Julie Gabriel

Unless you are planning on starting a business, you may not find this book all that helpful. The recipes call for a lot of specialized ingredients—many, for instance, call for three or four different essential oils. The start-up costs seem to be simply too high! Meanwhile, some of the advice is bad—for instance, I see elsewhere that mixing castile soap with vinegar, as one recipe advises, will cause the soap to separate in an unpleasant way—and some common cheap tricks (like using baking soda or coconut oil for natural deodorant) are left out.… (mere)

For those who are already taking action to eat more clean, green and local, this is the next logical step - caring for your body in the same manner. Since our skin is the largest organ of the body some may argue this is equally as important as eating organically. This book delves more deeply and more scientifically into caring for the outside of your body in a green manner than any of the other natural beauty titles I've read so far. For that, I give it four stars.

I'm unsure if it was a conscience effort, but things are hammered home repeatedly. I could see the author and editor deciding it was necessary since the information is much more scientific in nature than most other titles in this genre. As someone with a fairly extensive background in science I found it a bit aggravating and at times felt things were repeated just to meet arbitrary page counts.

Many reviews of this title at major booksellers pan the book for the author contradicting herself on her blog. I can overlook that, as the title is now several years old and there is new knowledge about chemicals and their impact on humans discovered everyday. Things could have changed rather dramatically from when she first drafted the manuscript to when it actually hit shelves, not to mention what has been learned in the several years since it was first released. That said, I did find she also contradicted herself within the book at times. Either that, or she was unclear between telling the reader what an specific ingredient's role was and telling us it was an okay ingredient for our homemade beauty concoctions. There were definitely ingredients I took as being okay that they showed up in the 100 Ingredients to Avoid list at the back of the book.

The book has a very thorough index, as well as bibliographic information for each chapter which I really appreciate so that I can do my own research into some of the things myself. The resources section for suppliers of some ingredients called for is helpful, though I expect could have been a bit more extensive. The format and layout of the book makes it pretty easy to use as a reference. Though while I checked the title out from my local library I think I will be purchasing an electronic version of it for my own library because of the ease at which I can take notes that are searchable.

Sprinkled throughout the book are some recipes for creating your own green beauty products. They were pretty standard and did not stand out to me as being terribly different than many other natural beauty titles that are more focused on recipes. Some of the recipes do call for harder to source ingredients, however.

Overall, this is one of the most comprehensive natural beauty titles I've found. Though I do think one has to be prepared to make their own judgments about product ingredients and such. It is, however, a good place to start researching the ingredients in your commercial beauty products.… (mere)

Green Beauty Recipes by Julie Gabriel, with over 300 recipes, is an excellent reference guide for those seeking more eco-friendly ways of creating and wearing makeup, lotion, fragrances, deodorants, and more. The introduction explains how these recipes are different and what types of alcohols and other materials to use in lieu of rubbing alcohol and other ingredients that are processed or contain artificial ingredients.

Another great find of the introduction is how to appropriately conduct a patch test to determine whether you are allergic to a particular compound or ingredient in each recipe. For those with sensitive skin, this will come in handy, especially since many of the recipes include alternatives should they find themselves allergic to a particular material. For those concerned about the shelf life of these products, not to worry because there are natural preservatives can be added to stave off bacteria, fungi, and other toxic elements that can render the products ineffective.

Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2010/10/green-beauty-recipes-by-julie-gabriel.html… (mere)