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Brands vs Homemade

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By Helen Lee Gray

As a marketer I like my brands, Colgate, Revlon, Lenor all work for me, I get the brand investment, the brand identity the money it takes to make and maintain a brand.   I also understand that these are multi-national companies, who don’t really care about you or me other than the £s we spend, that no-doubt the amount of washing liquid going into our rivers and seas are polluting the water, that the chemicals used to make my hair soft or the oil to come out of my trousers are probably not the best for me and the environment.

With this in mind, and the promise of a really great lunch, I went for a workshop on how to make your own soaps, lip balms, washing liquid and toothpaste at Qunita da Fonte this weekend.

Our expert, Emma, took us through the processes, with her box of essential oil goodies.



Laundry liquid – easy.   Melt natural soap with water.   Let is set until it looks like jelly. 

Soap – who knew it contained caustic soda?  I didn’t.    Mix the stuff together with water, watch it fizz, add flavours, mix until it looks like mayonnaise.  Leave for three weeks for all the awful caustic soda to be expelled.  

I find home-made soap goes very sticky very quickly, but we were told that the bought soaps are made in exactly the same way, but are salted until all the oils come out of them, this is what makes them so drying to your skin. 

Toothpaste – green clay, glycerine and salt.   It is green, it remains green, it’s green when you brush your teeth.   It tastes like green toothpaste.   Basically it’s green.  I tried it last night not sure I liked it. 

Lip-balm – get a block of what looks like parmesan, it’s not, it’s beeswax.   




Melt oil, melt wax add essential oils….




that is so easy even I will have another go at it.  I flavored mine with a little too much basil essential oil so basically I smell like a salad!  But it is very simple and I think would make a great present for people.  I think I might just try this one at home. 

 So, I am not completely sold on the idea of making it all yourself, after all I always wanted to be Margot when it came to the Good Life.   But combine all of this new knowledge with a fantastic lunch, meeting some new people and a few glasses of red wine and I think this was a great day out!

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