Oil is a bit of a dirty word for me. I steer clear of most oils out of fear of a breakout .. which is why I’ve been completely dismissive of essential oils in the past. It wasn’t until learning from my ex that lavender oil magically clears up a mosquito bite itch in a couple of minutes (yes I tried this with great success many, many times), then reading the real story about how essential oils were first discovered that I began to realize that hey, there’s something more to this than what I first though.
How Essential Oils Came To Be
“Aromatherapy is a phrase coined by Rene-Maurice Gattefosse, Ph.D., in 1920, who was a French cosmetic chemist. While working in his laboratory, he had an accident that resulted in a third degree thermal burn of his hand and forearm. He plunged his arm into a vat of lavender oil, thinking that it was water. To his surprise, the burning slowly decreased and then stopped within a few moments. Over a period of time, with the continual application of lavender oil, the burn healed completely without a trace of a scar. As a chemist, he analyzed the essential oil of lavender and discovered that it contained many substances referred to as chemical constituents or chemical properties. As a result of this, Dr. Gattefosse determined that essential oils contained tremendous healing properties.”
Huzzah! Who wouldn’t want to use essential oils after reading that!? Very exciting indeed. So as you can see, essential oils have tremendous healing properties when applied topically to the skin. But what exactly are they and why are they more special that “normal” oils?
I went to a screening of Food Inc last week, which is an excellent documentary about where our food actually comes from.
A lot of us buy our food from the grocery store assuming it has come directly from a lovely little farm full of happy little animals and fresh produce. However, most of the time this is not the case at all. The chain of events that happens from farm to your plate is often quite horrifying both ethically and environmentally. This constant unethical practice is affecting our health, environment and even our society an it’s not going to improve until we all become aware of the impact our purchasing decision is making just not to us as individuals, but to the farms and the environment as well.
I highly recommend you do the future of your self and the future of the planet a favor and watch this amazing doco. Here’s the link: http://foodincmovie.com/
And here’s my review! I was interviewed by my friend West on the weekend at my local organic farmers market…
And here’s the trailer…
There are things we can start doing straight away to fix this massive problem. Here are just a few ideas…
Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides.
Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market.
Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week.
Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.
If you don’t understand the ingredients label, then don’t buy it.
Avoid all products that contain canola and GMO soy.
Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks.
Stop or limit the amount of processed foods you’re eating.
Buy your meat, milk and eggs from farmers markets and organic suppliers only.
Watch Food Inc and let everyone know about what you learned! (but not in a pushy way)
When it comes to skin care, simple, simple, simple is alway the best. So when I was about to hop into the bath last night and saw a bottle of aloe vera gel and a tub of manuka honey lying around my bathroom, I figured combining the two would make a magical combination, and it did!
This has to be one of the simplest yet most powerful facial treatment masks I can think of. Aloe vera is a natural anti-inflammatory so does an amazing job at soothing any redness and irritation in the skin. It also contains (and this is kind of kooky) a natural salicylic acid so applying it topically to the skin means you’re getting a bit of deep pore exfoliation. I wish all of those people out there using aspirin internally or topically (crushed up and mixed with something binding) to reduce the redness and inflammation and deep pore exfoliate their skin knew about the magic of aloe vera. Really, aloe vera is a much more pleasant and beautiful raw material to use on the skin and internally than synthetic aspirin.
And since we’re talking about aloe vera, I might just mention that I bought a large bottle of aloe vera drink the other day which I’m a little excited about. I’ve started adding it into my green juice every day (well, at least when I remember).
This bottle is not the best option though, I bought it because it was cheap (I’m such a tightarse sometimes!). The problem with this one is it contains Potassium Sorbate (202) and Citric Acid (330). I usually steer clear of any product that contains an ingredient that requires a number so I’m not sure I’ll be purchasing this brand again. Both can cause skin irritations or allergic reactions in sensitive people. I seem to be okay with both but my sister has an insane allergy to Citric Acid, it gives her bad eczema. So I’ve seen it in action. Continue reading →
Yes it can, but not in a bad way. MSM is a wonderful supplement that apparently a lot of us are deficient in. I recorded a video a few months ago about MSM which I highly recommend you watch if you’re not already familiar with what’s so great about MSM and why a lot of us are deficient – Why We Aren’t Getting Enough MSM & Why It’s So Good For Our Skin!
