Homemade Toothpaste

I've been wanting to do this for SO long! For awhile I had a hard time finding a recipe that seemed simple, yet not gross. I also tried straight baking soda for awhile. It's ok, but kinda salty tasting, and was a little harsh on my gums.

I have known for a long time that toothpaste is filled with horrible chemicals that we should not be ingesting, but just haven't gotten around to getting it out of my house (what took me so long??). Even the healthy brands have ingredients I

A) can't pronounce, and

B) have no idea what it is.

Usually if A or B is true, I avoid it like the plague. Chances are it's bad for me. And I don't want to put bad-for-me-things in my body. Just trying to reduce the toxic load here, Folks. Reduce the toxic load.

Most toothpaste also contains fluoride, a poisonous waste byproduct that is known to cause damage to our brains.  You may choose to believe your dentist that unless you ingest fluoride, your teeth are going to crumble and fall out.  I don't buy that though.  I believe the bad faaaaaar outweighs the good when it comes to fluoride.  If there is any good to begin with. 

Did you know that toothpaste is technically a "cosmetic" according to the FDA? Therefore, since it's not considered to be something that will go inside your body, the standards are very low, and there's a lot more toxicity than you'd think. I for one watch my kids swallow that stuff like it's candy! And I get horrified at the thought of those nasty chemicals making their way through their little bodies. Yuck.

So, the other day I had this uber awesome day of being ever so productive.

(Don't ask my kids what they did...

...Um...something had to give, OK?

It was my focused attention on my kids.

And well, they watched a couple videos.)

Anyway...I made lotion (post coming soon on that one), and toothpaste. Here's my recipe. I adapted it from a couple other ones I found online.







3 Tablespoons coconut oil

3 Tablespoons baking soda

1/2 Teaspoon green stevia powder (not pictured above). The white stuff is processed, and not good for you.

About 20 drops of Spearmint Essential Oils (or another flavor you prefer).

I melted my coconut oil in my double boiler. If yours is soft enough, just use it soft. If it's winter, and your coconut oil is hard, melt it over the stove, not in a microwave. Microwaving things changes the molecular structure, and it's then not good for you to consume.


Once your coconut oil is soft enough, mix it with the rest of the ingredients.

I stored mine in this little 4 oz Mason jar I got at a garage sale last summer. This is a picture from before I put the stevia in.






Here's a pic from after I put it in








The taste wasn't that great before the stevia. The stevia makes it slightly sweet, and you taste less of the baking soda. The Hot Contractor is forever ruined over coconut oil (I used to have him take it by the spoonful because he loved it, and we were trying it on him for medicinal purposes.). He now hates it. Sad.

I, however, think it's great! I'm totally going to keep using it (as long as my gums don't mind...I'm hoping that with other ingredients than just baking soda, it won't be an issue anymore). I'm also going to let my kids ingest it until their little hearts are content. Plus, it's actually really good for them! Coconut oil is such a great oil for us to consume in large quantities. And baking soda helps balance the pH of the body, so I say, "eat away, my children, eat away!"

Do-It-Yourself Placenta Encapsulation

After encapsulating my placenta for Little Brother, and learning about the benefits of placenta encapsulation, I decided to do it again with Baby Brother's placenta. You can read more about the benefits of placenta encapsulation here. You can find someone in your area to encapsulate your placenta, and pay them a couple hundred dollars to do it for you. Or you can do it yourself. (It's really not that hard, and kinda fun.)

To start, you need
-a placenta that has been kept refrigerated since birth (preferably only a few days old), or frozen and defrosted prior to encapsulating.
-fresh, organic ginger root
-fresh, organic orange or lemon
-fresh, organic jalepeño
-an encapsulating machine (I have one similar to this one)
-size 00 capsules. You can buy those here.

Then wash your placenta to get the excess blood off. I did mine in the kitchen sink, in a bowl. Here it is still with the umbilical cord attached. Don't use soap! Just warm water is fine.

Then cut off the umbilical cord and the amniotic sac.

Boil the placenta in filtered water with your ingredients for at least 30 minutes. I boiled mine for over an hour.

It will really shrink up after boiling.

Then cut it into pieces not more than 1" thick.

Then you want to dry them. You can do this in your oven at the lowest setting overnight. Just place the pieces on a cookie sheet and bake. If you have a dehydrator, you can use that. I put mine in the dehydrator on the "meat" setting (155*). Then I left it overnight. Here it is in the morning.

Then I ground it up. You can do this in a coffee grinder. I used my Vita-Mix dry blender (the one used to grind flour). If you have something strong that grinds flour, that would work too. I'm pretty sure they would be too much on a standard blender (*says the girl who has killed four blenders*).

You want it in a fine powder.

Then I got out my little capsule machine. You can find these at health food stores, or here. Mine takes size "00" gel caps, and I have some leftover from Little Brother's placenta, so I used those. You can also buy the gel caps here. I opened each capsule, and put the long end into each hole on the base, and the short end into each hole on the top.

Then I poured my placenta powder over the base.

Then I used this little green card (it came with my machine) to smooth all the powder into the holes.

I then used the tamper to push the powder down into the capsules.

Then I filled them again, and smoothed the powder out with the green card.
I pressed the top onto the bottom, and here's what I got:

Here's The Princess (she was my helper), proud as can be at our accomplishment. :-)

The main reasons I like placenta encapsulation are:
- Ingesting placenta postpartum really helps (naturally) reduce postpartum depression.

- (I think this is the coolest one!) You can save your unused capsules (freeze them in your freezer) for menopause. They act as a natural hormone replacement in menopause. And it's totally safe because it's your body's own hormones that you're using! I just think that is the coolest, and can't wait to use mine when I go through menopause.

