Homemade Horrors

Quick Break

2010-07-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Since I am 1/4 of the organizing team for ODAHQ, an alternate blogathon to take the place of the canceled 2010 blogathon, I will have to put this blog on the back burner for another week or two.

I'll be back with lots of homemade goodies (and badies) soon, though!

If you are interested in ODAHQ (basically, blogging for charity), leave a comment and I'll direct you to where you need to go for more information.

Baking Soda - Household Item of the Gods

2010-06-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

Plain old baking soda is a wonderful thing. It can be used for anything from brushing your teeth to cleaning your carpet to making your jewelry shine. I intend to do a few posts on the wonders of baking soda, but I'd hate to post something without trying it out first, so this one will be short.

Everyone knows that you can put baking soda in your refrigerator to absorb bad smells, but did you know that you can do that on your carpet, too? Since I have birds and rats (both of which get respiratory problems that lead to death from air fresheners, cleaners and most anything else with a strong smell), I'm always looking for ways to clean the two rooms that these pets occupy without using harsh smelling cleaners.

It's been rainy and humid here for the past several days. When it gets like that, our entire apartment smells like it's wet. Frankly, it's pretty gross. I can't use the scented carpet powder that you can put down and then vacuum up, so today I decided to put some baking soda down. I sprinkled it liberally over the carpet in each room and then let it sit for about 10 hours. The longer you leave it down, the better it will do its job. Around hour 10, I was about to fall asleep from lack of productive things to do, so I decided it was time to vacuum.

So, you just vacuum the baking soda right up along with the odors that were in your carpet and you don't have an overpowering flowery smell left. I have a bagless vacuum, so I did have to take the bits out and rinse them after I was finished vacuuming, but the bits were due for cleaning anyway. If you have a vacuum that uses bags, be prepared for a full and heavy bag.

My carpet doesn't smell like wet mops anymore, by the way. It just smells like nothing - which is a good thing in our house.

I give baking soda as a carpet refresher 4 out of 5 sprinkles. (Leaving it down for so long does tend to get baking soda tracked all over the place and then you end up needing to sweep places that didn't need to be swept.)

Whipped Cream

2010-06-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:

1 C heavy whipping cream (ultra pasteurized whips faster, but any heavy whipping cream will work)
1 TBSP sugar
1 TSP vanilla extract (or any other flavoring of your choice)

Chill a bowl (stainless steel works best) and your whisk (or whatever you're using to whip the cream) in the refrigerator for about twenty minutes. (You don't have to do this, but it makes it go faster when you start whipping.) I used an electric hand mixer to do this and it still took a fair amount of time, but you can definitely do this by hand. Anyhow, combine the ingredients in the bowl and start whipping the cream. Pay close attention to the cream as it thickens because if you whip too long, you're on your way to making butter. Once the cream forms soft peaks, put it in the refrigerator to cool and enjoy.

Unlike store brands, homemade whipped cream is both cream -and- whipped. Apparently, most store brands are neither.

I thought I would give this a shot when I made Pavlova for the first time over the weekend and it came out incredibly well. Breaking this down, it costs maybe 50 cents to make two cups of whipped cream. You can rewhip the cream to make it creamy again if it begins to settle. I have also read that if you use confectioners (powdered) sugar rather than granulated, it makes a nice frosting for cakes. The only real downside to this recipe is that you can only store it in the fridge for 3 days, so don't make too much of it.

Home Made Pesticide (Or, rather, Pest Repellent)

2010-06-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

I should have known when the site I got this from said that the bugs would starve to death that this wouldn't work. Don't you think that bugs are just a tiny bit smarter than to sit on a plant they don't want to eat until they die from starvation? Especially when there are perfectly good (and still edible) plants all around them? Starve to death, indeed.

The recipe and directions can be found here.

Do not, and I would really like to repeat DO NOT, make this recipe unless you are willing to sacrifice you blender and the pot you make it in. If you want to dedicate a pot and blender to this, go ahead. Not only did my blender reek of these ingredients after several washes and soaks, it still reeked of the ingredients when I finally gave up and threw it out a week and a half after I made this. The pot that I used had the same issue. I haven't tossed it yet as it is one of the few large pots that I have, but I also won't be using it for anything else in the future. It has been about a month since I made this "pesticide" and the pot still smells like onions and garlic.

