Slip Slidin Away; DIY project Body Butter

Following my outburst of creativity, which resulted in pretty decent bath bombs (eventually, and after a lot of crying) I decided to embark upon making my own lip balms and body butters. I mean, how hard can it be?

My home made bath bombs, success at last

Body butter. The words invoke images of soft yummy spreadable goodness, smelling of something delicious (rather than actual butter)

This time, I didn’t make the mistake of thinking I could make these products without some actual instruction. Having identified a great website, with lots of recipes, I once again, I began compiling my “List of Essential Items”

I baulked slightly. Well, quite a lot actually.

Gosh really? I need all that stuff to make one pot of body butter? Well, okay then, here goes.

And so to Amazon, ahh faithful Amazon, guaranteed to deliver to me here in France with minimum fuss and bother.

Coconut Oil – which is actually a misnomer as it’s a solid

Shea Butter

Beeswax

Coco Butter

Almond Oil

Jojoba Oil

Essential Oils

Avocado Oil

Vitamin E Oil

Peach Kernel Oil – okay now you’re being silly

My A-Z of essential oils. Of course they are organised alphabetically

Right! Ingredients ordered and I am laughingly ready to “save money” by making my own body butter.

Oils, butters, beeswax and mush more! No, that's not a tub of paint, far right, it's Epsom salts!

First of all, you need a double boiler; ahh I remember it well from my domestic science days. Of course I don’t have a double boiler, no one has actually owned one of these since 1967. I used a glass bowl over a pan of hot water – same difference.

I went to my recipe and read through the ingredients.

Mango Butter? What? Mango butter? Why did no one tell me about Mango Butter? No I don’t have any flipping Mango Butter and on principal I am NOT going to order any. Surely to goodness I can still make this without Mango Butter? After all, I seem to have a LOT of other stuff with the word butter in the title.

The answer was thankfully yes.

Moving on.

First lesson I learned was that beeswax melts VERY slowly, so it needs to be grated. Otherwise, you end up with everything else melted and blobs of beeswax annoyingly floating about refusing to comply with the process. Ahh but beeswax is the very devil to get off your cheese grater, and you don’t really want your husband picking bits out of his cheese and onion pie and saying suspiciously, “What the hell is THIS?” In order to avoid this, I had to search for a “special” grater, which would only be lovingly used for beeswax, nothing else. I spotted one in the supermarket and added it to my ever growing collection of,

“Oh I didn’t know I needed one of those too” things.

These included; set of small measuring spoons (Thankyou to my friend ML for these) a small spatula, a teeny funnel and of course, there were the digital weighing scales.  The scales became “essential” after trying to make a certain blend one day. The recipe called for 8g of beeswax, 6g of coconut oil etc. 8g? Have you tried weighing 8g on a regular household scale?

It doesn’t even register. AMAZON ………………… HELP

And so the scales were added to the never ending collection of teeny utensils and accoutrements, which were so necessary to production.

I began to feel like I was a member of the Borrowers Family with all the teensy things J

The teeny tiny collection

Right, can I start making this yet?

With my new digital scales all ready to go, I carefully measured all my ingredients – how gratifying to have such pleasingly exact measures. Oh no beeswax, you don’t fool me twice, I’m ready for you. Out came my special beeswax grater, which proved to be absolutely USELESS. The wax was way too thick to grate on such a ridiculously small grater. All it did was clog up the holes rendering it impossible to use – or clean!

Back to the cheese grater and beeswax flavoured cheese and onion pie then.

Finally with all my ingredients nicely melted, including the stubborn beeswax, I add my essential oils and put it into pots. Now on the subject of pots. I had ordered some from eBay, as when it came to small pots, Amazon erred on the side of ridiculously expensive. Needless to say, my affordable eBay ones hailed from China, and so I am still waiting for them six weeks after ordering! I will no doubt get them in time for Easter.

You've heard of a man drawer? Well, this is my woman drawer

Not to be deterred, I began scouring the cupboards for likely looking glass jars, which could find a more useful life as pots for body butter.

Thanks to kind friends, I have extra pots

Eyeing the guacamole one day, I contemplated how long it had been there, decided I was unlikely to ever eat it now, but in order to appease my conscience, I emptied it into a Tupperware tub rather than the bin, stuck it in the fridge, and will no doubt throw it away in February. One more pot though J

I then discovered the delights of whipping – the body butter that is! If you allow it to almost solidify and then whip it, it becomes even dreamier and looks good enough to eat.

