Saturday, July 12, 2008

toofpaste and itch relief

a few days ago one of my roommates decided to make toothpaste from a recipe in a zine (by kyle bravo).
then i decided to make an herbal itch lotion because the mosquito situation was getting dire. speaking of which, today i jumped up from my breakfast in pain as the literal ants in my pants bit me. (okay, i think it was just one ant, but it it bit me in the ass and it hurt a lot.)

toothpaste:
the recipe called for:
1 tbl baking soda
2 tbl calcium carbonate
1-2 tbl glycerin
1/2 tsp peppermint oil.

we bought vegetable glycerin at tony's country life ($5 for the bottle, but that bottle will make sooooo much toothpaste and other stuff). as for the calcium carbonate, i think we used one stick of chalk, which we (ok, which my roommate) ground up in a spice grinder. i'm slightly concerned that there may be glue or some weird chemicals in the chalk and that it might not be 100% calcium carbonate. but not concerned enough not to do it. anyway, after it was all mixed together, it looked really bubbly and unusable but it dried out a bit after a few hours into a paste, which we put in a little jar with a little stick to used to put it on tooth brushes. we didn't have any peppermint oil, so we put tea tree oil in, which i think is great for teeth, but kinda nasty to taste. however, now there is both peppermint and tea tree in it and that seems to work. please experiment and try other ways to make it. like, is that glycerin really necessary, is its sugar content counter productive?

itch lotion:

so, i just was thinking about things that relieve itching, and peppermint, tea tree oil, cider vinegar, and aloe came to mind. (calendula/marigold extract would be good, too.) i scraped the pulp out of one big juicy aloe leaf, mixed it with equal parts cider vinegar and glycerin (the glycerin keeps if from being too runny, i think) and then put in a few drops of peppermint oil and tea tree oil. it totally works to relieve bugbites. sadly, it went missing, and when the ant pit my ass this morning i was out of luck.

bonus recipe!!!
conditioner
ok, this is hardly a recipe, but i swear it works.
dilute about two tablespoons vinegar in a 12oz jar that used to have olives in it but now has water in it. pour it over your head after you've washed your hair.

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