Make Your Own Natural Deodorant

I have stepped deeper into the rabbit hole of crunchy living.

I have been wanting for some time now to make my own, natural deodorant, free from aluminum and other toxic chemicals and substances that are common in traditional deodorants. But for one reason (lame excuse?) or another it’s taken me too long to get it done. And yet when I finally did it, it only took me, maybe 10 minutes, tops. It was probably more like 5.

The biggest challenge was getting my hands on arrowroot powder which isn’t in great supply here in Lake Charles. I had considered ordering it on Amazon but, again, for whatever reason I just didn’t. Thankfully when I made a trip to the one health foods store in town to see if I could buy essential oils locally, I was able to buy both.

It still took me another week or two to finally set myself to the task of making my deodorant. Why? I don’t know. We’ve been busy packing, then unpacking, cleaning, sorting, donating, selling, organizing…I guess I just felt too overwhelmed to try something new. Silly, silly me.

I have read numerous blogs and articles with recipes for making your own deodorant but I hadn’t bookmarked any specific one. When I finally made time to do this earlier this week, I quickly looked up this recipe and it looked like what I had seen before, so I gave it a whirl.

Ingredients: 

• ¼ cup baking soda
• ¼ cup arrowroot powder
• 8 tablespoons coconut oil
• 4 drops of tea tree oil
• an empty deodorant stick

In a mixing bowl, I combined the baking soda and arrowroot powder, then added the coconut oil gradually so I could monitor the thickness.

It’s pretty warm here which keeps our coconut oil in a fairly semi-soft state. I was able to add it right in and as I mixed, the oil softened even further making it easy to combine. (Don’t be fooled by it’s deceptive frosting-like appearance. It is not frosting.)

Once I was happy with the texture/thickness, I added about 4 drops of the tea tree oil.

A side note about tea tree oil: I was not sure about the scent because it is sometimes described as a “spicy, woodsy scent” which doesn’t really jump out as something I would be attracted to. It’s also described as having a “fresh, camphor-like scent.” Again, not sure about that on paper. But it can be useful around the house in many ways so I thought I’d give it a chance and if I didn’t like it on me, then hopefully I could still use it for a variety of other things. As it turns out, it’s not very fragrant and doesn’t bother me at all.

After mixing in the tea tree oil, I spooned the mixture into my empty deodorant stick.

As it turns out, this particular recipe makes about twice as much as my stick can hold.
Note to self: next time, cut recipe in half.

No real harm. I put the extra in a tupperware and it’s on reserve to refill my stick when it runs out.

Since trying to ditch traditional deodorant a few months ago, I’ve been using a crystal, or deodorant stone, which is ok, but there’s something about it that irritates my skin and I’ve had to take breaks from it every couple of weeks and give in to using the last little bit of traditional deodorant I hadn’t completely used up. Until about two weeks ago.

I’m on day 3 of this crunchy experiment and…I like it. So far nothing seems to be irritating my skin. Hopefully I’m not premature in declaring it a success.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
~ Confucius

Make Your Own Broth

I’ve seen a lot of mention of the benefits of bone broths on the various paleo/primal/ancestral websites and blogs that I frequent. Here are just a few references to get you started if you’d like to read more about it and see other recipes…one, two, three.

I suggested to Don that we think about making our own sometime, and he was quick to come up with a recipe using the bones of a recent rabbit harvest – what a great way to really make use of the whole rabbit as much as possible too.

Long and low cooking is the way to go when making broth. Most recipes suggest 24 hours; we let ours stay on the stove for more like 36 hours due to schedules and such.  The extra time certainly can’t hurt the broth.

What We Used: (as usual, Don doesn’t really measure so we are doing our best to give approx quantities)

• bones of 5 rabbits
• 1 whole sweet onion, roughly chopped
• 1/2 red onion, roughly chopped
• 2 green onions
• about 1 and 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• about 1 tsp salt
• about 1 tsp pepper
• about a tbsp dried parsley (fresh that we had dried on our dehydrator)
• enough water to submerge the bones in a large stockpot

We combined all in a large stockpot, covered, placed on the stove on low and let it go.

Just starting out...

About 12 hours in...

After 36 hours, just before straining.

Next, I strained all the bits from the broth.

A very fine mesh strainer is best.

So much good stuff! But it was riddled with tiny bone fragments and there was no saving it.

This is only half of the final broth. It made SO MUCH and smelled amazing.

Next, I ladled the broth into these handy, dandy silicone ice-cube trays. Perfect for this project.

It's a little tricky (messy) at first. I got the hang of it after a bit.

Then, into the freezer!

So pretty.

The next day, I popped those babies out and ladled the rest of the broth into the trays again. Our batch made enough for all four trays to be filled twice, which equates to 2 very full, gallon size plastic bags of cubes in the freezer. I see them lasting us a very long time.

Super concentrated like bouillon cubes, we will use just one or two for a dish.

We also had about a cup and 1/2 left that we used to make a soup that same week. It was excellent. Really doesn’t taste all that different from traditional (canned or dried) chicken broth and yet much more rich in nutrients and completely organic and preservative free. I’m down. Even though we are getting out of the rabbit farming and won’t be doing another batch with rabbit, I can see doing this with chicken bones, or bones from other cuts of meat in the future as well. I encourage you to read more about bone broth and try making your own one day.

Did you ever stop to taste a carrot?  Not just eat it, but taste it?  You can’t taste the beauty and energy of the earth in a Twinkie.
~ Astrid Alauda

Crock Pot Chicken Soup-Stew

We made a huge pot of soup (or should I call it stew?) in the crock pot this last weekend. It was AWESOME. Like usual (when Don is cooking.)

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs free-range chicken (5 chicken thighs, bone-in)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 can Rotel
• 2 tsps chili garlic paste
• 1 large (good-size) turnip
• 1 handful (1/2 cup?) sugar snap peas
• 3 carrots
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 sweet onion
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 red bell pepper
• 4 stalks of bok choy leaves

The Method

Early morning (it was about 10 am for us) we got the chicken, broth, wine, rotel, and garlic paste in the crock pot to cook on high for the duration of the day.

About 6 pm, we took the chicken out, de-boned it and roughly chopped it.

At the same time (if you have two people), roughly chop all your veggies. Add all to crock pot.

Cook on high until your veggies are the right softness. Usually 30-60 minutes, depending on what veggies you are using.  Turnips need to go a lot longer, as we learned. If you want to eat the same day, start earlier if you’re going to add turnips, or just skip the turnips. (Our soup was still not ready at 8:30 so we had other leftovers for dinner and finished the soup off the following day.)

About 10 minutes before serving, add thinly chopped bok choy leaves.

Serve and, hopefully, enjoy. We did.

Good soup is one of the prime ingredients of good living.  For soup can do more to lift the spirits and stimulate the appetite than any other one dish.
~ Louis P. De Gouy, ‘The Soup Book’ (1949)