I have to admit to licking my fingers as I was making it, on more than one occasion – yuk! Does NOT taste good.

After the body butter was safe in its pot, it was time to wash up. Herein lies a problem. All the ingredients are oil based and boy do they take some washing up! Don’t even think about the dishwasher as the dishes come out in the same state they were in when you put them in there. I found that using a lot of boiling water and detergent is the way forwards. Apart from the special grater that is, THAT was a law unto itself to wash!

It's all very well, but you have to wash up afterwards

And so, here I was with an enviable collection of body butters, lip balms and hand creams. I have to say that they really are SO much better than anything I have ever bought in the shops. As there is no water in them, you only need a tiny tiny amount. Most were meant as gifts, but the trouble was, they were all so nice, I became quite possessive about them, and selfishly began hoarding them to myself.

My dressing table is groaning under the weight of body products!

I can’t go into production in any serious way as the guidelines and legalities of doing so are utterly prohibitive. I imagine hacking into the NASA database would be a more attainable goal.

I know it’s time to start sharing though, as Steve commented the other day that if my skin got any softer I’d slip right out of his hands J

It works then

Oh okay then, I’ll share.

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Freya Barrington is an author living in Brittany, France, where she and her husband Steve are renovating a 100 year old property (renovations are of course 99% Steve) 

For more information on Freya's work, please visit

www.freyabarrington.com  

Freya xx

Bath Bomb Blues; or how I almost lost my mind while trying a simple craft project!

With Steve busy working on our ongoing renovations, I found myself at an unusual loose end. Given than the main work on the gite now entailed plumbing in a bathroom, it was not something I could help with. Well not if we actually wanted it to work!

Hard at work in the gite bathroom

However, I like to be busy. I think that’s fair to say. I also like to try new things. Someone once laughed at me and said they had never known anyone who had had so many different jobs in their life. To date;

Exercise jockey in a national hunt racing yard

Riding instructress

Aldi checkout gal (when you had to memorise ALL the prices)

Cleaner

Bar work

Classroom assistant

Residential social worker

Foster carer

Qualified social worker

Singer

Author

I've always loved horses

What can I say? I have a low boredom threshold and like new challenges and adventures.

My most recent project! My latest novel

How, in my wildest dreams I thought that making bath bombs might be a good idea, I do not know. For a start, I have no, and I mean NO artistic talent for this kind of thing, whatsoever.

None.

Seriously.

None.

When my poor children had to produce a homemade craft project for school, my stomach would cramp into a knot and I would break out into a sweat and hide in the corner sobbing and clutching a bottle of Chardonnay, but they always found me.  

Reluctantly, I would gather the requisite materials; paper, cardboard, glue, glitter, paint, fairy liquid bottle, nitro glycerine etc. I would then have sleepless nights as I worried about how utterly pathetic my little moppets’ creations would be in comparison with the other children’s ringingly successful and startlingly professional looking pieces, which quite frankly looked as if they had been assembled by Leonardo Da Vinci himself. I would slink shame faced into the classroom with my feeble, lop sided effort, which was more sellotape than anything else, while the teachers hid behind their hands and tried not to point and laugh.

I’m still having therapy.

Anyway, back to the bath bombs. I think it began when I developed an interest in aromatherapy and the use of essential oils. For those of you that know me, I am an all or nothing sort of person and once my interest in something is piqued, I have to go all out to embrace it (The words “all or nothing” in this case can be replaced by the words “particularly stupid”).

There are no half measures for people born under the sign of Capricorn!

In the case of the aromatherapy, it entailed buying a ridiculously large collection of oils; not just any oils you understand, but “essential” oils. I think they call them essential to make sure that people like me buy them; I mean, they’re essential right?

A few of my oh so essential oils; how do you like my egg box ha ha

Many of these oils are impossibly expensive. I appreciate that the amount of jasmine it takes to make one drop of oil equates to the size of a small country, but really, £8.99 for a 2ml bottle – pu-lease. That was one even I didn’t buy! Once you have the oil of course, you have to have the carrier oil. I discovered that the carrier oils are almost as varied as the essential oils themselves and have wonderful tempting names such as peach kernel, and essence of avocado. So, having added a good half dozen carrier oils to the ever growing list of essential oils, to my basket at Amazon, I hit the “checkout” button and almost passed out. What? What do you mean £156.98? For a few miniscule bottles of oil. Clearly, this would not do, and so I set about pruning my basket until I felt confident that I had avoided bankruptcy (for now).

