Do:

• Moisturize just as frequently and cleanse just as sparingly as you would otherwise (paraben-free moisturizers and soap-free cleansers twice a day are a must for this girl).
• Try a nourishing homemade mask, like this dreamy strawberry and honey one.
• Apply a small amount of tea tree oil to the blemishes no more than twice a day.
• Drink plenty of water and unsweetened green tea.
• Eat a fiber-rich diet. Think beans, berries, greens, and squash.
• Change your pillowcase every couple of days (especially if you’re one of those free spirits who sleeps in her makeup)

Don’t:

• Deprive your skin of the moisture it needs with excessive washing and insane amounts of tea tree oil.
• Pick, prod, or poke. It will always make matters worse. I promise.
• Go overboard with coffee, alcohol, or soft drinks. I try to avoid these altogether when my skin’s at its worst.
• Hang out by the mirror. Seeing your skin in distress will only make you stress.
• Drown your sorrows with milk chocolate and potato chips.
• Sleep on the same pillowcase for several nights in a row (call me crazy, but I swear by this simple change of routine).

How about you guys? Any tips and tricks of your own to share?

I’m not sure if it’s the finals I recently took, the fried food I’ve been eating constantly, or the holiday anticipation I’m still experiencing, but my skin has been acting out in the worst way. Sunday night I made this strawberry and honey face mask, and things seem to be finally looking up!

I hope you guys treat yourself and give this mask a try. If you have some left, and you probably will, you’d be wise to add it to a healthy portion of plain Greek yogurt. Talk about tasty!

There’s still time to enter the mantra perfume giveaway. Tell a friend!

• EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database recently got a makeover, and I think it looks fantastic! Not only is it more aesthetically pleasing, but it also seems to be more user friendly. The most helpful change I’ve noticed is the new data availability rating, which seems to be much less confusing than the previous data gap feature. Click the link to read more about the changes.
• Whole Foods has just implemented an Ec0-Scale Rating System for household cleaning products. Products will be color-coded according to how safe and natural their ingredients are. How smart is that?! Now more than ever, I am so jealous of everyone who lives near a Whole Foods.
• I bought a Celestial Seasonings Herbal Tea Sampler a few days ago, and the Honey Vanilla Chamomile Tea is rocking my world. I finished all three bags before trying anything else. I need a whole box, and fast!

Happy Monday, guys!

With my approaching period, I’ve been feeling not quite myself lately. I’ve been eating everything in sight without a second thought. My skin and my hair haven’t been behaving themselves (My clay and eggs mask had positive but fleeting results), and after walking Clem and Winston every day this week, my feet are sore and actually pretty smelly (It happens to the best of us).  One night this week, in an attempt to make myself look and feel less haggard, I made time for a hair mask, face mask, foot moisturizing/scraping (I did try to think of a less disgusting word), and a long bath (which was made complete by a couple of drops of sweet orange and lavender essential oils).

The hair mask did make my hair shiny, and my feet feel a million times better, but the bath and face mask were definitely the highlights of my night. Since I slightly altered the face mask that I linked to, here are the exact proportions I used:

• 1 tbsp of whole organic milk
• 1 tbsp of honey
• all of the aloe vera gel that I could squeeze out of that chunk in the picture
• 1 drop of lavender essential oil
• a pinch of whole grain old fashioned oats

This was my first time using essential oil to make a face mask, and it couldn’t have been a lovelier experience. I love the scent of lavender, and it had a calming effect on both me and my skin. I got a little on my lips and, after licking it off, discovered that this mask is also oddly delicious. I’m not entirely sure that ingesting lavender oil is safe, but I can’t imagine that just a drop would be dangerous. I did a little research, quickly became overwhelmed, and then gave up.

As for bathtime, sweet orange oil will definitely be a common future addition. I actually felt cheerful afterwards.

Here’s my skin post mask. Yes, that is a floral towel turban on my head.

P.S. In the first picture, the tiny brown bottle with the dropper (which used to be home to my argan oil) contains a mixture of tea tree oil and olive oil.  I applied it to my feet in addition to the peppermint lotion.

If you haven’t had a date with a couple of masks and a hot bath lately, then I’d suggest treating yourself. I feel great!

Thoughts:

• The article suggests removing makeup with olive oil, but I prefer taking off my eye makeup with coconut oil, because it comes off with much less effort (and everyone knows that the less you scrub the sensitive skin under your eyes, the less likely you are to get wrinkles).
• I can’t wait to try that Greek Yogurt and Papaya Enzyme Conditioning Mask. It’s at least tenth on a long list of masks that I need to try, and I mean it when I say need.
• I had no idea what Kefir was before reading this article.
• I’m definitely going to put honey on my heels the next time I clip my toenails and exfoliate my feet.
• Egg yolk might prevent hair loss? I have some balding friends that could definitely benefit from that information.
• Since dark chocolate makes skin less prone to dryness, I’m off to eat some of the dark chocolate-covered strawberries that Kirby made for me. It has very little to do with them being absolutely delicious. Not!