I personally really noticed a difference in my postpartum disposition after doing this with Little Brother's placenta (I didn't know about this after The Princess' birth, so I didn't do it then). Even with my brother being murdered two weeks after Little Brother was born, I managed to not slip into a postpartum depression. Not that I wasn't deeply affected by my brother's death, but I truly believe in my already-vulnerable-state, it would have been much harder for me emotionally if I wasn't taking my placenta everyday.

There you go! Wasn't that fun?!?

Homemade Cleaning Supplies

I've had a couple friends recently ask me for my cleaning supply recipes.  Instead of typing them out over and over, I figured this would be a great topic for a blog post!   You need very few ingredients to make up all these concoctions.  If you gather up these items, you can make almost everything I'm about to list:

Baking soda
White Vinegar
Your favorite Essential Oil
Lemon Juice
Olive Oil
Hydrogen Peroxide

So, here goes...

1) Multipurpose Cleaner/ Window Cleaner (for me, this is used for anything I would have used Windex on in the past):
Take a spray bottle (your emptied out Windex one will do just fine ;)) and fill it with:

1/2 vinegar
1/2 water
2-3 drops of your favorite Essential Oil (EO).

I use this for all my mirrors and glass in the house.  Vinegar is also great for removing hard water stains---best to use straight vinegar when doing that.  I use it on our shower door to get those yucky spots off.  I also use the vinegar/water solution for wiping down the kids' toys, cleaning off the counter tops, a quick wipe down of the bathroom sink before guests come over...it's a great multipurpose cleaner!  The EOs are not necessary, but they will make your cleaner smell better than vinegar!  You can buy EOs at your local health food store, or online here.   My favorite is a combination of Lavender and Tea Tree Oil.  Sometimes it's nice to use a lemon or orange EO, or  lemongrass, for cleaning supplies---there's just something fresh and clean about those scents. 


2) Soft Scrub (I use it for everything I used to use Comet on---the stained kitchen sink, the dirty tub or shower, the bathroom sink, etc.)

Are you ready?  It's a seriously hard mixture here.....it consists of......baking soda!  I know, you probably are believing it as much as I did at first, but I promise if you try, you will watch things disappear right before your eyes!  I just sprinkle it on dry, then wet a sponge and make a little paste. Then spread my paste all over whatever porcelain thing I'm trying to clean.  It's like a magic eraser.  If you have something really dirty, use a little vinegar.  After the chemical reaction is over (it will fizz and bubble a lot--remember that from chemistry class?), you can spread it and scrub with it.


3) Toilet bowl cleaner (non-toxic, and about 1/10 of the price of commercial bowl cleaners)
I use the vinegar and baking soda mixture.  I flush the toilet, then after the water drains from the bowl, shut off the water valve.  With little water in the bowl, I pour some vinegar in, then a handful or so of baking soda.  I then take the brush and swish it around.  After about 20 minutes, I come back and brush it again, then turn the water back on.  Sparking fresh! 


4) Disinfectant
I fill a squirt bottle with:

1/2 vinegar
1/2 hydrogen peroxide

I've heard that this disinfectant is better than any commercial disinfectant you could buy.  I use it for anything I want to get the germs off, especially my daughter's training potty after she uses it. Blech.


5) Furniture Polish (replacement for Pledge)
I've been using:

1/4 cup of lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 drops essential oils.

I can't say I'm in love with this recipe.  It will go rancid, so you have to use it up, or throw it out.  You can keep it for a little while in the refrigerator, but I don't dust often enough to use it again when I do keep it in the fridge, so I usually dispose of the leftovers.  The next time I dust, I'm going to try this new recipe I came across:

1:1 ratio of vinegar and olive oil
2-3 drops of EO (I really like using Lemongrass for my furniture polish.  It's so fresh smelling!)


6) Laundry Detergent
1/2 cup soap flakes (like grate a bar of soap with a cheese grater)
1/2 cup baking soda
1/4 cup washing soda
1/4 cup Borax


This will yield like three loads of laundry (you use about 1/2 cup each load), so you would want to multiply it by a lot. 


The laundry detergent is a bit of a labor of love because grating those bars of soap takes a long time!  I've stopped doing it for now because I don't want to sit and grate like ten bars of soap.  But, it is nice to use when I do make it.

Enjoy your clean, non-toxic house (for about 1/10th of the price of buying commercial cleaners!).

Pledge. Oh How I Love Thee. Will I Ever Let You Go?

I've been looking for a recipe for homemade furniture polish for some time, and have not been satisfied with what I've found. I tried olive oil, and really liked how shiny everything was for a few days, and then everything seemed to have this yucky, dull film all over. But today I may have found what I've been looking for. Here's what you need:

•Lemon Juice
•Olive Oil
•An empty spray bottle
•An essential oil that smells clean and fresh to you. I used Sweet Orange. Whatever EO you choose, use it sparingly, or not at all if you are pregnant. And remember it is mixing with lemon juice, so pick something complementary.
This cleaning product goes bad in a few days, so you will want to make only what you will use today, and throw out whatever is left over. That's the one downside...I like to make my cleaning products in large quantities, and have them on hand. But let's go with it anyway.
Here's the recipe. I doubled it because I had a lot of dusting to do, but I think it was too much. I should have just started with the regular recipe:
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2-3 drops of essential oils
Pour it in, shake it up, spray it on, and wipe it off with a cloth. Easy schmeasy!
Now I may be able to let go of Pledge. She's been one commercial product I haven't been able to break up with. But I think she might be out the door now.