LUSH FRESH FACE MASKS DIY

This is going to become a powerhouse blog post of DIY Fresh Face Masks from Lush. If you haven't tried a beauty DIY, you're missing out. So drag your inner DIY'ist out (kicking and screaming if need be) and get yourself making these masks! Not only will you be saving money, you'll be doubling the product, win-win right? Right. 

Method;
Pre-blend all the ingredients, then blend all together.
Store container in fridge, use within 2-4 weeks. 



Oatifix (dry or sensitive skin)

1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup almonds, blended (or sub raw or brown sugar, as both exfoliate)
1 banana
TBS olive oil
TBS honey 
Optional: 2-3 drops vanilla essence


Cupcake (oily skin)

4-6 sprigs of mint
TSP Fuller's Earth (subbed instead of Rhassouls Mud)
TSP cocoa powder 
TSP cocoa butter
1/2 TSP glycerin
3-4 drops sandalwood oil
1/2 TSP honey
Rose water*

* When blending all ingredients together, add a little rose water at a time until you reach a mask-like consistency.

Cosmetic Warrior ("calms and soothes" troubled skin)

TBS kaolin clay (or sub with Fuller's Earth)
1 cup of grapes
2 cloves garlic
1 egg
1 TSP glycerin
2 TSP cornflour 
1 TSP honey 
Optional: 2-3 drops of Tea Tree Oil


Enjoy!

One year later... (and no more morphinebeauty)

Almost a year since I posted my last post, I believe? I'm so happy to see that people are still reading my beauty DIY's, thank you! I hope you like them.

I don't have much to say really, just feeling guilty I haven't posted in a while.
The only thing I can update you on at the moment is I'm dropping my "Morphine Beauty" tag. It's just too childish, after all I'm 23 now ;) that and I've been accused of using drugs lol.
Instead I'm reclaiming my "Crytozoology and Vanilla Tea" blog title from my very first blog I created.

I'll try to update in due time, until then I have been forced into my second Tumblr blog, which is really just going to satisfy my fandom needs. If you're interested I'll link below, enjoy!

Mel xx

www.cryptozoologyandvanillatea.tumblr.com/

Oatmeal and Honey Foot Mask.

Source: Google Images

With the warmer weather brings bare feet and with constant bare feet, there comes dry or cracked feet. Here is a simple recipe I found online for your tootsies this summer.

Oatmeal and honey foot mask.

   - Two cups of ground oats
   - One cup of all purpose flour

   - Half cup of honey
   - Half cup of olive oil

Soak your feet in warm water with bi-carb soda, as this makes exfoliating a lot easier but you don't have to. If you don't have anything to exfoliate with, whip up a simple oatmeal scrub (tbs sugar, tbs ground oats and two tbs olive oil. Double if desired, this makes a fantastic body scrub also).

Once exfoliated, then smear the foot mask over your feet and leave for 20-30 minutes. I personally found this recipe not sticky enough and ended up putting it in a bag, then squishing my feet into it. After 30 minutes, jump into the shower and rinse off, remember to apply a foot cream afterwards.

Honestly I didn't enjoy how messy this foot mask is, so I've made up my own which I've yet to try out. I wasn't overly pleased with the results, but it did it's job. If my own footmask works out nicely, I'll post it on here at a later date!

xx



Easy Microwave Fudge Recipe

Super easy and tastes delicious!

What you'll need:

        - Microwaveable bowl

        - Baking paper

        - Cake tin (you can use anything really, it's going in

          the fridge)

        - One cup of brown sugar

        - One can of condensed milk
        - 100g butter, cubed.
        - 200g white chocolate melts

        - Sprinkles (optional)

This is super easy to make, start with emptying the can of condensed milk into the bowl and microwave on high for one minute. Add the cup of sugar in, stir and put in for another minute. Next add the butter, stir through and put back in the microwave this time for four minutes on high. When it's done it should look like it's bubbling. Add the white chocolate melts and stir through until everything has blended together. 

Lining the cake tin with baking paper, scrape the mixture into the tin. The mixture sets fairly quickly so your adding sprinkles do it now, set aside for ten / fifteen minutes to cool then put in the fridge for a couple of hours. When those hours are up simply pull out of cake tin, gently pull away the baking paper and cut with a knife. Put back in the fridge to let set a little bit more, after an hour it should be set enough.


