Water Conservation

I've recently become aware that more people are concerned about the drought than I thought so I figured why not visit some easy water conservation techniques pretty much everyone can do. 

Let's start with the easiest, turning off running water. How much simpler than that can get it get, right. Now let's talk about running water and when you should be turning it off. In the bathroom, while you brush your teeth and even soap up your hands or face. In the kitchen, when rinsing fruit and veggies, they don't need running water, a small bowl of water will clean them just as well. If you feel you need running water to do these things do them over a bowl and collect that water to be used elsewhere. 

Using this collected water is also a lot easier than you think. My bathroom sink often has a small bowl in it and I wash my hands into it and use this water to water a potted tree on my patio. If you don't have any plants to water but need a way to use dirty water, flush your toilet with it. This is a lot simpler than you think, you don't need to open up the tank and do anything complicated, just pour water into the bowl. You might have to figure out the best amount of water to use for your toilet, a small bowl that fits in my bathroom sink isn't quite enough to get a good flush in my bowl so I use a bigger container I add to and can then use to flush. While we are on the subject of toilets, there is the old if it's yellow let it mellow, if it is brown flush it down. If you think this is gross please take a minute to remember that we purposefully take perfectly clean water and piss and shit in it, that's gross and wasteful, letting a little bit of watered down pee sit for a bit isn't that gross, toilets have lids and they are in a room that is dedicated to them. 

Other simple way to save a lot of water is catching your shower warm up water, I don't know about your shower but mine takes a bit to get to a temperature I am willing to stand under. Put a bucket under the faucet or shower head and collect the water while it gets up to the perfect temperature for you to shower in. This water is clean and can be used for pretty much anything you want. You can use it for soaking dishes, bring it to your kitchen sink and pour it in. While you are showering, be quick. I am awful at this one, but I shower once maybe twice a week so I guess if I take a 15 minute shower it isn't as bad as a daily 15 minute shower. Also think about turning the water off while soaping and shampooing, there are shower heads (you should be using a low flow shower head for optimal water saving) out there with shutoff valves on them. I have one that doesn't shut off the water completely but takes it down to a trickle, which can be collected as well, so the temperature of the water doesn't drop when you turn it back on, no one likes a sudden shot of cold water. 

When it comes to washing clothes and dishes, always ALWAYS run full loads in a washing machine, it's just a waste to do otherwise. If you are a homeowner, don't have a real grass lawn, just don't, it's not worth it. If you really want one or you must then water it at night and don't water it too often and find a kind of grass that works best for your area. Make sure your sprinklers aren't watering sidewalks and driveways. If you live in a complex, voice any concerns about the way they water, if you notice a lot of runoff or sprinklers watering sidewalks or driving/parking areas, let management know. Same goes for any shopping or public area you frequent and notice these things, let management companies know about any leaks or water wasting you see from their property, they pay for all this water, they don't want to just waste money. 

In the kitchen, if you are a coffee or tea drinker, only make enough hot water or coffee as you are actually going to drink. If you make a lot of pasta or steam a lot of foods use this water for plants or even in soups or other food you're making, it can add a bit of extra flavor. If you are really serious about trying to reduce you water footprint I suggest you do a little research of your own on how much water goes into the production of your food. Yes you need to eat but do you need to eat that much red meat or that much chocolate (YES, YES I DO!), both have very high water footprints. 

There is one thing I don't think you need to worry about, doing the ice bucket challenge for ALS. If you want to do the challenge but feel guilty about the water, use shower warm up water, it's more than enough to make some ice with and then dump on yourself. Or just DONATE, but that isn't as fun and isn't spreading the word as much because let's be honest seeing someone freak out when they get soaked with ice water is a lot more fun than seeing a picture of a donation receipt and there is no way that is ever going to go viral the way this challenge has. I think the benefit of something like this way out weighs the waste of water and I am pretty sure anyone who has or knows someone who has ALS greatly appreciates the viralness of this phenomenon. (Did I just trick you into reading a post about something when it was really about something else, yes, yes I did)

I fell back to no 'pooing

I don't really know how this started but I realized I am no 'pooing again (no 'poo as in shampoo, conventional shampoo). I liked it the first time I tried it but the buildup I was getting related to my hard water and I think the baking soda too was just NOT good. Click on the no 'poo tag below to read my previous posts regarding no 'poo.

I had been using Alaffia's shampoo and conditioner and while it was working for me it just wasn't right I guess. I don't have anything bad to say about the products and I still recommend them, shampoo just isn't for me.

I read about beer as a conditioner, hair rinse, to add shine to hair and I tried it. It works amazing and left my hair nice and soft and shiny too. Apparently the proteins and sugars in beer is good for hair. So I stopped using my bottle of conditioner. I don't even know how it happened but I have stopped using shampoo as well and just do an apple cider vinegar rinse/scrub to 'wash' my hair. I take 1/2 a cup to a cup of acv and pour it on my scalp rub my scalp with my fingertips. I sometimes water down the acv but not always. Whatever happens to run down my hair happens, I don't specifically rub or make sure it runs down the length of my hair, which is past my butt at this point. I let it sit for a minute at most and then rinse well. Then I move on to the beer.

Dark thick beers are what I use, usually a dark stout of some kind. Flat beer works best too so I open up the beer way before my shower. If I take a night shower I will open the beer and leave it in the bathroom all day or if I am planning a morning shower I will open it up and leave it over night. Sometimes it stays open for a day or two because I don't shower everyday. The flatter the better. I pour about half the beer on my head and leave the other half in a measuring cup and dunk the length of my hair in there leaving it in there for a few minutes, bent over looking like an idiot in the shower. Ha! I make sure I rinse my hair really well again and then I am done. I don't have much issues with smells left over. It may smell a bit vinegary or beery while it is still wet but once it dries there is no smell as long as I have rinsed it well.

The only other thing I use on my hair now is Weledas Rosemary Hair oil. LOVE that stuff. Couldn't live without it. Actually I could now that I use the beer rinse but I wouldn't want to.

Here have some pictures. Freshly out of the shower, brushed and oiled, and after a night of sleep and day of errands.

EDIT:

ADDITIONAL INFO

I should note I only wash my hair once a week at most. Sometimes I go longer between washings and I don't even get it wet at all between washes. I have really coarse, thick, and dry hair, this is obviously what works best for my specific hair and I doubt this method exactly would work for someone with thin fine hair. Acv is a great clarifying rinse for those that can't/don't do no 'poo, sometimes you just need a good clarifying rinse to get rid of everything on your scalp and hair. I also skip the beer and just use the acv sometimes, don't want to waste too much beer now do I? ;)

Solar charging my blackberry

I have a solio rocsta hybrid solar charger that I use to charge my blackberry. Between it and my car charger (before it broke) I didn't need any other source to charge my phone. I did a tiny bit of research before I bought this specific charger, mainly just read a few review of people saying it charged their blackberrys just fine and thought I'd give it a try.

