Often in the effort to save more and live on less, we forget the importance of personal maintenance. We need not sacrifice beauty, femininity or even a bit of pampering for the sake of frugality. Every fully stocked frugal house has the essentials needed for bath, body and beauty products. And not only do we have them...they are cheap, natural and healthy!

Where the eye finds appeal, the heart finds satisfication. It's not necessary to sacrifice eye appealing containers unless you want to. Thrift stores, yard sales, antique stores and flea markets hold a treasure of beautiful or unique containers. Target, Wal-mart, Hobby Lobby, The Dollar General, The Dollar Tree and more stores carry containers as well and these are at low cost.

You don't have to go without pleasant fragrances either. Essential oils are a good choice for scenting products where a few drops goes a long way. Fragrance oils offer a wider variety of scents but are usually not as natural as essential oils. 

Brandy's Beauty Collection:

Hair care

• Shampoo-  I scent baking soda with essential or fragrance oil. I use it by sprinkling a small amount into my hand and then splashing a bit of water on top to make a paste. I wash my hair as I would with shampoo then rinse. I do alternate use with regular shampoo.
• Condition- Some like to use warmed mayo or oil to give hair a nice hot oil treatment. Having oily hair, I have never liked this so I do use commercial conditioners once or twice a week. 
• Rinse- I use vinegar as a rinse after shampooing

Bath Products 

•  Bath oil- A few drops of cooking or olive oil in the bath leaves the skin feeling smooth and silky. I like to fragrance oil I pour into a bottle fur bath use only.
• Baking soda soak- a little baking soda sprinkled in the bath also leaves skin feeling softer.
• Oatmeal bath- this is refreshing to the skin and relieves itching.
• Milk bath- this has become popular in the commercial bath aisle but why spend that much when a little powdered milk poured into the bath water works just as well?
• Body and baby powder- put cornstarch in a shaker and you will never need to buy powder again, particularly one containing cornstarch that costs more than a package of cornstarch. This is one of the products I like to scent.

 
Beauty Products

Face Scrubs

•  Dove soap and a washcloth- I have never found anything that works as well as running a towel under hot water, applying it to my face to open pores then rubbing Dove soap on to wash my face then rinsing.

Facials

• Oily skin- Beat an egg white and add 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice. Apply to face and rinse when dry. Be sure to test this in a small spot before applying to the whole face, some people are sensitive to certain products.
• Milk and yeast- I have long forgotten the exact measurements but I mix a little milk and yeast for a facial that softens my milk and leaves it looking healthy. Just as the egg and lemon juice one, I rinse when the mixture has dried

Beauty

• Tired eyes- two slices of cucumber on each eye for several minutes refreshes eyes.

Moisturisers

• Hands and feet- I apply vaseline like a lotion to my hands and feet at least twice a day. Nothing softens and cares for my hands and feet better than this does.
•  Lips- Vaseline works as a lip balm or lip gloss as well.

 Shaving Gel

• Conditioner- This isn't a natural product but it certainly is cheap. Just a dab goes a long way and it leaves legs feeling silky smooth.

 I hope you find some use in this list and if you use homemade solutions that are not here, please share! And remember that beauty products are meant to keep what we have healthy. We enhance it for our own pleasure. God makes no mistakes in his products, we are each naturally and perfectly made as precious gifts meant to be cherished by our own selves and others. So ladies...we are perfect and beautiful no matter what we wear or what we put on our faces, we just need to believe it.

 I use a little baking soda mixed with face soap for a face scrub. It leaves the skin feeling so smooth. You can also use cornmeal for a body scrub (or used coffee grounds).

Vinegar makes a good rinse for the face, too, if it feels tight or dry, because it neutralizes alkaline soaps.

Skin types vary, but olive oil is a good moisturizer for the face. Put it on, leave it for a minute, then blot off the excess.

Vaseline is great for lips, but it also works on dry feet if you rub it on at bedtime, then wear socks to keep it from getting on the sheets.

Plain yogurt (the kind with live cultures) makes a good facial. It helps heal acne and softens the skin so that dead skin cells wipe off along with it.

Thanks Pat, having oil prone fair and face, I can't comment much on solutions for dry skin or hair. I forgot to add sugar scrubs in the ideas. Sugar dampened with olive or cooking oil makes a good body scrub.

Baby oil from a $ store is great for body moisturizer and pet. jelly for those extra dry areas

Facial scrub using a pinch of table salt and warm water followed up with a good wash and rinse

Body scrub mix--gran. sugar and some baby oil--works as good as Bath & Body Works very expensive sugar scrubs

 Rolo, I have found baby oil at reduced prices and used it for the oils I listed above. It does work well.

I unfortunately don't have any homemade recipes to offer... but in regards to things that work best for skin types, I really liked this book:

The Skin Type Solution

I was a little suspicious of this book at first -- my coworkers and I get free books as a perk through our company, and they'd gotten it first and were raving about it.  But once I cracked it open, I was pretty gleeful to discover that she actually included affordable solutions (stuff you can find in a drugstore).  [She mentions Dove soap in there, which made me pretty happy, because I love that stuff to begin with.]  Makes me think it's not pure hogwash.

One bit of advice that I've taken to heart is using moisturizer with a healthy amount of sunscreen in it.  I figure that spending $10 for that kind of facial moisturizer is a bargain for nice skin when I'm older!  That's about as high maintenance as I get, though.  I'm too lazy to get myself nice and pretty everyday, especially since my office has a casual dress code.  :)

OR you could purchase off brand sunscreen from the $ store, mix it with your off brand $ store moisturizer, and save even more!  Works just as good too.  

I tried that for awhile, but I'm a bit particular about the way sunscreen feels on my skin (if it's too greasy, I'll start to avoid using it).  Plus, the one I'm using has stuff in it that reflects light, so I feel less obligated about using makeup.

(Which I'm waaaaay too lazy to deal with in the morning.)

I figure the offbrand sunscreen + makeup would equal the price of my moisturizer, and it makes me happy, so it's not a bad price to pay :)

The one thing I've noticed as I've gotten older is that there are some things I can go frugal on, but other things, I get what I pay for.  The part that frustrates me is that finding out the difference is often trial and error... so I end up wasting money somehow.  (Either because I'm dramatically unhappy and thus didn't get satisfaction out of my purchase, or because the darn thing actually breaks and I have to replace it... etc, etc.)  My philosophy is gradually shifting to that of buying quality (or more expensive stuff), but waiting until there are fantastic sales/bargains, for the things I really care about.

Just wish it wasn't such a stab in the dark sometimes.  :(

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention.  I read somewhere that sunscreen does go "bad" after awhile (the chemicals break down), so be careful with dollar store purchases.  If they look old... maybe might be worth it to buy an offbrand bottle on sale at a drug store, to get full protection.