At home treatments

I was inspired to share this post by my best friend Anna, who, on her school holidays had me over to her place for a pampering afternoon. She made all her own beauty treatments (all good enough to eat!) including an oatmeal and yoghurt face scrub, coffee and chocolate foot scrub, and an avocado face mask (all pictured above).   After our delicious beauty treatments, she plopped me on her couch, took Elsie for a cuddle while I rested with my feet up.   It was pure heaven!  It’s been a long time since I’ve just chilled out, did nothing and felt like a queen!  More please!

Self esteem

I have to say I have had to do a lot of work to feel comfortable in my own skin. Being so fair with freckles and living in the tropics I always feel quite red and blotchy.  The bugs love me and as I get older my skin seems to get more and more sensitive.  I’ve envied girls with lovely tanned olive skin.  I’m not keen on fake tans (waaaay too much toxic crap in those!) so I have had to grow to embrace my (now here’s a great Glasgow term) peelywhally-ness! And even more importantly, now I’ve got Elsie and she is fair with red hair like me. I don’t want her to EVER feel like she should change. She is beautiful just the way she is and I need to show her that I feel the same way about me. I am her first role model for her self esteem so I need to lead by example and show her how to make the most of what we’ve got.

Say no to detoxing

Now here is what I super duper passionate about.  There’s so much talk about ‘Detoxing’ these days…. detoxing with tea/juice/insert latest liquid concoction, detoxing with tablets, heck there’s even detoxing yoga classes! I feel like all of these just make you feel ‘less than’ and not good enough.  Yoga teaches us that we are perfect just the way we are. And because of this my health philosophy is simple….

Let’s just not ‘TOXIFY’ ourselves in the first place!!!

We are worth more than that.  Feel good enough about yourself that you believe you deserve to give your body the very best of everything, not strip away the so called ‘bad’ stuff.  Infuse everything you eat, drink and do with ‘good’ stuff (good food, water, oxygen, thoughts) and you don’t need to detox EVER AGAIN! How liberating!

 

My tips for fabulous skin

1. Use natural (organic when possible) beauty products. There are so many chemicals in so many beauty products it’s really scary.  Keep it simple and good enough to eat!
2. Drink lots of filtered water. Not from the tap (it’s full of fluoride). Not out of a bottle (plastic leaches into the water). Get a filter on your tap at home and fill your own glass water bottle.
3. Get as much sleep as possible. (hahahaha I’m a new Mum with a baby who doesn’t like to sleep for longer that 3 hours at a time so this is a bit of a laugh at the moment) but I could write a book on how getting no sleep wreaks havoc on your system.
4. Breathe fresh air. Get outside and suck in that fresh air. Even better, stand next to a big leafy tree and breathe that bad boy in.  Hugging is optional.
5. Get out in the sunshine (and out of the fluorescent lighting of the office).  No need to fry yourself but a wee daily dose of Vitamin D is good.
6. Say no to stress and toxic relationships – go to a yoga class that makes you feel even more amazing than you already are and ditch the people in your life who bring you down.
7. Look after your gut health by eating food that agrees with you and GIVE’s you energy and LIFE. See Harry’s blog.
8. Treat yourself like you do your best friend.  What would you say to your best friend about her skin?  You’d tell her she looks gorgeous right!?  So start saying the same stuff to yourself when you look in the mirror.

 

Natural beauty resources I’m loving this month (and every month actually!)

Natural Beauty Week – it was natural beauty week last week….perfect timing! www.naturalbeautyweek.com.au

Larissa Bright products – based in Townsville Larissa is a gorgeous woman (I taught yoga on their corporate retreat least year) and has an amazing company with vegan beauty products  www.larissabright.com.au

Move Nourish Believe – this is where Anna got most of her DIY beauty treatment recipes..check em out www.movenourishbelieve.com/nourish/10-ways-to-nourish-your-winter-skin

Sarah Wilson is fantastic at sharing her toxin free life… www.sarahwilson.com/2013/07/toxin-free-beauty-why-i-use-oils

Kikki Flynn is my go to gal for all things natural beauty.  She’s an ashtangi, a new Yorker – need I say more… www.kikinyc.com