Naturally Fresh

August 3 Melanie McCullough of Herbal Natures in Bradford, Illinois sent me a sample of her delightful Natural Deodorant. I am really impressed with this all natural alternative to the chemical full deodorants I purchase at the store. This came superbly and professionally packaged in a pop up deodorant tube, a generous 1.25 ounce sample. It is made with Arrowroot Powder, coconut oil, castor oil, Meadowfoam oil, candelelilla, silica, zinc oxide, and lightly scented with essential oils, Floral Fantasy. Melanie has really done her home work and come up with a wonderful product that works well! It completely stopped any under arm odor all day in the dank high heat of Louisiana and was scented light enough to not interfere with my own cologne. This deodorant is just the right consistency, not too soft and this sample will last me a while. I have hepatitis c and blood cancer so am extremely sensitive to heavy metals like the aluminum used in store bought deodorants. Finding a healthy alternative like this that works so well has made my day! This Natural Deodorant is the ticket for anyone wanting to use a safer, healthier deodorant. She will be adding this to her line up in the near future, if you would like to try this, email her, she has a few on hand. Also, feel free to check out her other wonderful natural products, like her mineral make up and linen spray. Thank you Melanie!

The Fight

Suddenly I have found myself in a fight for my life. Even the slightest touch of salt in my food makes my blood pressure skyrocket, a week ago it went up to 244/117. This was a mini stroke. Scared the you know what out of me. I did not go to the hospital, last time this happened, all they did was do some uncomfortable tests, admit me, throw me in a room, gave me NO medicine to bring my BP down, and forgot all about me. I left after some hours of this. This time, I called a caring friend and neighbor, Suzanne, and she sat with me whle I took an extra clonidine (what the hospital gives), drank plenty of water, and practiced self biofeedback to lower my pulse rate and blood pressure. This time it worked, but I cannot get my BP down to normal and am terrified of eating anything. I guess that is one way to lose weight! LOL After being told twice by my doctor's office that I could NOT come in for a follow up to my 1st transient ischemic attack (mini stroke) on June 5th, at other's pleadings, I called again on Thursday and they agreed to let me come in yesterday. He checked me out, will pore over the labs taken, did not want to change anything till he perused the labs, refilled my prescriptions and told me I was following the best course of action and did the right thing this time. I will return to see him on the 8th of September, now just to manage to live long enough to do so! I find it ironic after so many years when I wanted to die (years ago when younger) I now have no intention of going anywhere. I am happy - truly happy - for the first time in my my life and have tons more soap to make!

Alice Online Shopping Service Review

A friend turned me on to Alice, a new online shopping and delivery service. A personal shopper! I shopped on Saturday, picking out the minimum order of 6 brand name items, all things I needed badly, including Pantene Red Expressions color enhancing shampoo, Northern Quilted toilet tissue and Baggie brand sandwich bags. My order only totaled $21.00 and the shipping is FREE! I received my order today, Wednesday, via FedEx, wow, this is wonderful! I've been waitng YEARS for this service and it went without a hitch, super cool, super convenient, no problems checking out. I used my credit card to pay, the account was quick and easy to set up, and they have hundreds of selections of brand name useful things to shop for. Alice is in Beta, and I have seen finished web sites that couldn't brag like this one can. There are several ways to shop, I used the Shop By Room selection and it was very easy, it pulls up a catalog of everything they have in that category, like Kitchen. They have a good selection of products and are adding to it. You can also key in the name of what you are looking for, the pages load fast, but I have cable internet. I am disabled with no transportation and getting to Walmart to get the things I need is a huge inconvenience for me and costly, there are many areas still where it is hard to get to a super center or big grocery store, Alice fits the bill and quite nicely! Alice also has selected coupons for some things, saving you even more money, it was cheaper and easier for me to order what I needed through Alice than it was to go to the store. Alice ships within 2-3 business days. I highly recommend Alice she will save you time and money. Forget about those lines from now on! Make Alice your new personal shopper!