About my phone use, I rarely ever use my phone to talk, I mainly use it for texting, emailing, tweeting, facebooking, picture taking, etc. you know all the fun stuff. I need to charge my phone every other day or so depending if I end up chatting a lot or taking a lot of pictures.

With the solar charger I can get about 4 bars of a charge when the solar charger is full, I have a total of 5 bars. It takes longer to charge than the wall charger or usb hookup to a computer but it is portable and it can be used as a power source directly, if it is in the sun and charging, you don't have to wait for the charger to charge-up to get power to your phone.

I leave the charger on my front patio to charge up and it doesn't get a full days sun but about half of the sun it could if it was in an unobstructed place. During the summer it takes just under 2 days to fully charge. The charger is suppose to be water resistant so I leave it outside overnight most of the spirng, summer, and fall, So Cal weather and all. In the winter I don't get much of charge, 4 or 5 days for a full charge but I leave it outside inside a zip lock bag so it doesn't drown in the sometimes rain we do get.

There are chargers with fuller capacity and that charge faster but I wanted something portable and durable. I bought it instead of a spare battery for a trip I was taking and I would be in the sun all day every day and using my phone a lot. The charger has a clip on it and I just clipped it to my bag when I was out for the day. When my battery got low I could easily hook it to my phone and charge it up.

The solar charger comes with 6 different adapters, a charge in cable so you can charge it up if there is no sun and you are going out somewhere, and there is even a little LED light that is only little in size, that thing is bright!

The charger has 2 charging lights on it, a red one that turns on when it is being charged and a green one that blinks when it is charging. The green one also lets you know how charged the device is, I have lost the instruction sheet but there is a button on the underside you press and the green light will blink 1 to 5 times letting you know how charged it is, 5 being fully charged.

 *any mention of specific products and my opinions on them are all my own and not influenced by anything other than my personal experiences

Update on hair products.

To see what I'm using and what I was using and why I changed check out my blog from Feb 7th. Giving up on no 'poo.

This stuff is working pretty well for me, my hair is a bit more frizzy than what it was like with just baking soda wash and apple cider vinegar rinse but I think hair will react to real soap in any form like that. It however isn't as crazy as it was when using conventional shampoos and even all other "eco" shampoos I have tried. My routine is shampoo, conditioner, combing using a wide tooth comb, a bit of air drying, apply hair oil, more air drying and then brushing with a new boar bristle brush I picked up. I usually do this once or twice a week depending on what's going on and how my hair is feeling. Between washings sometimes I add some more hair oil after a brushing because it gets a bit frizzy. I obviously don't have any issues with oily hair EVER. I could probably put an ounce of oil on my hair and it wouldn't be noticeable, besides a bit of a shine.

My scalp is a bit better, has it's days of good but also has it's days of bad. Just the way my scalp is I guess. It is now mostly caused by forces outside my control, stress, hormones, and stupid water quality, seriously the hardness of my water is ridiculous and makes bathing in general such a chore, but I am dealing and things are working out.

Giving up on no 'poo

For info on what I had been doing and the ups and downs I have had check out my past blog posts.

My scalp has been horrible lately, not the worse ever but pretty flaky. My main issue with all this is soap scum due to the hard water we have. The soap scum build up on my scalp with my natural tendency to get dandruff was just too much for me.

Thursday night I decided to suck it up and find myself a natural shampoo, conditioner, and whatever else I came across. I looked around online at reviews and suggestions and didn't find much new info. When I went grocery shopping that night, at my local health food store, I spent quite a few minutes in the hair care section. At first I couldn't find a shampoo that I really wanted, I would not buy one with SLS's even natural coconut derived ones, they are just as destructive on my hair and I have talked about my personal issues with coconut products in previous posts, the poor Orangutans :(.

I do find Jason Scalp Balancing Natural Jojoba Conditioner (it is the 3rd from the bottom) and decide I might try using this for some scalp relief. I have used Jason products before and while I wasn't totally in love with them I didn't hate them, I quite liked them actually. They don't have any faults there are just so many ingredients in all this stuff I just feel like there must be a simpler way to clean your hair, but apparently what I had been doing was not the way.

After a few more minutes I find Weleda Rosemary Hair Oil with all pretty simple ingredients. I figure this can become my replacement for coconut oil which I had stopped using and never found a suitable replacement. I had been using straight olive oil and while it worked it was lacking a bit.

By this time I think my husband had done a whole lap of the store and was coming back for me to see what I found. As I am about to say ok I guess I will not be able to find a shampoo here, I look over and I see Alaffia Neem & Shea Butter Scalp Recovery Shampoo. I had bought some of their shea butter a few months ago and liked the product and the company. They are fair trade and their products come from Togo, West Africa and they give back to the community and seem to help out in many ways. This specific shampoo sounds exactly like what I needed and it has pretty simple ingredients.

Ingredients: Herbal Infusion of Neem Leaf (Azadiracta Indica), Liquid African Black Soap (Distilled Water, Saponified Shea Butter [Butyrospermum Parkii] and Virgin Palm Kernel Oil [elaeis Guineensis]), Decyl Polyglucose (from corn), Vegetable Glycerin, Panthenol (Pro-Vitamin B5), Essential Oils of Rosemary, Lavender and Tea Tree

While this does include palm kernel oil it contains next to nothing else I could find any fault with even upon looking closer at home and it became very apparent that I was going to have to give in a little and I really like the way Alaffia presents themselves and the ways they give back.

I showered that night and washed my hair, used the shampoo first, used a bit of the rosemary hair oil trying to concentrate it on my scalp, shampooed again, conditioned and was done. (From now on I will use the rosemary hair oil as a leave in like I had previously done with coconut oil, not sure why I decided to use it in the shower.) My scalp is reacting nicely and my hair isn't all that crazy but I can tell it is a bit frizzed compared to how it use to be but I believe that using any sort of soap will be likely to do that to my hair. My scalp just could not deal with the hard water and baking soda washes any more. I will post an update in a few weeks after I have had time to decide and find out how my hair and scalp react to this on a longer basis. It was cold and rainy today and I wore a beanie to work and kept my hair in a braid and under my jacket as well all day so I can't really tell how it will react on a day I let it "hang" out and do its own thing.

There is one thing I will not be able to deal with, beyond frizzy hair that I cannot even brush, I like being able to brush my hair and previous to going no 'poo I could not and would not brush my hair EVER, it would only get combed wet and fingered through because it would practically stand on end. It was horrible and miserable. It was also pretty unmanageable and honestly what is the point of having hair if you can't do anything with it and you hate it.

