DIY Deodorant

While it's springtime in the rest of the country, it's 90+ degrees here every day in Los Angeles. We like to pretend like we're glamorous and on the cutting edge of the latest trends, and we might be, but we're also sweating buckets and only going from one air-conditioned setting to the next (home to car to office to car to home). So when I found this post by Greatist, I thought it was perfect timing. Since we're sweating and stinking it up over here, chances are, you will be soon too. Why not try to make your own deodorant with a few household items, ditch the chemicals, and smell good all at the same time?

You only need four ingredients:

1/2 cup of coconut oil
1/4 cup of cornstarch
1/4 cup of baking soda
1/8-1/4 teaspoon of essential oil (I chose lavender, since it's a calming smell, but any essential oil of your choice is fine)

If you live in California, chances are your coconut oil is already a liquid goo. If you don't and it's not, stick it in the microwave for 10-15 second intervals until it has completely melted, then pour it into a bowl.

Add your essential oil, cornstarch and baking soda. It'll go from a big lumpy, liquidy mess to...

A big bowl of odd-looking milk. I couldn't get all the clumps out but I did my best.

Next, pour it into a jar (if you want to apply the deodorant with your fingers) or pour into an empty deodorant container (I found it helped to pour the mixture into a measuring cup first). I used an old Dove bottle and still had 1/4 cup left over!

Stick the container in the fridge and let it harden. I gave mine an hour.

This is what turns me off - the second it touches your skin, it starts to melt so you have to act fast. If you don't, streaks of coconut oil will run down your arms. I let the deodorant harden in the fridge overnight, thinking it just needed more time, but it still melted quickly.

A couple pluses? It smells great (because of the essential oil) AND when something straight from the fridge touches your hot mess of a body, it feels amazing.

However, I sweat. I need an antiperspirant. This won't stop you from perspiring, it'll just stop you from smelling bad while you do it. Perhaps if I had sensitive skin or if I was afraid my deodorant was going to give me cancer, I'd be more inclined to use this but in this hot LA weather, this isn't going to cut it.


TOTAL COSTS: About $20
$5.99 for coconut oil from Whole Foods
$1.80 for cornstarch from Vons
$1.59 for baking soda from Vons
$10.99 for lavender essential oil from Whole Foods
Empty deodorant container already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME:
5 minutes to make the mixture and pour into container
minutes to let it harden

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
While it's incredibly easy to make, it's also incredibly messy.

How to NOT Make a Bleach Pen

To celebrate my 100th post, I thought I'd do a major Blog Fail, one almost as epic as this gingerbread TARDIS (it's hard to compete with the catastrophe of that project, but I put up a good fight). When I saw a beautiful shirt on Etsy plus this post from MeandMyDIY on how to make your own bleach pen, I knew I could combine the two to make an awesome shirt for myself. Instead, I made shirt to remind myself that after 100 posts, I can still make epic mistakes.


To make a bleach pen, you need:

3/4 C of water

3 T of cornstarch

1 empty glue bottle

4-7 T of bleach

Something to bleach (t-shirt, bandana, etc.)


First, combine the cornstarch and water in a small pot and bring to a boil. I found it was really liquidy at first, so I kept it on longer until (as the original post says) it should be "translucent and pudding-like." Honestly, if you let it get as thick as pudding, you're in for a lot of trouble...

...because when it comes to putting it in your bottle, it's going to be too thick to want to go in easy...

...which will result in you having to hit the bottle on the table a lot in order for it to get down enough to pour the bleach in.

Now to pour the bleach in, I recommend covering a mason jar with a plastic bag and pouring the bleach in the plastic bag.

Then you can remove the bag and cut the corner to easily pour the bleach in the bottle.

However, if your bottle is completely full, like mine was, the bleach won't be able to get in and therefore you're going to go through half a roll of paper towels cleaning up the bleach on your table and you'll probably end up throwing out half of the cornstarch mix in the bottle!

It'll still be too thick to get out of the bottle, so it won't so much as pour out in a nice even line but more splatter out. Try practicing on a paper towel first. Otherwise you might get some of this.

And this.

Needless to say, my bleach pen failed. Miserably. Oh well, happy 100th blog post!

TOTAL COSTS: Almost $4
$1.80 for cornstarch
$1.99 for bleach
Empty glue bottle and t-shirt already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 7 hours
2 minutes on stovetop
20 minutes to let cornstarch cool
10 minutes to add cornstarch to bottle
30 minutes to clean up spilled bleach and try to get mixture out of bottle
6 hours to set

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 4 out of 5
If you make sure the cornstarch mixture isn't thick, you have a fighting chance. Otherwise, just go out and buy a $6 bleach pen and save yourself the headache.

How to Make a Bouncy Ball with Household Items

We're getting close to the holidays and what better gift for a kid than their own bouncy ball! Ok, maybe in this day and age, the kid will probably be disappointed because there isn't a screen on it, but you could always use the phrase, "Back in my day..."

I saw this post by Come Together Kids and thought I'd give it a try. Here's what you need:

*Borax (something you should definitely have on hand - great for a lot of different projects!)

*Cornstarch (good for baking)

*Food coloring (I used a normal green and a neon green to show you the difference)

*Elmer's Glue

I followed the instructions step-by-step and here are a few tips I can offer.

#1 - Don't try to stir with toothpicks. Use a plastic knife or a tongue depressor... something you can stir with that won't break but that you can throw away.

#2 - I kept stirring, thinking that the mixture would completely solidify but it never did. When I eventually stopped, it was half liquid / half solid. I squeezed as much liquid out as I could, patted it dry with a paper towel, and kept rolling it into a ball. The original post says it'll be sticky but it was far from that. It did eventually dry out.

#3 - Speaking of drying out, the darker green ball ended up being too dry and started crumbling. The lighter green ball didn't crumble at all until I tried to make it bounce. So I guess if you do this project, try making multiple balls and see what results you end up getting!

The burning question is: did it bounce? Well, see what you think...

Did you notice the pieces of the ball flying off? I think the highest I could get it was 2" so you probably shouldn't try to play Jacks with it...

Survey says: don't waste your time. Go the store and buy your kid some actual bouncy balls.

TOTAL COSTS: Free
All ingredients I already had on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 30 minutes
Time may vary depending on the number of balls you're trying to create

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
It's not hard to make but it is difficult to get it to do what it's supposed to do... bounce.