Seducing Swap

That's right, Patrice over at The Soap Seduction put a double whammy on me! She kindly agreed to a swap with me and I hit the jackpot! First up is her luscious Lip Lush Trio, handcafted lip loving balm with a hint of color and a nice taste. Patrice does not use sweetener in her lip balm feeling it just makes us lick our lips and waste this lovely lip balm and she is right! I opted for Cherry Berry, Mango Peach Fusion, and Pina Colada. This formulation of olive oil, castor oil, beeswax, caranauba wax, candelilla wax, fragrance, lip safe colorant, lip safe mica goes on silky soft and stays on, tastes good, and makes my lips nicely moist and soft.

I also swapped for a bar of her wonderfully moisturizing cold process soap, Pinky Muskadero, a delightful mixture of olive oil, soybean oil, avocado oil, castor oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, distilled water, sodium hydroxide, oxide, and fragrance. This beautiful soap is scented with notes of jasmine, musk, and a hint of peony. I rushed to test it out and found it gave loads of creamy bubbles, scented just right and not reeking, just the way I like it, and left my skin soft and clean. All products came packaged in a pretty muslin drawstring bag, a nice touch!

I encourage anyone wanting to use premium handcrafted lip balm instead of chemical laden store bought stuff and fantastic cold process soap to rush to The Soap Seduction and shop to your heart's content, you will be happy you did! Thank you Patrice!

Holstein Heaven Hand Milled Soap with Emu Oil

Just cut my batch made 7/17/2009 of all natural Holstein Heaven Chocolate Vanilla Hand Milled Soap with Emu oil. This heavenly scented olive oil soap named tongue in cheek for our lovely black and white Holstein cows is full of natural goodness and so good for the skin. Fragranced and colored naturally with pure cocoa powder and vanilla oleoresin, it is chock full of exotic butters and oils, like avocado oil, shea butter and emu oil. This soap will be ready August 7; it is curing now to get a nice gentle, long lasting hard bar of soap made to spoil your skin. You can get this soap now here!

Blossom 4th of July bow

Here is my lovely dog, Blossom, a Maltese, with me now over 7 months, she is a puppymill rescue. Her fav thing to do? Recline in spoiled luxury on the soft plump queen-sized jacquard covered bed, so very different than the wire she was forced to live on 24/7 for 5 years. She deserves it and more! What an expression on her face! She is chastising me because of the camera, once put away, she was back to racing around and playing.

Edited photo courtesy of Rosemary. thank you so much Rosemary. You are an artiste.

Soy Wax Lotion Tarts

I have an awesome new product! soy wax lotion tarts! What is this, you may ask? It is a 2 in 1 product: home fragrance and exquisite skin softening and warming lotion! You will not believe your eyes! Unique product. 2.5 ounce 6 individual breakaway soy wax lotion tarts, 2 products in one! Place one cube in your tea light burner or electric burner, melt and you have a delightful home fragance. Lightly dip you fingers in the melted soy wax and apply to hands, you then have the BEST lotion you have ever used with shea and cocoa butter and triple refined certified Asutralian EMU oil and the warm lotion feels wonderful on your hands. Superb for cracked dry skin and eases hurting hands with its warmth.

If you have used lotion after lotion with little to no benefit, you must try this! One cube lasts for about a week using it daily as a lotion. Soy wax is green, clean burning, and melts at a lower temperature than regular wax, no fear of buring yourself, just don't touch the bowl of the burner, it's hot! No wick to sully the wax lotion. Dye free! When possible pthlalate free fragrance oils or essential oils used, only skin safe ratios used. The best way to use this is to let it melt, blow out the tea light, or turn off the electric burner, let cool for a minute then dip away! Treat your skin special today, you will wonder how you lived without this!

You can get it at http://2VirgosDesigns.etsy.com