One thing that you will definitely repel if you spray this in your garden is people. You may find yourself with far fewer solicitors and those nice old ladies from the Kingdom Hall may suddenly just stop showing up. Unfortunately, you may attract hungry kids who love spaghetti. Probably not, though. This stuff reeks. It reeks from the moment you make it until the moment that a heavy rain or watering washes it off of your plants. In fact, after 2 weeks with mostly rain and only a little sunshine, some of my potted plants -still- reek. Try not to spray it onto the pots, I guess.

I can tell you right now, it will -not- repel small animals or birds. I had a particularly obnoxious pair of grackles eat every single strawberry in my strawberry jar planter despite the plants and soil being sprayed with this stuff. A baby rabbit decided to help itself to my flowers.

For bugs, there's no telling. Two of my potted plants were still attacked by bugs quite frequently. I'm pretty sure they just looked up at me and laughed as they ran deeper into the soil to avoid the spray because they're still nomming on the leaves.

I might try the age old water and dish soap method on my flowers, but for my veggies, I think I'm going to stick with an organic pesticide from the store.

I give this 1 out of 5 ruined blenders.

Make Up, Bath Salts and Hair Highlighter

2010-06-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

It's been such a long time since I've posted, so I thought that I would give you three posts in one. Hopefully, this sort of thing doesn't happen again, but it's been a hectic few weeks and, sadly, this blog had to be put on the back burner while real life beckoned.

Let's start with homemade make up. I made loose powder eyeshadow, flavored lip gloss and used an old trick to make "cream" blush.

Loose powder eyeshadow only requires some corn starch and one of two other items: mica powder (which can be found in craft stores) or the leftovers from your pressed powder eyeshadow. If you are using the mica powder (which I did not), you only need to mix the mica powder into cornstarch until you get the color you desire. If you are using old eyeshadow, you need to crush it to a fine powder and then mix it in with the corn starch. You can easily make this into a cream eyeshadow by mixing in some petroleum jelly.

My eyeshadows came out well, but they were a huge pain in the butt to make. You have to use so much mica powder/eyeshadow and then mix for so long that it's just kind of silly to make it yourself. Of course, if you get your pressed eyeshadow from a dollar store and then make it into loose eyeshadow, all you're losing is time. The make up works well. I don't have any pictures of it in use, sadly, but I tried it myself and then gave some to a friend to try. She likes it just fine.

The lip gloss was easy and pretty economical. A little petroleum jelly mixed with whatever color kool-aid that you'd like to mix it with. I used cherry and pink lemonade. The pink lemonade came out very pale while the cherry came out looking like dark "nude" color. You can keep mixing it in until you get the shade you want, though. I made the mistake of using unsweetened kool-aid and ended up with a very tart lipgloss. Not a terrible thing if you like tartness, but I'd suggest using sweetened kool-aid. Since I didn't make my colors very dark, all you're getting is a mostly clear gloss. However, if you mix your colors darker, you'll get a lip gloss that tints your lips.

Now, the old trick for cream blush is pretty easy. I've been using tinted moisturizer this summer instead of foundation when I wear make up because it's much lighter (by the by, easy trick for tinted moisturizer - use the foundation you already have and mix a few drops with your favorite moisturizer), so I don't want to cake my face up with a bunch of powdered blush. Instead, I put two to three small dabs of a cheap lipstick I bought onto the apples of my cheeks and blend it in. My mom used to do this waaaaaay back in the day and it's a pretty convenient little trick.

I give this stuff 3 out of 5 kool-aid packets. The eye shadow is just a pain to mix.

* * *

On to the bath salts!

1 part Epsom salt
1 part Sea salt
1-2 tbsp baking soda
6-10 drops of essential oils (if desired)
5-8 drops food coloring (if desired)

Mix salts and baking soda. Add food coloring 2-3 drops at a time, mixing very well (the salts wants to clump up with the food coloring, so you'll want to keep breaking those clumps up and mixing until you get a fairly even color throughout). Once desired color is achieved, add essential oil a few drops at a time. Remember that the salts won't smell as strong once they're dissolving in water.

These things are amazing! I'm currently at war with my bathtub and the disgusting junk that grows in it (thanks to our apartment complex flat out lying to us about whether there was a mold problem before we moved in), so I won't bathe in it. However, I do have plantar fasciitis, so I soak my feet from time to time before I massage them with a tennis ball and then ice them down (it's a real pain). Why not use the salts when I soak my feet? So, I did. Not only does it smell nice (I happened to have essential oils laying around from some body scrub I made from a kit), but it makes your skin quite soft. I'm sure that my physical therapist appreciates that my feet don't feel like alligator skin when she has to do my deep tissue foot massages.

