Advanced Potion Making.

I'm kind of glad that my toothpaste got confiscated at the airport, because it gave me an excuse to make this:

It's homemade toothpaste. Actually it's just about 1/2 cup baking soda mixed with the zest of 1 orange. It could also be used as a facial scrub. The original recipe called for lime zest and peppermint essential oil, but I didn't have a lime, and mint goes badly with orange. Anyway, mint-flavored toothpastes have a history of making me gag.


Speaking of facial scrubs: I have often used ground nutmeg as a scrub, and I have often used baking soda as a scrub, but only now have I thought to put the two together. The combination is actually quite different than the ingredients used alone. It feels like liquid soap with granules in it (you mix it with water to make a paste). I guess the nutmeg has enough oil in it to react with the baking soda, saponifying the mixture. Anyway I recommend any of these things for exfoliating, but since nutmeg is rather messy (it doesn't dissolve away like baking soda, salt, and sugar), I only use it in the shower.