Coconut Oil Beauty Night and a Giveaway! {CLOSED}
I was recently given the opportunity to review Jennifer of Hybrid Rasta Mama’s amazing ebook, Coconut Oil for Your Skin, Nourishing Your Body from the Outside In, full of fantastic health and beauty recipes using coconut oil, of course. And, at the bottom of this post, you have the opportunity to win your own copy! I decided that a really fun way to test out this ebook would be to have a party and make a bunch of the recipes so that is exactly what I did! And it was a blast! But, first things first. Let me tell you a little bit about this Coconut Oil ebook.
If you don’t already know how awesome coconut oil is, you can read about it over at Hybrid Rasta Mama. She gives 160 uses for coconut oil, as well as telling all the wonderful properties of it. It’s definitely something great to put on your skin as it is antibacterial, helps stop sagging and wrinkling, makes skin smoother and actually restores your skin just to name a few benefits.
Jennifer’s book is the perfect way to start using coconut oil for your skin and start reaping all these benefits! There are 40 recipes in the book and none of them are super complicated. You aren’t going to need to go out and buy a bunch of fancy, specialized equipment or exotic, hard to find ingredients. Specifically, she has recipes for lotions, bath/shower, face, hair, lips and some fun miscellaneous stuff like insect repellent and love potion.
For my Coconut Oil Beauty Night, I sent out a list of all the recipes so everyone could pick out one recipe they’d like to make. Everyone was enthusiastic about it and we eagerly looked forward to our fun night! We also had sign-ups for those who were willing to share their recipe so we all had the opportunity to try out different things.
Here are the recipes our little group made from the book: Coconut Orange Lip Balm*, Coconut Oil & Honey Face Scrub, Dark Circle Eye Cream, Insect Repellent, Soothing Bath Cookies, Cranberry Scrub**, Wart Be-Gone and Love Potion.
Like I mentioned above, none of these were hard to make. The hardest part was melting the coconut oil which was not hard at all so super easy, like I said. 🙂 A couple used a food processor and because we were making larger batches on some of these than the original recipes, those took a little longer just because we had to do it in batches since it would not all fit. The original recipe amounts would have most likely fit just fine in one batch though.
I conducted a little survey afterwards to see what everyone thought. Everyone responded that they would definitely recommend the ebook. Some even bought the ebook right after the get together and others plan to but have not yet. (Maybe they are hoping they will win it here. :)) I’d say that is a big endorsement for it. I also asked about ease of making the recipes and all responded it was very easy.
As far as individual recipes, the Coconut Oil and Orange Lip Balm* got rave reviews. It has a wonderful orangey scent and flavor and is nice and smooth. It keeps my lips soft and I feel good about using it on my daughter since I know exactly what is in it and she likes the orange, too.
The Insect Repellent smells wonderful! However, since the bugs aren’t quite biting yet, we haven’t had a chance to test it out.
The Soothing Bath Cookies was a fun one as you can customize the scents (which, really you can do with all) and the shapes. I agreed with those who used them in that they were very moisturizing with a light scent. I popped them in my bath while the water was filling and when I got in, the water felt luxurious. I can definitely see this being a fun one to make with your kids, and then they could use them that night in their bath.
The Dark Circle Eye Cream is the only product that wasn’t well received. I’m not sure if it was because we made too big of a batch and it would have been better to make it in the original amounts or it just wasn’t a winner. It has to be refrigerated and only lasts 14 days which made it a little less convenient as well.
The Cranberry Scrub** was a big hit. It is listed as a face scrub but I actually have been using it in my bath or shower every morning. I especially love it for my feet. I know I won’t be suffering from dry heels this summer! Yay! I typically can not use scrubs because my skin is sensitive and it burns and causes a rash to break out. This one is totally okay for me though because all the ingredients are natural. It it is very moisturizing and is great for dry skin. No burning at all even if I use it and then shave my legs. Yay! All the others have been loving using it for their face as it makes it incredibly soft.
My favorite is the Coconut Oil and Honey Face Scrub. I feel totally pampered when I use this and my skin….oh my goodness….feels amazingly soft afterwards! The only drawback is you can only make it in small amounts because it does not stay fresh for a long period of time. It is so easy to make though that it isn’t that big a drawback. We did make the mistake of making a bigger batch (although the book does give amounts for only a couple uses) and found out quickly it only lasts a short period of time. Next time, I’ll follow Jennifer’s instructions. 🙂
The Wart Be-Gone has been working for the 2 who tried it and they were very excited to be using something natural instead of the chemical stuff from the store.
I did not ask about everyone’s experience with the Love Potion for obvious reasons, but I’ll just say it is edible and we tasted it right after we made it and it was delicious. I’m sure there are lots of fun uses for this one. 😉
I’ll wrap up by telling you about the additional great information that you can find in Jennifer’s Coconut Oil ebook. So, of course, there are the recipes, but there is so much more packed in! There is a whole section on Carrier Oils and Butters with a breakdown of particular oils and butters and information about each one. My favorite section is the Essential Oils section. There is a big list of essential oils and the physical and emotional benefits of each one. This is great for customizing each recipe to suit your needs perfectly. And you can use this in other areas besides just her recipes obviously. It’s awesome to have all of that information quickly and easily in one spot.
Now, I know you want your own copy of Coconut Oil for Your Skin, Nourishing Your Body from the Outside In so you can get started making your own fabulous coconut oil treatments. You can go ahead and order it right now in the Hybrid Rasta Mama store. When this giveaway ends, you can get 10% off just because you are a reader here! Just use code LITTLEBIT10 when you order. The code is valid starting May 13 through May 22 . If you want to win it, enter below using the Rafflecopter entry form. I have 2 copies to give away to my readers!
(We used the Nutiva organic extra virgin coconut oil and have been happy with it. I use it for cooking and baking as well.)
*It is lemon in the book but the neat thing is, you can totally customize these recipes and that is just what we did with this one and swapped the lemon for orange.
**This is not the full name of the recipe but I didn’t want to give the full name as it discloses most of the ingredients.
Disclosure: I received no compensation for this post but did receive a complimentary ebook for the purpose of this review. I was not required to give a positive review and all opinions are 100% my own. I only review products that I either have purchased myself and love or products I have been given a chance to review by the company that I believe are products my readers would benefit from. Product links are affiliate links.