So hopefully this stuff works and I can report happiness. I plan on only washing my hair once maybe twice a week, pretty much what I have ALWAYS done and if I need to get it wet between then I will use just the conditioner. A few things I can tell you, the Alaffia shampoo definitely won't be liked by all because of its smell. It isn't bad but it isn't all sweet and perfumed like so many traditional products. The Jason jojoba does smell pretty good and this is the first time I have had good smelling hair in just about a year. I also would not suggest the Weleda Rosemary Hair Oil as I will use it to anyone with any sort of fine hair. I have incredibly thick coarse hair over all and individually. I am pretty sure this oil will weigh down and slick a lot of other types of hair.

*All opinions are my own and not influenced by anything but my experience with a product and how I feel about them. I was not compensated by anyone or even given any products to try for this review.

Make-up review

I am still using the make-up I posted about at the end of 2008, but I have added something to those products.

I bought Organic Wears Tinted Moisturizer. I now use this as a base and I love it as much as the other products of theirs. It combined with the face powder gives great light coverage. My freckles are all still visible but the redness I get on my forehead and my chin are gone. The moisturizer blends really well.

I wore it to work a few days, something I would never do except I wanted to see how it holds up. I work in a very well heated building and a very very well heated and high humidity room and of course the outdoors that I venture into and out of multiple times in a day. I sit directly in front of a fan space heater at some points in my day. When I got home from work it looked exactly like it had when I left for work. One of the days I worked I did some work that resulted in minor bits of water splashing on my face and I noticed no effects from that when I got home. It is winter so I am not getting super sweaty but again I wouldn't be wearing make-up to work normally or during any time I plan on getting all massively sweaty. I would only use it for times when I am going out or what not.

*All opinions are my own and not influenced by anything but my experience with a product and how I feel about them.

Carpet stain remover

1 little squirt of dish soap

an ounce or 2 of white vinegar

an ounce or 2 of water, hot if you want (I've used cold and hot and works well both ways)

I use an old toothbrush to mix and apply the mixture. I know everywhere tells you not to scrub, rub, or do anything but blot stains but how many of us really sit there and blot our little hearts out. So I scrub scrub scrub and it works great. I usually just use a clean cloth and blot/wipe dry. Sometimes I use a damp cloth followed by a dry one but either way I get the same results.

My carpets are the typical too light beige that apartments like to use for whatever reason so I don't really need to worry about taking color out but it always a good idea to do a color test before using a spot cleaner.

I am not big on cleaning but I also kinda am. I don't keep my place clean on a daily basis, if you were to just drop by you might find a quite clean and "normal" looking place or you could find a place that looks like a tornado has hit. I get into cleaning moods and EVERYTHING gets cleaned then. Every part gets a good clean every one or two months and it's usually that often that I get to spot cleaning the carpet.

Most of the stains on my carpet are pet related. Spots of cat puke and other gooey bits of cat messes, dropped bits of canned food that get left unseen for a while. There are also some husband food spots, hehe. I had some good photos to go with this post from months ago but when my computer crashed I lost them. At that point I had a lot of big nasty black stains all over my carpet. They were from cat medicine, one of the cat's was having slight hairball blockage issues so she was on a stool softener and it was very sticky liquid and so some would get on the floors. She was on it for about a week and after 2 days I gave up on cleaning the spots right away so a few weeks later when I finally went to clean them all they had attracted A LOT of dirt and grime. There was one spot where she spit the whole dosage back onto the carpet and I did blot it right away with a damp cloth but that stuff is REALLY sticky so it did little. This cleaner worked wonders and my carpet is all bright and shiny now.

More on my hair treatments

Since my last update on my hair on April 10th (read it here) where I was at war with my scalp but loving my hair I have been in love with both amazingly. I think the hot coconut oil treatment I did really helped even everything out and let me basically start fresh. The conditioner/treatment thing we put on our shower seems to help with the soap scum issues I was having with baking soda washes. My routine since then has basically been a once or twice weekly baking soda wash with an apple cider vinegar with rosemary essential oil rinse. (read about my no poo start and recipe I use here) I think the rosemary helped some too with my scalp. Things have been going great and no real issues.

I used up my coconut oil last week and was really not wanting to buy more (for the reasons I discuss in my last post about hair, link is above). I read around and apparently shea butter is pretty good to use on hair too and I have been wanting to get some to use on my skin as well so I decided to go that way. My hair has been really dry recently and the idea of a thicker moisturizer really appealed to me. I bought a glass jar (yay for glass jars I love reusing them for other things) of handcrafted shea butter with lavender and mint essential oils from Alaffia. It is not organic but it is fair trade, the organic option was in a heavy plastic jar so I was leaning towards the glass. Shea butter is a lot thicker than coconut oil and it is a bit harder to work through my hair than oil but it is not difficult, it also seems to moisturize a bit better.

Last week I noticed my head was getting flaky again and yesterday after I showered it was HORRIBLY flaky and it hurt. It felt tight and cracked and sore, not very itchy though. So last night I gave myself another scalp oil treatment, this time I opted for grapeseed oil. After I applied it I tied up my hair and slept on it to let it soak in. I also looked around for some other treatments I could use and made myself a thyme tea to use on my scalp. I used 1 tablespoon of thyme in 1/2 a cup of hot water, it smelt great. I let it cool and covered it and put it in the fridge.

I then thought about making some sort deep conditioner or something for the length of my hair since it has been so dry and the season is changing and it is only going to get worse with the cold dry winter weather. I remembered how much my hair seemed to like the flaxseed wash I tried a couple times (read it about here and here) and decided to make a batch and use it just on the length of my hair since it doesn't do so good with the scalp and I didn't want to end up with a weird greasy patch like before. I made a batch, 1 table spoon of whole flaxseeds in 1 cup of water brought to a boil and then simmered for at least 5 mins. To this I also added a bit of clove and a 1/4 stick of cinnamon. It smelled so good, I strained the mixture into a heat safe container that I had a chamomile tea bag in and another tea bag of lavender. I let them steep for a bit and then took them out, let the mixture cool and covered it and put it in the fridge to be used in the morning.

This flaxseed wash is AMAZING as a once in a while wash for you hair. It makes my hair dry so quickly and it makes my natural waves come out in full force. It also seems to brighten up my hair a bit too, clove is suppose to highlight red so that could be a factor too but I didn't use cloves last time and it looked bright then too. The grapeseed oil and thyme tea rinse also seemed to help my scalp a lot. When I showered in the morning I massaged my scalp thoroughly then continued massaging while I used my normal baking soda wash. Followed that with the thyme tea rinse and more massaging and rinsing. That was followed by using the flaxseed wash on the length of my hair and a thorough rinse. As it was drying I worked in some shea butter to the length and then just left it alone.

