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Wild Beauty: Wisdom & Recipes for Natural Self-Care [An Essential Oils Book]
An inspiring and easy-to-use primer on natural beauty, featuring 45 recipes for using essential oils to make your own perfumes and room sprays, lip balm, face and body oils, bath salts, juices, tonics, and more, including an overview of important plant ingredients, the benefits of detoxing your beauty regimen, and tips for creating a cleaner self-care routine.
Just like chemical additives in our food, synthetic ingredients in our hair and skin care can wreak havoc with our bodies. Luckily, there's no need to compromise luxurious, effective skin and hair care for safety. From a leader in the world of natural beauty, Wild Beauty is an inspiring and highly usable guide to harnessing the miraculous power of plants to make your own face oils, body balms, hairspray, bath salts, and more. Jana Blankenship, founder of the popular beauty company Captain Blankenship, believes that organic beauty products create a direct link with nature, and ingredients like cold pressed organic plant oils, flowers, seaweeds, sea salt, and organic essential oils not only conjure the natural world, but are highly beneficial for our skin, body, hair, and senses. Wild Beauty also shows you how to create powerful essential oil blends, the building blocks to effective skin and hair care, that can be used on their own to relieve headaches and tension, elevate mood, or be worn as natural perfumes. With gorgeous photographs and tips on creating a meaningful self-care regimen, this is the only book you need for true, holistic beauty.
Just like chemical additives in our food, synthetic ingredients in our hair and skin care can wreak havoc with our bodies. Luckily, there's no need to compromise luxurious, effective skin and hair care for safety. From a leader in the world of natural beauty, Wild Beauty is an inspiring and highly usable guide to harnessing the miraculous power of plants to make your own face oils, body balms, hairspray, bath salts, and more. Jana Blankenship, founder of the popular beauty company Captain Blankenship, believes that organic beauty products create a direct link with nature, and ingredients like cold pressed organic plant oils, flowers, seaweeds, sea salt, and organic essential oils not only conjure the natural world, but are highly beneficial for our skin, body, hair, and senses. Wild Beauty also shows you how to create powerful essential oil blends, the building blocks to effective skin and hair care, that can be used on their own to relieve headaches and tension, elevate mood, or be worn as natural perfumes. With gorgeous photographs and tips on creating a meaningful self-care regimen, this is the only book you need for true, holistic beauty.
160 pages, Hardcover
Published July 23, 2019
26 people are currently reading
141 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 17, 2023
mamas gives us a whole rundown on cosmetics and how to make them. she even shares bits of her life and a food recipe if i recall correctly
December 22, 2022
There's a lot of simple recipes in here that use fairly accessible ingredients, though some of them can be difficult to source depending on where you live. That being said, I do find them way more accessible than other DIY skincare books I've read. I've made a few of them and they are pretty similar to what you would get at a lot of "natural skincare" businesses such as Ursa Major and my local zero waste store.
While the contents of the book are a step above some of the shadier mommy blogs out on the internet, Blankenship still resorts to a lot of anti-science fear-mongering, and some of the advice she gives should be taken with a huge grain of salt. I'm mostly interested in this book for sustainable/zero waste recipes and will still recommend it to others for this reason alone, just with a big disclaimer attached.
The book is laid out beautifully and I love the photographs as well. Some other people found some of the narrative pretentious but I am honestly kind of a sucker for that stuff.
While the contents of the book are a step above some of the shadier mommy blogs out on the internet, Blankenship still resorts to a lot of anti-science fear-mongering, and some of the advice she gives should be taken with a huge grain of salt. I'm mostly interested in this book for sustainable/zero waste recipes and will still recommend it to others for this reason alone, just with a big disclaimer attached.
The book is laid out beautifully and I love the photographs as well. Some other people found some of the narrative pretentious but I am honestly kind of a sucker for that stuff.
September 1, 2020
Cringeworthy all the way through. Blankenship opens with an attempt to be relatable that quickly segues into her reminiscence of playing lab scientist with designer perfumes and spending vacations at the family villa. This isn't enough to tank the book (after all, we can't help the background we are born into), but her obvious privilege taints almost every page. For example, when decrying commercial soap ingredients she chose to single out CeraVe--a staple to many people on a budget. She freely admits she grew up in the world of couture, so why target a brand that serves the working class? Surely Chanel is equally culpable (and she may actually have some personal experience with it--something I sincerely doubt she has with CeraVe).
Still, I kept reading. Her formulations are basic and mostly repetitions of the same thing with different essential oils in each, so 5-10 pages of each section are filled with that could easily have fit on one page (questionable for someone purporting to be environmentally conscious). But again, I kept reading. The final straw was her recommendations for facial skin care. My eyebrow raised when I saw her recommendation to use walnut scrub on the face (an ingredient so infamous for causing premature aging that St. Ives faced a lawsuit over its use), but I shut the book when she claimed that lotions should be skipped entirely because they contain water (and therefore a preservative) and replaced with oil. While the first recommendation was suspicious, the second made it clear to me that Blankenship does not know or does not care about the fundamentals of skincare. Oils are moisturizers (which seal moisture in) but cannot replace humectants (which provide the moisture itself). I am also suspicious of preservatives in skincare, but there are several natural alternatives (such as leucidal liquid, which is derived from radishes) that make the essential (yes, ESSENTIAL) use of a humectant possible without absorbing parabens or other nasties. Even if she is dead set against the natural preservatives, a homemade lotion will keep for several days refrigerated without a preservative. I fear her readers will fall prey to her walnut-shell-and-oil gospel and end up looking more like the portrait than Mr. Gray.
