Tummy Tuck Cream

Tummy Tuck Cream

Hello all! I’ve finally moved this recipe for Tummy Tuck Cream where it belongs! On my new blog geared toward Essential Oils…and maybe some craftsy tutorials here and then when I feel like it! There’s a graphic at the bottom that is new, check it out!

Only a couple of days ago I posted this photo on my FaceBook page, and on a group page I am a part of where I can discuss and learn about the essential oils I’ve been learning about and using for a couple months now, and the response was overwhelming! Here’s the super embarrassing photo I would have taken on a real camera and in similar lighting had I known anyone else would be seeing it!

Oy! Look at that! Gross. I know. Makes me cringe. Both do really, but the difference is incredible. You can’t even tell as well with these photos. The lighting is off, the color is different because it is different times of day, the tattoos look different (that caused a lot of people to freak out!). But the things to know about the results I’ve had are as follows:

My skin looks tighter. The puckering at the bottom of my stomach had decreased A LOT, the sagging above my bellybutton is a decreased as well. The COLOR of my stretch marks (in person more so than these photos) is no longer purple and pink but pink and white/shiny. They aren’t vanished, but they do FEEL smoother. My husband (after all the uproar my photo caused!) said “show my your stomach”. I obliged. And he investigated, he felt the skin and really looked up close. Now, he’s been “noticing” the difference over the last couple months (those pictures are a month apart, I’ve been using the lotion off and on for two months) but to him, my stomach is my stomach and he doesn’t notice the stretch marks whether they are purple, pink, or lime green. (they’ve never been lime green, but you get the point.) So it wasn’t until he saw the picture and compared to the “now” in person that he really noticed how much it’s improved. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like he doesn’t realize I have stretch marks, or that my skin sags drastically if he should see that region when I lean over (ha! Like I let him see “that region” when I lean over!).

Anyhow. That’s just a little bit of an explanation of that photo. It’s not great quality, but it does get the point across. I took them for myself so I would know if I was just seeing what I wanted to see, and so if there was improvement that I just couldn’t see because anything other than COMPLETE DISAPPEARANCE wouldn’t be enough for me. Well, turns out the little improvements here and there are such a beacon of hope, and I am starting to think I wont have to put myself through the emotional upheaval that I have been considering when considering a tummy tuck (hence my name for it!). I was convinced nothing was going to help. I eat well, I eat clean, sure, I don’t exercise currently/regularly, but I have in the past with no results in this department. So I am hopeful, and I will definitely post updates should there be any. I hope there are many!

I just touched on it, and before I get started on the actual tutorial itself I want to address some questions I’ve gotten:

-Currently I am not “on a diet”, I eat organically almost exclusively, save the occasional dinner out.

-Aside from housework and running after kids my exercise is pretty limited to the occasional kick backs, or squats while cooking. I know adding more of this will help my long term health/wellness…I’m a busy momma, I do what I can.

– The tattoos on my stomach have not faded. They have stretch marks streaking through them and the ink interrupted by these scars is discolored and, well…ruined, but the cream has not faded the ink, in fact my skin rarely sees the sun so they’re as dark as my various others still. It’s a crappy iPhone selfie of my stomach that I never thought anyone would see, what else can I say? Hindsight is 20/20 people. Try and look past that.

– I have given birth to two beautiful daughters, and have a beautiful step daughter as well. My first pregnancy was 7 and a half years ago and all the stretch marks seen happened in the last two weeks of it. I only gained 35 pounds and after she was born (exactly on her due date), it took me 2 years to lose the weight and another 2 years to reach my goal weight (an additional 15 lbs). At this point (4 years later) my stretch marks were significantly faded and my skin was wrinkly when bent over, but didn’t sag…much…if I sucked it. A short time later I got pregnant with my second. Long story short, 70 pounds later my stomach was stretched to capacity with my nearly 9 lb baby, I wasn’t eating well because I was throwing up all the time and could barely walk from the pain. My second little bundle came a couple days early, but my stretch marks had been deep purple since I first showed. They didn’t “grow” a lot, but they did grow a little, the worst was the decrease in elasticity. Again, it took 2 years to lose the weight though I have fluctuated between a ten pound threshold (unfortunately I’m currently in the upper portion) and have hoped to make a new “goal weight”, but the color and elasticity only changed in small degrees as the weight came off and it has not improved nearly as much as after the first little one (doesn’t matter how much sucking in I do the sagging can’t be hidden).

Ok, I think I’ve covered most of the questions regarding the photo, and my stretch mark history, so are we ready for the tutorial?!?