I give these bath salts 5 out of 5 grains of salt. They work just as well (if not better) than their expensive store-bought counterparts.

* * *

And, finally, we come to highlighting your hair.

Most everyone has heard that you can use lemon juice to lighten your hair. However, lemon juice dries your hair out really badly. Not to worry!

I mixed mostly water, a fair amount of lemon juice and a tablespoon of olive oil in a small spray bottle and then doused my hair in it before I went for my run. I did blow dry my hair just a bit since I didn't want to run with sopping wet hair, but that didn't seem to make any real difference. Off I went. I kept my hair down and I was in the sunshine for about half an hour before I headed back to the car and then home. Once home, I washed my hair to get the juice and olive oil out. Lo and behold, my hair was just a tad lighter and I had a handful of red and blond highlights. The olive oil made my hair really soft and kept the lemon juice from doing too much damage. It's best to do this out in the sun, but I've read that it will work if you blow dry your hair as well. I do have to say, though, if you go out into the sun a lot anyway, don't bother. The sun will naturally bleach/lighten your hair. I once went from brown hair to medium blond after spending a month in the California sunshine. If you don't get out much, you could give this a try. However, your hair will look like you haven't washed it in several months thanks to the olive oil, so I don't suggest going too far from home with this in your hair.

I give this 4 out of 5 lemons.

Coming Attractions

2010-06-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

I do mean to get into the swing of things here eventually and post on some sort of schedule. In order to do that, though, I need to get a few things made and tried out so that I have a nice buffer. So, with that in mind, I'll give you a taste of what is to come.

Homemade makeup: Lipgloss, eyeshadow, cream blush.

Homemade pesticide: Rather, pest repellent. I'm testing this on the little garden plot that we were given on a farm owned by the company hubby works for. It's organic and supposedly works for mice and rabbits, too.

Homemade bath salts: Easy, quick, but are they any good?

No 'Poo: My adventures with baking soda and apple cider vinegar instead of shampoo.

If you have suggestions for what you'd like me to try out in the future, let me know.

Dry Shampoo

2010-05-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

¹/₄ cup oatmeal
1 tsp crushed lavender or other fragrant herb
1 tsp baking soda

Grind these together with mortar and pestle, small grinder, or place in a baggie and crush with a rolling pin.

Sprinkle enough of the mixture to cover all hair, and massage for five minutes before it it brushed out

***

Since I am going No 'Poo for an upcoming post here, I thought that I would look around for a good "dry shampoo" recipe. The adjustment period for going without shampoo is leaving my hair a disgusting, greasy mess, so a dry shampoo should be just what the doctor ordered, right? Wrong. I found my recipe for a dry shampoo here and, since I like DIY Instructables so much, I thought I'd give it a shot. I wish I hadn't.

The ingredients themselves are easy to find in your kitchen or garden (I used dried rose petals instead of lavender), but that's where the fun ends, folks. I used a mortar and pestle to grind everything together and wondered what the point of the lavender (or rose, in my case) was since all I could smell was oatmeal. Into a jar it went and then I just waited for my hair to get greasy. It didn't take long.

I sprinkled it into my hair (and all over the sink and floor) and tried to massage for five minutes. I didn't even make it two. Because of the bits of oatmeal, it honestly felt like there were large bugs in my hair. It was pretty unsettling. In addition to the bug feeling, bits of this mess fell inside my shirt and, eventually, down onto the floor to join the rest of the mess that this made. After making my head hurt with chunks of dry oatmeal, I finally just decided to brush it out.

Or... try to brush it out. It took several minutes to brush even enough of it out to be confident that I'd removed all of the oatmeal bits and then my hair still looked like I'd poured white powder on it. I kept brushing and brushing to no avail. Even though most of the mix was out, there were white specs all over my hair that were very reminiscent of nits except that they weren't actually lice eggs. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have no interest in going out with my head looking like it's full of lice eggs. I eventually just got my brush wet with some water and kept brushing my hair until it was damp. While this got rid of a lot of the tiny white bits, it made my hair look even greasier.

All in all, it was not a great experience and I got to spend the next several minutes cleaning my bathroom sink, counter and floor. I did wonder briefly if I hadn't ground the oatmeal well enough, but with this amount of ingredients, it would have taken all day to grind it as finely as the baking soda.

No, thanks, I'll just go back to my old standby, baby powder (you can also use cornstarch). Sprinkle it in your hair before bed (or in the morning) and it'll soak the grease right up. Of course, this may give you static, but so does that dry shampoo.