The color and texture and look and EVERYTHING of my hair is amazing today.

Just look at it:

It took very little effort, the only effort was making the mixtures, which was not difficult at all.

I am definitely going to add a flaxseed wash back into my routine, maybe once or twice a month, I am also thinking of buying some shikakai and trying that as a wash instead of baking soda. The baking soda works but I would like to try and find something different. I read about shikakai on the no poo livejournal page I always fall back on for loads of information on no pooing. Apparently it is used just like baking soda to make a wash, it is also rather cheap like baking soda is, I found it available on amazon. Hopefully I can keep the love going and have trouble free scalp and hair.

Loving my hair but AT WAR WITH MY SCALP

Up until I went "no 'poo" I was in a constant battle with my hair. I have very thick, coarse, and dry hair. I think I was probably ten when I decided I wanted to grow my hair long, previous to that I had quite short hair, pixie crop type cuts. Which I absolutely love but I have so much hair it was like a clown wig on my head, OK not that bad but it wasn't the ideal cut for my hair. From looking at pictures I still had short hair for at least half of middle school/junior high but it was getting longer because I clearly remember giving up on conventional methods of thinning my hair around age 12. Previous to that I remember trying thinning it with thinning shears, layered cuts, and I am sure much more.

To this day I have only had my hair cut by 5 people, my mom once a few years ago, me a few months ago, my husband a handful of times, Darla a million and one times probably, and a colleague of hers when she was busy having babies. Basically from my first hair cut Darla is the only one who has ever cut my hair and probably the only one besides myself who will in the foreseeable future. Back to the giving up on my hair at the tender age of 12. At that time we shaved the under almost half of my head and have continued it to this day. My husband is the one who shaves it for me now, he doesn't actually trust himself to trim the length of my hair. I think at the time I had barely shoulder length hair. It made it so much more manageable that was for sure but it was still HUGE hair, I always say I was born 10 years too late, I could have rocked the shit out 80's hair metal do and been queen of the world! HAHA.

Since that day I have been growing my hair, I did regular monthly trims so the growing was slow going but it was relatively healthy but I still battled with it. As you know I finally have the hair I have always wanted since going "no 'poo", if you don't know go check my previous posts. I can brush my hair, I can style it, I can just let it be, I can do basically anything I want with it because it is in love with me and I with it. All seems like a fairy tale until we get to my scalp...

My scalp is NOT happy with "no 'poo" and it's gotten really bad. I've been prone to dandruff my whole life never anything too bad, mostly because the thickness and color of my hair hides it extremely well. At some point in reading about dandruff causes I read that some think it can be hormone related, I can relate to that at certain times that is for sure, those days your hormones are working against you and then your head messes with you too, yeah definitely had those days. What finally pushed me to "no 'poo" was actually my scalp, I was sick and tired of the buildup I would get, a very thick waxy buildup. All was good for a while and then I had issues with baking soda and the hard water, terrible soap scum. I tried a different wash, flaxseed and while I liked it the first time I soon had issues with it, specifics can be read in a previous post. So I tried using apple cider vinegar rinse only, seemed to be working. Once winter started to change to spring my skin changed too including and especially my scalp. I got itchy, dry, and flaky, I changed the makeup of my lotion to be more moisturizing and that helped my skin. My scalp was on and off, some days it would be fine and others it would be flaking like crazy. When I went to Indian Wells for a week I started with really bad flakes and after one shower with soft water and only an apple cider vinegar rinse the flakes went away almost instantly, I came home and bought a filter for my shower head. Things seemed to be better, until a few days ago...

The flakes were really bad and then I was getting itchy, really itchy. Last night I showered and once my hair dried I took a close look at my scalp, it looked like extremely dry flaky peeling skin, so I gave myself a hot coconut oil treatment. I heated up some coconut oil applied it to my scalp with a dropper and massaged to my hearts content with my fingertips, I have always loved a good scalp massage. I was going to let it sit for a bit but got tired and then the morning got away from me so I did not get to rinsing it all out till this evening. I used a baking soda wash to make sure I got all the oil out, I did so with a lot more massaging, things were going good and then when I was done I glanced down at the water collecting at my feet, it was like an oil slick, which at first made sense but then started to baffle me because of the way it was clustering in tiny balls rather than a real oil slick looking way, so I took a closer look, it wasn't really oil it was more waxy, kinda like the build up I use to get...so basically I have been building up all that on my scalp for who knows how long. It all seems to be gone now and my scalp feels pretty good and looks ok, a few flakes but not too many, I may do another oil treatment in a week or so.

Perhaps this can turn the tides and I can do my normal apple cider vinegar rinses and a monthly baking soda wash. I am quite reluctant to go back to conventional shampoo mainly because I don't want to hate my hair again. I am looking into some other sort of soap or wash but don't want to waste my money on a product I will hate or the hardest part is finding one that I can agree with the ingredients. I will not use anything with sodium lauryl/laureth sulfates even naturally derived ones. They cause extreme frizziness and are just nasty chemicals, the naturally derived ones are from palm oil and palm oil is basically what threw me WAY over the edge with conventional soaps and shampoos and basically everything.

I am on the fence with coconut oil, I did research it a bit and found it to be less of an issue but now that I am looking for alternative products again I am beginning to question that again. I think I need to find a coconut oil that is farmed in a responsible way and I think I found that in Jungle Products, the coconut oil I currently have is Spectrum which is organic but not sure about their farming practices. For more info about palm oil check out The Rainforest Action Network's (RAN) website and their Problem with Palm Oil section. The main issue for me is the poor Orangutan's, animals always get me and there is just no turning back.

RAN has a list of companies that have pledged to get their palm oil from sources that don't exploit the environment and people. Jungle Products is one such company and so is Dr Bronner's which I have been wanting to buy but was on the fence because of the inclusion of palm oil in almost all of their products. I have read that some people use it for shampoo and I would much rather use that than baking soda. I can't find a good source for baking soda, it is either Arm & Hammer which does animal testing or a plastic bag of it at the health food store. Not sure why I can't find a paper packaged non animal testing brand of baking soda. There is also the whole mining of baking soda which I don't actually know much about but mining is a four letter word to me and it was brought up on some blog by someone at some point.

And my journey with "no 'poo" and my hair and all that continues with twists and turns...

Lotion

I said I would write about the lotion I use and make and so now I am.  I just kinda made this out of stuff I had and not from a specific recipe I found anywhere. I did read this article on Oils for skin types on Care2 and I also read a post on Allie's Answers about Using Oils to cleanse your face and I just kinda experimented on my own from there.   I don't measure anything and change things up with every bottle I make but it seems to work just as well as the bottles of lotion I was buying before, if not better, I don't tend to break-out like I use to.  