First things first, you will need to put together the following:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO, thanks Rachel Ray)

Coconut oil (CO)

Vitamin E oil (optional)

Beeswax (for a vegan option I would try carnuba wax…maybe)

Rose water (and or just plain water)

Frankincense Essential Oil (EO)

Lavender Essential Oil

Grapefruit Essential Oil

Geranium (or jasmine, which is more expensive) Essential Oil

A food processor

A double boiler (or just a pot and a glass bowl)

Measuring cups

A spatula

A grater of some sort (unless you use bees wax pastilles which for some reason I didn’t…cost? Don’t know, do what works for you!)

Let’s meet our ingredients and supplies!

EVOO

I get mine at Whole Foods, their own brand extra virgin, cold pressed, unrefined, organic, all the good stuff. You want to get the best one you can find, the most appropriate with the most beneficial factors. Don’t go wasting a good thing by using lesser products. I still got a less expensive product, but it had everything I wanted from it. We use a different brand for food because we like the taste better. I’m not an expert in oils, so if you know what’s up then go with what you like best!

Coconut Oil

Again, got it at Whole Foods. Can you find a less expensive one somewhere else, sure, but I like this one and I’m always at Whole Foods so I save time and money not making a thousand trips, and no shipping costs. Again, important that it is organic, unrefined, cold pressed…and all that jazz!

Vitamin E Oil

This…guess where I got it! Yup, Whole Foods! They should be paying me for this advertisement, how do I make that happen?? I’ll be happy with store credit and coupons! ;0) I added this in to my most recent batch because of it being renowned for it’s skin healing properties. It can be pricey so feel free to leave it out. I’ve had great results without it too.

Beeswax

Pretty sure I got it in this form because of the cost and it’s orgsnic, humane, all the good stuffs…but pastilles are available in all sorts. I don’t know what is done that makes some white…but I worry about bleaching, or chemicals so without taking time to look into it, I’m happy to just get these. Like I mentioned above you could try carnuba wax if you are vegan, but I can’t vouch for its effectiveness, only thing I know is it a more brittle wax, but used in cosmetics I know.

Rose Water

Yes! Ok…I love me my Whole Foods. They have it all. And that’s where I got this one, but I have seen it other places. We have a Valley Produce and I’ve gotten it there before, I think you would find it at an Asian Market. It too isn’t cheap, or free like regular water so leave it out if you need to, but if you want your skin feeling soft as rose petals you might want to leave it in. Totally your call.

Now for the essential oils. Disclaimer: I’ve done some research and in my personal opinion Young Living essential oils are the best out there. For many a reason and if you want me to go into that I’m glad to…at another time. For now I will just mention this is what I use, it’s what my results resulted from (ew, that was some awkward repetition!). In light of full disclosure I will say, in order to buy them wholesale I became a distributor, but don’t think I’m trying to sell them to you. You could try other companies…but as far as I’m concerned don’t come crying to me when you don’t see any results! But do your own research and make up your own mind, just like with the rest of it. And like I said, I’m more than happy to tell you why I chose and LOVE these

oils (as if the picture weren’t telling enough) but that’s not the point of this post. And I’ve already gotten distracted by it!

Essential Oils:

Frankincense

So, here I am looking up the properties of Frankincense in my handy dandy Essential Oils Pocket Reference (EOPR) to tell you why it might work in this situation…but it’s not giving me anything skin related that I can think of. I put it in the cream because people were saying they were using it for all sorts of skin issues (discoloration, scars, etc.) and that it was working. So I put it in even though it’s big sells are that it is “Antitumoral, immunostimulant, antidepressant, and muscle relazing” and it’s uses are most commonly ” depression, cancer, respiratory infections, inflammation, and immune-stimulating” . So I dug a little deeper and looked in up some other references, now I’m disappointed that my Pocket Reference isn’t as extensive as I’d like, but I saw in another EO booklet all it’s skin related goodies. “Apply to aging skin, apply to cuts and scraps to help heal and reduce appearance” That last bit is what I want! All I know is it’s working for me!

Lavender

Lavender is another one of those that works for a myriad of things, but here’s what it works for skin-wise: “combats excess sebum on skin” *sebum: the fatty secretion of the sebaceous glands. Got that from the dictionary…you want the right amount, not too much…ew.* “uses: …skin conditions (perineal repair, acne, eczema, psoriasis, SCARRING, STRETCH MARKS)” again, that last bit…why it’s in there. *perineal: mommas want to know this bit…it’s what you want repairing after a vaginal birth/episiotomy *

Grapefruit

Cellulite. As far as skin is concerned, that’s what this is for. It also is known to be a good hair growth inhibitor. Which is part of the skin, generally speaking…so I thought I might as well mention it!