In sum, please do not waste your hard earned money on this self-serving garbage. There are many great natural skincare resources out there that are credible both in their naturalism and their effectiveness. This is not one of them.
Still, I kept reading. Her formulations are basic and mostly repetitions of the same thing with different essential oils in each, so 5-10 pages of each section are filled with that could easily have fit on one page (questionable for someone purporting to be environmentally conscious). But again, I kept reading. The final straw was her recommendations for facial skin care. My eyebrow raised when I saw her recommendation to use walnut scrub on the face (an ingredient so infamous for causing premature aging that St. Ives faced a lawsuit over its use), but I shut the book when she claimed that lotions should be skipped entirely because they contain water (and therefore a preservative) and replaced with oil. While the first recommendation was suspicious, the second made it clear to me that Blankenship does not know or does not care about the fundamentals of skincare. Oils are moisturizers (which seal moisture in) but cannot replace humectants (which provide the moisture itself). I am also suspicious of preservatives in skincare, but there are several natural alternatives (such as leucidal liquid, which is derived from radishes) that make the essential (yes, ESSENTIAL) use of a humectant possible without absorbing parabens or other nasties. Even if she is dead set against the natural preservatives, a homemade lotion will keep for several days refrigerated without a preservative. I fear her readers will fall prey to her walnut-shell-and-oil gospel and end up looking more like the portrait than Mr. Gray.
In sum, please do not waste your hard earned money on this self-serving garbage. There are many great natural skincare resources out there that are credible both in their naturalism and their effectiveness. This is not one of them.
April 24, 2020
This book was gifted to me by my partner who knows I love all things natural beauty. This book is 2/3 recipes and 1/3 personal testimony/breakdown of holistic beauty. I loved learning about the author Jana and the making of her natural beauty company in the beginning of this book. I wish the author went more into detail about her experiences in business, natural beauty, and holistic wellness.
As for the recipes themselves, they are great! There is a wide variety of recipes for items ranging from toners, face masks, hair oil, room sprays, etc. I wish the author included where it is recommended to source the items the recipes call for. Some recipes call for specific/more rare essential oils for example, and I'm unsure of where to find them and know they are good quality.
Overall this is a fun read if you're into holistic skincare and wellness.
As for the recipes themselves, they are great! There is a wide variety of recipes for items ranging from toners, face masks, hair oil, room sprays, etc. I wish the author included where it is recommended to source the items the recipes call for. Some recipes call for specific/more rare essential oils for example, and I'm unsure of where to find them and know they are good quality.
Overall this is a fun read if you're into holistic skincare and wellness.
April 26, 2020
This book had a lovely mixture of inspiring anecdotes, gorgeous photographs of nature and products, and, most importantly, plenty of easy-to-make recipes for beauty products derived from whole, natural ingredients. One simple thought that stuck with me was "Shouldn’t you be excited about and relish in the ingredients that are nourishing your skin?" More than any other book/article I've read on the subject, this one really motivated be to embrace nourishing myself with simple, high-quality (and not necessarily expensive) products and ingredients. Would definitely recommend to anyone interested in natural living or DIY beauty products!
February 18, 2020
Really enjoyed this book for its practicality in my life at this time, as I deepen my journey towards living a more green/eco-friendly/purpose driven life. I loved having a simple explanation for what herbs, and plants do what, along with recipes for everything that was discussed- from shampoo, face oil to teas! Can’t wait to try some recipes. I was super thankful a list of vendors was provided at the end of the book because my next project was to vet vendors for essential oils, and herbs!
July 9, 2020
I think this book is beautifully written, the photographs are stunning, and the recipes are really good. I don't care for the borderline new age-y stuff but there wasn't too much of it. She mainly stuck with the facts about ingredients along with the science and nature behind them. I borrowed this from the library but I will probably purchase a copy to keep for reference. Overall, I liked it! It is a beautiful book!
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September 25, 2019Wild Beauty is written so simply and beautifully making territories of perfume making, creating natural nourishing products, and easy ways of taking care of yourself so accessible. And the author shares her inspiring journey. This book is written from love. I read it from cover to cover. On top of all this, it will bring you into a Greener life!!💚
December 11, 2022
This book made me want to go full on granola again.
May 9, 2020
This was a beautiful read! I highly recommend for those interested in clean beauty, meaningful musings, and diy recipes.
August 26, 2019
I think this book was just a bit too high-brow for me. I was interested in the recipes and such, but the text of the book kind of put me off.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews