Monday, May 3, 2010

Rev Abs!!


My husband and I recently ordered Rev Abs after stumbling upon it on YouTube. We have seen countless infomercial for various other Beachbody products but we had never seen any for this product. We watched the promo on YouTube and decided to give it a try. We got the dvd's last week and today we began our Rev Ab journey! I have to say that I was sweating up a storm this morning while making my way through the Total Strength and Abs DVDs. They were pretty intense and it was just the first DVDs of the set! Can't wait to see how tomorrow goes!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I am happy to say the deodorant is holding up pretty well. I had to re apply halfway during the day but it was mostly because I didn't apply it correctly the first time. The texture of the mix is very similar to the texture of actual deodorant which makes it pretty hard to spread using your fingers. I was given some great advice by a reader to pour the mix into an old deodorant bottle to make it easier to apply. I will be trying this with the next batch I make.


In these quest to keep my hair chemical free I've realized that this includes not only shampoo and other hair styling products but also hair dyes. I can't possibly color my hair with regular hair dyes now because that would defeat the whole purpose. So what are my alternatives? There is always henna although I am a bit skeptical about it because I've read that it has a tendency to turn your hair red and it's also not recommended for people who have used commercial hair dyes within the past year. That being said henna is definitely not a good option for me right now. Other alternatives are black coffee and sage rinses.


The black coffee rinse is pretty simple and straight forward. You brew strong black coffee and let it sit until it cools. Once it cools you pour it over your head and leave it on for about 25-30 minutes depending on how dark your hair is. I have not tried this myself yet but I wonder how strong the coffee smell is after the rinse. The sage rinse is very similar, you boil leaves of sage and use the water to rinse your hair. It seems as though the sage method is a bit more popular than the coffee rinse.


I haven't quite made up my mind yet as to which method I will be trying. If anyone has tried either of these methods I would love to hear your success/failure stories with each method even including the henna.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

I came across a few recipes on how to make your own deodorant and I decided to give this a try. Over the years I have tried just about every brand of deodorant I can think of and after about 2-3 weeks it ends up breaking my skin. Even the so called natural and organic deodorants have caused my skin to break. I picked one of recipes since it seemed to be the most simple and less time consuming. The ingredients you will need to make your own deodorant are the following; baking soda, corn starch, shea

butter, cocoa butter, vitamin E oil caps, and an essential oil of your preference for scent. You should use 3 Tablespoons shea butter, 3 Tablespoons baking soda, 2 Tablespoons corn starch, 2 Tablespoons cocoa butter and 2 oil caps. The amount of essential oil is up to you depending on how strong you want the scent to be.

You need to combine all ingredients except the oils in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 30 seconds. Stir
and heat again for another 30 seconds. After you the ingredients are all nicely melted you add the oils. Once
you add the oils you pour it into a jar and let it sit overnight so the ingredients can settle. Here's my little jar of deodorant waiting to settle. I haven't tried it yet because I just made it but tomorrow after all the settling has occurred I will report back and let you know how it held up!


Friday, April 16, 2010


While browsing the formula aisle at my nearest Duane Reade store I came across a brand of baby products I had never seen before. It's an eco friendly company called Nature Baby Care. They have all sorts of products, from diapers, to wipes, to diaper trash bags and disposable biodegradeable bibs. I was very impressed with the packaging and the list of ingredients used in their products. Particularly corn starch. Their diapers have a chlorine free pulp to help with absorption, a backsheet and distribution center based on corn, as well as chlorine free cellulose in the diaper. This all sounded great but I thought to myself these diapers must cost a fortune compared to the regular ones. To my surprise they were about the same price. Fifteen dollars for a pack of 36 diapers. I immediately grabbed a pack of size 2 ( 12-18lbs) and a pack of the baby wipes.

I was very excited to give these a try once I got home. I opened up the package and the first thing i noticed is their texture. They have a completely different texture than regular diapers and are much thinner. I was skeptical because my son does pee a lot and when he poops.. oh boy HE POOPS!! Well we decided to go for it and once I tried to put the diaper on I realize they were a bit snug. I thought for a moment I had grabbed the wrong size but I didn't. These were clearly a size 2 but they seemed so much smaller. I had a hard time putting the diaper on due to the fit but once it was on it we were ready for the test! About 30 minutes after the diaper went on we had a major poop explosion. I was terrified to check his diaper because normally with other diapers the poop leaks out of the side and its a mess! Well no leaking here!! The diaper held up very well!! Needless to say I am a fan and will be buying these diapers from now on. The only drawback is the sizing. I would suggest buying a size bigger to be on the safe side.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Normally around this time of the week I would've reached for my trusty bottle of shampoo and conditioner and begin my hair care routine for the day. Wash, rinse, leave in conditioner and sometimes mousse depending on the weather. Since I am embarking on the No Poo journey this morning I rinsed out my hair with just warm water and nothing else. I rinsed it out for about 4-5 minutes and combed through it while it was wet. I was removing any excess hair product and gunk that might be stuck in my hair from the previous wash. I finished rinsing my hair and paused for a second and thought to myself.. should I dare leave the house today with absolutely no products in my hair??? Not even the leave in conditioner??? I decided to go for it. I reached for the towel, patted my hair dry and that was the end of that. It felt nice to not have to stand there and waste 10 minutes putting crap in my hair. I left for work with my hair still a bit damp and with no idea how it would look once I got to the office. On my way to the office I thought about stopping to pull out the mirror just to check what was going on but I decided against it. I figured if I wasn't getting any funny looks from the people around me then how bad could it be? Then again this is NY and people are used to strangeness.

I finally arrive at the office and decide to go see the results of the warm water rinse and no products and to my surprise it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. My curls are still there and my hair is not a complete ball of frizz!!! I was pleasantly surprised and happy. I am not quite sure how it will look tomorrow but for now I will just rejoice in the fact that at least today was a success. Now that the hair is gunk free or somewhat gunk free I will be trying the baking soda/apple cider vinegar wash on Sunday. I will post the results of that as well.. Hopefully they will be just as good!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Our Journey


Welcome to my blog! I decided to start this blog because I realize my family and I need to make some lifestyle/health changes now that we have brought a little life into this world. We have always considered ourselves an earth conscious family who try their best to live green and purchase organic products. However I recently realized after having a baby that there is so much more we can be doing not only to help the environment but to better our health and our lifestyle. We want to make sure our little boy grows up understanding how to make the most out of the natural resources the earth provides for us and how important it is to have a growing respect for those resources as well. I realize this will not be an easy task due to the massive amount of non friendly overly commercialized products that are so readily available to us but it is something we have committed ourselves to following.

In this blog I will be documenting our experiences with organic foods, organic baby products, do it yourself concoctions and many other things. So feel free to join us as we embark on this journey to Walk With Mother Earth..

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