Olive Oil

My face officially loves me. I've been using olive oil as my face moisturizer for the past two weeks and my face has never felt or looked better.

I was doing some readings the other week for my Classical Studies class on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt and I read how Egyptian mothers used olive oil on their babies. I knew about putting olive oil in your baby's bath to moisturize their skin, but I had never thought about applying olive oil directly to the skin.

Time to apply my University reading!

I looked up a few sites that day to make sure that it was safe and something that could be used on the face directly and night after I washed my face before going to bed, I went to the kitchen, got out our Extra Virgin Olive Oil and put it right on my face. At first the smell of it made me think I was supposed to be making a salad. But alas, I was in the bathroom not the kitchen! My face had never felt better. Instant relief and moisture.

My face is pretty dry and I've often heard the comment that my skin is dehydrated whenever I have gone to get a facial. But what could I do about that? I've tried a lot of different creams, nothing seemed to "work." So I figured, why not give olive oil a try!

I wondered if it would clog my pores and be bad for my face, but a lot of the sites I read about olive oil said that it wouldn't clog pores, in fact, it was an anti-oxidant and beneficial to your skin.

So it's been just over two weeks now, and I've used it as my moisturizer every night and morning. My skin feels soothed. That's the best way for me to put it. Creams, even natural ones, have been too strong for my face and often sting or they haven't been able to moisturize enough.

I think I've found what works for me, and I'm sticking with it!

I actually found that the little bit of acne I have has cleared up and my face isn't as splotchy or worn out-looking. Always a good thing. And it's also now my eye make up remover. I haven't had anything take off mascara so easily and smoothly. My eyes are left feeling loved!

I've also learned that moisturizing your skin comes from the inside too, not just what you put on the outside. So have a teaspoon of olive oil helps as well as making sure you're getting lots of water. Hydrate yourself inside, and reap the benefits on the outside!

Here are some sites that I read about before rubbing oil on my face:

Natural Skincare Secrets

Amazing Olive Oil

Olive Oil Source

And here is a great video to watch about the cosmetic industry from the fabulous site Story of Stuff



This video above reminds me of how many harsh chemicals are in beauty products. It's been two years now and I'm still trying hard to stick to my "don't put anything on your body you wouldn't put in your mouth" motto. It's pretty doable. Just takes awhile to find out what works for you.

Our Air Cleaners

Once we had our own home, we wanted to make sure our air was clean and fresh. I read about some ways to do this that don't involve spraying mist in the air that makes you sneeze.

1. We open our windows. Our apartment permanently had its windows open throughout the Summer and Fall. Now that it's colder, we keep them closed, but air out for at least an hour a day!

2. We bought plants. And named them.

This is Spidey. He's a Spider Plant. He grows like CRAZY.

This is Craig. He's a Janet Craig.

This is Palm. He's an Areca Palm.

This is Lily. She's a Peace Lily. Without flowers at the moment...

3. We bought a Pheylonian Pure Beeswax Candle. Ya. I didn't know it was called that. But we got it from Grassroots and here's some more info on it, very interesting!

Smells good and cleans the air!

All three of these things are what we do to breathe easier. Between that and our cleaning products, there's no smells that we don't want in our home!

Mini update

It's been awhile!
Here's a little update on the previous blogs.

So we did buy that IKEA couch.
It's in our livingroom looking all cool.

We love Dark City coffee. Went through our lb of coffee with family and friends and purchased some for friends and family as well. Really great company.

We're married and living in our own space now. So far it's been kept clean with water and nature clean products. Here's what we've been using to clean!

Good ol' steam mop. We really love our steam mop for our floors and bathroom. No added chemicals, just the pure power of steam.

H20 Mop Ultra

Nature clean products, here we come! We use and love all of these:

Nature Clean Dishwashing Soap

Nature Clean Shampoo

Nature Clean Liquid Detergent

Nature Clean Fabric Softener

Nature Clean Oxygen Bleach (on white and colours!)

Nature Clean All Purpose Cleaner

Peppermint Hand Soap

That's the update for now.

The next post will feature some of the things we've done to keep the air clean in our home, besides using water and Nature Clean products.

Until then, keep fit and have fun.

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January 2013 Update

The only thing we still use on this page is the dishwash soap. Other than that we clean with this spray and this scrub and steam. And use this shampoo and this for laundry!

Dark City Coffee

I'm really excited to try this coffee.



I heard about it from a friend and it comes highly, highly recommended. You call to place your order, they roast your beans after the call is made, and you get the freshly roasted beans delivered to your door the next day. How fresh is that?!

They have a great selection or Organic, Certified, Organic Fair Trade and Shade Grown blends.

Can't wait!

You can read more about them and their coffee here: Dark City Coffee

Couch Concerns

So we were going to buy this couch from IKEA today for our apartment.



We loved the size, colour, cuteness and functionality. And IKEA is a great store that uses sustainable materials to create their products and most of their products are very safe for you and the environment.

However.

We found out it was stuffed with polyurethane which is supposedly bad?

This was Keith's email to me yesterday:

Our couch is:
"Seat cushions filled with high-resilient polyurethane foam and polyester fiber wadding provide great seating comfort."

But the problem is:
"Avoid furniture cushions and mattresses made from polyurethane foam/plastic as well as any fabric with acrylic, polyester or polyvinyl chloride, all of which can be toxic to the respiratory system. Polyurethane foam, which can cause bronchitis, coughing, and skin and eye irritations, may also release toluene diisocyanate, which can produce severe lung problems."

Hmmm...
K

We're definitely still going to look at IKEA furniture, because they really do have great initiatives on a lot of their other items. Also going to look more into this couch and polyurethane foam before we make our decision, still may buy it!

Ecoholic Home

Finished reading this book last week, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you Andréa for buying it! My awesome environmentalist cousin got it as a wedding shower gift for Keith and I, so great!
It's very easy to read, great product reviews that are actually helpful and so many DIY recipes to try out in your home.

As I was reading it was great to read about the products we already use and see that they got good reviews from the author Adria Vasil as well (a lot of Nature Clean stuff, w00t!).

It was neat to see how we're definitely on the right track but also how there is so much more to learn and consider. If you live in Canada, this is definitely a must read with many local shops mentioned and great Canadian-made products.

Some products/companies I will check out thanks to this book are:
Blue Wonder
Twist Clean
Zia and Tia
Pampered Chef (already knew about their products, but haven't purchased one yet!)
Pink Solution
Bio-Clean

Sunglitz

I found a place that does something called Sunglitz. It doesn't strip away colour or use chemicals, it brings out your natural pigments in your hair. I don't get it. But it smelled good, like almond or something. No chemically smell. And I turn out blonder.

I'm sold.

Supposedly the guy who makes this product, when he's at his tradeshows etc. he'll eat his products just to show that they're natural. I love it. Because that's been my rule for the last bit - don't put anything on your skin that you wouldn't put in your mouth.

And if someone can eat the stuff that makes hair lighter, AWESOME.

Going back today for touch ups. 3rd time getting Sunglitz so far. Loving it.

Go Glue Go!

I haven't used this product yet, but as a future teacher (God-willing!) I know my classroom will most likely have this in stock!

The Paper Place featured this today on their blog, here is what they said about it:

"We would like to introduce you to another one of our favourite adhesives – the intoxicating Coccoina. This almond scented potato starch paste has been used for decades in Italian classrooms. It is non-toxic, solvent free, dries quickly, reversible with water and will not wrinkle paper. Quite the resume! And it all comes packaged in a lovely retro looking tin with a brush, or the more portable glue stick – both of which are available at our Queen St. store. Much more enjoyable to work with glue that smells like marzipan, instead of nasty solvents!"

My teacher heart couldn't be happier to hear this exists. Remember that rubber cement stuff we used to use?!? Horrible. Glad it was finally banned.

Green Living Show

Thanks to my kind brother who gave me two free tickets to the Green Living Show, Keith and I were able to head down today and check things out.

Green Cricket is the company that gave my brother the free tickets as my brother's company Petra is going to be distributing their stuff shortly.

I didn't know this until just now as I'm blogging, and the Green Cricket booth is one of the ones that Keith and I stopped at and chatted to the lady with. We liked! They had really great children's toys as well as body care products. I tried their pomegranate lotion, smelled so good! Check it out if you're looking for fun green gifts, you're sure to find something neat!

Our favorite part was the food. Ha!
Surprise surprise.

We paid $10 and got 5 food tickets and went around to the different stations and got:
- a juicy beef rib with amazing sauce and a stewed carrot and potato
- baked beans
- feta, tomato, red pepper and yummy crunchy thing salad
- and a cannelloni roll with homemade ricotta cheese

It was really good. Everything tasted so clean. If clean is a possible thing to taste. It made me excited to cook with whole foods!

Our only purchase other than food was a slow cooker cook book. There were tons of recipes for meals, appetizers and desserts in it and I'm excited about using it once we move in and start our new life together shortly. It'll be fun to follow the recipes and use delicious fresh ingredients!

It was really neat walking around, we made to sure to at least walk past every booth, we stopped at a bunch as well. It was really neat to see all of the ways and products that help reduce waste, are chemical-free, wholesome and a lot of the times, just plain creative and innovative. I'm liking these minds out there.

Picked up a few samples of things we'd like to try as well as took some business cards and pamphlets of companies we're interested in.

Good times!

Here are some booths we visited and either were interested in their project, or just liked what they were doing!

Benjamin Moore Natura :we got a plantable bookmark from them, pretty cool. And we really like their Natura paints. If we painted, we'd probably go with them.

Gimme5 :a fun way for kids to get their nutrients in! We're kiddish. We liked this booth. And took some yummy mushroom samples from them. Also got cool bookmarks to put on our fridge so we can always make sure to get our 5 colours of foods in everyday.

Green Cricket: mentioned above

Traditional Medicinals: we got free tea samples from them, Organic Nighty Night and Organic Chamomile with Lavender

Yup : Cardboard furniture!

Bronte Creek Organic Gardener: This grass was so neat! This is Keith's description of the grass: "It was so thin, but thick and soft and tangled." It felt so cushiony, almost spongy. So neat. Definitely would think about that if we ever had grass. And not just a balcony.

Fair Trade Jewellery Co. : Wedding bands here we come? Maybe...we'll see about pricing. If not, Malaysia here we come!

A good day!

- Beka

Mama Goode

It has arrived! My first order of Mama Goode products were in my mailbox yesterday. Hand delivered too as I had cutely and individually wrapped bottles and containers right with a letter in my mailbox.

I ordered:
-Shampoo
-Deodorant
-Toothpaste
-Hair Gel
and got a free:
-Conditioner rinse

All of these are home remedies and I can swallow them all and no wrong is done to my body! The ingredients are things like baking soda, shea butter, peppermint oils, lemon etc. All that natural good stuff.

So far, I've washed my hair with the shampoo, used the conditioner cleanse, applied the deodorant and brushed my teeth with the toothpaste. I'll get Keith to use the hair gel soon and let him blog about what he thinks about it.

The Toothpaste:
So far the toothpaste made my mouth feel very fresh and clean. I got their peppermint and it smells quite strong, clears the nostrils! Once I used it, I wouldn't say the taste is very pepperminty though, the baking soda is the most tasted and I could also taste a soapy taste. At first, it was a bit weird, but after I rinsed, my mouth felt amazing. Very fresh and clean.

The Deodorant:
The deodorant seems to me working! This is something I'm excited about. My body is very picky about deodorants. And shampoos. Very picky. I'll talk about the shampoo in a bit. It's 3:08pm and I put the deodorant on around 11am and I smell good. Trust me, this is amazing for me and armpits and natural deodorants. It's been so hard for me to find truly natural deodorants that actually work. I hope this is it! I'll keep using it and update my thoughts, but so far, so good! I just take a pea-size amount and rub it into my armpits after a shower. Easy to use, and a better consistency than some others ones I've tried. I feel like with this one, I can apply it later on in the day if needed and it's not awkward. [I found Lush's cream deodorant awkward in this sense. That's a whole other story. I will blog about Lush another time.]

The Shampoo and Rinse:
The shampoo and rinse I used this morning, doesn't seem to be working on my hair type. But I will keep giving it a chance and see what works for me. It shampoo smells nice in the bottle, very natural smelling but quite pleasant. The rinse smells a bit weird only because it has vinegar and lemon in it. Again, I love that all of these products are edible! I feel great knowing that I'm not rubbing chemicals into my body and no chemicals are being washed down the drain into the sewers and lakes from my tub. While I don't think this shampoo will work with my hair type (I have to wash it everyday as it gets quite greasy...I have straight, flat hair...) I still think it could be a product that works for someone with dryer hair. And the ingredients are completely wholesome.

I like that Mama Goode is Canadian and even more so, Ontarioan. Yes. That's now a word. To find out more about Mama Goode, her family, her products and what made her go all-natural, check out her website, it's a very neat story: www.mamagoode.com

Keith sent me a Star article that was done on them a few weeks ago which is how I came to know about her and what she does.

That's it for Mama Goode for the moment, over and out!

- Beka

Our first post

I had a thought yesterday about starting another blog. The idea came from many conversations Keith and I have had over the past 2 years or so since we've been a "couple" and how we've recently been approaching married life and have decided to be as chemical-free as we can be.

I think a big kick came last year when I learned that our skin is the largest organ in our body. And that scared me...it made me think, what am I putting on my skin??
So since learning that, I've tried, without complete success, but very close, to have a don't-put-anything-on-my-skin-that-I-wouldn't-put-in-my-mouth philosophy. So shampoos, soaps, creams and all that jazz have been as chemical-free as possible which has led to discovering more and more ways to live environmentally conscious as well as keeping our bodies from harmful things around us.

We've read a lot of articles, had many conversations and have tried a number of different products and have decided to eat and buy as chemical-free as possible. We're going to use this blog to share articles and recipes and things that we've done and do to live with this kind of lifestyle as well as things that we learn and discover along the way.

So, there it is!

- Beka