Hello! And welcome to my first mini-post.

Saying No to Chemicals
If you’ve been reading for awhile, you’ll know that I spent some of the summer experimenting with homemade cosmetics. A reader named Goldie wrote in and asked if I had any recipes for sunscreens, particularly ones that were baby-friendly, as the chemicals in commercial sunscreens are not necessarily what you want to be slathering all over little people. (I totally agree.)

And Here’s a Recipe
Goldie pointed me in the direction of Wellness Mama’s blog. My own resources had a recipe for sunscreen, but nothing that sounded as effective (or safe) as what Wellness Mama had whipped up, which has a natural SPF factor of about 20. Of course, I had to give it a try. The recipe had ingredients I was already familiar with, plus non-nano zinc oxide. (“Non-nano” simply means that the particles aren’t so finely ground up that they might be absorbed into your system through your skin.)

It knocked together very quickly — about 35 minutes start to finish. Using essential oils, I gave it a very light scent of lavender, reasoning that this would probably be baby-safe. Half of Wellness Mama’s recipe nicely filled three 1 oz. jars, which were out the door that same afternoon. I gave two to testers and tried one out on myself.

How Dedicated am I to Research?
Now, given that I burn easily, I have to admit that I had some concerns about experimenting on myself (or anyone else) with sunscreen. I mean, if a cake recipe doesn’t work, there’s some ingredients wasted and a few dishes to do. But if the sunscreen didn’t work, I was in for some skin damage and a few days of annoyance. I applied a healthy dose and re-applied often.

My other misgiving was that the zinc oxide would turn white on my skin. I was willing to sit in the privacy of my backyard looking like a ghost, but not in public. Happily, that was not the case. The sunscreen seems to sink in and leave only a slight sheen.

But It Works!
And … I can say with relative confidence that this sunscreen works. Several tests on late-summer hot days were positive. No sunburn and nice soft skin to boot.

There’s More
Now that summer is well past us, the sunscreen doubles as a very effective moisturizing body cream. Since this particular recipe has a shelf life of about six months, you can simply segue out of suncare and get a jump on the dry skin that happens in the fall and winter. I LOVE it when a product is this useful. No waste at all.

Dollars and Cents
As to the dollars and cents, it works out to $1.61 for a 1 oz. jar. By my reckoning, I would use up two or three jars in an active summer. Sunscreens come in a  very wide range of formulations and prices, so it’s difficult to do a comparison, but I’d say that an annual cost of $4.83 is quite a bit less than what I’ve paid for sunscreen for many years.

And that’s it! Thank you to Goldie for her question and see you again soon!