I give this mess 1 out of 5 washes.

Rosewater Revisited

2010-05-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

Recently, I tried my hand at making Rosewater at the suggestion of a friend. It turned out terribly, but I didn't exactly use the best of ingredients, either.

It had been my intention to buy a rosebush anyway, so I went ahead and did that. Once I had some blooms, I gave the Rosewater another shot.

This time, it turned out wonderfully. After using distilled water and fresh, very fragrant Mister Lincoln roses, I had a slightly rose scented liquid in a very nice shade of dark pink.

Of course, I still had to see if it was going to be any good.

Over the course of several days, I used the Rosewater as a toner. It has a slightly cooling and refreshing quality about it that I like a lot. It's also good at taking off make up if you don't feel like washing your face properly at the end of a long day. And trust me, I often do not feel like washing my face properly at the end of a long day. I'm not sure if this is a direct correlation, but my skin seems to be far less dry since I've started using the Rosewater. This could be because of the increased humidity, though, so I'm not willing to make that claim just yet. Rosewater also makes a great refresher. After a hot and sweaty summer day, just splash some on your face for a little pick-me-up. This is especially effective if you've kept the Rosewater in the fridge.

I was pretty darn pleased with this stuff ... until I spilled some on my shirt. Just three drops that came off of my cotton ball. No sweat, I thought. I'll just use my tide stain pen to take care of this! Or, you know, not. Not only was the pen that I have used to remove everything from blood to spaghetti sauce off of fabrics not get the stain off, it actually turned it from pink to green. Ummm... Okay. So, I'll just give it a quick wash in the sink. Again, I should only be so lucky as to have the stain actually come out. It did not.

I will admit that I have not washed the shirt in question yet nor have I poured bleach on it (it's a white shirt, after all), but not being able to quickly remove the stain from a shirt that I was wearing and wanted to continue to wear that day was a little annoying. I'll add a quick update to this after it's been in the wash proper.

Overall, I give this concoction 3 out of 5 rose petals. It would be much better if you could just use the wilting roses that your other half brought you instead of having to rely on ones you grow yourself (which, in an apartment, can be quite difficult).

Yogurt/Honey Mask

2010-05-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

1 T Yogurt

1 T Honey

To Make: Add the two ingredients together and apply to a clean, moist face.

To Use: Pat this mask onto the skin for a moisturizing, penetrating, hydrating, soothing application that will also help to clear up skin problems.

***

While at the grocery store last week, I thought, "Gee, a lot of those facial cleaners and masks use plain yogurt, so why don't I get some?" So, I did. I found a simple enough recipe here and began mixing. I'm not going to talk about what this mixture looks like, but I will say that I am incredibly immature and I laughed. Hubby offered a quick "Ewww". I'll let you figure out the rest.

I like that there are only two ingredients here because it makes making the mask quick, easy and inexpensive. I do not like that the recipe calls for a T. Is that a tablespoon or teaspoon? I used tablespoons. The recipe must have meant teaspoons because I ended up with far too much facial mask.

I do not suggest this recipe (or any other recipe that calls for yogurt) unless you enjoy eating yogurt. It seems a waste if you're just going to use a spoonful. Luckily for me, I happen to like yogurt.

I set the yogurt out on the counter for about 10 minutes before I made this mask because I have an aversion to all things cold touching my skin. If you want a cooling mask, use the yogurt straight out of the fridge. However, even with the yogurt having sat out a little while, the mask still felt cool while I was applying it and for a short while after. Then it felt sticky and kind of weird, but that's normal as a mask dries.

I can't decide if I liked the smell of this mask or not. Occasionally, I would smell the very pleasant scent of honey, but it would soon be followed by the not as pleasant, slightly sour smell of plain organic yogurt.

By the time you wash this mask off, you won't even be able to see it anymore. You'll feel the stickiness and have a slight shine to your face, but the once questionable looking mix is now ... umm...invisible, I guess. This is good because if the mailman came by with a package (not that he bothers to get out of his truck to see if you're home before just dropping the package off at the apartment office so you have to wait until the next day to get it), he wouldn't wonder just what the heck you were doing before you answered the door.

It wipes off really easily and leaves your face feeling really soft. Hubby did the touch test and he agrees. Don't forget to moisturize after a mask, though, no matter how soft your face feels.

