Simple Skin and Hair Care For The Homestead
Up until about seven or eight years ago, I felt that I needed to be externally acceptable to others, especially those in my age group. Probably most if not all of you have felt the same way at some point. For me, this came through in the form of wearing trendy clothes, having to keep my hair a certain way and wearing makeup. If I didn’t, I would feel stressed that I was not socially acceptable.
The whole trying to fit in thing started when I was in elementary school and continued on through high school. In university, I held back a bit more with the makeup, but still obsessed about hair and clothes. When I reached my over 40 years, I realized that the thing that was most important to me about fashion and style is that I need to be able to be relaxed at all times in my clothes. This means that I need my clothes and hair to be clean and comfortable and that’s pretty much it.
Personal style is not normally influenced by fashion, but it can be. By today’s standards, you should be able to wear pretty much whatever you want, no matter what the trend is at the time. Trends are there simply for big clothes companies to make money. They change the styles randomly so that you have to buy new stuff whether you need it or not.
For myself now, I wear pretty much what I want when I want. Hair and skin care for this homesteader has also had a transformation to the frugal and basic kind. I don’t have time to waste on trying to make other think I’m acceptable.
Almost a year ago, I decided I want to live in an even more “eco-friendly” or sustainable way. This means I want to use as few personal care products as possible and the ones I do use are basically things I can make myself.
I started a while back by committing to only buying products that are made in North America. I actually used this rule for buying things for the home to start and continued it over into the beauty product area as well.
Homestead Skin Care
My first discovery of frugal, eco-friendly skin care was done by accident. I was trying to get to the point of having cold showers in the morning. I started by using a hot and then cold cloth on my face and neck to get used to the idea of shockingly cold water. This routine had the result of eliminating any pimples I had been getting on my chin and forehead. If I stopped the face cloth routine for more than a week, I would start getting pimples again. This was something I had not anticipated but was pleased about because it solved an issue that was somewhat annoying.
This became my skin care routine and I didn’t have to buy anything new. When I was in high school I went through the buying of skin care products because it seemed like the thing to do. Some girls and women are certain they can’t get along without numerous facial products. I wonder whether putting all kinds of chemicals on one’s skin is not part of the problem.
Hair Care
Shortly after I started this routine, I decided to try the “no shampoo” thing again. I had attempted it a year and a half ago but quit when I saw that it was not working as fast as I had read it should.
This time around, I didn’t stop. The initial result were the same – my hair stayed oily for months and still has periods of being heavily greasy, but there are fewer of those times now than before. When I think about it now, it makes sense that some people will have trouble with this method, especially if you have spent decades washing your hair every day with shampoo. In my case it was well over 40 years of stripping the natural oils from my scalp. That can’t be a good thing.
In order to make this work, you need to find the right combination of water temperature, brushing and combing that works for your hair. What was described on informational websites about hair did not work for me. I was not going to buy the recommended “boar” brush due to the fact the I could not find one that was made in North America. Instead I use a vintage wooden handled plastic bristled brush I found here in the house made in France.
The brush does need to be washed regularly as you can see in the picture above to remove the oil that is removed from your hair by brushing.
My hair has now started to slow down on the oil production and I have also become better at caring for it in its natural state. It is not shiny (fake) and “flyaway” like it was when I removed the oil from it, but it is also not as greasy at the end of the day as when I was washing with shampoo daily. It was definitely over-producing oil then. Sometimes I felt I needed to wash it twice, morning and evening, to get rid of the oil.
Other benefits of this hair care method are that I don’t have to use conditioner now, I never get “statiky” hair anymore or knotted hair from the wind, AND my split ends are gone.
I do have to be a bit more creative at times about how I wear my hair because it is thicker and still shows a bit of oil in certain styles. But I never have bad hair days anymore which is amazing to me. It used to drive me nuts because my hair was so flyaway when shampooed that it would mostly just be impossible to keep in one place. Now it stays where I put it. Surprisingly, there is no odour in hair washed well with water, or at least with mine anyway. Oh, and my scalp is not itchy all the time either like it used to be when I used shampoo – another benefit.
So, my homestead “beauty” routine is as natural as I can make it. As for traditional beauty products, I can’t stand the smell of nail polish anymore so I don’t wear it and I still have a few dozen unfinished bottles of it. With regards to makeup, a few years ago I started getting watery eyes from anything I put on or near them or any scent that was in foundations. This makes it easy not to wear any makeup at all.
No makeup, no perfume, no purchased hair or skin products. That is my homestead skin and hair care routine.