My bottle right now contains Almond Oil, Grapeseed Oil, Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, and a bit of Vitamin E oil.  Like I said it works great for me at the moment, but I can already tell I am going to have to change things up for summer.  I started with just oils and I quickly realized it wasn't moisturizing enough so I bought Cocoa Butter to add too it.  This is the first bottle that I have added Coconut Oil to and I was a bit worried it might cause some blemishes but it didn't.  I think I might try some Shea Butter but I am not sure how that will mix in with the oils.  I also added Peppermint Essential Oil to the last bottle, has a nice cooling effect when applied, great for the summertime. 

These mixtures are not like bottles of lotions you buy at the store, you don't really get moisturizing effects out of them when applied to dry skin they are better used right out of the shower on damp skin to lock in the moisture.  I don't tend to suffer from extremely dry skin so I can't say it will work for someone who does.  I would assume if you have dryer skin or are looking for something more moisturizing straight out of the bottle Shea Butter might be your answer but I have not gotten myself any yet because it is not the cheapest stuff and what I have now is working fine for me.

Next up on my DIY beauty list is a sugar-coffee scrub, I already made sugar scrubs that were wonderful for a few friends at Christmas time and it will pretty much be the same but with added coffee grounds. Research has shown coffee rubbed on the skin can tighten skin for short periods of time and reduce the appearance of cellulite, what girl wouldn't love that, smells great too.  Seeing as I drink two cups of coffee a day I am not lacking on used grounds, usually they just go into my compost or under my pine tree but I am looking forward to doing something else with them.   

Shower water

After spending 4 days in an area with soft(er) water than I have at home I had to do something.  I came home and the only problems I had been having with my hair were back.  I thought I was just going to have to live with a few minor things since I quit using conventional shampoo.  It turns out that it was not the lack of shampoo it was the nasty hard mineral laden water I shower with.  I had already quit using the baking soda because of soap scum issues and I was getting a nasty soap scum film on my scalp even with just using apple cider vinegar rinse.  When I was in Indian Wells that problem along with another disappeared after my first shower.  It was amazing.  So I got home and after my first hair wash it was back again.  

The other issue I was having was lint related in a way.  I hadn't noticed before but the soap scum or whatever buildup there was on my scalp also was on the first 2 inches or so of my hair and it was apparent after my first shampoo.  I could feel a bit of stickiness on the first few inches of my hair.  Previous to this every time I would brush my hair my comb and/or brush would get a layer of fuzzy lint.  It was not apparent in looking at my hair and before I went to Indian Wells I didn't even notice the stickiness, after however it was quite apparent.  

So I decided I would get a filter/softener for my shower.  Since I live in an apartment there isn't much else I could do.  I looked at a few online and ended up going to my local Lowe's and getting one of the ones I had seen and liked on various sites.  I ended up with Sprite's Slim-line Shower Filter.  That is just a random site I found it on, like I said I bought mine at my local Lowe's and it was a few buck cheaper I think.  The filter needs to be replaced every six months which seems pretty reasonable to me.  I will not have to go back to shampoo or conditioner and that will save me a lot more than I will spend on the filter.  I don't know much of the science behind it and what is even in the little filter thing and even if it is a softener or just filter.  After one shower I can feel a bit of a difference in my skin alone and I have not had any lint issues while brushing my hair and even my husband remarked that his skin and hair felt softer.  So far so good and I hope this solves more of my hair issues and perhaps help my itchy dry skin too.  Which makes me think of another good blog post the lotion I make out of mostly kitchen ingredients, so until I write that one go ahead and look at my previous tennis post and the gorgeous pictures. 

Sugaring success and failure

Back to posts before my little tennis distraction.  I successfully sugared my armpits.  It was a lot less painful than I thought it would be and the results were amazing.  I don't think I have ever had such baby soft pits, well not since I was a baby.  It lasted almost a week but I waited another week before I sugared again, I did it the night before I left for tennis so I knew I would not have to worry about my pits the whole time.  Of course it hurts a bit, you are ripping out your hair but I have tried waxing on my legs before and that was quite painful and this was less painful in a more sensitive area.  I used the recipe I posted previously and cut up an old sheet to use as strips.  I used an old knife to spread the sugar and when I was done with a strip I put it into a bowl of water I had in the sink.  When I was done with the whole process the sugar had pretty much come off all the strips and I just swooshed them around in the water and then set them out to dry and next time I did laundry I put them in a mesh bag and threw them in.  All clean and ready for next time.  A simple and effective process for hair removal.  That being said I did come across complications...

I liked the sugaring so much I tried it on my legs with horrid results.  It didn't work very well, probably more of an execution thing, as in I just suck at it but I also ended up with A LOT of ingrown hairs on my legs, really badly.  They weren't painful but they were very apparent, lots of red bumps on my legs and they lasted a long time, two weeks, I still had them when I left for tennis.  I exfoliated a few times with my homemade sugar scrub and it helped a bit but it was still not great.  

So I will continue to sugar my armpits but not my legs.  Sugaring the legs is a bit difficult also, I got the shin area done fine but when you move to the sides it gets harder and I never did the calf area because I just couldn't bend that way.  So sugaring great for pits not so great for legs, not the results I was expecting but I am very happy with the results.  

Hair and stainless steel cleaning.

Don't worry I am not using hair to clean stainless steel, I'm just talking about a few different things in one post.

First my hair. I have not used the flax seed recipe again because that nasty sticky-ness on my hair was pretty gross and I am pretty sure it did come from the flax seed wash. My next hair washing I just rinsed with apple cider vinegar(ACV) and after that the nastiness was gone. I think there was just something with the way it interacted with my scalp or something. My roots were not that bad it was at about ear level that just had a ton of goop on it. My hair also got kinda frizzy and HUGE again afterwards. I would brush it and it would be like when I was using conventional shampoo. It's too bad because I really did like the mixture and it was pretty simple and more appealing to me than ACV. I think I might make another batch and use it just on the length of my hair and not near my scalp or roots and see what it does and then use an ACV rinse. I do think the flakiness of my hair was from the peppermint, which was also in my flax seed wash so no more peppermint for my head.

