the food recipes are just plain dumb. Maybe it's geared towards people who buy packaged EVERYTHING, but I'm not one who ever bought packaged muffins, so it isn't earth shattering to me that I can save money by making my own.
The cleaning recipes are awesome. I'd buy the book just for that.
The personal care ones are pretty good too.
Overall, a great book!

i just got this book in today and i was flipping through it and it has more recipes for food than anything else. there is one 'recipe' for shampoo that is called beer shampoo.
ingredients are 3/4 cup of beer and one cup of any kind of shampoo
and thats it. i kind of expected to see more. its paperback, and about 400 pages
it has other things like play clay for kids to back pain remedies also

This is a great book for natural-healthy recipes for everyday foods that we buy from the stores that have added sugar, preservatives, and junk we don't need. I am thrilled with the amount of recipes for food items as well as the around the house cleaners and body products! The recipes are easy to follow as my 11 year old has had no problem making her first cake from scratch.

Yes, this book is mostly recipes but it does have recipes for just about everything we buy ready made like BBQ sauce, ketchup, hummus, pancake mix, salad dressings and such. It also gives recipes for homemade dog and cat food which isn't cheap by any strech but if you want to make sure your pets are getting high quality ingrediants why not?
The problem is I don't know if all these "do it yourself" recipes work and frankly I really question if some of them do. For example, Baking soda+Vinegar= fabric softener??
The author also says over and over again that the ingredients cost pennies compared to buying ready made and granted most of the ingredients are pretty easy to find but they certainly all add up very quickly.
I gave this book 4 stars because I do think that making from scratch with fresh and enviornmentaly friendly ingrediants is best but not 5 because it is filled with a lot of fluff. Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing the book and I am going to keep it but like another reviwer wrote it could have been so much better.

This is a great book for anyone who wants to save money and the planet. The cleaning products work great and I ordered this book after checking it out of the library because there were so many things I wanted to try. I've probably already saved the purchase price of the book by making just 3 homemade cleaning products and there is so much more. If you are a "do-it-yourself" fan, you will like this book.

I bought this book to use a reference to simplify cleaning, cooking, etc; become more natural in doing so as well as in a cost-effective way. It has lived up to the test! To keep the book from becoming dog-eared, I have posted flags on the pages which I keep coming back to as reference. The recipes are simple & cost effective. I like the way the book is laid out with a list at the beginning of each chapter to reference what is to come in the following pages. Each chapter has 'helpful hints' & highlighted tips posted through out. All in all, this book has more helpful & useful information than not.

I read this book cover to cover and have at least 1/3 of the pages flagged for use. There are many helpful hint, tricks and ideas in this book for everything from cleaning your fridge to baking cookies. I have already used some of the cooking recipes with great results. The homemade cleaning solutions have been used as well, and they do clean better than many of the chemical ones on the market. The best part is that they don't cause my hands to break out in a rash or to dry out. This book is well worth the purchase price and would make a great gift for anyone - such as a newly married couple, or someone purchasing their first home, or someone who just wants to "green" up their routine a little. Several guests to my home have picked up this book and become engrossed in it immediately and then gone online to order it before leaving. There is just SO MUCH in this book that I may have to buy another because my copy is already getting dog-eared.