The Best of 2019 - Humblebee & Me (2024)

Today we're creating some striking bath bombs to celebrate the winter solstice (technically the solstice was the night of the 21st, but here in Calgary the 23rd is only 8 seconds longer than the 21st, so I think we can still call it solstice season!). A cool, purpley...

I'm pretty stoked to share today's project with you—it's a Cranberry Orange Conditioner Bar that I've been working on for months. Satiny cranberry seed oil, ultra-conditioning BTMS-50, shine-ifying hydrolyzed silk, and beautiful sweet orange essential oil come...

This beautiful cream-coloured White Chocolate Peppermint Shampoo Bar delivers oodles of bubbles and a wonderful minty-chocolate scent in one elegant package (so to speak—shampoo bars are packaging-free!). I've called it a shampoo bar, but it also makes a beautiful...

I've been working on these chocolatey, clay-spiked shampoo bars since early March, and I'm super excited to finally share them with you today! They've got a stunning, creamy lather that leaves your hair feeling fabulous, and I'm making them with my beautiful new...

This decadent Rich Shealoe Butter Cream is the first project I'm tackling in myBee Better series; it's an update of the Homemade Shealoe Butter Cream I shared back in February 2014. The idea was to create my own shealoe butter type product, inspired by the plethora...

Today we're creating something simple—an aromatic, creamy salve with an intoxicating essential oil blend designed to ground and calm. It's a great DIY for beginners, with a relatively short ingredient list of simple, plant-based ingredients. I'm loving both applying...

Today we're creating a gentle Lavender Facial Cleansing Bar—a solid foaming facial cleanser with a skin-happy pH, creamy lather, and a lovely lavender scent. Several bees have sent in requests for another solid facial cleanser, with references to products from Cerave...

Today we're creating a fun new hair product—a lightweight Rosé Conditioning Hair Foam! This delicate foam contains some fabulous-for-hair goodies for smoothing and volumizing. It also smells fabulous and comes together in a flash. And did I mention that it's a hair...

If you love body-butter-esque creams, this one is for you. This Rosé Moisturizing Body Cream has a consistency that makes me want to dollop it on a big slice of pie, or perhaps eat it out of an artisanal waffle cone. It smells fantastic and is loaded with ingredients...

I am straight-up smitten with the whippy texture and skin feel of this Rosé Whipped Body Butter. It's fluffy and rich (like marshmallow fluff!) in the jar, but starts to melt quickly on skin contact. It glides across the skin lightly before absorbing in a flash,...

This silky, softly-scented gel moisturizer has become a fast favourite in my skin care routine. It’s beautifully light and packed with things my skin loves. It is focussed on lightweight hydration, making it the perfect thing to sandwich between skin cleansers and...

Today we're keeping up the Rosé theme with a shimmery, sudsy Rosé Hand Wash. This lovely bottle of bubbles also uses the Iselux Ultra Mild surfactant blend from Windy Point for ultra-easy making (we used it earlier this month to create a Sweetgrass Facial Cleanser as...

I am so in love with this simple, vibrantly orange cleansing oil. It smells wonderful, works beautifully, and is so dang easy to make that it feels a bit like cheating. Compared to my other cleansing oils I think you'll find this one lighter, perhaps a bit more satiny...

Today we're making a simple, fragrant facial gel starring ceramides. This gel not only moisturizes and hydrates the skin immediately, but it also helps strengthen your moisture barrier. This leads to stronger, more resilient skin and less transepidermal water loss...

Brace yourself for this Pemberley Conditioning Body Butter, as it is divine. This is a continuation of the Pemberley series I kicked off in February with my Pemberley Hand Lotion, featuring the same stunning scent blend and general theme of luxury. As I was trying to...

I'm really excited to share this recipe with you guys—it's a formula that's been heavily requested, and I've been working on it and testing it for months now. This is a beautiful solid cream foundation that you can put in a compact or a stick for easy application. It...

Today were taking something really simple (DIY micellar water) and amping up its cleansing power so it easily removes waterproof makeup. It's a super simple modification to a more standard micellar water recipe and I think you'll be pretty stoked about the results!...

Today's recipe is something fun I've been able to work on with my dog, Lottie, which isn't something I usually get to do. Lottie and formulating don't really go together—she doesn't need an under-eye gel, and what with her being so furry, lotions and body butters...

Today we're doing a thing that is long overdue—a Soothing Under Eye Gel! It's part of our soothing series, and it is lovely. It's also the first recipe I'm sharing using Aristoflex AVC, a very cool cold-process gelling agent and emulsifier that I've been working with...

This Cacti Q10 Anti-Aging Facial Serum features a base of beautiful plant oils spiked with some potent Coenzyme Q10. It's rich in antioxidants, has rejuvenating properties, and leaves your skin positively glowing. It's also a rather pretty orange colour, and comes...

Today’s recipe is definitely long overdue, but I wanted to make sure it was on point before I shared it—it’s a sulphate free shampoo bar. I started working on this back in January 2018 and have been testing and tweaking ever since. About six weeks ago I decided to...

This beautifully marbled soap is a wonderful example of things not turning out quite how you expected, but being wonderful anyways. My working title for these bars was "Indigo Swirl", but this batch of soap had different ambitions. The particular level of trace in the...

Today we're doing something a bit different; I wanted to walk you all through the experiments I did while I was working on last year's Christmas Tree Body Washas The Tale of the Curdling Body Wash. It was a really interesting puzzle that I worked at for quite a...

I'm really excited to share this formula with you guys—thisPemberley Hand Lotion was my Formula Botanica final project, and I received a mark of 100% for it! The project was to create a product for a specific customer. I designed this gorgeous hand lotion for...

Today's recipe is for a rich, fragrant body cream designed to soothe, soften, and hydrate dry and irritated winter skin. It is super thick and creamy (definitely not pumpable!), making it incredibly decadent to use. You'll scoop up a silky dollop of this Rose Aloe...

Today we're continuing our soothing series with this beautifulSoothing Facial Lotion. It's a fairly lightweight facial lotion, positively packed with potent moisturizers, skin-soothing actives, and ingredients that help strengthen barrier function so your skin can be...

With these dry winter days I've been finding I've been reaching for this fragrant hair serum a lot recently—whenever my hair needs a bit of smoothing, added shine, and general oomph. I'll run a pump or two through my hair from about the ears down and it leaves my hair...

Today's recipe is kicking off a new soothing skin care series that is perfectly timed for the driest, darkest, and often coldest part of the winter here in Calgary. The formulas in this series star a beautiful selection of wonderful, effective ingredients that have...

This rich blue balm is a DIY version of a very popular and very expensive shop-bought balm. This particular balm is known for its striking dark blue hue that comes from a hefty dose of expensive blue tansy essential oil. I've created a more budget friendly version you...