Our first ever natural facial scrubs & masks!

As you may already know, I am on the quest to start making changes to the way I take care of myself in such a way that I cut down on the amount of synthetic products I use on my body as well as changing the products that I use to put in my body. Part of that quest is finding natural skin care recipes that I can make at home which basically require ingredients that I already have in my house. This cuts down on the synthetic chemicals that I am putting on my body as well as saving me a ton of money.

So tonight, my daughter, Morgan, and I focused on our weekly routine of natural facial skin care. Each Sunday night we are going to do a natural facial scrub and mask.

Now, if you remember, Morgan and I both have pretty good skin and we tend to be normal to dry skin types. If you have a very dry, oily or acneic skin type, your skin care will be a bit different. For us, our weekly facial skin care routine consists of:

1. Cleansing the face without toner
2. A face scrub
3. A Mask and
4. Moisturizer

Some suggest to cleanse and tone after the mask, but for us personally, I found that rinsing with water and gently wiping off the masks was enough and that the toner for us was too much. So we just moisturize afterwards, and in the morning, we will use toner. But remember, everyone is different, so something else may work best for you.

Why a scrub and a mask? The scrub helps to exfoliate the skin, getting rid of dead skin cells and preparing your skin for the mask which and the mask helps to draw out impurities and deeply nourishes the skin.

Now to the fun part.
Tonight we used recipes for the Lemon Sugar Face Scrub and the Strawberry Yogurt Face Mask which I found on Natural Beauty Community. That site has a TON of recipes and tips for natural skin care. I highly recommend you check it out.

Our experience! Let me tell you our experience and give you a few tips and then leave you with the recipes at the bottom to try. The Lemon Sugar Face Scrub suggested that it be applied to a damp face, so we made sure we had the recipe ready before we cleansed our faces. When you make the recipe, make sure that you make it thick enough, by adding more sugar, or the scrub will fall off your face and into your mouth which, trust me, the tastes bitter. Within a few seconds, you can begin to feel the sensation of the lemon juice, that is normal. We smoothed it on and Morgan said that we looked like we fell head first into a gravel pit. (No I will not share those pictures with you, haha). After two minutes, we scrubbed gently in a circular motion and then rinsed with warm water. Boy was our skin really feeling fresh. Now we were ready for the Strawberry Yogurt Mask which was an experience in itself. After smoothing the mixture completely on our faces we looked like "we were in the middle of a food fight at a kindergartener's birthday party," according to Morgan. Then, she of course did not want anything to go to waste, so she ate the leftover mask. Now, a warning must be inserted here. You need to leave the mask on for 20 minutes. For me, the mask began to really get uncomfortable and sting a little, bur for Morgan, she was fine. Also, as the mask begins to harden and you look into the mirror, don't be alarmed. The red/pink color that you see on your face will not be permanent. We were VERY worried as our was almost hardened, but once we rinsed it off we were ok.

The Results! I was amazed. When we were finished, my face felt so smooth and soft and actually felt very tight. And this was before putting on any moisturizer. Morgan said that her skin great and that she would do it again, that is after she was convinced that she was not going to have to class and work looking a little pink. These were two recipes that we will definitely try again and I hope that you will give them a try. You probably already have all the ingredients on hand. Thanks for sharing in our first every natural facial scrub and mask experience and hope you join us again as we continue on the quest to find more natural skin care products.

The Recipes!

Lemon Sugar Face Scrub is as follows
Ingredients:
Juice from 1/2 of a lemon (about 1.5 Tbl.)
2 Tbs sea salt
add sugar until thick but not dry (we used our Raw Sugar)
Instructions: Apply to damp face and let sit 2-3 minutes. Scrub gently using circular motions. Rinse well with warm water. (Leaves skin smooth and soft, and the lemon helps to "brighten" complexion.)

Strawberry Yogurt Face Mask is as follows
Ingredients:
1/2 c strawberries
1 tbs of yogurt or sour cream (we used yogurt)
Instructions: Mash strawberries and add yogurt. I pureed our strawberries in our blender until it was pretty mushy. Mix the two until smooth. Smooth the mixture over the skin and let sit for 20 minutes. Rinse off with cool water. Leaves skin smooth and tight. Great for acne.

Why does the grass seem greener on the other side?

So, this past week, my daughter and I had a whirlwind weekend vacation to visit family in California. Striving to be greener, of course I sat in the airplane thinking how wonderful technology is at the same time wondering how much of the ozone layer my little plane ride was depleting. So, I tried not to think about it as my mind began to wander thinking about all the germs being circulated throughout the contained cabin of the plane. Boy, greener living sure can start to make you a little paranoid, haha.

Anyway, we went to San Francisco, to Pier 39, and had lunch. As is the usual custom with me, I had asked for a take home box for my leftover lunch. To my surprise, the take home box was biodegradable, GMO free and bio based and the take home bag was also made of the same type of 'green' material. I actually felt pretty good about my leftovers. On top of that, the bathroom toilets had to flush settings. One for when you go #1 and another for #2. Pretty cool.