Using two pieces of Danielle’s beautiful Amy Butler scrapbook paper (and following her crafty advice), I recently covered the lids of the glass jars on my bathroom counter. They look just as dreamy as I’d hoped. How is this health and beauty-related, you ask? Well, the jars do contain my hair pins, cotton swabs, and face pads/scrubbies…so there’s that.

The harmless-looking, awful-tasting mixture above is comprised of  3/4 of a cup of warm water, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of honey, and a little cinnamon. I just gargled with it in an attempt to get rid of my (still) sore throat, and it actually worked! I swallowed it after gargling, which was a suggestion of Danielle’s (because apparently she’s improving my life in all areas lately). You should definitely hit this stuff up if you’re suffering from a sore throat. It’s not an instant cure, but it provided me with a great deal of relief. Translation: I no longer wince when I swallow or feel like my throat is slowly swelling shut.

1) Bananas- Sure, they have Vitamin C, Potassium, and Vitamin B6, but they’re also easy on a sore throat (unlike potato chips, for instance).

2)Ricola Honey Lemon with Echinacea Cough Drops- These guys aren’t overwhelmingly sweet like some other throat lozenges tend to be (I’m talkin’ to you, Luden’s). Plus, Echinacea is good for colds/coughs and stimulates the immune system.

3)Bolthouse Farms Blue Goodness Fruit Smoothie- I’ve talked about this deliciousness before. It’s my favorite, even when I’m not sick.

4) Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Throat Tamer Tea- I’ll be honest. I prefer the performance of Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat (because I actually feel like it coats my throat), but it’s more expensive. The Sleepytime Throat Tamer tastes better and is still soothing, though, so I feel like my frugal behavior is sort of justified.

What are some of your favorite sick treats?

First, I rounded up the ingredients: Local Honey, Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Olive Oil, Organic Yogurt, and Cranberries.

Then, I combined the the ingredients in the top half of a double broiler.

The next step is to heat the ingredients in a water bath until the mixture begins to boil and then let it sit for five minutes.

Warning: the final step is very, very messy if you don’t have a sieve. I didn’t photograph it because my hands were disgusting, and I couldn’t safely operate a camera. Since I didn’t have a sieve, I squeezed the mixture through a knee high stocking into a small glass container. I know it sounds pretty gross, but the stocking was clean so don’t judge me.

Ta-da!

Making this first batch of lip gloss was definitely a learning experience. It’s a little oilier than I’d like for it to be, and it doesn’t stain my lips like I had hoped. Also, I’m keeping it in the fridge because that appears to be necessary to keep it solid. On the bright side, my lips are soft, and they taste tart and delicious. Next time I’ll probably use less olive oil and more cranberries.

Kirby gave me one of my Christmas presents early, and (with the help of my immediate family) I tried it out the night before last. It’s a clear glass tea pot with loose tea infuser and 12 flowering teas! The twelve teas are all green tea with jasmine (which is my absolute favorite, by the way), but they all have a different flower that blooms when you pour hot water over it! That guy always knows just what to get me.

I took out the infuser before putting the flowering tea inside the pot.

Here are the cute packs of flowering teas!

I chose the Noble Madam, and then I couldn't make the camera focus.

We were all amazed by how pretty it was.

I love a little teacup.

I drank four whole cups, one with a teaspoon of local honey and the other three by themselves.

I only look like I have man-hands.

The tea tasted a lot like jasmine, and I was a big fan of it. I could’ve had another cup, but I hate middle of the night pee trips with a passion.

My grandmother, who’s one of the pickiest eaters/drinkers I know, wrinkled her nose after trying it and said, “That’s just not my cup of tea. You ever heard that expression?” I love her, and I love Kirby for giving me such a wonderful gift.

Danielle and I did a moisturizing egg yolk and honey face mask a couple of nights ago, and boy was it moisturizing! The dry patch of skin that had appeared on my upper lip (as a result of me blowing my nose constantly while I had a cold) completely disappeared. My grandmother commented on how pretty our skin looked the following day. We used two yard eggs and two tablespoons of local honey, and we only used about 1/3 of the mixture.

photo credit: Dominique Godbout

I just read a list of 15 dangerous, legal drugs, and I was left feeling pretty overwhelmed and disgusted. I think the part that bothered me most about this article is that I have several family members who regularly take Ambien and a few who used to take Chantix. I’ll never understand how people can convince themselves to take a drug that may cause problems much worse than they ones that they’re trying to treat (But I guess the article hits the nail on the head when it says, “The warnings are supposed to make people make their own safety decisions. Except that people just think FDA wouldn’t have approved it if it weren’t safe”). I’ve been fortunate enough to be in good health for most of my life; maybe I’ll never have to make that decision. I have enough trouble taking an Ibuprofen or a Benadryl with a clean conscience.