Happy Homesteading (and not wasting money and time on beauty products)!
DIY Garlic and Herb Dehydrator
This is the second year that we are using our homemade dehydrator.
Last year we used it to dry garlic for garlic powder and it worked amazingly well. We will still use it for that purpose, but right now I am using it to dry my herbs.
How To Make A Dehydrator From Junk
To make a dehydrator, all you need is a container with shelves, some trays and some air flow. We had a big cardboard box in the shed. Ernie built an insert with scrap wood to hold two trays, then cut a hole in the top back of the box to promote air flow.
The table is an old coffee table that we had in storage, and the trays are screens from old windows that are long gone. All saved items. The only thing that is new is the heater/fan. We use it on the no heat setting to move the air. A regular fan could be used if that is what you have.
This dehydrator works very well. Obviously you have to turn the herbs or garlic occasionally to promote even drying but that’s no problem.
Yes, it looks weird and is not appropriate for some decor (lol), but who cares. It was free and more junk is not getting put into the landfill.
Don’t Throw Out Your Dried Up Garlic!
The garlic we use with this is what we know will not last the whole winter because there were worms in them or they drying out.
Never throw out garlic by the way, unless it is mouldy. Even if you have a small amount you can slice it into small pieces, put it on a plate, and let it air dry, turning it regularly. When it is dry, chop it in a small grinder.
The herbs dry faster in the dehydrator than just being air dried, but we use both methods on all of our herbs.
Isn’t it much better to know where your garlic powder and dried herbs come from and how they were processed rather than buying them?
You Don’t Need A Greenhouse To Grow Your Own Food
Our greenhouse is finished. Well, except for painting the trim. The plants that have been in there so far this summer are growing somewhat faster than those outside, but I feel this is likely due to transplant shock of those that were put out.
This greenhouse was built with mostly scrap/recycled/savaged materials with the exception of a few pieces of wood and the roof plastic. Even the vinyl siding was salvaged from the dump.
It is functional, not bad looking and seems to be working well.
As for the plants that are growing inside, they are also doing quite well. We have tomatoes, peppers, and herbs in there as well as outside on the patio.
This is all really an experiment for me. I wanted to try to grow vegetables in pots, in and outside of the greenhouse, to see if and how easily it could be done here in our climate.
What I have found is that it is easy to grow your own food in pots on balconies or outside on your patio. The easiest things I have found to grow are herbs, onions, obviously tomatoes, peppers, kale… well everything really.
I even have corn growing in two pots just to see if it would work. And yes it works.
Recently, several people have complained to me about the increased prices at the grocery store, particularly vegetables. Of the people who complained to me, some lived in the city and some lived in rural areas.
I can understand that there will be certain places in urban areas in which it will be difficult to have any kind of outdoor space for plants. But everyone has an indoor place for one plant.
So there is really no excuse not to do this except that you are completely set against doing it.
Why should I grow my own food? Isn’t it time consuming?
My answer to this is, no. But it IS a lifestyle. My opinion ( if it matters) is that everyone should learn how to grow SOMETHING of their own, even if it is just flowers or houseplants. I believe tending to garden, even a small one, is an important part of being human. But you don’t have to start out growing everything at once. And of course if you don’t want to that is your choice. Just don’t complain to me about the price of food.
When you learn how to grow even the most simple and small amounts of food for yourself, you are connecting to nature, you can control where some of your food comes from and you learn something new every time you plant something. This last point is the most important one of the three in my mind.
What to grow
Growing your own herbs is the best way I have found to start growing food. You can grow all of the oregano, basil, coriander, parsley and dill you need for a whole year in pots in a small space. Parsley can grow inside all winter in a sunny window, and early in the year you can start coriander (cilantro), dill and even small onions in pots to pinch for fresh flavour in your cooking.
Multiplier onions can provide green onions before they mature AND just the greens if you want. If you leave them to mature, the bulbs can be saved and planted at another time. There is really no way to make a mistake in planting them.
Other really useful plants to plant in pots are tomatoes and peppers. They take a little more attention, especially pruning for the tomatoes but nothing that can’t be handled.
Tomatoes never have to go bad because if you grow too many because you can freeze them whole and use them anytime during the non-growing season.
Anyway, I’m not getting rid of my greenhouse just because I don’t need it. I love it and will use it to start the large amount of veggies we need each year.
But it is time for people to take matters into their own hands and start growing some of their own food if only just to eat something amazing.
Just start.
Multiplier onion growing in a reused plastic “pot”.
