December 14, 2025|Farm Life, Foraging, Gardening, Holistic, Homesteading, Products, Sustainability, Tips
If I Can’t Eat It, It Doesn’t Touch My Family
Part 2: Body Care – From Refinery Sludge to Real Fat & Real Oils
I don’t buy lotion.
I render it or press it cold.
I don’t buy deodorant.
I distill it.
I don’t buy liquid body wash.
I make alpaca-felted Castile bars that last three months and leave your skin softer when you step out than when you stepped in.
This is body care when you’ve torched every bottle that ever lied to you.
The Two Biggest Scams Still on Shelves
- “Moisturizer” that’s refined crude oil
Petrolatum, mineral oil, paraffin, dimethicone: the backbone of every drugstore lotion and $80 “luxury” cream. They sit on top of your skin like Saran wrap while your actual cells starve underneath. - “Clean” that’s still poison in a prettier bottle
Phenoxyethanol, “fragrance,” PEGs, polysorbates, “coconut-derived” surfactants that strip harder than dish soap. If the label is longer than a feed tag, it’s greenwashed.
What Actually Goes on My Skin (and ships out of this farm every week)
→ Whipped Tallow Body Butters
Grass-fed beef tallow rendered low and slow until snow-white, whipped light with raw Michigan beeswax and real essential oils I distill or source direct. Heals wind chap, cracked heels, burns, cuts, eczema: everything. One jar replaces every lotion you own.
Shop the body Butters: [Body Butter Collection]
→ Cold-Pressed Body Oils
Sweet almond, sunflower, hemp seed, avocado, and jojoba: all cold-pressed, unrefined, never heated above 100°F. Stays liquid year-round, absorbs fast, no greasy feel, no rancidity worries. My daily go-to after showering in winter.
Shop the Body Oils: [Cold-Pressed Body Oil Collection]
→ Magnesium Oil Spray – the only deodorant I’ve used since 2019
Pure Zechstein magnesium chloride, distilled water, and a touch of my own cedarwood + lavender distillate. Two sprays under each arm and odor is gone. No blocked pores, no aluminum, no baking-soda rash.
Shop the Magnesium Spray: [Magnesium Deodorant Spray]
→ Alpaca-Felted Castile Soap Bars
100% olive-oil Castile, hand-felted with raw alpaca fleece from my own herd. The felted wool gently exfoliates and keeps the bar lasting forever. Leaves a protective layer instead of stripping you raw. One bar outlasts three plastic bottles of body wash.
Shop the Felted Castile Bars: [Alpaca-Felted Castile Soap Collection]
→ Herbal Rash & Chafe Powder
Bentonite clay, non-nano zinc, arrowroot, powdered lavender/tea tree. Beats talc and cornstarch every time.
Shop the Rash Powder: [Herbal Rash Powder]
The Results After a Decade of This
- Hands that used to split open every winter? Gone.
- Armpits that reacted to every “natural” deodorant? Calm.
- Skin that stays soft through negative temps and 14-hour barn days.
I’m not special. I just quit letting refineries decide what my largest organ eats.
Start simple: throw out anything with petrolatum, mineral oil, dimethicone, “fragrance,” or phenoxyethanol. Replace it with one jar of tallow butter (for heavy lifting), one bottle of cold-pressed body oil (for daily glide), the magnesium spray, and a felted Castile bar. Six months from now you’ll laugh at the landfill you used to call a bathroom cabinet.
Part 3 (Hair Care) is next: shampoo is the biggest scam of all.
Everything in this post is live in the shop right now. Nothing in there I couldn’t eat off a spoon if I had to.