Asking me if I want my beauty and skincare to be plant-powered is like asking me if I’d like time for an extra nap during the week. Um, yes please! Plant-Powered Beauty: The Essential Guide to Using Plant-Based Ingredients for Health, Wellness, and Personal Skincare was sent to me when it was released in March, and that was right when I was in the middle of moving / going through a major life change, so I didn’t get to reviewing it right away. But here I am now with my photos and review, finally! This book is packed with incredible recipes, information, and beautiful photography to inspire and infuse your beauty regimen with the best stuff.
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I love this book so much because not only does it give you the tools you need, but the why. In this book you will learn:
- How your skin works
- How to really read and deconstruct beauty labels
- Easy-to-use beauty ingredient charts
- Over 50 plant-based DIY recipes!
- What you need to know about essential oils and oil synergies
- What you need in your beauty formulation kitchen
- Important resources for ingredients
Having been doing this “natural beauty blogging thing” for more than five years now, and having tried literally hundreds of products on my skin over the years, I’ve taken a great interest in formulating some of my own, and learning more about the practice of formulation as a whole. I’ve done a lot of research and can tell you, this is a great book and resource to have!
Plant-Powered Beauty is written by Amy Galper & Christina Daigneault. Amy Galper, a pioneer in the field, is the Executive Director and Founder of New York Institute of Aromatherapy and creator of the award-winning, yoga-inspired line of body care products called Buddha Nose. Christina Daigneault is a certified aromatherapist and owns Orchard Aromatherapy. These ladies know their stuff and they’ve presented it beautifully in this book.
Most people don’t think about the fact that our skin is our largest organ. It is so important to take care of it, inside and out. Personally, it brings me so much joy to make the kinds of recipes in this book. They not only nourish your body, but the act of making them nourishes your soul, too. Just looking at the lovely herbs, butters, waxes, grains, clay, and golden oils in these pages makes my heart sing!
You will learn how to make things that you can use in so many formulations. How to make an herb-infused oil, for example. I want to make one infused with calendula and because I don’t have fresh calendula growing nearby I think I’m going to order the dried petals and use those in the infusion. A few of my favorite recipes from this book are:
- Foaming Honey Facial Cleanser
- Sensitive Facial Mask
- ALL of the facial oil blends!
- Blemish Gel
- Healing Scalp Serum
- Detox Body Scrub
- Cuticle Oil
- Salve For Mindfulness
I still need to acquire a few of the necessary tools to make the fluffy body butters (the Dreamsicle Whipped Body Butter looks divine), but I’ll get there eventually. Like making my botanical perfumes, plant-powered skincare is a lifelong passion of mine and I plan to make all sorts of things in my “beauty kitchen” in the years to come.
Thank you so much to BenBella Books for sending me a copy of Plant-Powered Beauty. You did a truly wonderful job on this one! – Naomi