Janice Cox - Natural Beauty at Home, Revised Edition: More Than 250 Easy-To-Use Recipes for Body, Bath, and Hair

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I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY FAMILY

my wonderful and supportive husband, Ray, and my two natural beauties, Lauren and Marie.

I want to thank the outstanding team of people that helped me revise and produce this new book.

To all my dear friends, family members, and readers who share my passion for home beauty, your feedback and ideas are invaluable to me.

To my agent, Laurie Harper: Thank you for your enthusiasm for my work; you are awesome.

To my editor at Henry Holt, Deborah Brody: Thank you for your direction and insight in improving my original book and making it even better.

Also, I thank Rebecca Lindenberg for all of her efforts that helped make this book easy to revise and edit.

A special thank-you to Darlene Barbaria for a stunning cover design, Nora Reichard for her thorough job of copyediting, Dorothy Reinhardt for her original artwork, and Kristin Minnick for her publicity work. You are all the best.

A final thank-you to everyone at Henry Holt for their time and effort; it makes my job pure pleasure. You all deserve a bit of pamperingyou are all beautiful!

The recipes and treatments contained in this book are generally safe and effective. However, despite every effort to offer expert advice it is not possible for this book to predict an individual persons reactions to a particular recipe or treatment. The reader should consult a qualified physician. Neither the publisher, Henry Holt and Company, nor the author, Janice Cox, accepts responsibility for any effects that may arise from following the recipes or treatments and using the products from the recipes in this book.

In 1994, I put together my personal collection of home beauty recipes and called it Natural Beauty at Home. My goal was to share my own passion with others, and I am so glad I did! This book has become a classic text for any natural beauty enthusiast.

Each year I get hundreds of letters and e-mails from readers who are enjoying the art of creating their own natural beauty products. Many of you have enjoyed saving money and looking and feeling better than ever before. Some of you have even started your own natural beauty businessesselling fresh creams and potions using these easy-to-follow recipes. Hearing all these stories of clear skin, shiny hair, beauty parties, and new ingredient discoveries has been very rewarding and fun for me.

I, too, have changed. Natural beauty was always my hobby and passion, and now it is my career. With three books, hundreds of magazine articles, a website, and numerous radio and television appearances, I am happily spreading the word about natural beauty. When I was given the opportunity to revise and improve my original book, I could not resist the chance to give my readers more recipes, more beauty ideas, and more new treatments. I have added more than fifty new recipes, with Fizzing Bath Bombs, Green Tea Skin Toner, and Chocolate Lip Gloss being some of my new favorites. I have also updated several other recipes, adding easy-to-find ingredient substitutions or better formulas.

To think it all started back in junior high when I first experimented in my parents bathroom with egg facials and oatmeal scrubs. I was looking for homemade alternatives to cosmetic products that I saw in my mothers magazines.

In high school and college, beauty treatments became a social affair for me. Somehow, facial masks, manicures, and pedicures seem more effective if done in a group. It is also a great time to discuss life and to take yourself less seriously. How can you with green avocado all over your face?

I studied chemistry in college and continue to be amazed by chemical reactions and how they relate to cosmetic products. Keeping oil and water mixed together into the perfect emulsion or moisturizer is not only fun but also fascinating.

Today my whole family has become a part of my natural beauty projects. My husband and two daughters often help me test new recipes. They are all very tolerant of all my potions and ingredients stored all over the house. I also love to travel, which has helped me in my search for new recipes and ingredients. I was thrilled to find wonderful macadamia oil in Hawaii, and a trip to Paris yielded many new formulas. The French are renowned for their beauty products and treatments, which are some of the best in the world. Beauty really is all around us, and one thing I have discovered over the years is when it comes to looking and feeling terrific the world really is a small placepeople throughout the world enjoy doing something for themselves.

Many of the recipes in this book are ones I remember my grandmother and mother using. My mother was a home economics education major in college and is an excellent cook. She gave me a firm foundation in the kitchen and the confidence to tackle any recipe. My grandmother is also an excellent cook. I remember reading cookbooks at her house the way many people read novels. They also taught me many beauty basics. My mothers rule of never going to bed with a dirty face, and my grandmothers of counting to twenty when rinsing my face, have become a part of my everyday regime. In researching this book I found that many families have their own home beauty recipes and treatments. For example, my husbands grandmother made her own soap for the family, and his aunts make their own night creams and moisturizers.

Throughout history, cosmetics have played a role in shaping peoples lives. The invention of soap alone is said to have added years to the average human life span by killing bacteria and thus reducing the amount of sickness and disease in the world. Homemade recipes of great beauties such as Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette, and Helen of Troy are scattered throughout history books.

Making your own beauty products is simple to do, cost-effective, and fun. Even though I occasionally purchase cosmetics, I find that my own recipes work just as well, if not better, than commercial brands because they are pure and undiluted. You control the ingredients used, and you know there is no cruel animal testing involved.

I have always focused on the enjoyment of making my own cosmetics, but I cannot ignore the cost savings. When you realize what you have been spending on commercial products and how much it costs to create your own homemade versions, youll be amazed and delighted. The cost of these ingredients is nothing compared to what companies spend on packaging and marketing their products, which is reflected in their retail prices. You can purchase a honey toner from a well-known natural cosmetic manufacturer for sixteen dollars, or you can make the Honey Toner recipe for around eighty-five centsquite a difference! I once met a lady in her seventies who had worked her whole life for a major cosmetics firm. She told me I could do just as well spreading vegetable shortening on my face as using their most expensive night cream. Many women spend sixty to seventy dollars for expensive night and eye creams when they could make their own products for a few dollars.