So, it’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been a little confusing to my readers. I certainly don’t want to confuse you all so I’m doing this post to explain how I feel about DIY skin care vs. Commercial skin care. When I say “commercial”, I mean that the products were created in a lab by scientists, then mass produced.
In the beginning, Jenni Raincloud got it’s start by sharing DIY skin care recipes. About a year into the blog, I started branching out a bit by doing product reviews of commercial products. There were several reasons I did this. One, there are only so many DIY skin care recipes I can come up with in a short period of time! Two, I like to diversify and Three, I furthered my education on chemistry and DIY skin care and got intimidated. I started learning more about preservatives and pH and realized I had a false sense of knowledge. I consulted with several DIY skin care specialist and learned enough to fix my recipes but beyond that, I was kind of discouraged.
There is so much to learn about DIY skin care and it can be hard to find the information you need. There are a lot of blogs like mine that post recipes that either won’t work or will be full of bacteria within days because they haven’t used a preservative. It can be hard to navigate through all the false info! Honestly, I just got overwhelmed and felt like I needed to give it a rest for a bit. Plus, I was pumped at all the natural skin care lines I was discovering.
The bottom line here at Jenni Raincloud is that I’m here to help you on this journey of saying NO to harmful chemicals in our skin care and even other areas of our lives. I’m here to hopefully light your path and lead the way to organic, quality beauty products. Whether that means we make them ourselves or we buy them, it’s up to you.
You can rest assured that the beauty products I do review, to the best of my knowledge, are natural, safe products. It’s a product that I have tried for at least a few weeks and one I will stand behind. I have the up most integrity when it comes to putting the Jenni Raincloud stamp of approval on products. I never want to do a post just to make commission. Selling out isn’t an option. Sure, I could post products that aren’t natural and contain toxic ingredients, most every other beauty blogger does, but that’s not the foundation of this blog. My whole point is keeping things NATURAL.
Another BIG reason I don’t solely focus on DIY skin care is because everyone’s skin is different and it’s trial and error. Many of my recipes that you all love, my skin hates! I had to go through some set backs personally to figure out what ingredients my skin responds best to. So my daily beauty routine consists of some DIYs and some commercial products. It’s just what works for me. So it only makes sense that my blog be about both paths.
DIY Skin Care is a passion of mine. It’s not just a hobby. I’m out of my slump and I am hungry to learn and progress. I really do believe that we can make effective products at home in our kitchens! Many, many of you have written me, raving about what my recipes have done for your skin. That thrills me!! It makes me want to keep digging for more exciting ingredients and methods! I am currently researching some really interesting ingredients and have found some amazing information that I’m excited to put into action and then share.
As far as my Etsy shop goes-I only sale products that I have made a million times and know exactly what I’m doing. The products I choose to sell are the ones that get the most feedback-the one’s people swear by and request more of. I search out the best ingredients I can source and work at keeping my prices reasonable. If a product doesn’t sell well, I pull it from the shop. I’m always open to suggestions too and am happy to accept custom orders!
So, I hope that wasn’t just one long ramble of a post! In conclusion-I go both ways, ha, ha-no really. Both ways are good ways as long as they are natural and pure. I’m going to continue to try out commercial products and share them with you and I’m going to work hard to come up with new skin care we can make!
Love you guys…. Jenni
Great post, and completely agree with your approach. I have been doing really well with the most basic things. Can’t even call them DIY’s since most are one ingredient. I do oil cleansing with coconut oil at night, followed by either witch hazel or rose water as a toner. Then another oil on top…argan, rosehip, or,whatever else I feel like using. Raw honey in the morning, followed by toner and a drop of argan. This has completely balanced my aging, acne prone skin, and costs next to nothing. I really believe that what we are doing on the inside has the most impact on our skin, and then we can support it by using the best ingredients on the outside. I’m still open to trying natural commercial lines, and I LOVE makeup. Thanks for all you do!
Elizabeth-Thanks for sharing your routine-I love it! It’s so rewarding and powerful to be able to take your skin into your own hands and save money in the process!! I believe beautiful skin comes from the inside too. Skin care products only support what the inside is doing.
Thanks Jenni! This is a wonderful post and needed too. I do a lot of DIY’s but realized that my skin does need some help. I struggle with clogged pores and inflammatory acne and though my DIY’s can calm it can help calm the irritation, I still get clogged pores so I use an enzyme cleanser. I use a blend of Argan, rosehip, and sea buckthorn to moisturize, Rose witch hazel to tone and grapeseed oil to remove my, you guessed it, DIY makeup (your recipes with some of my own). It works well for me and I enjoy them a lot, but I also enjoy checking out good quality skin care lines!
Ashlynn-I totally agree-While we can all do research, most of us aren’t trained chemist! There are so many amazing, natural products out there that can pick up where we leave off!
Thanks, Jenni! This was a great post and explains it all 🙂 You are so honest I look forward to your blog all the time!!
Thanks Bonnie-I realized it was time to for a clear up post after reading your email!! Thanks so much for your support-hope you are doing well!
I totally “get” and appreciate the product reviews . And I have just started checking the ph in my DIYs. It CAN BE daunting to give or sell products and not be completely sure that you have used the right amt of preservative or that it doesn’t even matter because the PH is off!!
I appreciate your candor about it.
And I love the product reviews because I don’t necessarily want to make certain products and I AM interested in commercial items. I’ve been a Sephora woman for 20 years. It’s hard to just quit!!
I have a question. Not sure if you’ve ever had this happen…. I made a doaming facial cleanser and it didn’t smell great. All of my products are pretty fresh. It turned out that my distiller water in the bottle had a weird smell!!! I thought maybe I could preserve it with something like Leucidal liquid. Maybe the bare minimum so thatvI could Aldo use the minimum NeoDefend when I make a product I’m emulsifying. I thought maybe the Leucidal would only preserve the water so I wouldn’t be over preserving and I know that products are often preserved withcmorecthan one preservative.
I dumped the distiller water and have a fresh unopened bottle. Maybe I just had a bad batch or left it out of the fridge too long but it did, in fact, have a sulfur-y light odor!! Ew!!!! It hit me like a ton of bricks that it’s water and the perfect medium for bacteria.
How do you and others keep their distiller water fresh? I opened the bottle a few weeks ago and I guess it was enough time for it to go bad!
Thanks, Jodi
Jodi-That’s interesting. I’ve never had that happen with distilled water! I go through it pretty fast so I don’t really think much about it but you could put it in smaller containers and freeze it? You would have to thaw it before you wanted to use it but it sure would keep the bacteria growth way down! You could use a preservative-The ones I suggest that you have mentioned are usually combined in commercial products. You’ve posed a great question. I will do more research!!
Great article, thank you! I found your DIY blog about a year ago and am still creating my day and night anti-aging face serums using essential oils based on the recipes you shared. Love! My face is 58 years young and the life experience lines don’t seem as pronounced, the over-all skin tone appears more even and – I always love how I smell! Question: What would you suggest for helping to tone/tighten the fabulous neck area?
Thanks again!
Debi! Thanks!! The neck area…..It’s a tricky area, it just gets hit so hard with gravity. Of course exfoliating and moisturizing regularly help but the neck is more complicated. Frankincense and Cypress oil help with tightening but I’m not too convinced a DIY could give you noticeable results in this area. If I were you I would check out Eminence. You can find them on Amazon-They have amazing natural products and I have had great results with everything I’ve used. HERE is their neck cream. I hope this helps!!
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