Thanksgiving Aftermath :)

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.   My husband and I are both vegetarians, so for the first time in both of our lives we had an all-vegetarian Thanksgiving. Usually there is some meat for some kind on either of our families, so to have a truly meat-free Thanksgiving was heartening in a very different way.  He was raised vegetarian and I have been veggie for a few years now.  I was already moving in that direction before we met and started dating.  I never liked pork or beef, so once I got to college I gave that up.  In college I started cooking more vegetarian, chicken and seafood dishes.  So the transition to vegetarian was almost natural to me.  We are truly a match made in heaven, in more than one way.

I got up at 3:45 a.m. Thanksgiving morning to make several dishes, which included:

Fried Chicken Seitan

Candied Yams with Cinnamon & Ginger

Red Beans with Onions and Red Bell Pepper

Dressing made from Buttermilk Cornbread and various veggies

Cabbage with Smoked Sea Salt, Onion, and Green Bell Peppers

Potato Salad with various veggies

Cranberry Sauce

Autumn Pear Cake

Gingerbread Cake

… and Sparkling Apple Cider from Trader Joe’s

It was quite a treat.  Everything was done by 12:30 – just in time for Thanksgiving lunch.  But after I was done you should’ve seen the kitchen!  Thankfully hubby helped me clean so it was taken care of really fast.

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday with your loved ones.  I am thankful for so much this year.  It has truly been a blessing to blog and to create a community this way as well.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our family to yours, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!  Spend time with those you love, eat (measurably) to your heart’s content, and reflect on the many things that you are thankful for.

There are many without jobs, without homes, without families… No matter where you find yourself, there is always something to be grateful for.  Lend a helping hand, a kind smile, an encouraging word.  You never know how you uplift and touch those around you.

Holy Grail Goodness: Urban Eden’s All-Natural Deodorant

My second posting in this series is on Urban Eden’s Tea Tree Lavender Deodorant.  It is a product that I seriously couldn’t do without!  For years I’d searched for an all-natural deodorant, but the ones I found were either natural only in name, sporting a load of chemicals, or they contained mild abrasives like Cornstarch and Baking Soda that irritated my skin after a few uses, to the point of a rash and peeling.  Not cute, and definitely not fun.  So, when I found Urban Eden’s all-natural deodorant without these irritants, I thought I’d give it a try, and I’ve been using it ever since!

Ingredients:

Organic extra virgin coconut oil, local beeswax, cocoa butter, castor oil; lavender, tea tree, rosemary and myrrh essential oils.

So simple and so effective.  No irritation whatsoever!    I always smell good, and the deodorant lasts me over 2 months, even with sometimes twice-daily usage on my workout days.  It also comes in a Lemon Myrtle scent that smells delicious.

If you’ve tried other natural or “natural” deodorants only to find that they don’t work effectively or that they irritate your underarm skin, look no further – I’m serious.  I don’t know what I’d do if Laura stopped making this product.  I’d be in a crying, stinking mood.

Shop closed

I just wanted everyone to know that I will be closing my shop until the new year.  We’re undergoing lots of transitions, and look forward to reopening in the new year!

Holy Grail Goodness Series Begins Today!

Good morning, Lovelies!

Today I cannot resist sharing with you a recipe that I came up with that is great for natural, kinky, coily dry hair.   It is not a product, but rather a recipe that I created several years ago when I was living in very cold Michigan during biting winters that really dried out my hair.  When I was using this conditioner regularly, I used it 1-2 times a month as a deep conditioner and it kept my hair soft, manageable and prevented damage from the cold winds and below zero temps.  Enjoy.