The equally essential carrier oils

Said oils then arrived, and I spent a delightful hour oohing and aahing and the truly marvellous scents and almost magical properties of these unassuming little bottles.

Next of course, I had to have a diffuser. Well naturally I did! Did you expect anything less? In fact, I have to admit, I bought two J. These tiny wonders of beautifulness, which change colour every few seconds, and quietly emit a polite atomised mist of scented loveliness were quite frankly, irresistible.  Really I should be on commission as, such was my enthusiasm, I talked more than one of my friends into buying them too!

My precious light up diffuser

Then there were the books; I needed books, and not Kindle books as you can’t flick back and forth easily with the Kindle. Thankfully Amazon have 2^nd hand books, and so for a change, I managed to get an utter bargain in bagging 2 books for 0.01p each J Postage however, was another matter but I managed to convince myself that the books only cost 0.01p, as long as I ignored the postage costs. 

I think it’s called ostrich syndrome.

The more I read about the wonders of essential oils, the more interested I became, so much so that I looked into becoming an aromatherapist. Of course I did - remember, no half measures! Realising however, that renovating a house, caring for a high maintenance husband and an even higher maintenance dog, whilst at the same time trying to write another book was possibly enough for the moment, this bright idea had to be shelved (for now). 

Instead I continued to read about all the endless things you could do with essential oils, and one of them was to make bath bombs.

With unfettered excitement, I imagined the satisfaction of making my own bath bomb Christmas gifts for friends and family. I allowed myself a moment to smile inwardly as I pictured the amazed looks on their faces as they marvelled at my handiwork and exclaimed at how very clever I was. I tried to push aside the more realistic conclusion, which took me back to the pitying glances and whispered comments of the teachers at my daughters’ school when they saw the latest offering for the craft project.

Not one to be deterred, and uttering the (later to be regretted) words of “How hard can it be”? I set about Googling “How to make your own bath bombs”. Thankfully I remembered to put the word “bath” in there, thus avoiding a raid by the French police.

“Aha” I said, grimacing, as I read the alarmingly long list of necessary ingredients and duly logged back into Amazon for another round of totally unnecessary shopping. I had not appreciated the seemingly endless components of a simple fizzy bath bomb.  “WHAT? “Why do I need citric acid? Surely anything with the word acid in it can’t be good for adding to a bath”? I said, thinking immediately of John Haigh, the acid bath murderer. However, it appeared, after a LOT more Googling, that citric acid was indeed a “must have” ingredient, and so into the Amazon basket it went.

Sigh.

As well as the citric acid, you need Epsom salt, bicarbonate of soda, cornflour, food colouring, oil (ha, got that) and essential oils (yep) and you have the basics of a bath bomb.

Oh but wait; how do I mould them?

More Googling.

Aha, clearly I need to order some bath bomb moulds as fashioning one with my bare hands wasn’t really an option.

Finally, all my ingredients were assembled in one place; and so to work.

To say that my first effort was a total disaster is an understatement. I followed a recipe from one of the many Internet sites, which had obviously been put there to drive people like me over the edge. The amount of water was clearly excessive, though in my inexperienced naivety I had no idea how little liquid was actually required.

I added the water with a kind of gung ho abandon, but before I could begin to “Whisk until the mixture forms clumps”, it took on a life force of its own and within seconds resembled a dangerous alien life form. It foamed and fizzed and expanded at an alarming rate.

“This can’t be right” I said with amazing intelligence and insight.

I tried to ignore the extreme chemical reaction, which was taking place in front of my eyes, along with the choking cough I had developed due to the large amount of (undoubtedly dangerous) powered elements floating about in the air. Instead I focused on the next instruction, which was, “Pick up a small amount of the mixture and press into the mould”

I observed the “mixture” which was way beyond the stage of forming clumps and knew that in reality it was a lost cause. I gritted my teeth and muttered a lot, while trying to pick some of it up, but the blasted stuff was so assured of its own powers that it defied handling. It oozed from between my fingers and all but laughed out loud at me.

Never one to give up, I duly “pressed it into the mould” which had cost me a tenner plus P&P. I swiftly clapped on the other half of the mould and held tight.

The mixture emboldened by its success in failing, demonstrated a quite remarkable strength as it slowly and unbelievably pushed the sides of the mould apart.  I held on for a few more seconds before I acknowledged defeat and threw the whole lot bad temperedly into the sink accompanied by a lot of unprintable words.

