Baking Soda

I don't understand the DIY-Hype around baking soda. It has a ph level which is unacceptable for skin and hair. If you use it as a shampoo, it dries out your hair and scalp. If used for exfoliating, it harms your skin barrier, leading to either damaged skin or more oil production over time. I skip.

awesome foot powder for sweaty feet!
also awesome to add to toothpaste for a little more grittiness to get your mouth extra clean.

i would strongly advise against putting any amount of baking soda on your face though, the pH is really not meant for your skin! be careful out there! and try my magic foot powder! :p

I love using Baking Soda as an exfoliator, both for face and body
A little trick I discovered and would love to hear if anyone else has as well:
The Fridge 'n Freezer baking soda is more granular and I find it exfoliates better.
The regular baking soda is a softer consistency.
I have tried both and prefer the fridge and freezer for exfoliation. Let me know if you try this :D !

With a pH of 9, baking soda is anything but gentle on skin. Just because it's DIY does not make it gentler or more natural, or free of chemicals. Baking soda is "sodium bicarbonate" which is, like literally all things in worldly existence, a chemical. For reference, the pH of skin and hair products should be somewhere around 5.5 or less to have best results and avoid irritation. Ditto for hair products. A good discussion of this: https://simpleskincarescience.com/ph-acid-mantle/

YAASSS BEAUTY ON A BUDGET

I was using St. Ive's Apricot Scrub in my teens to exfoliate which was fine for greasy skin. Now that I'm in my 20s my skin has normalized and needs a gentler product. Plus I read online St Ive's damages the skin as the walnut shells cause tiny tears and burst blood vessels. Baking soda has been the perfect replacement. It removes dead skin cells, and honestly most scrubs are overkill, so this is all I need for smooth skin! Nice to not have to break the bank at the drug store when I can just use baking soda. I gently scrub this on my skin occasionally, followed by my moisturizer and aquaphor to rehydrate.

I enjoyed reading the other reviews for all its uses - I'll have to try them.

For 6 months, I've stopped all commercial shampoo & conditioners. Dilute 1 tablespoon baking soda. Pour over scalp and massage thoroughly. Rinse off completely and followed by conditioning with applied cider vinegar.

I'll do the review for that on the other page. I was skeptical at first when I tried to search for alternative natural products for hair. I have long hair till my butt, it's been colored, straightened and permed over the years. The perm was the worst, really damaged and made it tangled, dry and brittle. As it grew longer I'd have terrible dandruff.

After 6 months of using this, I'm impressed that it's significantly reduced the dandruff. My scalp is much less oily and doesn't get itchy as fast. (I wash once a week)

Of course it's super cheap, and you can get it anywhere. It definitely needs a conditioning product after otherwise the hair feels "squeaky" and hard to manage. So for those looking for a natural shampoo, this works

Okay, this might sound pretty weird to some of you but I wanted to get this out there.

I am really weird about my feet, not in a bad way but I am very meticulous and picky about my pedicures, etc. I am also diabetic, so I am pretty extreme when it comes to my hygiene and health, especially my feet and hands. As some of you have read in my other reviews, I work in O&G, usually spending a LOT of time in refineries, as I work in business development for a major company that performs industrial construction, turnaround services, maintenance and repair work, etc. so I am deeply involved in an industry where there are only a handful of women that are successful, as it is deemed "a man's world". I spend a lot of time wearing PPE, that consists of FRC clothing (usually coveralls), steel toed boots, hard hat, safety glasses or goggles, hearing protection and such. I don't do the fancy manicures and keep my fingernails trimmed pretty short with a square shape, cuticles meticulously trimmed and oiled multiple times daily and usually buffed or clear polish...my toes are a different matter altogether, this is where I can secretly go a bit wild and love having them painted usually very dark, bright or unusual colors with cute designs and embellishments. It's my fun little secret that allows me keep my femininity despite working in a man's world. Usually when in the field, I keep my make-up toned down and my hair is in a messy bun or pony tail, up under my hard hat.

So when I am traveling heavily, as I cover a huge territory called North America, and don't have time to get my nails done between trips, I will remove the polish and go "naked" on my toes rather than have to look at chipped polish. But my nails get stained from the dark/bright colors that I prefer to wear. I decided to try a whitening toothpaste on a nail brush to see if that helped reduce or bleach the discoloration, amazingly it totally bleached the color off my nails within seconds. Well since the main ingredient in whitening toothpaste is baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, I decided to mix my own concoction and it works just as well, with little to no scrubbing with the nail brush necessary.

In the past, I would be too embarrassed to go without polish, as the discoloration looked horrible and I never wanted people to think I had nail fungus or something, but this little trick quickly takes care of this problem and only cost pennies to make. It is also a lot easier to use an old toothbrush since the smaller head allows me to get the sides of my nails and tighter area along the cuticles. Not only does this remove discoloration, but it also bleaches the whites of my nails and makes it look as if I have a fresh French Manicure, works for the hands too.

When it comes to skin care baking soda is a fantastic natural ingredient that can be used to soften skin (add to bath water and take a relaxing soak), exfoliate (add to gentle cleanser or lotion and massage on skin then rinse to remove), or remove stains from teeth when used as toothpaste, not to mention so many more uses (just google it). Use a light hand when exfoliating, it is a fine powder but still abrasive and you don't want to cause unnecessary microdermabrasion. Skin will feel soft and smooth after and you won't believe how inexpensive this wonder product is.

I used Baking Soda as a gentle exfoliator for a while, and it did a decent job for cheap. BUT I STOPPED AND HERE'S WHY:
I've read in multiple places online that baking soda disrupts the skin's natural barrier function. It's too alkaline and even more so when mixed with water. A damaged acid mantle (barrier) can lead to all sorts of skin issues and acne. Not trying to put down anyone's routine or suggest that I know better, I just wanted to share. My dermatologist in the States recommended I stop using it when I mentioned to her that I exfoliated a few times a week with it. I thought she was probably just trying to sell me something from her office, but she didn't. Then I looked into it for myself, and decided I'd better quit, especially since I'm on tretinoin.

There's plenty of science behind it, I suggest researching if you're curious.

I still use it for cleaning my tubs and sinks though, and occasionally in laundry.

I am a simple skincare girl - basically I only use Ivory Soap, Ponds Cold Cream to remove my mascara and a moisturizer on my face... and usually my skin is OK. But for the last 2 years I have been getting clogged pours (sebaceous filaments) and blackheads around my mouth and on my chin. When I try to extract them (Bad, I know!) if I don't get the little suckers well then they flare up and I get a full blown nasty zit. Since they have gotten so bad I decided to start using some scrubs to see if they would help my situation. After using a few from the drug store with little to no results I started googling. Isn't google amazing?! After searching remedies for blackheads I noticed that baking soda scrub kept popping up... So I decided to grab the baking soda out of my cupboard at home and give it a whirl. Well I am so glad that I did because within two weeks of using this simple water and baking soda mixture about 5 times (each use spaced a few days apart) the clogged pours have cleared up and I was able to extract the existing blackheads much easier. Like I said it has only been two weeks, so we will see if these results last but I am currently very pleased with this CHEAP and EASY solution for now!