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons Rhassoul Clay

1 Teaspoon Honey (raw, unrefined, organic if possible; Agave Nectar can be used fora vegan alternative)

1/2 Teaspoon Lemon Juice

1/2 Teaspoon Virgin Coconut Oil

1/2 Teasp0on Castor Oil

2 – 3 Tablespoons canned Coconut Milk (gently warmed)

All of these ingredients are excellent for the hair.  Rhassoul Clay is used in spas across the world and is the most versatile and one of the best clays out there.  It absorbs impurities and is high in silica, perfect for your hair.  Honey in its raw, unrefined form is amazingly antibacterial, moisture-drawing, and protecting. Lemon Juice is astringent and good for balancing hair, while Coconut and Castor Oils are some of the best oils for hair, period.  Coconut Milk smells divine and deeply penetrates the hair shaft (like its Oil counterpart) to nourish every strand.

Directions: Mix all ingredients together except the coconut milk.  Add the milk last.  Apply mixture to freshly washed hair and leave in for 20-30 minutes.  Rinse well and enjoy your soft, smooth hair!  This can also be used as a pre-poo treatment, but I find I like it best as a deep conditioner.  Double or triple the recipe to make sure you have enough for your hair.  Add more liquid (milk) as necessary, and also essential oils such as Lavender, Rosemary, Cedarwood, Lemongrass and Ylang Ylang as you’d like and in moderation.  Enjoy!  If you try this let me know how you like it.

 

Busy

Since August I have travelled so much and have been so busy settling in my new life that I’ve hardly had time for my shop or my blog.  Soon I will be closing down my shop temporarily to focus on my upcoming dissertation defense.  I will have a shop reopening celebration with new products, sales, deals and more!

In the meantime, as I can I will be blogging about some of my favorite products to use.  This series is called Holy Grail Goodness and will feature goodies that I can’t live without, so to speak.

Have a great, productive, positive week, and stay tuned!  Thank you for your patience and support.

Hair

I didn’t get a chance to write once I returned from New Orleans, and now I’m back from a trip to the Bay Area.  I attended a beautiful wedding, a baby shower, saw lots of friends, and went to some of my old stomping grounds from my undergraduate days at UC Berkeley.  It was a great trip and reminded me, as a Los Angeles native, how much I miss California.

Now, let’s talk about hair!  I realize that I have yet to talk about hair on my blog, probably because I haven’t spent much time thinking about or doing my own.   Due to my crazy busyness these days, I’ve been washing and going more than I’d like to.  I used to spend time deep conditioning my hair monthly, curling it, and moisturizing it throughout the week.  For the past several months, however, I’ve been lucky to get a weekly wash in.

Between moving, settling in, finishing up my dissertation, running my little business, and starting a new job as Visiting Professor and Director of Research and Evaluation I’ve had LOTS on my plate, so much that I wondered if I even had a “plate” anymore, haha.  But after noticing how dry my locks were recently, I decided to deep condition before I washed.  Can you believe that my hair (I have sisterlocks) sucked up an ENTIRE 8-ounce jar of conditioning creme all at once?  I kept putting on more as my hair begged me too.

Although it’s a bit of an extreme analogy, I feel like a parent who has denied her child the proper food and nourishment.  But now my hair and I are back on good terms: it’s soft, moisturized and shiny, kindly thanking me for taking more than a few minutes to wash and oil it.

Yesterday I went ahead and spent the dough to order several hair conditioning products from Darcy’s Botanicals.  The jar that I used last night was my last conditioning product. I tried her products in the past, and although one of them was a bit heavy for my hair, I believe I’ll have better results with the Deep Conditioning Mask, Daily Leave-in Conditioner and Herbal Spritzer based on several reviews I’ve read and seen in various places.

Beyond not taking better care of my hair, I’ve been neglecting taking time to relax in the ways that are rejuvenating to me: long, steamy baths, regular pedicures, and spa facial treatments.  I do all of these things myself, because I can use as much or as little *natural* product that I want, and can have things just the way I like them.  Saving money is an added benefit.  As soon as I get through these next few weeks I’ll have more time to do these things, but in the meantime I’ll definitely be conditioning my hair on a regular basis.  It’s getting cold and dry and I DO want to keep my hair!