Currently I am cooking up a batch of sugar "wax" to try out on my armpits. My hair grows at a ridiculous rate to have lovely hair free pits I would need to shave twice a day and every time I have been shaving lately I have gotten annoying and a bit painful ingrown hairs so I do not want to shave my pits anymore. I know "sugaring" them will hurt but it will be a burst of pain versus a few days of an annoying ingrown. I wish I could just not shave but I do care too much what people would think of hairy pits. I was first intrigued by sugaring thanks to Crunchy Chicken, and also found a few more places with it. What I am doing right now is boiling up one cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of lemon juice to hardball candy temp (250 F). I am having a bit of difficulties one because I just plain suck at cooking even if it is not food. I already had it boil over on me and two because the small amount I am making my candy thermometer doesn't actually immerse in the liquid. I don't want to make more than I will use especially since this is the first time I am trying it and I don't have much sugar on hand at the moment. So we will see how this goes.

Last night I was determined to clean my stainless steel coffee mug. I was not tasting any nastiness but it was awful to look at. The inside had all sorts of rings from levels of coffee where I apparently took breaks between drinking and the mug has a lid (that I never use) so coffee builds up on the part the rim snaps onto and it was just all around dingy. I had tried a lot, lemon peel with salt, vinegar, baking soda, in all sorts of combinations. It would get the same stuff that soap and sponge would get but still leave all the nasty stains from the coffee and tea. So I googled something like coffee stains in stainless steel mug and got a bunch of ideas. The first one I tried I did not think would work because it seemed too simple. Most were simple but included using products I did not want to use, bleach, oxy clean, other things I stopped using long ago, even though I still have all of them because I stopped right away not when the product was empty. So the first I tried was dishwasher detergent in cup with boiling water and let it sit. I don't currently have a working dishwasher but I do have a few different kinds of detergent under my cabinet. One store brand generic liquid detergent, one little sample pack of cascade that was in the dishwasher when we moved in and a box of Planet brand detergent. I used Planet of course and just tossed enough to coat the bottom and a bit of the sides of the mug and then poured in boiling water. I covered it with a random lid and went to bed in the morning I looked and the mug still had all the stains, I read that someone did this and when they woke up there was a brown film on the top of their mug because it had all come off overnight, I was a bit disappointed but I decided it might have loosened the stuff a little bit so I grab the toothbrush I keep at the sink for cleaning dishes and with barely any pressure all the stains started to come off. I probably could have dumped the soapy water and gotten all the stains off with just a quick rub of the sponge. I could not believe how clean the mug was. It was so shiny and spotless. I was amazed. I am currently trying this on a pot I use to make popcorn that has a bit of a stain from the oil. Just checked and the pot is already clean and shiny. I am going to have so much fun cleaning now. I get really excited about cleaning when I learn new and simple things. Now I just need to figure out how to get the rust stain out of my bathroom sink without using extremely harsh chemicals. I have tried all sorts with that too.

Flaxseed hair wash

Just got out of the shower from my third hair wash with the flaxseed wash I made, thought I would update. (I'm not going to put any links in this post so you will have to go to the one below to get any details, I'm being lazy)

I highly recommend using some sort of squirt bottle you can squirt the stuff onto your scalp. Especially if you have thick hair like I do, it is pretty hard to actually get it onto my scalp and not just have it slide down my hair.

My second wash wash not so bad, didn't have a squirt bottle yet so I wasted a lot of it again because I couldn't get it to stay on my scalp. I also didn't rinse very well apparently because my roots felt like they had a lot of heavy goop on them. Was not visually noticeable, but it just kinda felt like I had over done a leave-in or something. Not really a big issue with me since my hair is so thick and coarse, I kinda like when it is weighed down, but I was not able to run my fingers through it so it was kinda gross.

It does not feel like that now, although now that it is drying a bit and if I flip it and feel around it does kinda feel like it has a residue on it still. I wonder if this is more of a transition thing and not actually from the wash since it is not a form of soap or cleanser really like even baking soda was. It at this point is not enough for me to stop using it. I think I will give it a few more weeks at least to see if this is a transition, I did not go through a transistion when I switched to BS and ACV.

It does not feel like this in the actual shower, when I go to rinse my hair it feels great and soft and manageable, I actually say wow and I never talk in the shower or even think for that matter. As it dries is when I start to feel the weighing down. I would think that since it is only on my roots it might just be my scalp oil not the actual wash and especially since I did not feel it the first wash. I coat the ends of my hair just as much as the roots with the wash so I don't know why it would only feel weighed down there, it has to do with my natural oils. (Yes I am thinking "out loud") I made sure to rinse really really well this time and I don't really see how I could have not rinsed it well enough.

I am out of wash and am going to make a new batch. I think I will add lavendar and maybe some tea tree or something, or perhaps just do a tea tree rinse before hand, I am getting kinda flaky and I do go though spurts of it but it is much less than what I stated in previous post.

On a hair note but not related to washes I learned how to do two new "do's". They are ridiculously easy and gorgeous if you ask me. I learned rope braiding and hawser braids. I learned them from tutorials on youtube.com, ok I'll put in some links: Hair tutorials by torrinpaige.

I found her tutorials through the long hair community on livejournal.com.

Here are pics of my hair in these two styles.

Rope braids

Hawser braids

No poo and the rest of my hair care routine.

No poo is the way to go for me, but I have made a few changes. If you wanna know what I was doing check out my previous blog on it. Since I went no poo my hair has been growing like a weed. It is currently just about below hip length. I don't know if it is actually growing faster or if it is no longer all frizzy and kinked up on itself. After washing it now it looks like it use to after I would apply pounds of gunk and straighten it. But most importantly I can brush/comb my hair without it turning into a two foot wide ball of hair, even before oiling it, seriously it was really bad before I use to NEVER brush/comb my hair.

I did up the amount of ACV a bit, made it more conditioning. A few weeks ago I stopped using BS and just doing an ACV rinse. I did this mostly because I have hard water and soap scum was a bit of a problem. I also have been having problems with flakes, but I'm pretty sure that is due to my face soap or something because it is only around my hairline. It is not noticeable due to the fact that I have really thick hair and the color hides flakes amazingly well too. Or perhaps it is from the peppermint essential oil I had been adding since mid-December. I made a candy cane sugar scrub as gifts and had a lot of left over peppermint EO.

I looked around the The no 'poo method livejournal community, my intial go to source for info on going no poo, and came across this post and decided to give the flaxseed recipe a try. I boiled the flaxseed with cloves and infused that with chamomile and peppermint, it's basically what I had on hand. Here is what I ended up with:

Its consistency is like egg white so the container I have it in is not the greatest. I had issues with getting it out and staying on my scalp but will have better luck next time because I know what to expect.

I was also going to try lavander but the store was sold out last time I was there, I will probably try different things with subsequent batches. It was fine, nothing new to report versus BS/ACV. My hair seemed to dry a bit faster and it did seem to be a bit more bright in the red department but that just could have been an effect from being clean not the cloves, which is suppose to have red highlighting affects, it had been a while since I washed my hair. Here is a picture of it an hour or two after the flaxseed wash, pretty much looked like this after BS/ACV wash too.

