Best Kept Green Beauty Secrets
August 9, 2009 | 2 Comments
I have a few green beauty secrets of my own. For example, coconut oil is amazing for your skin, hair, face and internals. Here are a few more contributed by a guest author. Enjoy!
Best Kept Green Beauty Secrets
Find out what top three factors wreak havoc on our skin, and what the best kept natural secrets are for looking your best.
With the rat race to keep up with the newest products, we’re not only wasting hard earned dollars, but vacuum through an enormous amount of products that wreak havoc on our skin and environment. Yet, all the products and spa treatments in the world don’t beat the basic things we can do to keep ourselves looking our best.
photo credit: quinn.anya
Sleep
There’s a reason it’s called beauty sleep. Not sleeping enough is a sure fire way to wake up looking like you’re ready for Halloween. But if you can’t catch up on your zzz’s, make sure you have a few tricks up your sleeve.
The most fast-acting cheapest trick is to use a bit of rose water on a cotton ball, and dab it on your eyes. This is an instant pick me up, smells great, and costs next to nothing! Rose water even works great as a toner, acting as an antibacterial cleaner minus alcohol.
Sun-Exposure
Everyone knows that excessive sun exposure is one of the worst things you can do for your skin, but we all still covet that Hollywood orange (I mean, “golden”) glow. Tanning beds are no better. Neither are chemically saturated self tanning lotions. But turmeric, a dark yellow spice native to India, has been used for centuries by Indian women to provide a natural glow.
Mix half a teaspoon of turmeric with whole milk to get a paste, and leave it on a facial mask for five minutes. After you wash it away, you’ll notice a soft golden glow without the use of chemicals or plastics – and you’ll have done something great for your skin.
Aside from making skin soft and supple, turmeric has immense healing properties including getting rid of acne and discoloration. This mustard colored spice can also be mixed in larger amounts and used anywhere on your body to reveal your inner golden goddess. Best of all, you only need to travel as far as your local grocer to pick it up.
But if you want it at pennies on the dollar, and want to support local mom and pop stores, skip large scale commercial grocers and pay a visit to any Middle Eastern or South Asian supermarket. While you’re there, pick up a bottle of rose water too, and save yourself the shipping cost plus the wasted paper and energy of mailing.
Mind and Body
Creating more stress in your life is a fantastic way to invite all kinds of diseases to attack the body. Equally as bad, stress is reflected on you face the minute you experience it.
When you’re chronically stressed, the adrenal glands are forced to work overtime and eventually exhaust themselves, inhibiting the immune system and triggering a number of health complications.
One of the best stress fighters is exercise – but there’s one problem with a routine trip to the gym. The constant noise of bad gym music and weight stacks falling abruptly is hardly a recipe for de-stressing. Point being, the gym offers an opportunity to train the body, but not the mind.
A great alternative is yoga. These simple stretching exercises have been used by civilizations for over thousands of years and far surpass the manic hustle and bustle of corporate health clubs.
A switch to yoga effectively trains both mind and body and keeps you away from wasting money on health clubs, which only deplete resources but are proven to be breeding grounds for illness.
Oxygen
All living things need oxygen, and our skin is no exception. The trick is finding the right way to harness a natural free element that’s already around you.
There are two ways to deliver oxygen to your face. The first is an oxygen facial. For about $500 a treatment, you can get oxygen blasted directly at your face. This is a favorite of Madonna, who loves it so much that she dropped $7,000 to have her own unit at home. Oxygen calms inflammation, treats acne, kills bacteria, drives antioxidants and vitamins into the skin, and makes your skin younger looking by providing oxygen to the skin cells. 1
The second way revolves around the hype of beauty products that claim to tote O2 in their product. Oxygen is a gas. There is no way to put that into a cream, keep it there, and then have it released when it hits your skin. Even if creams did provide some extra oxygen to the skin, the effects would last only minutes at best.
But cost conscious beauty whizzes have wisened up to the smart cost-effective way to get a similar treatment for far less. The buzz has already been hovering around the idea of using high quality air purifiers, such as Blueair Air Purifiers, Austin Air Air Filters, and IQAir Air Cleaners.
The air purifiers filter the air and create an optimal clean air environment rich with pure O2. For added benefit, regardless of beauty objectives, it’s advised to have one in your room while you sleep. With the average person sleeping for about 6 hours a night, you’re guaranteed a long fresh O2 session by the time you wake up. Oxygen’s also become the must have for the dressing room of any beauty maven, regardless of whether you’re a natural beauty or a glamazon.
Shireen Qudosi is a consumer awareness writer with http://www.air-purifier-home.com
Follower her on Twitter @AirPurifierHome
Eco-Friendly Entertaining
August 8, 2009 | 2 Comments
Eco-Friendly Entertaining
Find out how you can be the talk of the town by throwing a chic eco-friendly party
Get off on the right foot – First thing’s first: the invites. Make sure you use invites made from recycled paper.
Contrary to ecologically-challenged perceptions, recycled paper can look and feel just like high grade paper, but minus the guilty conscience.
If ordering them from a professional, ask whether they use recycled paper.
Faux Flowers – Gone are the days of deplorable fake flowers you could spot a mile away – usually collecting dust in some over-crowded knick-knack filled nook and cranny in your grandmother’s house.
These days, if you know where to look, fake flowers can pass for the real thing.
Aside from standard silk flowers (which are still using silk worms), there’s the option of clay flowers.
Deco Clay flowers are absolutely gorgeous and look just like the real thing – except that they cost a fraction of the price, are environmentally safe, and last forever.
