So recently I have had a lot of people ask me which Skincare products I use and it just so happens that the Anne Marie Gianni Skincare line has been kind enough to send me some products to trial. It was an interesting time as due to a lot of upheaval in my personal life as well as lots of travel I found my skin was really breaking out again. It was quite painful and clearly directly linked to stress and hormones (which really are antagonistic to one another). So this was a great opportunity to put these products to the test.
This self-proclaimed Organic skincare line is aesthetically quite simple with an impressive ingredient listing. Anne Marie has a number of products that are directly applicable to breakout and acne prone skin and I was really pleased to see that despite not having the organic certification she had certainly stuck firmly to the principles that would allow her to be eligible for Organic Certification. Those being that all ingredients must be natural and allowable by Organic Certification bodies which would be NOP and USDA in the states, as well as having 95% of ingredients being Organic.
Aloe Herb Cleanser
I have only one word for this cleanser – DIVINE! It was so smooth and easy to use. It had a lovely consistency and took off most of my makeup too leaving my skin feeling smooth, cleansed and moisturised. Despite having a breakout prone skin at various times over the last 7 years, I am in my mid 30’s so my challenge is always to find products that don’t dry out my skin as I really don’t suffer with excess oil and more often than not I find I am dehydrated if I am washing my face often to take off makeup. I really found this cleanser to be perfect for my skin and as it didn’t foam my skin never felt dry. It does use a natural surfactant which is a coco-glucoside and this works really well in the Aloe Vera and botanical base. The citrus essential oils in the cleanser were not strong and so they provided a good anti-bacterial edge without an overwhelming scent. I found this to be true of all the products. None of them smelt strongly and relied just as much on the botanical extracts and essential fatty acid based oils for their activity as on the essential oils. Continue reading →
I’ve been a big fan of Chia seeds for quite some time now, I guess ever since Daniel Vitalis released a podcast which questioned the true health benefits of flax (or linseed) products. After listening to the podcast I switched to Chia and actually preferred the taste and how it made my body feel. I even successfully grew a Chia plant in my back yard garden and harvested a few Chia seeds!
But what I didn’t know before I trialed Mila, is that Chia seed comes in 112 different varieties so who knows what variety of Chia I was growing in my garden back then. The great thing about this product, Mila, is that it’s a combination of what the manufacturers believe to be the top four varieties of Chia so you know you’re getting the most superhero power out of your Chia product.
I eat so many superfoods on a daily basis so when I begun the trial I was wondering what other or noticeable health benefits this product could bring to me. I’d also spent some time in the habit of making Chia seed porridge every morning for breakfast so I was kind of already up with the health benefits of Chia. Continue reading →
I put this video up in YouTube last night and one of the first comments I got was “Are you naked in this video?”. Ha! Not particularly the feedback I was looking for!! And no, of course I’m not naked in this video, but it’s still worth watching because I am showing an excellent new product that has just been added to the High on Health store. It’s Active Jellybush Honey which is Australia’s manuka. I now use this in place of manuka honey. More in the video…
Jellybush belongs to the Leptospermum group of plants. There are over 85 known species of Leptospermum with 83 of these species found growing within Australia.
Commonly referred to as Jellybush or Tea tree, the genus Leptospermum is widely distributed in Australia and occupys a variety of habitats from coastal dunes to high mountain areas.
The Active Jellybush Honey in this product comes from Leptospermum trees found growing in the pristine sub tropical coastal forests surrounding Byron Bay on the East Coast of Australia. It has wide distribution, but like Manuka, its New Zealand relative, the activity and strength varies with the locality in which it is found. The strongest and most potent activity is found in North Eastern NSW.
Leptospermum or Jellybush plants are known to produce a unique type of honey that not only has hydrogen peroxide releasing enzymes but also a special phytochemical property called the Unique Leptospermum Factor – ULF not found in other honeys.
The common name ‘tea tree’ is also given to another Australian group of trees from the Melaleuca genus. It is from Melaleuca plants that the well known tea tree oil is produced. This group of trees, the Malaleucas, have no relation to the Jellybush or Leptospermum group of plants which produce the Active Jellybush Honey.
Hmm yes, I know this blog post may seem a little random amongst the sea of personal development and trippy health posts I seem to be blogging and vlogging about right now… but occasionally I get asked to do a review of a website which can be a nice change of writing for me. This review is of the UK based online skincare store Beauty Boom. I’m all for keeping things local so if you’re based in the UK this is going to be an extra especially good review for you to read.
I’m a regular online shopper. I seem to love all the weird stuff that I can’t get in my own city so I’m often having to buy online, usually from the US but sometimes from interstate. So I do know a thing or two about being a buyer at an online store, and even more about being an owner of an online store from running my own shop. Continue reading →
I love watching documentaries so it’s always a pleasure when I get to watch one as part of my “job”. But unfortunately I’ve reached a point now where I’ve saturated my brain with way too many health documentaries. It’s a problem because they’re all pretty much the same so I’m rarely learning something inspiring or new.
Voyage to Betterment certainly started off that way but thankfully it took a spiritual turn for the entire second half which was a huge relief.
This documentary starts off just okay. It’s set up to follow the healing journeys of a bunch of everyday people from all walks of life. I think their tactic is to include at least one person that you can relate to. Unfortunately we never really get to know the characters very well because there were too many of them and way too much information was covered in such a short amount of time. And few of the participants looked quite similar to each other so I got a bit lost as to who had done what and where they were along their personal voyage. Continue reading →
I have only one word for this cleanser – DIVINE! It was so smooth and easy to use. It had a lovely consistency and took off most of my makeup too leaving my skin feeling smooth, cleansed and moisturised. Despite having a breakout prone skin at various times over the last 7 years, I am in my mid 30’s so my challenge is always to find products that don’t dry out my skin as I really don’t suffer with excess oil and more often than not I find I am dehydrated if I am washing my face often to take off makeup. I really found this cleanser to be perfect for my skin and as it didn’t foam my skin never felt dry. It does use a natural surfactant which is a coco-glucoside and this works really well in the Aloe Vera and botanical base. The citrus essential oils in the cleanser were not strong and so they provided a good anti-bacterial edge without an overwhelming scent. I found this to be true of all the products. None of them smelt strongly and relied just as much on the botanical extracts and essential fatty acid based oils for their activity as on the essential oils. Continue reading →
I love watching documentaries so it’s always a pleasure when I get to watch one as part of my “job”. But unfortunately I’ve reached a point now where I’ve saturated my brain with way too many health documentaries. It’s a problem because they’re all pretty much the same so I’m rarely learning something inspiring or new.