The only things that I don't like about this mask are the possibility of wasted yogurt and the yogurt smell. I wonder how well adding a smushed strawberry to the mix would cover that smell. I'll have to test that once my strawberries are ripe.

I can't make any judgments on how well this mask clears up skin problems since I don't currently have any skin problems. One of the major bonuses to having this blog is that my skin is almost always in great condition thanks to the constant pampering it gets as I try out new things. Although, maybe this mask would help my face recover after that awful Oatmeal/Honey Mask disaster.

Over all, I give this mask 4 out of 5 questionable looking liquids.

Peanut Butter

2010-05-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

15 ounces shelled and skinned roasted peanuts
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil

Directions

Place the peanuts, salt and honey into the bowl of a food processor. Process for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Place the lid back on and continue to process while slowly drizzling in the oil and process until the mixture is smooth, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Place the peanut butter in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.

***

A couple of weeks ago, while doing our grocery shopping, the hubby decided that he wanted to try Smucker's "natural" peanut butter. I was reminded of an episode of Good Eats where Alton made peanut butter, so I decided to give making peanut butter at home a shot provided that the hubby actually likes the natural peanut butter. He did like it, so I did make it.

I bought pre-roasted peanuts at Cub Foods because they sell them there. Unfortunately, I did have to sit here and shell them all. Honestly, that was the only time consuming part of this. I actually shelled them while watching some program or another on the History Channel, so it wasn't that bad. The hard part was not eating the peanuts.

The actual making of the peanut butter was very quick. It seriously takes about 5 minutes. You will need a food processor for this, though. When the peanut butter was done, I tasted it. It was good, but something was just a tad off. I added another half teaspoon of honey and "pulsed" for about half a minute. That did the trick.

I actually bought some mason jars because I expected to do a lot of things like this and I have plans to beginning canning soon, so I put the peanut butter into one of the jars. However, you can reuse any old peanut butter jar or any old jar at all provided that you clean it out really well. You can probably just store it in some tupperware, to be honest. Make sure that your container is air tight and that you store it in the fridge.

I thought it tasted delicious, but hubby would be the real test. When he came home from work, I had him try a little and then, later, he made himself a peanut butter sandwich. Success! Hubby loves the homemade peanut butter! I doubt we'll be buying peanut butter from the store ever again.

Now, the initial investment in this is likely going to be a whopping $8.00 provided that you don't buy the mason jars (those will add $9-10). However, once you have the peanut oil, kosher salt and the honey, you use so little of it, that all you'll be purchasing is the peanuts which cost about $2 a pound at Cub Foods. A reasonable price for excellent peanut butter, I think.

I give this recipe 5 out of 5 Peanuts.

Rosewater

2010-05-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

Recipe:
2 cups firmly packed fresh rose petals
approximately 2-1/4 cups water (distilled water is preferable)

Place the rose petals in a saucepan and cover with the water. Simmer over low heat until water is reduced by half. Let cool and strain out the petals. Store in sterile jar or bottle.

***

Do I have an exciting weekend planned! I have two other concoctions that I need to post about, but I want to start with this one.

A good friend of mine (Hi, Megan!) suggested that I try this recipe for rosewater toner. At first, I said no because I really want to try to keep things simple. I want to use things that I already have at home or that I can easily get on my next grocery shopping trip. If the project takes an extra trip to a specialty store, then what's the point? Then, I looked at the recipe again. Since the Witch Hazel (which, by the way, can be found at your local grocery store) and the glycerin (which will probably mean a trip to the craft store) are optional, I thought I'd give it a shot after all. Since it is my first wedding anniversary this weekend, my sweet hubby brought home roses for me yesterday - another reason that I'm giving this recipe a shot. Instead of the toner, I am just making rosewater (which apparently makes a decent toner all by itself).

I have to say, right off the bat, that this turned out to be an absolute disaster. I blame myself, though. I did not use distilled water - which may well have been a contributing factor to the ick that I ended up with. I read somewhere that you should use organic rose petals, but I didn't do that, either. I just used store bought ones. Now, I don't actually think organic rose petals are that important to the recipe, but I do know that today's commercial roses are bred to last longer in a vase and have longer stems. Unfortunately, that also breeds a lot of the rose's natural scent out.

The liquid that I ended up with smelled like beef Ramen broth. I even had my husband confirm this because it confused me. It looked like chicken Ramen broth with a drop or two of soy sauce mixed in to make the color a tad darker. Sort of an amber color not unlike beer.

I am sad to say that, after smelling it, I had no intention of putting it on my face or anywhere else other than down the drain.