DIY Dog Bathtub
When I first started grooming dogs for a living, I did it fast, so I didn’t have much time or money to get all the supplies I needed at the highest quality. Thank goodness we live in an area in which most people didn’t care what I was bathing their dog in!
My first dog grooming bath tub was a true DIY. We purchased a livestock tub at a farm store in the city an hour away and used it just as it was, with a hole cut out of the bottom for a drain. We put it on a homemade wooden stand and I lifted the dogs into the tub to bath them. This worked perfectly for quite a while.
Then one day we were driving around town and we passed by a cottage that had an old apartment sized metal bathtub sitting at the roadside. We took a closer look at it and decided it would replace our DIY tub. The DIY tub got put aside in the wood/junk pile.
WE NEED THAT TUB!
When we got our new dog – Ira – a Kuvasz, I knew eventually I would have to have a tub lower to the ground. At 5 months of age he was 55lbs and I couldn’t lift him into the high bathtub was using for grooming smaller dogs anymore by myself. So we made some modifications to the DIY trough bathtub so I could use it on a low grooming table that Ernie refashioned. The low table was originally a piece of 3/4 inch plywood with rubber matting on top with full length folding legs. To make it shorter, Ernie had to remove the folding feature of the legs, but it worked perfectly.
Ira on the low table getting used to being brushed. You can see the higher bathtub that we found on the side of the road in the background.
The modifications
The tub needs to sit on some kind of stand or table. I also needed it low enough for the big dog to easily get into it.
Because we can’t lift Ira the Kuvasz into any tubs, we have to get him to walk up a ramp or use a step to get into the tub. This means the tub had to be cut in the back in order to make it easy for him to do this. He wouldn’t be able to hop over the lip of the tub and likely won’t want to either, so it had to be easy to get him in there.
Ira learning to climb into the tub. You can see the yellow top of the step he is using.
Ernie used a reciprocating saw to cut a section out of the end of the tub. The tub will sit on the low table when we need it.
He fashioned a drain out of left over pieces of plumbing supplies. It is a good idea to keep these things around just in case. And a good idea to learn how to figure things like that out.
The drain simply lets the water into a rubbermaid container or pail underneath. This is all we have for now since there is no floor drain and the drain for the other tub is too high to allow for proper drainage.
Ernie also cut an old rubber tube in half that he had in his junk drawer and put it over the edge of the opening cut. This is where the dog will enter the tub.
When I am done wetting or rinsing the dog, I simply have to lift the bucket underneath into the other tub and dump it down the drain. During a groom for a big dog, you will have to dump the pail at least a couple of times if not more.
If you bath dogs a lot, it’s a good idea to put a catch over the drain to prevent too much hair from going down and plugging things up. As a pro groomer we are required by law to have that in place for our drains.
If you don’t have a drain for the water to go down, or a place to put a tub underneath, it could go out the bottom of the tub onto the ground. This isn’t very eco-friendly especially if you use dog shampoo. If possible, make sure it goes into a manhole or sewer drain (which still isn’t perfect) but can be used if absolutely necessary.
Here I’m working with Tommy who is heavy but nowhere near as heavy as Ira the Hungarian Kuvasz will be as an adult.
The main thing about this tub is that it is not just on the ground and any dog that will be bathed in it will need to become accustomed to being in it and getting sprayed with water. If you do some work ahead of time without water and with some yummy food almost any dog can learn to step up into the tub with no problem for the dog or you.
This tub could obviously be used for other pets and washing other things as well. The limits are only made by one’s imagination.
I prefer reusing things as much as possible. This is one way we do our part to be kind to nature. We have stuff and we don’t throw it out if at all possible. If we hadn’t used this for a bathtub it would definitely be used for something else. Maybe to grow plants in?
Happy Reusing Stuff!
Redecorating Without Spending
I redecorate regularly by spending no money.
This is actually something that I have been doing since I was in elementary school in my childhood home.
My parents had little money, and certainly nothing to spend on decorating. For some reason, redecorating the house came naturally to me, and I did it regularly for almost two decades. I would simply move furniture around, and find things in boxes or closets that hadn’t been used. Occasionally, we bought things are yard sales – which didn’t cost much anyway – but most of the time it was what we already had.
When I got a little older, I started growing flowers in the yard, cutting them and drying them for the house. I also dried wildflowers from the ditch that I picked up when we were on holidays and used them in the house too.
Now my obsession continues.
