I stopped using shampoo a few months ago. During my shower, which is mostly daily now, I massage my hair well. About every 7 or 8 days I will massage a mixture of 2 oz water with about 1 Tbsp baking soda in it to get out the extra "stuff." Sometimes after that treatment I will massage in some coconut oil. The important thing is to massage my head and brush my hair a lot.

I use coconut oil on my skin.

I use burt's bees sage deodorant, but plan to eventually change to something more "green."

I use a local coconut-oil soap in the shower, and bronner's liquid soap for my face and hands. The liquid soap in the bathroom is almond, and the liquid soap in the kitchen is peppermint with a couple drops of lemon extract.

I use bronner's sal suds for laundry and floor washing. I use diluted vinegar (half water) in a sprayer in one hand and an old inside-out tube sock in the other hand to clean bathrooms.

I rinse cutting boards after use with hydrogen peroxide, and let it sit a while. I do this a few times, until it no longer bubbles.

I am a big proponent of simple stuff. Honey makes a nice face mask/wash and it's actually remarkably tidy to use and rinse off. I like steaming my face with a hot cloth, applying honey, and then hopping in the shower. Clay (rhassoul, bentonite, etc) makes a nice mask/cleanser. I literally just pour a little rhassoul in my palm, add some hot water, stir with a finger, apply to my face, do my routine and then wash it off. It exfoliates, too.

Diluted apple cider vinegar makes a nice enough toner. Herbal hydrosols (the natural byproduct of essential oil-making) can make awesome toners. I really like shopping at www.naturesgift.com. Or heck, just dilute some rosewater from the store. Makes ya feel nice, low tech, no yuck in it.

You can also check out the oil cleansing method for your face. I like castor oil and jojoba blended together. There are a TON of websites discussing it. Again, minimal yuck.

Want lotion? Use coconut oil, argan oil, camellia, olive, sweet almond, yada yada yada. Want to trick it up? Pick up some essential oils that are skin safe and add them to your carrier oil. Or get your hands on some shea or other butters and whip them in your mixer. Homemade fancy body butter.

My scalp won't tolerate baking soda, but I do okay with shampoo bars (I like www.hennasooq.com) and a slightly acidic rinse as needed. I've finally managed to adjust to a shampoo about every three days. I used to be oily looking about every 12 hours. Even easier would be trying out some ayurvedic herbs. Soapnuts, shikakai, etc. I use a runny clay wash maybe twice a month.

Anything at the drugstore is going to have preservatives and other crap. The more of that you can pare out, the better, I think. High quality ingredients can be just as indulgent and luxurious. Our skin is our largest organ, right?

I've had excellent results with making a liquid surfactant from soap-nuts. These are NOT soap. They're a high-saponin nut. You have to be aware of the type and preparation of the nuts -- you want sapindus mukorossi nuts that have been pitted. There are a few companies out there with a good record.

(BTW, these can also be used whole, in a muslin bag [3-5 per load] for laundry, and the liquid can be used to replace almost any cleaning product, including shampoo, body wash, etc.]

I have horrific dermatitis, due to a genetic anomaly that causes excessive IgE production, and this is the only stuff I can use on my clothing without ending up with a reaction, especially where I have skin-folds or a lot of perspiration (sorry for being explicit).

For hands and body, I use simple bar soap, generally with some sort of essential oil added.

For floors, I use Dr. Bronner's all purpose cleaner (for babies). It is basically just liquid soap, plain and simple and does not even have essential oils (e.g., citrus or pine) which linger in the air.

For deoderant, I use coconut oil + starch + baking soda. It is effective and I don't use it that often.

I don't use makeup but I know there are various websites/blogs that discuss safer makeup alternatives. For big brand name stuff, I think Origins is better than most.

I like coconut oil for makeup remover/moisturizer.Weleda has nice products.Also on the EWG site all the skin care products are rated,so you can pick the ones with the least poison.

I made my own soap from tallow a few months ago. To be honest it is horrifing what goes into make soap. You basically take perfectly good tallow and introduce horrific chemicals to it that will melt your eyeballs and wow presto.. soap.

What I do now is use as little of my homemade soap as I can, mostly for the really stinky bits. I wash my hair when it starts getting itchy, maybe once or twice a week.

Here are some recipes for homemade lotion, shampoo, sugar scrub and toothpaste! It's really easy to make stuff yourself, and this way you know what goes into your products (and ultimately you).

http://wellnessmama.com/3765/luxurious-homemade-lotion-recipe/ http://wellnessmama.com/3701/how-to-make-natural-shampoo-easy-recipe/ http://wellnessmama.com/3628/luxurious-sugar-scrub-recipe-easy/ http://wellnessmama.com/2500/homemade-remineralizing-toothpaste-recipe/ http://wellnessmama.com/1409/seven-natural-homemade-substitues-for-conventional-beauty-products/

You can also use a bit of baking soda mixed with water as a facial exfoliator. It works quite nicely.

Hi All,

This comment is a little behind the times (by about a year, to be exact), but just thought I'd share that my mom and I recently started a Paleo soap company. We only use organic ingredients in our soaps. The soaps have a coconut oil base, along with peach kernel oil,and go from there depending on what your preferences are (blueberry, sea salt and kelp, coffee...). They are completely palm-free sustainable soaps (hooray for preserving the rainforest and orangutans that live within). We started it when we realized that there wasn't really something like it out there for us, so we decided to create soaps not only for ourselves but for others out there who were looking for the same! Just thought it might be worth mentioning. :-)

http://www.washoftheday.com

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Alicia