how to create a sustainable post-valentines diy with your roses: Coco Rose Body Polish

In an effort to continue to challenge myself to try and live a more sustainable life, I wanted to find something to do with all of the beautiful roses I’ll have left over after Valentine’s Day. I’m 2 months in for my 2020 resolution where instead of making huge, abrupt changes, I’m simply looking at small ways where I can be less wasteful. I LOVE the Herbivore line and was impressed when I smelled Coco Rose because most rose products make me gag. Love the flower, but I usually hate the sent of Rose (and ironically, Jasmine) when used in perfumes and candles, As good as it smelled, couldn’t ever bring myself to pay almost $40 for a body scrub, but with my husband out of town for the week I was almost thinking about that being a nice treat to myself for Valentine’s Day weekend. My daughter ended up being home sick with a stomach bug so the last thing on my mind was ordering anything for myself.

By this morning it was the third night awake with my daughter. I was pretty wiped and wanted to do nothing but stay at home since I knew my plans to take them up to Big Bear since there’s no school tomorrow were over. I got up pretty early and figured I’d do a face mask and finally infuse some oil with Ayurveda herbs I brought back from India so started digging in the pantry for the oils. The suggestion was to infuse the herbs in coconut oil for at least a week, but I just realized I needed to do a substitution because while coconut oil flowed like liquid in the Indian heat, its a solid here so semi impossible to get the herbs to infuse with the oil. So while I have to double-check with my mom on another oil suggestion, seeing all of my coconut oil next to my Himalayan Pink Salt made me think of doing a Coco Rose hack with a few of my Valentine’s Day roses before they die. 5 minutes later, I had my own version of Coco Rose with only 5 ingredients from my kitchen: sugar, Himalayan pink salt, virgin coconut oil, petals of 2 roses, and shea butter.

Now here is where some of us will disagree about the ingredient base. There’s really nothing in here to make it smell overly like roses. I don’t drop in any rose fragrance or even a rose essential oil because I’m not a fan of “fragrance” in anything I put on my skin.

FRAGRANCE IS BASICALLY THE PROBLEM CHILD OF THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY

Coming from a career background of working with medical grade skincare brands and dermatologists taught me early that when I want an experience with my products linked to sent . . . burn a damn candle. This was one of my hardest habits to break. When I lived in NYC, my husband started his career working for Spa Finder and I had friends living the dream who worked for L’Oreal and Estee Lauder. I had access to every product and 5 star spa you could imagine, but had no idea some of those very things I loved the sent of were hiding chemicals in the name “fragrance” that were the source of countless cases of contact dermatitis, rashes, and even allergic responses like headaches.

When I first was hired by a medical grade skincare company and used their cleanser, I remember having a conversation with the marketing team about how well using a face wash with active ingredients like Glycolic Acid and Salycilic Acid worked for me, but it was too expensive not to have a sent experience when I used it. Couldn’t they make it smell like peaches or bubble gum? That’s when they told me they didn’t add fragrance to ANY items in their line because it is one of the first ingredients Dermatologists look for in a product when patients are having a reaction to something they are using. (Insert complete shock face).

This was 10 years ago. No one was talking about not using fragrances in products so I didn’t understand until years later when working with labs to develop my first skincare line that one of the reasons fragrance was basically the problem child of beauty was that it can hide about 5,000 fragrance-forming ingredients under one word - fragrance - on an ingredient label. Technically it’s a loophole under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1956 so a popular fragrance like Chanel No 5 wasn’t completely knocked off, but it can make it impossible for someone to figure out what they are having a reaction to when used in skincare and body products.

JUST BECAUSE IT’S NATURAL DOESN’T MEAN IT’S GOOD FOR THE SKIN

So this may be the point where you chime in and say, replace the fragrance with an essential oil. I’m going to challenge this one. I tend to avoid it in products that come into contact with my skin. This scrub is for the body which has thicker skin than your face, but one thing that has been common with all of the dermatologists I’ve worked with in the last few years has been them telling me they have had a dramatic spike in patients coming in complaining of inflamed skin. Many times when they have them come back with their skincare routine, they can trace it back to essential oils so it’s become a personal no-no ingredient for me when it comes to my skin. You do you, but I’m doing this without even a drop of rose essential oils. At most I would have played around with adding in some rose water I brought back with me from India, but it has such a faint sent that I didn’t think it would make a difference.

EVEN HOMEMADE BEAUTY PRODUCTS COME WITH RISKS

Funny enough, DIY beauty is usually on the no-no lists of many of my dermatologists which I mostly agree with. . . at least for the face. For this DIY, I’m just using it on the body and it won’t be anything that I store for long since there are no preservatives to keep the recipe stable for any length of time. In general, just because something is homemade in DIY beauty projects does not always mean it’s ‘safe’ as there are many products in our cabinets that can cause allergies or other problems once applied to your skin like Lemon Juice, Baking Soda, or Tooth Paste. Also, since you are not preparing it in uber hygienic conditions like in a lab, that’s another reason why I pretty much am only make what I’ll use up this weekend.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup Himalayan Pink Salt

1/4 cup virgin Coconut oil

2 Tbs Coconut Butter or Shea Butter

Petals of 2 Roses

DIRECTIONS

Take all of the ingredients and place them in a food processor and gently pulse to mix them all together. I used Shea Butter that I bought for a hair whip I make, but you can use coconut butter as a replacement. The pink salt + pink roses gives the body polish a beautiful pink color like Coco Rose without having to use any dye. I made some the kids could try without salt since they are always coming home with little nicks that could be irritated by the salt and without the roses so I wasn’t stuck cleaning petal pieces out of the bath tub all night. If the mix is a little dry, add in more coconut oil, one spoonful at a time. When finished, scoop the body polish into a mason jar and take it with you to the bathroom. It actually looks really pretty if you have any dried tea roses like these to add to the top, but since it’s just for myself, I didn’t bother. Done!

I’d love to know if you make this! DM me @JasminePennamma on Instagram or tag me IG Stories so I see!