Live your best life with products you trust
You may have heard my philosophy on cruelty-free products before but here it is again: cruelty-free means no harm is done to anyone in the making of a product, and no harm is done to the consumer using the product.Over the last couple years, I’ve become significantly more mindful of the products I use and the ingredients in those products. This newfound vigilance stems from a lifelong battle with acne, along with a strong intolerance for fragrance- it tends to cause me severe migraines.The more attention I pay to what I’m using, the more I appreciate using clean, organic products. I’ve made my own deodorant, tooth powder and facemasks before but I don’t have the resources to make my own lotion or soap, which is why I make an occasional trip to Cedar Falls to make them from scratch with my aunt Dawn.Women in my family have made their own self-care products for decades. My mom made her own baby wipes, my aunt Bethany makes her own lip balms and deodorants, and my aunt Dawn makes her own soap and lotions. A couple years ago my Dawn decided to turn her soap-making skills into a small business. While she no longer has a brick-and-mortar storefront, she sells a few of her products online through her Etsy store: MegAndMeSoap.
Check out my Instagram story highlights to see how these products were all made and how they all turned out!
Bar Soap. MegAndMe bar soap is their most abundant product, coming in different sizes, colors and scents. It’s made of coconut oil, olive oil, shea butter, distilled water and lye. So simple, right? Dawn uses a food-grade lye for this one to avoid potential dangers in making and consuming. We made an unscented, uncolored batch that turns out a soft cream color, an unscented white and blue swirl batch, and a tangerine batch scented “spring fling.”
Liquid Soap. This super smooth liquid soap is made of coconut oil, castor oil, olive oil, distilled water and lye. Once you mix the oils and lye, it sits in a crockpot for approximately 4 hours before the distilled water is added. After about 24 hours it settles and looks like clear liquid soap, ready to pour into a pump and use.
Bottled Lotion. Of all the products I’ve had the pleasure of making with my aunt Dawn, this one is my favorite. Not only do I appreciate knowing what’s in my lotion, I appreciate knowing it’s fragrance-free and won’t cause me a migraine. This lotion is made of almond oil, cocoa butter, vitamin E oil, stearic acid and emulsifying wax. [gallery ids="440,441,442" type="rectangular"] Unfortunately for anyone reading this, the liquid soap and bottled lotion are not sold by MegAndMe (sorry!) but you will find the bar soap along with lip balms and roll-on body butters in the Etsy store.
Visit MegAndMe Soaps and use coupon code: HANNAH18 to get free shipping on orders over $25!
Why is this important to me, you ask?
What I’ve learned through research is the European Union adopted the EU Cosmetic Regulation 1223/2009 in 2003, and revised it in 2013. This directive bans over 1,300 chemicals known or suspected to cause alarming conditions like reproductive harm, birth defects, genetic mutation, and cancer. By comparison, the U.S. FDA has only banned or restricted 11 chemicals from cosmetics. If you want to see a few chemicals with nasty side effects that are NOT banned in the U.S., click here. The moral of my story is this: what you put ON your body matters just as much as what you put IN your body, and you only get ONE body.Photos courtesy of MegAndMe Soap LLC and yours truly.Sources: EUR-Lex, U.S. FDA, Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
Featured photo provided by the author