What do you do to keep your hair moisturized and healthy?

In Nawlins!

Hi everyone!

I had a great post prepared for you on the importance of oils in skin care, but WordPress was acting up when I tried to publish it and alas…it is lost, never to be retrieved.  When I have time to write it over, I will.

Right now, though, I’m in the fascinating city of New Orleans, Nawlins, or NOLA, however you like it!  I am here for a conference (giving a presentation and leading a workshop tomorrow), but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the scenery and culture while I’m here.

There are a lot of shops around with colorful archictecture that really catches the eye.  What really caught my eye, though, was when I walked into a convenience store and saw various pastries for sale that were preserved with *triple gasp* PARABENS!  I coudn’t believe it.  I was at the counter ready to pay when I saw these little innocent-looking treats with parabens (methyl- and propyl-) listed on their labels.  My jaw literally dropped, and I’msure that the storekeepers were wondering what I was thinking.

I couldn’t bring myself to make a comment, especially since the cashier seemed particularly annoyed.  So I want to ask you, dear readers, if you’ve heard of foods being preserved with parabens?  I do not use products with parabens at all, let along EAT them!

I’m appalled, floored.  Still, I enjoy NOLA!

Soap Obsession, and an Ultimatum

It’s no secret that I love soaps.  A bit too much.  In the process of packing and moving this summer, I truly realized how many bars I have.  Yesterday I calculated how many years (not months!) it will take me to use up my soaps.  Granted, I may be overestimating the amount of time given that I also give bars away for birthday, Christmas, and just-because gifts, and I also shred and use soaps I’m less enthusiastic about in my homemade laundry and dishwashing powders.

However, truth be told, it’s gotten out of hand.  I am running out of storage space.  And my bathtub ledge looks like a bar with so many choices…

So, I made an ultimatum, not to buy anymore soaps until I am down to 5 bars.  This is especially trying for me, and it’s hard to remain disciplined when I love soaps so much, and when there are so many new limited edition fall-inspired soaps being released right now.  It’s torturous, really.

ZomBee by Alchemic Muse

I will continue to buy soaps in the form of shampoo bars, and if a bar or two of soap is included in a gift or combo set I won’t complain, but as far as bathing soaps go, I’m stocked for a long while.

I was inspired by another person who loves soaps as much as I do that she holds herself to her promise not to buy anymore soaps until she’s used up the ones she has.  She held out well until some fall scents were released, and then she (quite understandably) bought more.  However, I remain steadfast and look for other ways to enjoy fall scents, such as in body butters, sugar scrubs, perfumes, and in – *newsflash* – food!  And, truth be told I have some bars left from last year’s fall scents that were so inspiring.  So, let me get to using those up…

What are your bath and body weaknesses?  How do you control/conquer them?

Research

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to share that this was my first official day of teaching as a professor.  I did a seminar, which was an introduction to research in the humanities and social sciences.  It went very well, and it was so inspiring to reflect on my experiences as a college student, and how much I grew when I started doing my own independent research outside of course work.

Courtesy of ucsb.edu

Research is empowering, and I really enjoy it.  It is part of the product development that I enjoy perhaps more than anything else, except for connecting with people and hearing how their lives have been changed through using the products.  I love researching different oils and how they will affect one’s skin, mood, etc.  I know so much more than I knew just 6 months ago, thanks to endless research.

I literally research everyday and to me it isn’t difficulty or boring – but rather, exciting, and very enjoyable!

Speaking of enjoyment, I want to remind you to take some time and enjoy my shop sale, which ends tomorrow, September 1st.  Visit http://scentualsoundtracks.etsy.com and see if there’s something that will strike your fancy.  Over the coming weeks I will be listing more products that are still in the development stages.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you’re looking for in terms of skin and body care, and I’ll see what I can do!

Cheers to the wonderful week that awaits us.