Organic Body Care Recipes: 175 Homemade Herbal Formulas for Glowing Skin & a Vibrant Self [Paperback]

Stephanie Tourles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 2007

Radiantly healthy skin, hair, feet, hands, eyes, and nails. Commercial beauty products make this promise every day and live up to it with varying degrees of success. Stephanie Tourles offers a better solution to everyone frustrated with the endless cycle of expensive, synthetic, famous-name cosmetics that often fall short of expectations. Take control of beauty treatments with homemade products that use safe, nourishing ingredients to pamper the body and soothe the senses.

Tourles, a licensed esthetician, herbalist, and aromatherapist, has developed 175 recipes that are fun, simple, and immensely satisfying to make in home kitchens. Her natural beauty treatments deliver the results promised by department store brands — skin, hair, and nails that glow with vitality and inner wellness. Lotions, scrubs, toners, balms, and masks polish and balance the skin, soothe current problems, and prevent future ones. Shampoos, rinses, and conditioners tone the scalp, boost highlights, and leave hair soft and shiny. The book's whole-body coverage also includes recipes for hand and footcare, nail treatments, shaving cream, and even popular spa treatments such as microdermabrasion exfoliants, detox and cellulite soaks, ayurvedic oils, and herbal cold salves. Most important, there is never any doubt about the purity of these ingredients!

Each formula is clearly presented in recipe style, with notes on prep time, storage, and uses. Many products can be customized according to personal needs, whim, or mood, and they all use readily available, natural ingredients. Organic Body Care Recipes is a natural treasure for every body.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“…an excellent reference book for those interested in “cooking up” their own products.”

  (Hutchinson Leader )

"Stephanie Tourles makes her do-it-yourself skin-care programs a complete educational experience."
(Country Living )

From the Back Cover

Nurture Your Natural Beauty

Discover the joy and fun of crafting your own personalized body care products using herbs and other natural ingredients that nourish, pamper, cleanse, and protect the skin without using irritating or harmful chemicals.
In just minutes, you can whip up dozens of organic treatments that will make your face radiant, your skin glow, your hair shine, and your hands and nails beautiful. From head to toe, you'll find the perfect treatment for every part of your body, whether you're looking for a relaxing bath blend, a stimulating facial mask, a natural bug repellent, a refreshing mouthwash, or a sensual body cream.

Be your beautiful best, inside and out!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; 1 edition (May 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580176763
• ISBN-13: 978-1580176767
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (104 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Organic Cooking
  • #17 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Alternative Medicine > Herbal Remedies
  • #29 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Beauty, Grooming, & Style

More About the Author

Stephanie Tourles is a licensed holistic esthetician in both Massachusetts and Maine, with over 20 years experience. Trained in western-style herbalism, she specializes in the use of herbs as they pertain to skin, hair, nail, and foot care and regularly creates herbal cosmetics and treatments for her clients and friends. She is also a certified aromatherapist, with extensive training in the nutritional sciences, and is the author of several books on natural body care including The Herbal Body Book, Naturally Healthy Skin, and Natural Foot Care. Stephanie resides in Orland, Maine with her husband and pets, and spends her spare time hiking, organic gardening, and cooking.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

203 of 204 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are torn between 2 books on this subject - get this one! November 25, 2007

By T. Campbell

Format:Paperback

This book is absolutely awesome. The recipes are simple (and great at that!), she gives a lot of background info on each of the ingredients. Being a licensed cosmetologist myself, I can tell you that she really knows her stuff (she is a licensed esthetician). I have been making my own bath and body products for a few years (using pre-made bases from suppliers) but just decided to introduce a completely organic line of products and I think this is the best book that I have read so far on the subject and highly recommend it. Great for beginners or those who have been doing this a while.

180 of 184 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Awesome! August 15, 2007

By A Book Lover

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I LOVE this book!! Not only are there tons of cosmetic concoctions (ranging from creamy body butters & lotions to herbal hair conditioners & foot soaks), but there are also thorough descriptions of different hair & skin types that each recipe will benefit. It even has a section on edible body potions that you may want to try on your "honey" (think sensual love-making). The best part is that each recipe gives you just enough to yield about 1 to 2 applications. That way, you can decide which ones you like and which ones you don't before you make large batches of it. All the ingredients are easy to find (there is an appendix on where to buy / order) and the author even gives us a comprehensive list of the different properties of herbs, oils, essential oils, etc. that you can use in these recipes. I've made & tried three so far (coconut body butter, rosemary hair rinse, & orange sugar scrub) and have found each one to be great. I can't wait to experiment with the rest of them!

