Beautification. Oly Style.

Brittany and Mariah at The Yellow
House selecting their herbs.

My sisters, Brittany and Mariah, came to Olympia to hang out for the weekend. My parents drove them from their home in Kennewick on Saturday morning, they drove back Sunday afternoon. It was a short but sweet visit. I always feel refreshed after spending time with my family. 

The girls and I spent Saturday creating shampoo. As an added bonus, we made some lip balm too. The actual creation process took less than an hour for both products (not including cool down time), but we made a day of hunting for the perfect supplies and devising the perfect recipes. 

We started by perusing a customizable shampoo recipe we found at TheModernHerbal.com. The site offers a generic recipe as a base, and then lists herbs, essential oils, and other additives that can be used for specific hair types and colors.

Our Radiance loot. Everything needed for an evening
of shampoo making. 3/31/12

After each determining a recipe for our hair, and one for our momma's, we set out for Radiance Herbs & Massage downtown on 5th Ave. Before beginning our shopping though, we made a pit stop at Quality Burrito. I took my family there last August when they came for my wedding. It's one of those places I take people when they're visiting Olympia and sightseeing is in order. This time, they requested it. The service is a little slow, but the food is more than worth the wait. If you live in or near Olympia and haven't checked this place out, please let me know and we can go together. Seriously. 


Ok so, back to Radiance. I love going to Radiance because not only is it chock-full of natural, organic, planet conscious products, but of people seeking light in their lives as well. We spent at least an hour there, scooping bulk herbs into paper baggies, sniffing for essential oils, reading soap labels and otherwise enjoying the shop. "This is fun," Brittany said. "It's like a scavenger hunt." Without the friendly ladies on staff who helped us on our hunt, we could have been there at least another hour. Like I said, the place is chock-full. Of everything we were looking for, and plenty that was just intriguing.  


My parents, who patiently chauffeured us throughout the day, breathed a sigh of relief when we were finally satisfied with our goods and made for the check out counter. After realizing we forgot a few things, and being guided to them by the woman at the register, we checked out and made our way to the Artesian Well to collect water for our shampoo. "It's the water" seems to be a slogan Olympia adheres to with reverence. From what I understand, it originated with Olympia Beer. I found this commercial for Olympia Beer made in 1979, which seems to confirm the slogan's roots. 

Regardless, if Olympians believe it's the water, so do I. So we filled some bottles at the Artesian Well (which has received a "facelift," since I visited it last) to use in our shampoo instead of yucky, chlorine and fluoride contaminated city water. I've been to the well before, and there's been a line of folks every time. I wasn't surprised to see four or five people there waiting to fill several gallons of water to take home, or to work, or wherever. My family was a little surprised though, until they drank some of the water. "This is good," my Mom said enthusiastically. 

The folks with large amounts of water to collect let us sneak into the queue to fill our bottles, which took a matter of seconds under the heavy, cool flowing well. From there we left downtown for Joann Fabrics, where we gathered craft supplies to decorate our jars and bottles. Due to indecision over glitter (Glitter or none? Glitter glue pens, or loose glitter and glue? And other important questions such as these...), our Joann trip took at least another hour. 

Step 3: Strain herbs. 

Decorative supplies in hand (sans glitter), we returned to The Yellow House and got started. Following the recipe linked above, we poured our Artesian Well water into a tea kettle and brought it to a boil. In four separate jars, one for each of us, we added our chosen herbs. I used chamomile with yarrow, Brittany and Mariah used peppermint, raspberry leaves, and chamomile, and we used yarrow with sage for Mom.  


While waiting for our hair tea to cool, we went to I.talia, a pizzeria on West Side Oly. Owned by the folks who also own Ramblin Jacks and Mercato, the restaurant definitely lives up to their "fresh, organic, fast" motto. We shared pepperoni pineapple on a gluten free crust (which Mom says was the best of the gluten free crusts she's sampled), and a pizza off the chef's special board which I forget the name of. Afterward, we all tried gelato from Olympic Mountain Creamery. I didn't hear a single complain. 

Jars labeled with our personalized shampoo recipes. 

When we got back home, we strained out our herbs and mixed in the rest of our ingredients. Everyone used lavender Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap, a dab of sweet almond oil, and Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA (for volume, of course). From there we added either bergamot, tea tree, eucalyptus, or rose germanium essential oils, white or apple cider vinegar, and/or honey, depending on hair type and color.


While we decorated our shampoo jars, we watched The Jungle Book on VHS, on Meghan's tiny TV with a built-in VCR. What a time warp. We also added some flair to the tiny jars that would contain our lip balm. Our decorating took most of the movie, since we were sharing supplies. Singing along to The Jungle Book definitely made time fly. Once finished, we started the lip balm. 

Melting beeswax, soon to be
combined with bergamot and rose
germanium EOs, and jojoba oil

We found the lip balm recipe we used at Radiance about mid checkout. After quickly deciding we needed to make it, we hastily snagged a two ounce baggie of beeswax and assumed we had the rest of the needed ingredients. The recipe yielded at least five times more product than we had the capacity to contain, which happened to be lucky for us because I had far less jojoba oil than I'd thought. We used 1/4 the ingredients called for and made just enough to fill our tiny jars and half a shot glass (for lack of a better container). 

Overall, I enjoyed our scavenger 
hunt downtown more than actually making our beauty products. There's a vibe downtown that makes me feel at home. People are either ultra friendly, or rather standoffish, but they seem genuine either way. Any time I feel like having a conversation with a stranger that goes beyond surface level pleasantries, I need only linger near a coffee shop for five minutes or so. Amazing food is always less than a block away. Unique supplies and ingredients you can't find at your average mega-chain-store can always be found at one shop or another. And the people watching. It never gets old. Showing my family around is always an adventure. There's a stark contrast between downtown Olympia and downtown Kennewick. They say Olympia has made me weird. They're probably right, but I think they enjoyed being weird with me while they were here. 

Customized shampoo in customized
bottles. That's hair love. 

Our finished "Love Your Lips Balm".