The even better upside is they’re reusable so you’ll save money in the long run, plus you’re not contributing to flower butchery nor the very unsustainable flower industry, which has to shower flowers with pesticides – a factor that’s damaging to both you and the environment.
However, if faux is not your thing, then get flowers from the local farmers market. You can even get great arrangements and settings out of potted plants and flowers. A personal favorite is the clever use of moss as decorative center pieces. Moss is not only cheap, sustainable, and uber chic, but it can also be planted afterwards with next to no effort.
Lighting and Décor – One big aspect of party planning is how the party will look. You want your guests to be dazzled, “oohs and ahhs” should be pouring out, compliments gushing.
When done right, the atmosphere that lighting and decorations can create will provoke that response. But rather than choosing blazing electric lights to illuminate the event, try choose more environmentally friendly lighting. Candles are the perfect choice, as they are both lovely and economical – not to mention they don’t require any energy to run.
As for the décor, you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars when home made paper goods will be far cheaper and far more interesting. Consider making paper mobiles, such as the popular origami crane mobiles. You can hang them lined up on a string, as a collective, or individually from just about anywhere. You can even use left over ones as decoration pieces on the dinner table – plus making them out of scrap paper makes good use out of something that was just going in the bin anyway.
Eco-Friendly Wine – Because it’s not just about what you’re using, but what you’re consuming, try switching out your wine for one that is more Earth friendly. There are three categories of eco-friendly wines: sustainable, organic, and biodynamic.
“Sustainable” means that grapes were grown with few to no chemical, fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. This method nurtures the soil naturally, whereas “organic” wines are grown in organically certified vineyards and are made without added sulfites.
On the other hand, “biodynamic” winemaking goes way beyond organics. With biodynamics, the farm is viewed as a living system. The soil is treated with complex compost preparations (of course without chemicals or pesticides), including quartz, yarrow flowers, stinging nettle, and more.
Biodynamic winemakers claim to have noted stronger, clearer, more vibrant tastes in their wines, as taste test conducted by Fortune confirmed. Now all you have to do switch out bulky refrigerators for portable wine coolers, an energy efficient way to chill your wine.
Sustainable Serving – If you consider the glasses, dishes, knives, forks, bowls, and all the other little items used to create a smash hit setting, you quickly start to realize how much goes into entertaining.
In order to host not only your guests, but a more eco-friendly lifestyle, consider purchasing tableware made out of recycled materials. You don’t even have to trade in your luxe taste. In a green-conscious corporate world, companies across the board are all offering unique yet refined dining options, including dishes made out of recycled glass.
Target, for example, has recycled glass goblets great for a Sunday brunch; whereas Macy’s cobalt blue stemless wineglasses offer an element of sophistication. These stunning little gems, made with 30% recycled glass, are a striking visual for an evening dinner.
However, if you’re opting for something even more sustainable, try compostable cornware tableware, biodegradable sugarcane plates, or even biodegradable bambooware. These serving alternatives are not only green but far cheaper than buying 50 sets of “real” dishes to accommodate larger gatherings. On the other hand, if you insist on using “real dishes”, then I suggest using what you have rather than buying more. If done right, mixing and matching dishes (and even seating) can offer an eccentric look that’s sure to catch your guests’ eyes.
Set the Stage - The real drama at any party is at the dinner table. The visual centerpiece of the evening should reflect the mood you want to create. Whatever your choice, make sure that you set your table using eco-friendly items. In addition to naturally available plants and flowers, as well as sustainable dishes, you can get organic table cloths, runners, and napkins; you can even make sure the lamp shades and curtains are eco-wary items. Setting the stage doesn’t have to be limited to just the table – your whole environment can reflect your eco-chic taste.
Ice Goes Eco – There’s no point in wasting time, gas, paper and plastic by going to the store to purchase ice for your party. Rather, a sleek compact portable ice maker will quickly plunk down cube upon cube to keep drinks nice and cool. Plus, nothing kills a party like someone announcing “We’re out of ice.”
Leave Them Wide-Eyed and Wondered – One of the most important elements of any party, large or small, is how your guests feel when they leave. Out of the many ways to send your guests off, the most beautiful and memorable has to be a sky lantern send off.
Lanterns (lights) are very popular in South Asian and Asian cultures, where lights represent both spirituality and hope. It’s a spirited feeling to stand there gathered with friends, lighting and releasing lanterns that ascend as golden orbs set against a dark night’s sky.
Made out of recycled paper and bamboo, sky lanterns are also eco-friendly. For added measure, have your guests write messages on each lantern before sending them off.
Hostess Gifts – And any chic eco-hostess knows to lead by example even when attending other parties.
When attending another bash, swap out your normal hostess gift for one that is earth-friendly. The same goes for others who obey the rule of “do not go empty handed” – simply swap out the routine bouquet of flowers or dessert with something eco-chic that shows of your cleverness and commitment to the environment.
There are a ton of options for sustainable gifts. There’s even a growing trend of green toys if it’s a child’s birthday you happen to be attending. But more importantly, there’s no reason to give green gifts just as a hostess gift; swap out Christmas and birthday presents for the same.
But above all, here’s the simplest rule for eco-entertaining: “Use what you have, and borrow what you don’t”, and remember that at the end of the day, a great party is about who you’re with and not what you have.
Shireen Qudosi works with http://www.air-n-water.com to help them share an eco-minded philosophy with consumers. To contact her, email Shireen@air-n-water.com
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