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121 of 121 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly fascinating book, August 21, 2004
This review is from: Natural Beauty at Home: More Than 250 Easy-to-Use Recipes for Body, Bath, and Hair (Paperback)
I bought this book because of a friend who developed an allergy to the aluminum used in anti-perspirants/deodorants and wanted to know if I could come up with some hand made creation to help her out. I have my own soap and toiletries business so I am constantly playing around with recipes for soaps and beauty treatments and this book sounded very interesting.
And it is. Janice Cox is an amazingly clever and inventive person whose pleasant personality comes through in the pages of this book. I was happy to find four different recipes for deodorants, but there was SO much more.
I have stopped spending major dollars for a small tube of a certain famous brand's hair dressing creme -- I now just make my own, slathering mayonnaise and honey and mashed avocado and egg yolk on my hair, which has never looked better. The recipes for facial creams and masques and potions and powders are endlessly fascinating, if you like this sort of thing.
If you are weary of paying top dollar for boutique or spa beauty treatments that you have already halfway suspected could be made at home (better and more cheaply), then this is definitely the book for you. Have fun with it and take note of how these simple, down-home beauty recipes actually WORK.
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119 of 125 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Do your homework first..., March 2, 2007
This review is from: Natural Beauty at Home: More Than 250 Easy-to-Use Recipes for Body, Bath, and Hair (Paperback)
I was VERY disappointed in this book for several reasons:
1). The author mentions the use of mineral oil and petrolatum as a moisturizer (for those of you that don't know these are byproducts of gasoline and are AWFUL for your skin, the cosmetic/beauty industry only use it because it is dirt cheap and never goes bad).
2). It is not practical to put your time and effort into making something for one application (will we really see results after just one use?). I suppose you can multiply the recipes but most of the recipes need to be used ASAP or they spoil. Needless to say I have not found a happy medium!
3). I have coarse curly hair- I tried one of the "hair packs" and needless to say it was a MESS! It took several shampoos to get all of the stuff out of my hair.
In conclusion, I would reccommend you research what products are actually good for you and not just convienient for the makers!
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113 of 121 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Okay, but recipes need many adjustments, February 22, 2002
By A Customer
I had high expectations of this book, especially because Ms. Cox says sh e is a chemist, in the introduction. I was a bit disappointed. Although many of her ideas are good and innovative, it seems like she hasn't spent much time refining her recipes. The cold creams came out more like lumpy, bubbly goop, rather unnerving if you're expecting something like Ponds. Plus she doesn't tell you that if you opt to use the blender, you will spend an hour scrubbing and cleaning out the thing. If you want cream, the best recipe can be found in Rosemary Gladstar's Family Herbal (Rosemary's Perfect Cream). The Mermaid lotion in this book turned out like opaque white gelatin and felt like it too, although using Irish Moss as a moisturizer is a nice idea. All in all, it's an okay book for a beginner. The recipes I've tried, although disappointing in appearance and texture (and labor intensive, as far as cleaning up goes), perform reasonably well, so I guess that makes them okay. If you're going to give them as gifts, warn the recipients that they will look kinda weird, but feel okay.
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