I have my hair in two pony tails, the side on the right (my left) is flipped to try and show how the underside is a lot frizzier than the top side.

After I wash my hair I wrap it up loosely in a towel to get most of the excess moisture out and then comb it with a wide toothed comb and then air dry it. When it's mostly dry, not my roots, they take FOREVER to dry, I oil my hair with coconut oil. I got my oil at the local health food store and just bought food grade, they also had a tub in the beauty section but it was a lot more expensive for a lot smaller amount. Here is what I use:

I use a heaping 1/4 teaspoon for each side of my hair, I put it in two pony tails to oil it and only oil from hair band down. When I'm done I un-do the pony tails and use a tiny bit of oil on the hair that was above the bands, mostly to tame the little face framing fly aways that I am plagued with. Now that I say that I realize that this is the MAJOR difference in no 'poo'ing for me, the face framing fly aways were my main enemies and they are rarely on my mind these days. I don't even use headbands very often any more.

Here are more pictures of my hair in various stages of oiling.

Right (my left) side oiled and other side not oiled, yet.

A Close up of the oiled side, so shiny.

Both sides oiled.

My hair down after oiling and combing again.

The pictures really don't do justice to the effect that the oil has. The close up of the oiled bit is the best at showing how calm and great my hair looks after oiling. The oiling also works great as a detangler too. I have read that coconut oil can cause acne but my face has actually cleared up a lot since I went no 'poo but I did also change my skin care routine as well but at the least it is not affecting me that way.

I have to warn that this is probably not the ideal way to use oil for everyone. I know if my husband did this he would be a giant grease ball but he also is not a no 'pooer. There are somethings I just can't get him to do. A lot of people use the oil as a pre-wash conditioner. They put the oil on an hour or so before washing, some do it overnight, and they get similar results after they wash their hair of the oil. My hair has always been extremely dry and I have never had any oily hair issues. If your hair is thin and/or oily it might be too much to use coconut oil as a leave in. I don't want anyone to try this on my recommendation and end up with flattened down nasty greasy hair and curse me, although you can curse me anyways I'm use to it, hehe. My hair is a bit greasy seeming sometimes after oiling but after a few hours it soaks in and looks great till I wash again. I only wash twice a week at most and even between washings I do not get my hair wet like some no 'pooers do.

Also no 'poo doesn't work for everyone either. Even before no 'poo I would only wash my hair twice a week. I would have done it much less but it would start to smell. Since no 'poo my hair does not seem to grab on to smells as much as before. If you are the type that needs their hair washed everyday or it feels nasty to you and even perhaps looks nasty then it might just not work for you or you would go through such a drastic and long transition period that it just might not be worth it for you. When switching to no 'poo you are kinda re-training your body into taking care of it's self and not relying on something else to do it, kinda like kicking any bad habit, luckily this worked for me, unlike me trying to kick coffee, totally not worth it for me. So don't feel bad if you try and it doesn't work or if you don't even want to try.

Well that cured my boredom for a bit hope someone finds this useful, interesting, or whatever.

Green(er) Make-up

I stopped wearing make-up a few months ago, I never wore that much. Eye liner and mascara a few times a week, sometimes some powder but I never found one I really liked. I then went looking for "green" make-up and I didn't have much success. About a month ago I went looking again and found some. I still rarely wear make-up, but sometimes it's nice to put it on and well do nothing because I never have anything to really do. The stuff is not perfect but it is better than what I had been using, E.L.F., Maybelline, and stuff like that.

What I got was Organic Wear eyeliner, concealer, and face powder. I really like the eyeliner, its very smooth and nourishing feeling and looks great. The powder is light in feeling and look, my husband actually remarked that it looked really good, as in he couldn't tell I was wearing it and the stuff I had been using apparently you could but he never told me that, men!! The concealer is pretty good, nothing special but works fine. For mascara I went with Lavera, seems a bit messy and gooey when in tube and on brush but goes on well and is very moisturizing. It's not water proof and does tend to smear a bit if you are prone to that but I wear it so infrequent that it's not an issue for me. It really feels like it is moisturizing my lashes instead of making them brittle and hard.

Since I am on the subject I will also share what I use to clean and care for my face. I am currently using mostly Burt's Bees products. To cleanse I regularly use Garden Tomato Complexion Soap with a face brush. I also use on occasion Citrus Facial Scrub, which I LOVE the smell of and it makes my face feel so soft and smooth and the Pore Refining Mask, is more fun than anything else. I don't notice much of a difference after I use this but it does not do any harm so I keep use it. I try to use both those once a week but usually its more like twice a month. I also use Naturally Ageless Intensive Repairing Serum and Herbal Blemish Stick. Both work very well I highly recommend them. I use the Serum on my forehead and my crow's feet, definitely has helped on my fore head and a bit on my eyes. The blemish stick is my best friend. I have always suffered from adult acne and this has helped tremendously. I take the roller ball off and use my finger to apply but other than that it is perfect. For lotion I use Jason's Aloe Vera 70% all over body lotion.

ShamPOO

I have stopped shampooing. Yes you read right I no longer shampoo or condition my hair, well not conventionally at least. I still wash and add moisture to my hair but not in a conventional way. It's fondly called "no 'pooing". I save tons of money and have much nicer manageable hair. It takes me less time to shower and I waste less water.

How did it all start . . . well I have been trying various types of "natural" and/or "organic" shampoos and conditioners over the years and I never really found something I could stick with. I wanted a shampoo without Sodium Lauryl Sulfates and the like. I didn't want these because they tend to make your hair a bit more frizzy and believe me I do not need more of that. There is also the whole nasty chemical idea, particularly this little blurb.

In the Journal of the American College of Toxicology notes that this ingredient has a "degenerative effect on the cell membranes because of its protein denaturing properties." The journal adds, "high levels of skin penetration may occur at even low use concentration."

Doesn't that sound fun. I also try to steer clear of parabens for similar reason, the whole chemical reason, not the frizz reason. Basically sulfates are what make your shampoo lather. There is no real reason for it it is just something we have become accustomed to and I had a hard time with that at first as well.

About 6 months ago I got sick and tired of finding supposed natural or organic shampoos so I went to target and went with Aussie brand. It works and it's not too bad and on the label it said bio-degradable. Now there are all sorts of flaws with that statement but that's not for this post, but that is what I went with. The shampoo has sulfates but there were no parabens in either product. They were also $6 each and quite large so it did cut down on the amount of plastic a bit and I wasn't shampooing daily so they would have lasted me a year or more for sure.