Da-da! You've now made homemade fudge!


xx

First Batch Of CP Soap

Difficultly: Medium

As promised I'm posting up a blog on my first batch of CP (cold processed) soap. I actually made said soap about a fortnight ago, I just haven't been able to get my hands on the laptop for a while. This blog will include pictures and my reviews/thoughts on CP soap.

I decided against MP (melt and pour) soap as it is well known as "lazy man's soap" where the soap base is already made for you, you just need to melt it down, add colour and fragrance and pour it into pretty little moulds. The problem with that is that I want to learn what exactly goes into soap, So I opted for a starter kit from Aussie Soap Supplies. This is what I brought from them;

All of this plus shipping came to about $90, which is pretty pricey considering you can buy the ingredients separately for cheaper. But in saying that you don't get the 12 page info-sheet on how to make soap, which was interesting to read in itself. I brought the soap mould separately from the kit, buying a stainless steel thermometer and some silicone moulds from the soap may have been a cheaper option.  

This is everything I had to buy in order to make soap, minus olive oil and an old blanket I used to insulation. All of this most likely cost me around $60 all up, so far the grand total equaling to around $150, luckily I was going halves with mum! Now at this point, I was feeling very "is this really worth it?" but nether the less I went ahead and made it. 

Just before adding the caustic soda.

This was probably the "hardest" part.

All oils (including solid oils!) separate and ready to mix.

Heating oils.

Halfway through blending everything together.

I believe this would be called "medium trace"

In the mould, ready to set.

I enjoyed making CP soap, however it was a lot easier than I expected and a lot pricier! I've still got enough ingredients to make another batch (as you can see, one batch equals 12 large squares of soap, which I cut six in half) and have already looked into purchasing more for another batch, which is a lot cheaper than buying the kit plus all the other things.
I ended up scraping out the bowl and used the little amount of soap after letting it set for a few days, it was pretty moisturizing and smelt really nice.

If you're new to making soap or just want to dip your toes in, I would suggest purchasing an MP kit or make some fun glycerine soaps!

On average the soaps cost $2.50 to make (just ingredients), which I'm pretty happy about considering the quality of ingredients.  Considering Lush (who inspired me to making my own soaps) just use MP soap bases, add a few oils and sell their soaps for $6/$7 a bar, which melts very quickly in the shower. This is probably due to the curing period, CP soaps need to cure for six weeks before use where MP soaps can be used within 48 hours of curing. The harder the soap, the longer it takes to melt down.

In future I will be making my own soaps.

Mel x

My Parents Garden

Getting a little obsessed with taking photos.

I'm loving the quality of my new phone so much all the photos on this post are from it. Anyway, when I was over my parents the other day I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took some photos. Nothing to say, just posting photos! X

My new HTC One X

HTC One X
Rating: 9/10

Considering my last phone I signed up with was a BlackBerry Curve in late 2010, I'm more than happy with my new smartphone. To be completely honest with you my son broke my BlackBerry a year into my contract and I just never got around to getting it fixed. So I made do with a $20 Nokia with could only make calls and send texts, the screen broke early this year so my One X is pretty 'new age technology' to me ;)

I first went in wanting an iPhone 5 or a Samsung Galaxy S III, but one look at the iPhone I wasn't really impressed. The woman in store talked me into getting a One X, saying she had just come back from holidays and used this phone for EVERYTHING. She gave me a Samsung Galaxy S III and a HTC One X to play with for a bit to help make my decision, I ended up ditching the high-techy gadgets for better quality images and crystal clear music. After taking it home and spending the last twenty-four hours playing around/customizing it I can say I'm pretty impressed with my first HTC phone.

The camera quality is beautiful and when you hold down the snap button continuous shooting comes into play at one shot per second, perfect to capture a bird taking flight, a fast moving car or my little monster and his rather erratic movements. Other things I've come to like is how clear the One X plays music and the super fast internet connection! I think this will soon be replacing my iPod AND my laptop (oh yeah, I said it!). In fact I was more than willing to blog on the One X and would have if the Blogger App was better, so I stole my partners laptop instead.

The only thing I don't like about the phone is that the camera lens can get quite "murky" in the sense that the slightest smudge on the lens equals any light to blur and stretch during capture, ruining the image. I'm also not a huge fan of the white plastic backing, it feels cheap and very breakable. Not something that many would complain about, just a little quirk I found. All in all I'm very happy with my new phone, hopefully it will have a longer life than my old BlackBerry.

X