Because I do think that I will get a different outcome if I use distilled water and fresher roses, I withhold judgment of this particular product until I have tried it again.

Sugar and Olive Oil Scrub - For Dry Skin

2010-05-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

Recipe:
1 tbs. sugar
few drops olive oil

Blend together both ingredients adding a few drops of oil at a time to form a spreadable paste. Gently massage into skin. Rinse with warm water.

***

I found this recipe on Natural Living For Women. The description indicated that it was good for dry skin. I occasionally have patches of dry skin - especially after this awful oatmeal scrub destroyed my face - so I wanted to give it a shot.

At first, I was a little worried about putting oil on my face. I haven't had a real breakout in some time, but it seems that rubbing oil or grease or a big slab of bacon right onto my skin is a pretty good way to ensure that I have a real breakout real soon. Still, I suffer so that the masses can learn.

I really don't have any complaints about this scrub. The sugar is not too abrasive at all and actually feels pretty good when you're rubbing it onto your skin. The olive oil requires you to go over your face with a wet washcloth once you've rinsed the sugar to make sure you get all of the oil off, but that's not a huge deal or even a minor inconvenience. Since everything stayed together well, you can even do this right over your bathroom sink without much of a mess. My skin felt soft and moisturized after using this (although I moisturized anyway to get the SPF provided by my moisturizer) and not at all greasy like I'd expected it to. It was a nice surprise.

I imagine that using this several times a week wouldn't be too hard on your skin and would definitely improve skin dryness, but I want to test this further. My darling hubby has horribly dry skin on his sides and he is going to be my guinea pig. We are going to use this scrub on his left side every other day for two weeks and then we'll compare it to his right side and see whether it has improved or not.

I give this scrub 4 out of 5 spoons full of sugar (with a possible extra spoon full pending my experiment with hubby).

Oatmeal Facial Scrub - For Sensitive Skin or Creates Sensitive Skin?

2010-05-07T13:07:00.001-07:00

Recipe:
1/2 cup uncooked oats (for finer scrub you can blend into powder)
1 tbs.honey(if you use ground up oats you may want to adjust honey)

Mix ingredients together to form a paste. Massage into face and neck. Let scrub sit on skin for 10-15 minutes before rinsing.

***

I tried this particular scrub when I found it on Natural Living For Women. The description said that is was great for sensitive skin. "I have sensitive skin," I thought. "This will work well for me." Not so much.

I tried this both ways - with whole oats and with ground oats....and both ways felt like I was trying to rub syrup peppered with rocks all over my face. The "paste" was hard to spread at all, so "massaging" it into my face and neck was just out of the question. After trying to massage it into my face and feeling like I was actually massaging my face off, I gave up on that and just spread the paste onto my face as well as I could.

The honey managed to stick to everything (my face, my hair, my fingers) - except for the oats. If you are going to try this recipe, do so over the kitchen sink. When I was finished, my sink was filled with oatmeal chunks and those tiny little hairs at my hairline were either stuck to my face or ripped out of my head and stuck on my fingers.

If you have ever had syrup poured on you - as I have - you know that sticky is not a fun feeling. That's what you get for the next 10 to 15 minutes, though. Oh, and you get to pick up the oats that fall off of your face and onto your floor. Lucky for me, I have pet rats that can eat my "droppings" when I let them our of their cage for fun time.

This scrub did have two things going for it, though. 1) If it should happen to get into your mouth, it tastes delicious. 2) It washes off (and out of your hair) very easily.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to take this scrub off. I do, however, recommend rinsing it off at the kitchen sink. You're going to want to be able to use that disposal to take care of those oats.

I found that the recipe actually makes much more than I actually needed for my face - unless I just wasn't putting it on thick enough. (Thickness is difficult since trying to put more oats over present oats resulted in crumbling and dropping oats.) Other places that I've looked suggest 3 tablespoons oats and 2 tablespoons honey if you want to try this on a smaller scale.

Once I'd washed this off, my face was pretty red and really uncomfortable. I put lotion on immediately, but it was over 20 minutes before all of the itchiness and slight soreness was gone. The following day, I noticed a few red splotches on my face, but chalked it up to post-facial trauma. Two days later, however, I noticed rough, dry patches on my cheekbones, jawline and temples. This is despite daily moisturizing, I might add.

Maybe this will work better for someone else, but I can't say that I was impressed by it. Or maybe I just used the wrong kind of honey.

I give this scrub 2 out of 5 Oats. (It really was tasty!)