I was not happy with my hair and I have not been for quite a while but its pretty much always been like this. So it's just something I live with and I thought I had to live with. Well thanks to Crunchy Chicken I now have a new routine. It all started with her post about Coconut Oil and then her subsequent post on shampoo. From the shampoo post I researched No Poo'ing and quickly tried it and I am pretty sure I will never go back to conventional products. The link she provides on no poo'ing in her post (how to go no poo) is where I got my start and the basic recipe I use as well, it is a great step by step illustrated guide and a great place to start.

A bit of background info, I have very thick very coarse very long hair. My hair is at about hip length and quite dry because it is so long and therefore OLD hair. I use to not be able to brush it except for right after my shower and with the aid of some de-tangler/leave in. I was using an Aussie leave in spray. It worked ok but spray for my beyond thick hair was ridiculous but all the creams were filled with nasty stuff I was not willing to use, not that Aussie was not full of nasty stuff, it was just less. If I did brush it when it was dry I would end up with a huge fro even thought it is so long. I liked my hair best when it was at least 3 days dirty but still then I could not really brush it without then having to put it up or in braids or just hide it somehow. I was shampooing my hair three times a week at most and more often it was just once or twice a week and I did not even get it wet or anything between that time. I did try condition only for a bit but I didn't really like that either. Just plain ol' dirty hair was preferable to me. Honestly my hair and my scalp would start to smell, but just to me and my husband, I think. No one else every said anything but I don't hang around people that much.

So when I discovered No Poo I read all about if for about a day and jumped right in. Here is my current routine, I wash my hair about every three or four days. To do so I make a hair wash and a hair rinse. The hair wash is 1/2 tablespoon of baking soda in one cup of water and the rinse is 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar in one cup of water. I get my hair wet and then apply the wash to my scalp and massage scalp. I run my hands down my hair but don't specifically try and get any wash on my actual hair below my ears. I then rinse my hair and do the same thing with the rinse mixture and then rinse hair out again. Then my hair goes up and out of the way and I shower as usual. When I get out of shower I brush hair and let air dry. When it is dry, sometimes the next day or whenever I get to it I work in a few teaspoons of coconut oil and use it as a leave in. I only apply it to hair from about ears down. Concentrating on hair below my shoulders and especially the dryer than crap ends. Depending on how long I go between washes I sometimes apply coconut oil a few day later. I also brush my hair every morning and night and anytime in between. I use to dread brushing my hair but I no longer do. It works great for me and I do not see myself going back to traditional hair routine anytime soon.

A few things, there is a transition period where you may become a giant greaseball as your scalp regulates itself to its new routine. I had this period, it was 2 or three days. Some people have a much longer one and if you tend to have greasy hair then it will be hard on you I am sure and you will probably want to quit quite often. But if you can make it through you will probably be happy. Also at first I had to get rid of the nasty soap scum build up that was on my scalp, I always knew it was there but I didn't know what it was or why it was there. I learned it was there because I have hard water. So to help break this down for the first two weeks the first thing I did was to rinse my hair with a 50/50 mix of water and white vinegar. It worked and I no longer need to use it. I may have to every once in a while I have been told by other no poo'ers but I have not used it in the last almost two months. When I make my wash and rinse I use cold/cool water from the shower that has not warmed up yet. This is especially helpful for me so I can feel the cold water on my scalp and make sure it is actually penetrating my hair. At first I used old measuring cups but the wide opening was not the best for in shower use. I now use old glass bottles from a tea drink my husband buys. It is especially helpful because I can put they ingredients in and put the lid on and shake to mix well. The smaller opening also regulates the flow better and I can get the wash/rinse where it needs to be better than a big open container.

There are all sorts of ways to go no poo and the baking soda/vinegar was the way I choose and am very happy with. The best place I can send you for information is a LiveJournal community, The No Poo' Method. They discuss all sorts of ways to go no poo and different things you can use and even their favorite conventional products if you are not ready to go completely no poo'. Many use tea rinses instead of vinegar, largely because of the smell but if used properly there is no lingering smell what so ever, and believe me because my husband hates the smell of vinegar and he actually has recently been telling my how clean my hair smells! That is a testament to the greatness of this method, mudnessa no longer smells!! AMAZING!!! Try it for yourself.

Menstruating Women, especially the green minded.

If you are a guy you probably don't wanna read this, believe me and if you do read on you have been warned, don't say I didn't warn you.

This is seriously the best thing to ever happen to me. We hate our monthly cycle don't we, although it serves a great purpose if you plan on reproducing. It is still no fun, no fun at all. Ok I didn't want to just jump right in and scare some people because I know it will but I am not that good with words so . . .

I suggest you research and ultimaltey try a Menstrual Cup. I did and I LOVE it. I also realize it is not for everyone and that even if it is something you would like to use it just may not work for you.

So here is how I got started, I noticed the mention of it on a blog I visit, Crunchy Chicken. Great blog, but she held a DivaCup Challenge. That's how it all started for me.

It did take me about 3 months of casual on and off research to decide to actually purchase and try a cup. The best resource I found is a LiveJournal community. Menstrual Cups. It has a wealth of information and the people are very helpful and VERY VERY VERY nice. If you check out their Community Info page and scroll down they have a picture of all the available cups and their sizes and things. Very helpful for deciding which to buy. I went with the DivaCup mostly because it was easily available to me, I got mine from drugstore.com.

Why are so many women willing to shove bleached to hell, proccessed to the ends of the earth little pieces of cotton up their hooha!! I swear a man must have decided that would be the best way so it would all be out of sight out of mind. HORRIBLE that that is the most accepted way of dealing. Not only is it putting chemicals and things in your hooha it is using up many resources not to mention money. Seriously how much money do we spend over our lifetimes on tampons and/or pads, things we despise. Tampons also soak up EVERYTHING in there. It is not suppose to be dry it's just not.

Possibly TMI but the whole subject is TMI for some . . . since using the DivaCup I have had shorter periods and no more end of cycle spotting and even if I did it wouldn't be an issue because the cup is not like a tampon, it doesn't need to be "full" to come out easily. BEST PART, reduction in cramp severity!!! Seriously. I believe that has something to do with having a happy hooha. Before it was screaming at me and rightfully so I must say. One more added benefit is you really get to know your parts and as odd as it seems it really makes you feel like you know yourself and understand being a woman a bit more. It is also kinda interesting seeing how flow changes over the cycle, from a scientific point of view, which is how my brain functions and well I am interested in all sorts of odd things. Anyways I could go on and on.

Please look at the sites and info on them and make the decision for yourself, but I highly highly highly recommend it. I no longer dread my monthly visit, I honestly kinda look forward to it now. Also please feel free to ask me personally about anything, I am not squeamish and I would love to help you make the decision and put you at ease about the whole idea.