Making Substitutions
Don’t have the oil or butter called for in the recipe? Here’s a guide on how to choose a good alternative from what you do have.
What's with the waxes?
Beeswax, carnauba wax, candelila wax, bayberry wax—how are they different? Can you use one instead of another?
Help, I made a mess!
My best tips for cleaning up your DIY messes 🙂
Jojoba Mint Natural Foot Cream
With summer sandal season right around the corner, now feels like the perfect time to whip up a batch of rich & velvety Jojoba Mint Natural Foot Cream! This beginner-friendly DIY stars some of my favourite oils and butters, and I’ve taken care of all the fussy...
Banish ingrown hairs with my DIY version of Tend Skin
Ingrown hairs are my nemesis. They’re painful, unsightly, and unfortunately my body is a big fan of growing hairs the wrong way. I suffered for years until a Reddit thread turned me onto a product called Tend Skin… which worked, but at over $20 CAD a bottle, it added...
Lumps of Coal Scrub Nuggets
These cheeky little “lumps of coal” themed scrubby nuggets are a delightful, gift-able bath treat. I’ve made a ton of scrubs since 2011, and scrub nuggets deserve way more love because they solve two of the biggest problems of the far-more-popular whipped,...
Sugar Plum Fairy Shimmer Oil
Today we are making a beautiful, fragrant, versatile shimmer oil that is perfect for winter skincare! I’ve given mine a “Sugar Plum Fairy” holiday theme, but you can easily theme yours differently with a few small changes. You can also have some fun with what "type"...
Sugar Plum Fairy Natural Hand & Body Lotion
If you’ve been disappointed or frustrated by DIY lotions that are heavy and greasy, this DIY is for you! This all-natural, lightweight hand and body lotion is packed with my favourite skin-soothing, moisturizing goodies, making it perfect for winter skincare. I’ve...
Lumps of Coal Christmas Bath Bombs
Welcome to our first DIY (and theme!) for the 2025 Humblebee & Me holiday making season! We're kicking things off with some bath bombs—a must-make for me every Christmas because my mom loves them (hi, Mom!). All the way back in 2016 I shared a couple "Lumps of...
Easy DIY Hyaluronic Acid Lotion
I'm loving this lightweight, 7-ingredient hyaluronic acid lotion—it leaves my hands soft and moisturized with a super touchable, powdery finish. I kept this formulation super simple so its very beginner friendly, but that doesn't mean it isn't lovely! If you're newer...
A hand & body milk formulation I adore
I have been loving this formulation for quite a while now and I just couldn't keep it to myself any longer 😄 It's lightweight, super fluid, and perfect for summer skincare.
Creamy Tallow Body Butter
This soft, creamy, 4-ingredient body butter stars trendy beef tallow. If you've been looking for a rich, spreadable DIY that uses a lot of tallow, look no further! Check out the partner video! Watch Now The ingredients Beef tallow The bulk of this formulation is beef...
Light Tallow Hand Lotion
Dehydrated skin needs water as well as oils. In this formulation, moisturizing tallow teams up with hydrating water and glycerin plus some other skincare favourites to create a non-greasy, pumpable hand lotion that leaves your skin soft and moisturized without feeling...
Tallow Body Butter Bars
These all-natural silky body butter bars feature beef tallow alongside a blend of some other skincare favourites. You can pour this formulation into a push-up tube or use a mould to create free-standing bars. Check out the partner video! Watch Now The ingredients Beef...
A simple lotion + polarity experiment
Eight months ago I whipped up four different lotions using four different emollient blends to see what I could learn about using emollients with different polarities in emulsions. Here are the results!
DIY Shimmery Body Oil Spray
If you want to learn how to make your very own shimmery, sprayable body oils like the ones sold by Tom Ford and Anastasia Beverly Hills, you've come to the right place! In this post I'm sharing my free formula for sprayable DIY shimmer oils that don't separate or...
Hand Wash & Humectant experiments
(Make sure you read the "More information" section below!!) Eleven months ago I set up an experiment inspired by Denise (thanks, Denise!) to explore how different humectants impact lather. I was especially curious to see if there was a noticeable link between a...
Calendula & Chamomile Powdered Body Wash
One of my favourite formulation magic tricks is when a rather boring looking dry powder magically transforms into rich, luxurious lather when it’s mixed with water. It's pretty darn cool, and while this powder-to-foam sorcery is really impressive, it's really easy...
Creamy Cranberry Emulsified Body Butter
It’s winter. It’s cold, it’s dry, and my skin needs all the help it can get. I’ve been loving this decadent cranberry emulsified body butter lately—it stars some of my favourite skin soothing, moisturizing ingredients and leaves my skin feeling silky smooth,...
Hand Lotion with Green Tea
This formulation began as a riff on the formulation I shared in a similar video last month. Basically: this is a formulation I made with no intentions of publishing—it was a gift for a friend. I used ingredients I had from a variety of sources/countries and leaned...
An oat-rich lotion
Another fun one, and a fairly accessible/DIY-able one to boot! Hooray 😄
A wintery lotion for a friend
I'm trying something new with this video—let me know if you find it helpful 😄 Very basically, this is a formulation I made with no intentions of publishing it; I used ingredients I had from a variety of sources/countries and leaned into being a bit fussy...
Tend Skin DIY Dupe (Banish ingrown hairs!)
It's finally ready! Hooray 😄 I did the math on how much this DIY version costs, and if we're just looking at the ingredients, it comes out to under $4CAD ($3USD) per 120mL (4fl oz). You'll definitely spend more than that to gather all the ingredients if you...
6 Body Butter Mistakes Newbies Make (and how to fix them!)
Making your own body butters from scratch is super fun and a great newbie-friendly DIY. Unfortunately, from greasiness to graininess, there's a lot that can go wrong when you’re trying to whip up the body butter of your dreams. Over the years I’ve learned the hard way...
DIY Aloe Vera Gel
Aloe vera gel is a gorgeous summer skincare staple, and with the right formulation, it's also really easy (and inexpensive) to DIY! So, that's what we're going to do today. Want to watch this project instead of read it? Watch Now What is aloe vera gel? Aloe vera is a...
Fancy Aloe Vera Gel (2 Ways)
Let’s riff on my new aloe gel formulations and make some fancy aloe vera gel! We’ll make one with soft xanthan gum and a second with Sepimax ZEN, really taking advantage of how it lets us include oil-soluble ingredients.
DIY Whipped Shea Butter: 3 Ways
Whipped shea butter is a gorgeous beginner-friendly DIY, so in this post I’m going to teach you how to make three different whipped shea butters. The first formulation uses just 4 ingredients, the second uses 5, and the third uses 9. Each formulation builds on the one...
