Low Waste DIYs

Hello hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! We are having yet another big heat wave in Oregon right now and I am really quite unhappy about it. I am so ready for fall and cool temperatures so I can get back to actually sleeping with blankets and not having to run fans 24/7. I'm hoping this will be the last of the 100+ degree days so I can actually go outside and enjoy nature.

Anyway! Enough about the heat, let's talk about DIYs. I really only have about 3 things that I would consider DIYs, so this will probably be a shorter post. I use these projects to help myself get the most out of products I am using, waste less, and save money.

The first low waste DIY I started doing is dry shampoo. I personally was never a big fan of traditional dry shampoo, it felt like a lot of work and I always felt like you could see the white streaks in my hair no matter how far away I held the can or how well I worked it into my hair. A few years ago I discovered a recipe to make my own dry shampoo, and I absolutely love it. It has made me feel more empowered to go more than 1 day without washing my hair, it is completely zero waste, and it smells good. The recipe is so simple, literally just two ingredients, corn starch and cocoa powder. As I have darker hair I include the cocoa powder to help the dry shampoo blend in easier, but for anyone with blonde or other light colored hair, plain old corn starch would do the trick! The corn starch soaks up excess oil and leaves the hair looking fresh and natural and clean and the cocoa powder, as mentioned, helps the mixture blend in with darker hair and also makes it smell like chocolate. I keep my dry shampoo in an old jar and refill as needed when I am running low. I apply the powder to my hair with a little dry brush, but it could easily just be sprinkled in and worked with your hands, or I have even seen some little bottles for sale that would use a puff of air to spray it on. I personally like to use a little brush because it helps spread it around and get it worked through the strands really well. The way I keep this even more zero waste is by purchasing my cocoa powder and corn starch in bulk. If you have read my grocery shopping post (I think Apartment Living 3) you will already know about my bulk bags. I use these for anything and everything that I can get in bulk. I'll then transfer these products into various jars that I have kept (mostly peanut butter jars) and they will hang out in my cupboard until a restock is needed. This DIY is a great option for saving money as well, I would need to purchase cocoa powder and corn starch anyway, so I am just expanding their use to fit all of my needs.

The next thing I do that I would consider a partial DIY is my conditioner. I don't make the conditioner itself, but I use conditioner bars and turn them into a liquid conditioner. I don't personally enjoy using conditioner bars as they come, I find them really difficult to work with and I never feel like I am getting enough of the product on my hair. The interesting thing about conditioner bars is they really are just conditioner without any water, so to make it a liquid, just add water. I start by boiling 2 cups of water, that is how much my pump bottle can hold, and then I chop up the bar or grate it with a cheese grater. It just needs to be in smallish pieces so it can all dissolve. Once the water is boiled and the bar is all chopped up, I begin mixing them together. I won't do the entire bar right away, I'll start with about half and then work in the rest. While the water is still hot, the conditioner may seem a bit too runny, but as it cools, the entire thing thickens up into a perfect texture. I keep it in my glass pump bottle in my shower and use it as I would with any regular conditioner.

The last thing that is a sort of DIY is my creation of new candles from old candles. I used to just toss out candles in their jars once the wicks were burned down, but it is so so easy to just remelt that wax for reuse. I keep a candle scrap jar that I just add old scraps to once they burn down. Once the wax is out of its original jar, I will usually reuse them for storage purposes or to be the next home for my new candles. Luckily most candles are set in glass or tin, so even if reuse isn't feasible, they can be super easily recycled once clean. The easiest way I have found to melt down my old candles is to place my scrap jar in a pot of simmering to boiling water. I stir the contents of the jar occasionally, but eventually with the heat of the water, the whole thing will melt down into a pourable liquid. I then pour it all into old jars with some wicks and let them cool! I have loved experimenting with this process and it is a great way to use products up completely without wasting them. This is another one of the DIYs that saves me money in the long run by prolonging the life of my candles which in turn leads to a smaller need to purchase candles so often.

That is really all I have for this post, but I hope to experiment with more low waste DIYs in the future. I know there are people that make their own deodorant, makeup, and all sorts of other products, but for now I will stick with my three.

I hope a few of you will give at least one of these a go, if you do, let me know what you think :)

I am off to start grad school next week so if I fall off the face of the earth for a while, that is why, but I will do my best to keep my posts rocking and rolling.

I hope everyone has a great weekend, stay cool :)