The Beginner’s Guide to DIY Skin Care & Makeup in 2021

• The Beginners Guide to DIY Skin Care & Makeup 

There are so many reasons people turn to DIY skin care and makeup. Three of the main ones are appearance, health, and financial purposes. That is certainly my story and maybe it’s yours to!

• I dove into healthy living about 13 years ago right after my oldest boy was born. It’s been a slow progressing journey with some stops and detours along the way….but it’s something I truly believe matters and can make such a difference in your life
• I didn’t start out as a “girly” girl – didn’t even wear makeup….but as the years have progressed, and the fine lines and tired eyes and adult/hormonal acne appeared – I had to do something. With a very limited budget, I also had to get creative. Therefore, I experimented – A LOT! I still experiment! In the process, I have been able to come up with some really amazing products that have been so helpful to me. So helpful in fact, that I started selling them on social media 2 years ago. It has continued to grow, and so now I want to take what I’ve learned, and help other mamas who might be in the same place where I was.

Is it Possible to Make it Yourself? 

• Have you ever just known that there is a better way….that something is out there to help you…some product or information or person even, yet you just can’t seem to find what you are looking for – even despite the endless options and information?! I started having issues with my skin, yet it was overwhelming looking at products because I knew I had a certain amount to spend, and if I picked the wrong product – I was stuck for awhile. And quite often, the product I would end up getting – the special concealer, or moisturizer, and even foundation powders – ended up disappointing me. 
• Making your own skin care and makeup is doable. Many of you are thinking, “Oh, I could never do that, I don’t even know where to start.” Let me be honest…it has been a huge learning curve for me, but it doesn’t have to be for you – there is only 1 thing you need to be successful at this – a desire to learn.

Tips for Success in DIY Skincare/Makeup 

Keep it Simple!

• First, determine your biggest need/want in regard to skincare/makeup.
• Second, look at 3-5 different websites for recipes – for now bypass any that have either ingredients you don’t recognize, or more than a couple of ingredients you don’t have (if you are brand new to making anything use your own judgment on this, but for the most part you will be able to find lotions and moisturizers where you likely have at least a couple of the ingredients on hand).
• Follow the instructions given and simply try it. Don’t have a double boiler? No problem, me neither – I just use a glass measuring cup inside of a saucepan of boiling water – works perfectly fine.
• Look at your finished product and determine what you like or don’t like about it – how is the consistency? Do you want it thicker or thinner? Less greasy, or a different smell? From there, simply look into (often by googling) what makes lotion too greasy? How can I make the consistency thicker? You get the picture…..
• When diving into DIY skin care and makeup – don’t be afraid to fail….we learn from our failures – not everything you try to do will turn out – it just won’t.
• Persevere – don’t be afraid to incorporate something new into your recipe – that’s the beauty of DIY – you get to tailor it to your personal needs!

FAQs About DIY Skincare/Makeup 

• How Do you Make Your Own Skin Care & Makeup?
  • I got started by looking at several recipes online – literally you can google it and lots of options pop up. I looked through some of the recipes to see if I had any of the ingredients on hand. Literally, if I got to a recipe with an ingredient I had no idea what it was I skipped it – if I found a recipe, or a handful of recipes with similar ingredients, some of which I already had – then I ordered the few missing ingredients and tried those first. As I experimented more I expanded my ingredients – even now though I keep it pretty simple!
• Is it Expensive?
  • Yes and No – great answer right?! Truly it is much, much cheaper to make your own products. It can sometimes feel expensive at first when you have to order the few ingredients you don’t have in your home, or if you pick a lot of different recipes to try with several ingredients. I recommend trying 1-3 recipes to begin with and I’m a big fan of being able to use the same ingredients in multiple products. The learning curve can be expensive….my learning curve was very spread out….but yours doesn’t have to be.
• Does DIY Makeup & Skin Care Actually Work?
  • Yes!…..though not all of it does. I have tried many online recipes that didn’t – they did not whip up, they did not gel together, or I lacked some step in the process. But just as with anything…..your DIY skin care and makeup journey can far outperform the products you buy over the counter. This is a hard one for people to believe. We feel we have to buy it from a certain makeup “line” or store, we look at the marketing, we think “they” must know what “they” are talking about and so we hand over our card to pay.
  • I’m not discounting that over the counter products are great – by all means, I still use MANY myself! But I’m just not willing to believe that I can’t also make comparable, if not better products myself. For one…the products you make yourself will not have many of the harmful ingredients – that’s enough right there to make your own. For two…many over the counter moisturizers actually contain ingredients in them that long term lead to dryness…..short term your skin might “feel” moisturized….but long term it’s a cycle and you will fight being dry always.
  • Homemade moisturizers can deliver true moisture – my face has never been so soft and my pores have drastically diminished. And I used to have the fancy makeup counter moisturizers – and my skin always flaked and peeled every winter – or my makeup would go on looking “cakey” because my skin was so dry.
• Can Homemade Makeup Really Provide the Coverage I Need?
  • Everyone’s needs are different, and I’m not going to tell you that yes it absolutely can. It truly just depends. The reason I say that is because I have not been able to make a liquid foundation or a liquid concealer (yet) that I feel does the job better than my over the counter products I use. This is a journey I’m still very much traveling – my focus has been more on the moisturizers and basic makeup – maybe in the future I will focus more on liquid foundations and concealers……I think it is completely possible – for now, I have a liquid foundation I really like, so therefore it’s not been my priority to replace!
  • Many days I’m able to just go with some powder and blush. But more often than not, I still use concealer and a very small amount of liquid foundation – I need the coverage to help my under eye circles that the concealer provides, and I like the little bit of extra smoothness the liquid foundation offers. I have tried to choose carefully the over the counter products I do use so that I’m not slathering chemical laden ingredients on my face. I will share more about all the products I use in other posts.
• Where Do I Buy Ingredients From?
  • Amazon is a great place to start. I order a lot of my products still from there. Mountain Rose Herbs, Frontier, my local store in town. The only time I struggled to get ingredients was during Covid – otherwise they are pretty readily available.
• Does it Take a Lot of Extra Equipment?
  • Nope! If you have bowls, a saucepan for your stove, spatula, measuring cup, measuring spoons, and an electric mixer, then you have the basics of what you need. As I’ve done this for awhile now, I’ve gathered a few other helpful things along the way…but truly I keep things super simple!

The Last Thing You Need to Know about this DIY Skincare Road

• It can sound very overwhelming and like it’s just one more thing you “should” be doing when people talk about DIY skin care and makeup. If you jump into making your own products because you feel like you “should”, then you likely won’t be very successful. I jumped in because I had a true need for products that were healthier for my skin, and that I could afford. At the time I was convinced I needed to spend $50 on a small 1oz jar of night time moisturizer – my budget simply didn’t allow for that…..and I’m thankful, because it led me to make my own, and it has far out-performed that little fancy jar.
• There has to be a desire or a need for this to be fun for you – please don’t tackle this as one more “should” do. I remember going through a phase where I thought that everything I made “needed” to be from scratch. It’s true my cooking needed an overhaul…..but I sifted through the “should dos” and have found balance. There are so many great products available (I even have a store on my site and sell the products I make if you don’t want to make your own!). We all have our “must dos” – and those need to come first….I want to help anyone on this journey that is interested and help fill a need….but I don’t want to be another voice that makes you feel like you “should” do anything, because that’s simply not true!

Feel Free to email me or post in the comments if you have any questions! Here’s to working on True Beauty!