Geranium

“Helps cleanse oily skin, revitalizes skin cells” and “uses: …skin conditions (dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, acne, vitiligo)…menstral problems/PMS” And I threw the last part in since I’m reading it right now, and my main focus group is bound to be mommas with stretch marks, so they’ll be rubbing it on their belly anyway and it could have added bonuses!

Food Processor

This is mine, it’s by Cuisinart and it works great for me. I don’t know that you would get the same results in a stand mixer (someone asked) but I believe in a blender or Vitamix you would. But those will be more cumbersome to clean. *Disclaimer! clean up can be annoying.*

Double Boiler

Yeah, I don’t have a double boiler. In fact I don’t know if I’ve ever actually even seen one. Even on the cooking shows that say “using your double boiler” it’s always just a bowl over a pot on the stove. So, as you can see that’s what I’ve got here. I suggest glass for this. I’ve used stainless steal for other things…but I like the glass for this. Don’t ask me why…I don’t write tutorials…I’m just blabbering on and trying to be thorough! ;0)

Measuring cups

Here’s a close up, in case you didn’t catch them in the picture above ;0) I used my pretty display ones for the tutorial…because why did I get them if they’re just going to sit out and my grungy plastic Wilton ones with the melted handles and what-not are the ones I always use :0)

“A grater of some sort”

I use this Martha Stewart peeler I got from Macy’s (seriously…people will ask, thorough, remember? Trying…) its nice because you stick your finger in it and it makes it easier for me being closer to the subject I’m “peeling”. You can use anything to chop it up and make it melt-able (technical term), but it will stick forever to your cheese grater (or at least it is on mine!) and this is just what I’ve found to be the easiest.

As I am writing this (and it has taken me an entire day so far, because of the kiddos) I feel like I can hear the hundreds of people at this point saying “are we there yet?!” So yes! we are there! It is recipe time!

Recipe: (bare in mind that none of these were done to an exact science, you can tweak them here and there, you can half/double/quadruple the recipe whatever you fancy! This is just what I did!)

1 Cup EVOO

1/2 Cup CO

Approx. 1/8 Cup Vitamin E Oil

Approx. 1/4 Cup grated Beeswax

Approx. 1 Cup Rose water (I spilled some and was low so did part rose water part H2O)

15 drops each

Frank EO

Lavender EO

Grapefruit EO

Geranium EO

And here is what you do:

Measure all your ingredients (minus the EOs, you’ll just drop those in later)

Put your oils and beeswax in your double broiler (you put water in the pot and get it simmering, then put the glass bowl, or whatever, on top of that and put your ingredients in there)

Let that melt all the way down. Your beeswax will take the longest to melt. Use your spatula (who read closely enough to noticed it didn’t get it’s own photo??) ;0) to mix it about when it looks like the second picture below you’re good to go.

Pour the melted oils and wax into your food processor and let it cool in there until it’s about room temperature. Cooling in here means you don’t lose as much in the transfer. Use your spatula (see, it was important it should have been in the pictures!) to scrape every bit out of the glass bowl that you can.

Then start ‘er up! It’ll get a little more opaque as it gets going, and I suggest scraping down the sides and off the top at least once before adding the water.

Then drizzle in your water. It will turn a much paler color. Because of the EVOO it will be a super pale yellowy hue, other oils don’t leave much color. And it is thinner with the EVOO than with some of the others I have used. The sound might have an audible change when it goes from super liquid to it’s lotiony state. But you’ll know it’s “set” when it’s this color:

But as you can see above there’s a lot up on the sides, so scrape that down… (poor spatula, got no love until now!) As you can see there was a lot of oil that still needed to be emulsified.

After you scrape the sides down, turn it back on and add your Essential Oils!

Now you’re ready to scrape that out into your jars!

You want every last drop of this magical cream so use that spatula to it’s fullest potential, and then any extras just go ahead and smooth out with your hands and apply immediately! ;0)

This batch made 1 pint and a baby food jar…is that 2 oz, or 4? It’s taken me too long to write this…I’m sure that’s ONE thing I can leave to you guys to figure out on your own, right? ;0) It might have taken a while…but I had fun doing it! I’d love to hear successes and see photos! Just remember to take a good photo of the “before” so the “after” is more clear ;0)

I’ve had a few people say they would rather not make it themselves…Young Living has some policies about reselling their products (they pride themselves on their scrutiny and making sure it is top-notch, so they can’t condone something being sold with their name they don’t have control over testing-wise etc.) so if you are one of those people who wants me to make it for them…I’m still trying to figure out how it can be done with YL, so you can message me privately and I’ll let you know when I know!

Hope that helped with all the inquiries!

Update: an easy recipe graphic I made you all!

To order Young Living essential oils go

here.

Original article and pictures take http://putthelimeinthecoconutblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/tummy-tuck-cream/ site