I then realised that this was not as easy as I had anticipated and did what I should have done in the first place; I watched a You Tube tutorial.

Oh my life.

The first one I found was astonishing in its annoyingness. A bright breezy “mom” who not only had the perfect life in her perfect house; she also had perfect children, perfect teeth, and could also apparently make the perfect bath bomb, while looking immaculate and making no mess whatsoever. 

She brought out the worst in me and I had to switch her off, while fighting off waves of envy and muttering,"bitch" under my breath.

Eventually, I found a more acceptable, less irritating video, took notes and tried again.

The results were more pleasing, but the first try wasn’t quite a success. Too much liquid again, which meant that the bath bombs refused to leave the safety of their moulds. Undeterred, I tried yet again. This time, I had the brainwave of adding the liquid via a fine atomiser.

RESULT

I never thought I would hear the words, “Yey it’s clumping” come out of my mouth, but they did, as clump it did. I quickly stuffed it into the moulds, squished the 2 sides together and prayed it wouldn’t escape again. Nope, all seemed calm. Tentatively, I tried removing one half of the mould …….. it came away without argument and I found myself mocking the mixture in triumph. “Ha, not so fizzy now are we? That showed you” and other inane comments, bourn of the lunacy this project had evoked in me.

Project bath bomb!

My kitchen now resembled some sort of dodgy amateur cocaine factory with white powder spread across every available surface, but I had done it. I had won!

White powder all over the place!

And so there it was, my lovely round bath bomb, which of course I shall never actually use. I shall look at it, smell it and marvel at its loveliness.

Come on, admit it - it's good

I shall also try to ignore the fact that it cost me approximately £134.78 to make and I could have bought one for £2.50 in Lush!

C’est la vie

Freya xx

Ache Rattle and Roll - Renovations Interrupted

It has been some time since I wrote a blog. This is for a couple of reasons;

One; We have had visitors over the summer for several weeks. This has been wonderful of course, but has led to weight gain, lethargy and general idleness in relation to all things relating to our renovation, here in Brittany.

 Two; I hurt! No wait ............ we both hurt!

A great time with dear friends

The realisation that my body had begun to betray me in the worst possible way kind of kind of crept up on me.

I used to be a very fit person. I left school at 16 years of age and went to work in a racing stables, where their idea of keeping the gals fit for duty, included tying lead weights to your legs and making you run everywhere – I kid you not, they really did that. Never occurred to me to complain!  I used to ride 5 or 6 lots of fizzy racehorses 6 days a week, plus all the mucking out, grooming etc that accompanies caring for horses. My career continued in other yards, as did my fitness.

I had three children and boinged effortlessly back into shape once I went back to the stables and worked it off.  My weight hardly ever crept over the 8 stone 2 mark and I was always a size ten.

The rot began in my mid 30’s when I ceased my outdoor work and went to University (I was a late bloomer) and qualified as a children’s social worker.  Contrary to popular belief, children’s social workers are not out there snatching children day and night – though it WAS part of the job. No, most of the time, you will find us in an office, behind a desk, trying to get to grips with the latest version of the software they have given us. We are the ones peering at the screen, squinting and usually cursing.

As any office based worker will tell you – there is always cake and there are always biscuits in there. It’s kind of an unwritten law. Often, no one knows how they get there – they just manifest on the spare desk in the office and you scoop them deftly up as you pass, saying, “When these are gone I’m not eating any more cakes”. This statement is accompanied by hysterical laughter from your colleagues; at which, you become offended and say, “What? I mean it” knowing full well that you will fail in your resolve the moment the next chocolate brownie appears.

It doesn't help living in France where these delicacies are so yummy

Anyway, that’s when it all began. I gained weight at a horrifying rate. Can I just pause here to ask why I can gain several pounds in less than a week, and yet to lose that same amount of weight it will take me at least a month? Why is that? 

My clothes became tighter, and after making a feeble attempt to chase an errant 14 year old who had escaped from his foster placement, I also realised how unfit I had become. This particular episode ended with me trying to save face and saying, “I’m not chasing you Ryan” (Why are they always called Ryan?) and standing still trying to look professional and not gasp for air, while hoping at the same time that my pelvic floor had held.

