"£25 for a pot of aqua and glycerin? On special offer you say? Well give me four then kind shop assistant!"

A partially reformed idiot, I don't believe it possible to get hair like that seen on TV, where a model swings her sci-fi hair in slow motion: her entire head has creepy computer generated hair melting off of it. Dry, brittle locks?, she interrogates scaldingly: not me now I use Re-Elastin Vit-Polyphilla with real herbal exacts. No, I don't fall for that shit.

Skin care however I certainly did until I read about what goes in that crud we smear over our faces. Then I got real clever, and started using v.expensive stuff (bought cheap on eBay of course! what bargains are to be had there), reckoning it would be pure as pure can be. Thus I moved onto Decleor's Night Balm, which is composed of oils and more oils. It's really really nice, but at £25 for a tiny pot, it's just way out of my price range. What's a girl to do when she's got an smooth-skinned image to maintain?

Girl in cunning idea shocker

As I mentioned in this post, I found a lady via eBay who imports shea and cocoa butters. These form the basis of much of the more pricey skin care options available to us vain types.

Face

Facial skin is best treated with the shea butter, which at room temperature is squidgy Melted, it becomes an oil into which I blend some jojoba, wheatgerm and then some essential oils. Blend every so often until it gets close to setting. Give it another blend, then pour into a clean jar. Use at night, and really the effects are great. As good as my stupidly expensive Decleor balm, and much cheaper. I tend to use this most at night and a rose oil for daytime use: somehow, my skin's a lot less greasy-looking for slathering it in oils than when I used 'mattifying' crap from Boots.

Body

For a body cream, a majority of cocoa is best as it is great on stretch marks. Blend with some shea, wheatgerm or sweet almond oils and you've got a lovely chocolatey body concoction which you can melt into your skin after a bath.

Genius

A great thing I did recently was to melt equal proportions of shea & cocoa, then I stirred in some ground rice and some wheatgerm (the husks - actually bought to make muffins). This was blended every so often then when thickening, poured into a ¼ cup measure and left to set. Used in the bath (scrubbed all over the body), the scrubby things slough off all your winter-dry skin and the butters melt to moisturise beautifully. Dry yourself though with a towel that's just about to be washed (erm, I suppose you all wash your towels after each use?) and be prepared to rinse rinse rinse that bath or shower!

Cost

All this may seem like great expense...this oil, that oil, butter blah wheatgerm. However, get your butters here and then build up a collection of essential oils and carrier oils (jojoba, wheatgerm and sweet almond are good) from somewhere like here. Once you have a basic 'kit' (even just shea butter, jojoba and an essential oil or two) you have the structure for many many pots of face goo. Make small amounts, experiment and find the best for your skin. You'll find yourself adding a peedie phial of ylang ylang one month, a slim cobalt bottle of neroli or rose absolute the next.

Here's my cocoa butter body balm in the process of being born: