Entries Tagged 'Bath & Body' ↓

I’ve decided this year that I’m going to put a little extra love into my Christmas presents by making some of them myself.

I’m also doing this for selfish reasons. Apart from a good excuse to write a blog post (hey, it’s work!), it’s also a wonderful way to make a few Christmas presents to give myself. It’s one of those “one for them, one for me” things.

So here are the presents I’ve been working on (and hopefully my friends and family won’t look at my blog before Christmas otherwise the surprise will have been given away!) ..

Home Made Bath Salts

I love, love, love having baths. Having a good soak is a great way to relax, loosen up sore muscles, and even detox if you’re using the right bath salt mix. So here are a couple of recipes I’ve been working on for friends of mine:

1. Rose petal bath salts

This is a beautiful girls mix because it’s pink and smells like flowers. This mix is made for luxury. Continue reading →

I’ve recently had quite a few compliments and questions about my hair and my hair routine, which I find quite humorous considering just the other day I was watching a video of mine and thinking how wild my hair was looking and how desperately overdue I was for a hair cut!

So for those of you who were complimenting, thank you for thinking my hair is looking great, and not at all like a crazy lions mane which is kind of how I’ve been referring to it lately.

And for those of you who were asking, here is my very basic hair routine-

I mix up my shampoo and conditioner quite a bit, but I always end up going back to my all time favorite brand that never fails to make my hair look fantastic. I actually wrote a blog post about the brand, Giovanni, a little over a year ago while I was living in Canada. I’d just finished up with a very expensive brand of shampoo that you can only buy at the hair salon, and I decided to go back to my trusty Giovanni. My hair responded beautifully straight away, as usual. It made me wonder why I bothered with the store bought expensive brand in the first place. AND Giovanni is a natural product.

You can read my blog post about Giovanni here - I’m In Love With Giovanni Organic Cosmetics

To be honest, I don’t do too much else to it. I wash my hair every second or third day in the morning, and air dry it, unless I need to go out then I’ll point a hair dryer at it but won’t bother doing any “blow dry” styling. I do have a product that I use if I am using a hair dryer which helps prevent that frizzy or brittle look from using too much heat. It’s a chemical product though so if you ONLY like using natural products then this one isn’t for you. But I don’t use it on my scalp, only on my hair so I’m not too worried about it. It’s from Redken and it’s called Heat Protective. I’ve had one bottle for AGES now and it really does last a long time. Or that may be because I’m so lazy with my hair and only remember to use it every other blow dry. Continue reading →

My housemate and I have rediscovered the luxury of having baths. We were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to house sit this gorgeous house in the inner city suburbs of Brisbane for three months. One of the best features of the house - two huge claw foot baths.

I’ve never really been a “bath person” (whatever that means). I’ve lived in houses and apartments before with baths but they’ve always been those lame bath and shower combos so it’s never really felt quite right. So I guess because this bath is the traditional free standing style it’s a little more luxurious.

The occasional once a week bath when I first moved in has now turned into more of a daily habit. I now proudly admit that I’m in that bath almost nightly. Even at times when I get home after midnight I can’t resist the urge! It seems to be the perfect way to wind down.

Last night I arrived home after 11pm and headed straight to the bathroom to get a hot bath started. Fifteen minutes later I found myself lying in the water feeling all heavenly and relaxed watching the steam rise out of the water, and then thinking …I wonder if these regular baths are healing for my body? Or are they actually bad? I mean, it must do something to your skin lying in hot water like that for a good 20 minutes.

I know my Chinese Herbalist doesn’t think much of them for us “weaker” types (thinner, more sensitive). I questioned him about saunas recently and he told me that the heat in saunas (and therefore baths too) can actually take the energy out of your body. So this is why you feel beautifully relaxed after a sauna or bath. A chunk of your energy has been taken away with that heat. He did say that they can be very healing and detoxing for more robust body types, but unfortunately that does not include me. He says the reason why I experienced a “healing crisis” after my series of far-infrared saunas and colonics recently was because my body is too weak for such strong detoxing cleanses. Hmm, definitely something to think about. Continue reading →

One of the great things about working in the natural skin care industry is the great people I meet along the way. A couple of weeks ago I made a new friend, Andrew, who works with far-infrared saunas.

Andrew is very passionate about what he does (which I now understand why after trying one of these things). But when he first told me he worked with saunas my first impressions were still “yeah whatever”, because I could vaguely remember sitting in a steam sauna with my girlfriends over ten years ago now and not liking it at all because it felt way too humid to be comfortable.

But then Andrew told me that the saunas he works with are far-infrared (FIR), there’s no steam involved AND they’re amazingly good at detoxifying the skin. So now I was interested. And of course even more interested when Andrew invited me around for a session to try it out for myself.

My far-infrared sauna experience

I was a little wary before my first FIR sauna experience because of my previous steam sessions that I didn’t particularly like. I’m a summer girl so I love the heat but steam saunas can get uncomfortably hot and very humid which is not that fun. So on the way to my FIR session I was a little more apprehensive than excited because I assumed this sauna experience would be the same as the others.

Wow was I wrong. I was lucky enough to enjoy a cabin FIR sauna for a whole 45 minutes. Sure the last ten minutes were feeling a little too hot and uncomfortable and I should’ve either opened the door or finished earlier, but the first 35 minutes were absolute bliss. Sitting in the cabin felt so beautiful, cosy and warm. Andrew gave me a few CDs to play in there (yes some cabins have CD and DVD players) and I took in a book to read figuring I’d get bored sitting in there for 45 minutes. But it was so cosy and so warm that all I wanted to do was close my eyes, relax and do nothing. Continue reading →

Price: AU$12.95 (50 mL bottle)
Rating:
Website: http://www.drmistspray.com/index.html
Ingredients: Treated Water, Potassium Sulphate, Sodium Chloride

If you’re wondering what on earth a ‘hygiene floatation fluid spray’ is - it’s a fancy name for body deodorant.

I had a break from using baking soda as a deodorant for a few days to try out Dr. Mist, and I have to say, this product is a lot better than I thought it would be. It did everything it promised on the bottle, it was fragrance free (and made me fragrance free!), didn’t stain my clothes, was colorless on my underarms and non-oily. I used it when I went rollerblading (the hottest and sweatiest I get) and it didn’t make me smell at all. I’d even say that this product works better than both the crystal deodorants I’ve used and the baking-soda.

The active ingredients in Dr. Mist are potassium sulphate and sodium chloride. Potassium sulphate is a naturally occurring mineral salt and sodium chloride is your common table salt which a lot of people use in their food. Both substances are perfectly safe to use on the skin, especially when they’re used in such a small dose as with Dr. Mist. Continue reading →