Now, I realize that I live in a VERY small city, but it really made me think...why aren't we a 'greener' city? I mean we have some of the most beautiful white sand beaches and beautiful ocean waters in the US yet our city is so DIRTY. So, what does make one city greener than the next and how does a city become greener?

What do we, as citizens, do to help make our city greener? I know that these types of things usually start as grass roots, but where do you start? So, I think that may be my next quest, getting more involved in community actions towards a greener city. I'm not sure where to start or even how involved I can get, but I believe that it is my responsibility to at least try.

So, my question to you is...what do you do in your community to help it be a healthier place to live? If nothing, then what CAN you do to help it become a healthier place to live?

Hopefully your grass IS greener on the other side.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens
can change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead

Recycling really is easy.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...The basics of greener living. For some reason, for me, recycling is the most rewarding. I think it started with that feeling of "I'm really doing something to help the planet" while driving our recycling bins to the drop off containers downtown, before they had curbside pick-up. Now, with curbside pick-up not only do feel even better about my contribution but I find I recycle more, because it's so much easier. However, many people say that they don't recycle because it's too complicated or because they don't have curbside pick-up. Trust me, if I can do it with or without curbside pick up, you can too. The biggest hurdle for me was actually remembering to recycle things and what things to recycle. So, the first thing you should do is contact your local utilities authority, who will tell you what you can and can't recycle and how. I was excited this year because I found out that there are things that we can recycle now that we couldn't last year. In fact, this year the list of what not to recycle is actually shorter than what we can recycle. They can also tell you what bigger household items can be recycled now. Once you find out, print out a list of things that can be recycled and stick it on your fridge. If you have little children, be creative and print out pictures of what can be recycled, so they can help too. Now, just start recycling. The easiest thing to do is get a separate trash can or container for the recyclables, that way you aren't taking them out to the container every time, which will deter you from recycling. If you have to take your recycling to a drop off location, it might be easier to have two or three containers, depending on how they separate the recyclables. If you are new to recycling here are a few tips:

• Rinse out the containers the best you can.
• Remove the lids from jars
  
• Don't recycle wet cardboard - it can jam up the machines.
• Don't recycle bottle tops. They are made of a different plastic.
• If you aren't sure, check the numbers on the plastic containers. Most places don't recycle #6 or #7 containers.

See how easy that is, everybody can recycle and, if you haven't been doing so, I encourage you to make a small step and start. Start with paper - all of your junk mail, opened envelopes, grocery lists, newspapers, magazines, cereal boxes, cracker boxes - it all adds up. Each small step moves you forward to greener living. Still not convinced? Did you know...

• Recycling one aluminum beverage can saves enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours or a tv for 2 hours.
• Producing recycled paper requires about 60% of the energy used to make paper from virgin wood pulp.
• Producing new plastic from recycled material uses only two-thirds of the energy required to manufacture it from raw materials.
• Glass can be recycled virtually forever. It never wears out.
• If only 30 percent of the population is actively recycling, it is equivalent to eliminating the emissions of 25 million cars.
• The average person throws away 4 pounds of garbage PER DAY.

What will your small step be?

What have I gotten myself into?

Well, my first post. And a huge thank you to my good friend Elizabeth for the huge push towards pursuing something that I love. Still not sure what I'm doing, but I'll keep at it. If you don't know me, or even if you do haha, check out Natalie's Story on the sidebar. I'm one of three authors for GLiMs and if what I have to offer helps even one mom to make healthier changes, then it's all worth it to me. It will be hard from me not to post something every day three times a day because that's just my personality, but I promise to refrain...or to at least try.

So, I guess that's it for now. I really just wanted to get something out there to see what it looks like. Hope everyone has a wonderful week and I hope you try to make one small change this week towards greener living

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Why Greener Living.

Welcome to our blog and thanks for reading our first post.  We hope you take a look around and get to know us visit us often.

Why greener living?  We believe that we have one planet and on this one planet we have one life and we want to live it to it's fullest and to take care of this planet so that our generations to come will be able to live their lives to the fullest on a healthy planet.

Why not just green, why greener?  Because we aren't perfect and we don't claim to be completely green.  We make decisions and changes every day for the better but we fall short many times.  We don't always recycle, we don't always use paper, sometimes we leave the water running too long.  Sometimes, we eat too much junk food, don't eat organic meat, eat preservatives, or don't exercise enough.  But, we try.  Every day we make an effort to do something to live greener and we are always learning and sometimes re-learning things that we have forgotten.

So, that's who were are Greener Living Moms.  Living out this journey together and using our knowledge and lack of knowledge, our conquests and failures, our joys and sorrows, our health and illness to not only keep each other accountable but to come along other moms like you in your journey in greener living too.

Today, do one small thing to impact your tomorrows to come.