I joined several gyms at various times; it always ended badly - with me aching more than ever and feeling an abject failure as I tried in vain to work out surrounded by younger fitter bodies. I also never got to grips with that early morning workout, followed by a shower in an overheated changing room, which left me sweaty, cross and, with all those full length mirrors, more disillusioned that ever!

I then noted a deterioration when I was getting out of bed in a morning. I’m fairly certain that this simple task never used to be accompanied by sound effects! I sounded like my grandmother – a lot of old lady type oohin and ahhing as I straightened up, along with comments as to the current state of my back. Something like this;

Oooh my back’s aching this morning I don’t know what I’ve done. I didn’t really do anything yesterday did I? Why should it ache like this? Ouch that really hurts.

The above statements are made as I make my way to the bathroom, walking in a manner resembling a slightly disabled hermit crab, while emitting more sound effects.

Sigh.

The next thing to betray me were my fingers. Once so nimble, plaiting 2 or 3 horses in less than an hour in readiness for the races, typing quickly, making pastry and much more. Suddenly, they ached. I would wake up in the night flexing both hands open and closed in the vain hope that it would effect a cure.

It didn’t.

Steve was in no better a state. He too has always been fit and well. Ex-military, karate, running, boxing, and building – the man was fit! Suddenly, that had all changed and we would have the most unromantic conversations in the middle of the night which went something like this;

Me; Do your hands ache?

Steve; Yes, they do, both of them actually. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s all that drilling I did the other day – flex flex

Me; Yes, maybe that’s it. I wonder why mine are aching so much – flex flex

Steve; My knee’s hurting too – bend bend

Me; Oh no, really? I thought that was getting a bit better – flex flex

Steve; No, if anything it’s worse – bend, bend, flex flex

You get the picture!

I recalled my mother speaking words of doom as she warned me darkly of things to come, the things I could apparently look forwards to as an “older” person. “You wait till you’ve got all these aches and pains” she would mutter as she walked in a now depressingly familiar crab like manner holding her back. “It comes to us all” she predicted gloomily. 

I refused to admit she was right, and continued in my flexing, oh and the taking of supplements.

This is a new thing, and something I thought was reserved for people who read over 50's magazines and shop at Marks and Spencer’s or Holland and Barrett (ok ok I shop at them both). I began scouring the Internet for answers to the achy finger issue. Ha! Here, this is clearly what we need – Cat’s Claw. Not literally the claw from a cat you understand, but a supplement called Cat’s Claw. I sent for some of course, along with Omega 3 oil and other marvelous little pots of promise.

Steve and I then had slightly different, but no less romantic discussions;

Me; Do your fingers feel any better since we’ve been taking those tablets? Flex flex

Steve (looking thoughtful while flexing) Hmm, not sure, maybe a little

Me; I can’t tell; my fingers still ache

Steve; Mine do too, but maybe we’ve not taken them for long enough – flex flex

Me; Yes, I’m sure you’re right, we’ll have to keep taking them and hope they work – flex flex because my fingers really ache.

And so it goes on. The treacherous aching fingers, the horribly creaky backs, Steve’s knee, which in reality needs surgery, but as our French health cards have yet to materialise, this is a vain hope. With a poignant smile, I recall the days when we could refer to our knees as the left one and the right one, instead of the good knee and the bad knee!

I have also developed problems with my shoulders and arms aching – this is not least due to the fact that our beloved rescue dog Merlin pulls like a steam train on a downhill track. I mutter at him as he propels me along, “No wonder I ache with you wrenching my arms out of their sockets five times a day”. He wags and keeps going, certain that I am enjoying the hunt as much as he is 

Our beautiful Griffon Bleu De Gascogne, Merlin

And so, we press on, Steve with his knee support, me with my huge leather gloves for extra grip on the steam train hound. We take our supplements, we flex and we hope improvement is around the corner.

Steve keeps on going

Some aspects of getting older are no fun at all, but as a dear friend of mine always reminds me, the alternative is not so attractive, so we’ll be grateful for what we do have rather than lament the failure of our once fit and well bodies.

Ah well, I’m sure it’s time I took some tablets

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My latest book Caught in Traffick is now available via Amazon. The book is the sequel to my bestselling debut book, Known to Social Services. Set in Thailand and focusing on the organised crime of child traffickers; Caught in Traffick takes a fictional, yet horrifically realistic glimpse into the dark underworld of the ruthless traffickers.

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Merlin the Hound Dog is a short story about our rescue dog, available as a download via Amazon

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www.freyabarrington.blogspot.com

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Thanks for stopping by

Freya