How to Meditate for Beginners

Have you ever considered a meditation practice? Also called practicing mindfulness, meditating is a wonderful way to manage stress and anxiety. Unfortunately, I was brought up with the idea that meditating was a little bit weird, and my family didn't really get it. But luckily, over the years times have changed, and meditation is now widely practiced by many people all over the globe.

Meditation is such a wonderful way to maintain a sense of calm and clarity in the most trying situations. How do I know? Because I've been personally meditating for years!

Pumpkin Pie Face Mask

Cucumber Mask DIY - 3 Easy Ways

I know it looks like I'm about to show you a recipe for salsa, but guess again.  Haha.  Instead, I've got three ways to make a lovely and refreshing cucumber mask.  Perfect way to beat the heat and stay beautiful :)

Herbal DIY Face Toner Recipe ~ 3 ways

I was always skeptical of toner.  I thought- "What does it actually do?"  I was convinced it was just another one of those useless things that corporations came up with to sell more products and make more money.  But as part of my collaboration with Belmondo, I received some of their toner, and now I'm a total convert.  So why do I like it?

#1 It's refreshing- especially when straight out of the refrigerator, and especially in the summer months!
#2 It can bring an extra somethin' somethin' to a dull complexion by minimizing pores and smoothing things out.
#3 If you use the right ingredients for your skin type, it can help with problems like dryness, excess oil, or acne.


After thinking about all this, I was really excited to tinker with a few recipes of my own!




All those herbs made my kitchen smell wonderful!


I decided to incorporate mostly herbal bases, because I've been using them for years, and believe in the medicinal healing properties of the ones that I used- chamomile, mint, and rosemary.  Taking these herbs internally has always been wonderfully beneficial for me, so I was interested to see how they wold work topically.

Also as always, I love these recipes because you can use things that you might already have at home-

MATERIALS NEEDED

+ Fresh Mint
+ Fresh Rosemary
+ Chamomile
+ Cucumber
+ Grapefruit
+ Witch Hazel- I used Thayer's
+ 6 tea cups for brewing/ mixing
+ 1 teapot
+ 1 strainer
+ Three small bottles or jars (1-3 oz.) like these


PREP WORK

+ Boil about a half cup of water per toner solution (so if you're making three toners like I did, then you need 1 1/2 cups.)  Put two heaping teaspoons of herbs in each cup.
+ When the water boils, divide it evenly over each set of herbs... kind of like you're making tea!
+ You want the solution to be as strong as possible, so let everything steep until cooled.
+ When cool, use a strainer to strain the solution into a new cup.
+ Squeeze the juice from one grapefruit.
+ Juice (or dice into strips) one cucumber.

*Note- you can use tea balls if you don't have a strainer.  However, with tea balls there will usually be loose little herb bits floating around.  Nothing wrong with that... if you're using a spray bottle, it might clog it up.





Rosemary Witch Hazel Toner

+ Add 1 Tsp of witch hazel to your rosemary solution.

The witch hazel has a strong smell, and some people prefer just the rosemary alone, so you can omit it.  However, it is the classic toner ingredient, and a lot of people use it straight on their skin.  If you have oily skin, you can add more, and if your skin is dry, add less.


Chamomile Cucumber Toner

+ Add 1 Tbs of cucumber juice to your chamomile solution.
+ If you don't have a juicer, you can always just dice up some strips and stick them in to infuse overnight!  I tried this, and found that it made the toner look a bit like pickles.  Haha!  If this is cool with you, go for it!

This is a soothing toner for sensitive skin- the chamomile is an anti-inflammatory, and the cucumber reduces puffiness.


Peppermint Grapefruit Toner

+ Add 1 Tbs Grapefruit juice to your peppermint solution.

Aside from being two invigorating scents, both of these ingredients are good astringents, and will help with acne problems.



These can be store in refrigerator, for up to a week (I usually do longer ;)   Plus, the cold spritz makes all the difference in the world!

:: FOLLOW ::

DIY Lip Scrub Four Ways

DIY Bumble & Bumble Surf Spray

So I was browsing around Sephora the other day, like always. And I decided to try Bumble and Bumble’s Surf Spray. And what do you know, I thought it was pretty great.  True, the results were not an exact reproduction of the beachy waves I’d rocked each summer growing up on the coast of Rhode Island. But it sure did make me look pretty, and nice, and I decided needed to have it. 

But $25??!  Ugh.





I liked the product a lot, and was working up the nerve to shell out the money, but then it occurred to me that “Hey- I can totally DIY this!”  And so I did.

DIY Coconut Oil/ Cocoa Butter Moisturizer

My quest for a perfect body butter continues!!

Here's the deal... I was loving my cocoa butter for a long time. Remember my adventures in homemade body butters? I liked the bars that I made, but I noticed that they were still quite hard to melt. You can use them in the shower, but they would get a little moldy after a time.

Then, I discovered coconut oil. LOVE. Not only can you use it in cooking, it can be used on your hair and skin as well. It dries fast and moisturizes wonderfully... especially after a shower. But I started to notice that it has the opposite problem of cocoa butter... it melts fairly easily. On a semi-hot day, I noticed that my jar had become completely liquid. So I decided to try combining the two! Together, they make an unstoppable moisturizing duo.

Or so I thought...




I had a 2oz jar, and I used about 2/3 coconut oil to 1/3 cocoa butter. The mixture is still pretty melty, but I'm in love with this new combination. I think next time, I'll use a bigger cocoa butter ratio.

Even with the drawbacks, this is still my favorite moisturizer yet. The smell is unbelievably delicious!! Imagine coconut and chocolate... it's addicting!

Honey Almond Scrub Recipe

Sooo... what's up?? I've totally been sick for the past couple of days. I was laid up in my bed almost all of yesterday feeling terrible, which is why I haven't really been posting for the last few days :( I did, however, manage to make this honey almond scrub that I've been meaning to do for ages!

You see, I've been looking for a good face scrub for awhile. I used to use Dark Angels by Lush, but I didn't like that it always left little bits of charcoal all over my face. I'm also a huge fan of Angels on Bare Skin... and I read somewhere that a main ingredient was ground almonds. I also used ground almonds in my body butters last spring.


What you need:

8 Tsp of ground almonds (just grind some almonds in a coffee grinder, food processor, etc.)
4 Tsp of honey
1 Tsp of lemon juice

MAGIC.



This will make about 2oz of scrub, and I ordered a few 2oz jars from sunburstbottle.com to keep the mixture in.

Now, some more about why I chose these particular ingredients- The almonds are really gentle. They exfoliate your skin while not scratching/ tearing at it. This is really important. They also leave a small trace of almond oil behind, which is very good for skin :) The honey is a wonderful addition, because it is a humectant- it keeps moisture inside your skin. And the lemon has a brightening effect :)

I personally found this recipe to be very moisturizing, while not leaving my skin oily. The scrubbing aspect was perfect- not too harsh, but did its job. Also, this is another skin recipe in which you could probably find the items right in your cupboard already.

The best part about this recipe- if you get bored of it/ don't like it, you can just eat it (It's delicious.)








♥ watch my new video for "just the way you are" on youtube!! ♥