I’m particularly interested in MSM because it’s a great beauty supplement – it’s awesome for the hair, skin and nails. It even got its own little section in my most recent eGuide, How To Clear Acne Scars, because it’s been proven to help reduce acne pigmentation scars when used either internally or topically (or ideally both).
But can MSM cause acne? The reason why I asked this question in the first place was because in my own personal supplementation I had quite a bad acne breakout not long after taking MSM on a daily basis. This breakout then quite quickly stopped, dried up and now the pigmentation scars left behind are healing rapidly.
I hadn’t actually put MSM together with the breakout (it’s good for the skin, how could it cause acne!?) until I was listening to a David Wolfe podcast a couple of days ago where he was talking about how MSM enables cells and tissues to detox. So of course whenever I hear the word detox, I straight away think of “possible healing crisis”. Upon further research I discovered that yes MSM can in fact induce an acne breakout which can be thought of more as a mini healing crisis or a purging of toxins that the MSM is clearing out.
The key to avoiding this breakout is to start very slowly, which of course requires the patience that I obviously don’t have. Unless you don’t mind a bit of purging and a bit of a temporary breakout. Starting too quickly with MSM however can also cause gastrointestinal discomfort (ie diarrhea), headaches, and a range of other general and quite minor healing crisis symptoms. So watch out for that.
Interestingly, I found quite a bit of information on the web from people experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness or the jitters when they first take MSM. Apparently this can be due to resides of drugs (such as caffeine) stored in your cells and tissue detoxing out. So as you’re detoxing it out, you’re experiencing part of what the effects were when you consumed those drugs in the first place. It trips me out thinking how long “stuff” can sit in our bodies.
As you probably know, I love recording videos in parks. I’ve always loved parks, they’re one of my favorite places to hang out during the day when the sun is shining. So today I took myself off to my most local park to record a video .. and decided to show you the very lovely permaculture garden that the local communities been working on there.
After I get back from the US, I’ll be recording videos on my own garden which I’m a bit nervous about because every attempt I’ve had so far at creating my own veggie garden has been a bit miserable. I have a vegetable garden and a herb spiral which are going okay but not great. So my videos truly will be a log of how I’m learning as I’m doing!!
In the meantime, here’s a look at the beautiful permaculture garden down the road from me. And yes, we all absolutely should be composting!!!!!!!!! and growing our own herbs and veggies too. It’s one of the best ways to look after both our health and the environment, it’s fun AND it’s a great way to get grounded (which is good for a number of reasons). Here’s the video..
Oil is a bit of a dirty word for me. I steer clear of most oils out of fear of a breakout .. which is why I’ve been completely dismissive of essential oils in the past. It wasn’t until learning from my ex that lavender oil magically clears up a mosquito bite itch in a couple of minutes (yes I tried this with great success many, many times), then reading the real story about how essential oils were first discovered that I began to realize that hey, there’s something more to this than what I first though.
When it comes to skin care, simple, simple, simple is alway the best. So when I was about to hop into the bath last night and saw a bottle of aloe vera gel and a tub of manuka honey lying around my bathroom, I figured combining the two would make a magical combination, and it did!
And since we’re talking about aloe vera, I might just mention that I bought a large bottle of aloe vera drink the other day which I’m a little excited about. I’ve started adding it into my green juice every day (well, at least when I remember). 
Yes it can, but not in a bad way. MSM is a wonderful supplement that apparently a lot of us are deficient in. I recorded a video a few months ago about MSM which I highly recommend you watch if you’re not already familiar with what’s so great about MSM and why a lot of us are deficient – 