654 of 716 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for casual/basic recipes, but may not satisfy everyone May 3, 2009

By Hazle Weatherfield

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I purchased this book primarily because I am interested in making my own lotion, preferably with safe/natural/eco-friendly ingredients. I don't necessarily want to market it, like another reviewer, but I would like to make lotion that is somewhat professional/sophisticated. After a quick Google search, I had learned that lotions tend to include water-based ingredients, oil-based ingredients, an emulsifier (which ensures that the water and oil ingredients stay mixed together), and some kind of preservative. I bought this book thinking that it might go into a bit more detail about basic lotion formulas (ratios of ingredients to each other), or at least provide some recipes that I could learn from.

As it turns out, I had already learned more about lotion-making from my Google search than I learned from this entire book. Of the five body moisturizer recipes, four are basically oil-based, with essential oils added. There is nothing wrong with using oil to moisturize the skin -- but I find it can be inconvenient (insofar as absorption may be slower than with lighter lotions, and you're more likely to get oil on clothing or sheets). Additionally, oil-based moisturizers will probably not appeal to those with problem skin. The author's fifth body moisturizer recipe does include water in addition to oils, and uses beeswax and lanolin as emulsifiers. The recipe does not include a preservative, however, which means (as the author states): "No refrigeration is required if used within 30 days. If refrigerated, please use within 3 to 6 months. (Refrigeration may change the texture of the product, but potency will not be affected.)" Since this recipe yields 2 1/3 cups of moisturizer, and I'm not likely to use it all in 30 days -- and I don't enjoy cold lotion -- this recipe is of limited use for me.

There are also five face moisturizer recipes. One of them is basically water and glycerin, and another is oil-based. The other three recipes each call for a trio of emulsifiers: beeswax, lanolin, and borax. I'm a newbie to the world of cosmetics ingredients, but my understanding is that borax is considered by some to be an unsafe ingredient. (A good reference is cosmeticsdatabase.com.) My guess is that the author has a good reason for using borax, and the reason is probably that borax (it appears) may be safe in small amounts -- though possibly not for infants. What perplexes me, though, is that the author offers no explanation or discussion on this topic.

As mentioned by other reviewers, some of these recipes are extremely (absurdly?) simple. Examples include the Aloe Vera Toner (ingredients: "pure aloe vera juice or gel, commercially bottled or from fresh-picked leaf"), the Tangerine Toner (ingredients: 1/2 cup witch hazel and 10 drops tangerine essential oil), and the Yogurt Exfoliating and Bleaching Mask (ingredients: 1 tablespoon plain yogurt). I don't know about you, but I'm not sure those should count toward the "175 Homemade Herbal Formulas" in this book. As useful as they may be, I'm more inclined to call those "tips."

I don't mean to sound too harsh in my review of this book. I think that, depending on your needs, this book may be perfectly fine. Many of the recipes look to have interesting combinations of oils and essential oils, and I'm guessing many of the finished products smell like heaven. I'm mainly trying to present my perspective on the book, relative to my own goals -- and hopefully it will be relevant to people with similar interests. But again, if you are more looking for recipes for casual use, you might really like it.

One final note -- as I've indicated above, the author calls for animal products in some of her recipes. This is fine, but I was disappointed that she didn't offer animal-friendly alternatives. (In her entry for beeswax, she does mention vegetable emulsifying wax as an alternative, but then says, "but this wax has been refined and does not have the same alluring qualities as beeswax. Always try to find the real thing!") For dairy products, the author makes no mention of looking for organic versions -- i.e., from cows raised on healthy diets, without use of rBST or prophylactic antibiotics. She also makes no mention of the fact that cows contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect (deforestation, water use, methane emissions, etc.). I was surprised by this only because I think there is a lot of overlap between people interested in organic products, and those interested in animal-friendly and eco-friendly products.