Botanical Beauty: 80 Essential Recipes for Natural Spa Products

Last year, in the time leading up to Christmas, we made candles, a certain 10-year-old girl and I. She had wanted to dabble in making lotions and soaps and such, but I didn’t get the right supplies in time to do that, and so we made beeswax candles, which was a lot of fun with her. She made one for everyone in the family and some of her friends.This year, I was hoping that if I started planning a little earlier I might manage to come up with some “beauty” treatments for her to make for gifts, and this book truly excels in everything beautiful. Not only are the photos beautifully done, but also the choices of “recipes” are terrific. Toothpaste. Scrubs. Lotions. 80 Recipes.Most of the ingredients are things you’d likely have in your cupboard, if not, these are all ingredients you should be able to find at a store local to you. All natural beauty products.Hands and Feet: 16 recipesBody: 15 recipes / instructionFace: 15 recipes / instructionsHair: 18 recipes / instructionsThere are so many to choose from, and they can be done fairly easily. If you (or your teen) can follow instructions on a cake mix, you can follow these. I am sure we’ll be creating many of these!Many thanks for the ARC provided by Capstone / Switch Press

Purchased this after we had checked it out three times from our library! My 9/10 year old daughter really loved making the recipes and made up a lot for homemade Xmas gifts this past year (we also spent about $60 on quality ingredients, but then I actually wanted to use what she made so it was a win-win).

Saw this book at our local library and I had to have it. Practical ingredients which I just love.

I am naturally skeptical of books collecting recipes that can be found easily online but Aubre Andrus has won me over. She has used her skills as a book editor and designer to present a coherent set of recipes and patterns aimed at the older teen, although, of course, spa recipes might appeal to people of any age.The 80 recipes use a narrow range of ingredients, scents, and household items to produce skin scrubbers and softeners and accessories to help you enjoy them. Thus we have made-at-home hair gel, face masks, painted bobby pins, decorated ribbons, a turban hair wrap, foot scrubs, and a range of items made from knotted crew socks.The book is designed in pastel pink and blue with lots of bows and ribbons but instead of being kitsch, I think it's cute.I have two complaints about the discussion of essential oils, one of which is very important. Ms Andrus does not explain the difference between food grade, cosmetic grade, and common grade scents and essential oils. These are different products and the common or industrial scents (the kind used for candles or oil burners) are not interchangeable with cosmetic or food grade scents that you would use on your skin or lips.My other complaint is that too few scent options are presented. Lavender is used in a number of these recipes and I would have liked to see an expanded range of ideas for those of us who can't stand lavender. For example, I make solid perfume using a recipe similar to the one in the book. It's great for travelling because it causes no fuss with TSA and I never have to worry about spills. But I use my favorite commercial perfume instead of random essential oils. I also use a range of natural scents I get from suppliers in Nepal that go far beyond the lavender, orange, peppermint and tea tree (which is a kind of eucalyptus, think Vicks) that Ms Andrus suggests.All in all this is a fun book that gave me some ideas. Who'd have thought that knotted socks could be so versatile?I received a review copy of "Botanical Beauty: 80 Essential Recipes for Natural Spa Products" by Aubre Andrus (Capstone – Switch Press) through NetGalley.com.

Last year, in the time leading up to Christmas, we made candles, a certain 10-year-old girl and I. She had wanted to dabble in making lotions and soaps and such, but I didn’t get the right supplies in time to do that, and so we made beeswax candles, which was a lot of fun with her. She made one for everyone in the family and some of her friends.This year, I was hoping that if I started planning a little earlier I might manage to come up with some “beauty” treatments for her to make for gifts, and this book truly excels in everything beautiful. Not only are the photos beautifully done, but also the choices of “recipes” are terrific. Toothpaste. Scrubs. Lotions. 80 Recipes.Most of the ingredients are things you’d likely have in your cupboard, if not, these are all ingredients you should be able to find at a store local to you. All natural beauty products.Hands and Feet: 16 recipesBody: 15 recipes / instructionFace: 15 recipes / instructionsHair: 18 recipes / instructionsThere are so many to choose from, and they can be done fairly easily. If you (or your teen) can follow instructions on a cake mix, you can follow these. I am sure we’ll be creating many of these!Many thanks for the ARC provided by Capstone / Switch Press

If you have ever wanted to create a Spa experience in your own home, this is the book for you. As an esthetician, if I was going to recommend an easy to read, well designed, clean book with gorgeous photographs that is choc full of easily creatable recipes and accessories… This is the one I would choose. It starts off with a great introduction of easy to find to ingredients and goes directly into the meat of the book… The recipes. It is not only recipes, however, there are fabulous DIY for complimentary items you would never think of such as making press on nail art, a shoe sachet, a shower pouf, shaving cream, an eye pillow and more. The chapters, Hands and Feet, Bath, Body, Face and Hair have just enough variety to keep everyone happy and feeling pampered. I highly recommend this book for everyone with skin, nails and hair. It is particularly suited for the beginner.