Currently we have no more room for any new things in the house. I like to keep things to a minimum, such as it is. What I am using for decorating is what was already here or what I had before I moved here. Also, I am not repainting or staining anything. It has to look good just on it’s own without any adjustments.
There are a few important rules that I follow when redecorating with no money.
Use what you have. There is an unbelievable force in our society that tells people to buy new things and if you don’t you’re not good enough and you may end up feeling guilty for not doing it. We actually don’t need to do that unless there is a real need for something like a vacuum cleaner, a new shower head, or a large appliance. Most other things we buy we can do without, especially if they are from stores that sell cheap things in large quantities. You know the ones I’m talking about.
There are so many things that can be bought nowadays that break right away, look cheap and provide you with no unique qualities for decorating. I avoid these things as much as possible. Unless I already have them, I don’t include them in your redecorating. Mass produced cheap knick knacks and even household items often have no real thought behind their production other than to make a quick dollar.
Your best bet for decorating is to use what you already have. I can pretty much guarantee that you have stuff in storage that you can use, no matter what it is: fabric, craft items, yard sale finds, old stuff, new stuff, almost anything.
To reuse things you have, you can follow some basic principles for no money re-decorating:
Don’t always leave out something or get rid of something you dislike. Often, there will be an item that you dislike or that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere in your house. Don’t necessarily get rid of it. Obviously if you REALLY don’t like looking at something maybe don’t include it in your display, but sometimes things you may really hate can look different among certain other things. It really just depends. My suggestion is to try it first before discounting it. I find that it is better to wait a while and see if an object or placement of an object grows on you. Sometimes even a few days is needed to make a final decision.
An example of something I disliked was the white (yellow) pot on the right. It looked kind of yucky but because it is vintage, I just couldn’t get rid of it. Then I paired it with it’s green friend on top of the stereo speakers and it worked!
I don’t try to match things. Matching colours or sizes of items is boring to me. I don’t go nuts with using bright colours or anything like that but new stuff and older stuff can often work together or different fabrics and material can give neat contrasts. Just go with whatever you like and that usually will be right. Below you can see a small display I have on the top of my work desk. All items are finds, the green candle holder from a thrift shop, the glass holder and plant pot were already mine. They look good where I put them together even though they are completely different objects and unlikely partners.
Moving things just slightly can make a big difference. I find I don’t always have to move EVERYTHING around to different places. Sometimes there will be an item that just doesn’t work and it’s removal or a change in position will fix it. Just offsetting one thing can also work wonders.
In the picture above, you can see that the wall hangings are not quite in the right position – at least for me. This is a personal preference. Put or arrange things so that they are pleasing to your own eye. When I put these up, I used the nails that were already in the wall without moving them. If I want to fix them, I would move the painting down a small amount. that would be all I have to adjust to make it look better.
I make sure to dust. Yeah right! Well, the intention is there. Dusting really makes things look better and makes you FEEL better about your house. Just regularly dusting some things can make a huge difference and gives the illusion of redecorating! It’s magic.
And there you have it. My simple but effective, (I think), ideas for redecorating without spending money. Everyone has a different style and preferences. Make sure to use yours when you are working on your house and it will always work out well for you.
Plywood Bathroom Sink Stand
Our bathroom has been in pieces for 2 years. It has taken us that long to dismantle, design, choose, and buy the stuff we needed to finish the project.
Actually, I am not really complaining. Our favourite thing when doing a project is to do it slowly. And that we did. We did that because we didn’t want to make any mistakes.
In the picture below, Ernie is varnishing the sink stand. He made it out of Maple plywood. We stained it with dark stain and then varnished it with water soluble varnish.
The next picture is the bathroom mostly done. The sink was purchased at a hardware store and was really the only choice we had and it was in stock in the store. If we had to do it again, I would either order one that we knew was eco-friendly – if such a thing exists, or we would make our own out of something recycled. The plumbing is not done in the picture, that is why there is a rag hanging out of the wall. Obviously the sink tap is not cheap. We have found that often you get what you pay for so we spent some money on that.
The ceramic wall tiles were left overs at the store and they had enough for this surround. Ernie bought pine panelling for the wall behind the sink and a small section on the other end of the bathtub. This will be varnished with the water-soluble varnish as well. Just as an aside, the mirror in the picture was salvaged and Ernie made the frame from scrap wood. I varnished it.
So from a homesteading perspective, I feel we did the best we could on the recycling/reusing side and the not spending too much side. Ernie did all the work himself and did it at a relaxed pace, not stressing himself out at all. It took several weeks but was worth the wait.
The Village Homesteader 
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