Beautiful Oils for Supple Skin and Help with Stretch Marks…

Read article : Beautiful Oils for Supple Skin and Help with Stretch Marks…

I mentioned this on the “affordable” stretch marks roundup, but I’ll repeat: I know that beauty people are divided in their opinion of stretch mark oils. Or just the use of body oils in general to prevent stretch marks. From my own personal viewpoint, I have no scientific evidence that they work but I kind of think, why would I risk NOT using one? It’s such an enjoyable thing to do anyway, a bit of massage and oiling, and you don’t have to spend the earth to get a suitable oil. (See previous oils post!) I moisturise my skin after a bath or shower anyway, so it’s not like it’s a total mission to add in a bit of a bump-boobs-bum massage to keep skin supple and hopefully reduce the chances of marking.

Anyway, here are some of the more expensive oils that I’ve been testing – not hideously dear, by any means, but a bit more spendy than your typical pharmacy or supermarket buy. Two of them are dedicated “stretch mark” oils, the rest are just perfect for keeping skin supple and soft. The main difference seems to be in ingredients (such as rosehip) that target regeneration and repair, but let’s take a closer look…

Balance Me Super Moisturising Body Oil: £24.50 online here. This doesn’t shout from the rooftops about being a stretch mark prevention oil, but it certainly says all of the right things when you do a bit of research. High in fatty acids to restore elasticity, rosehip to help repair and rejuvenate, and a high percentage of coconut oil which the brand claims “allows this body oil to naturally tackle, prevent and reduce stretch marks.” Bravo. It also feels great to massage in and it smells nice. Win-win.

Clarins Huile Tonic Body Treatment Oil: £35.20 here. Clarins’ best-selling body oil and the product name that popped up the most whenever I mentioned pregnancy oils in tweets or posts. This seems to be a firm favourite! Clarins claim on their website that this is “effective at removing stretch marks” which is a whopper of a claim, so I’d be interested to know how other people with existing marks have fared. My own thoughts are that it must be a million times easier to try and prevent them than remove them, which is why I have been so totally obsessed with my daily (and twice-daily!) oiling but yes. Let me know your success stories. This oil smells good – very herby – and has a great massage-able texture.

Read about the best affordable stretch mark oils…

Mama Mio Tummy Rub Stretch Mark Oil: £27 here. Excellent, this one, with the lovely signature Mama Mio scent (I think they must have a certain blend of oils and ingredients common to many of their body products because they all smell so invigorating and zesty!) and a good, firm texture for proper massaging-in ability. I went through this bottle like the clappers – I think it has new packaging, now, which might make it a bit easier to do restrained pouring!

Kiehl’s Superbly Restorative Argan Dry Oil: £37.50 here. Wah! Seems pricy, this one, but you get 200ml in comparison to the 100-ish from Mama Mio and Clarins. In fact Clarins is fully twice as expensive, so you have to keep things in perspective! I love a bit of Argan (see post on Simple Oils) and this one is a kind of “Argan Lite” dry-oil version that’s quick to apply and rub in. Good for a morning post-shower treatment, rather than a heavier oil that might feel claggy once you get dressed. Downside: loads of ingredients to make it light and dry. If you just want pure Argan, check this out.

Pai’s Pomegranate & Pumpkin Stretch Mark Cream and Stretch Mark Oil: £45 online here. Again, looks expensive, but this is actually the best value stretch mark treatment of the lot. You get 200ml of cream and 100ml of oil, both used the most impeccably sourced and chosen ingredients and are suitable for sensitive, allergy-prone skin. (Full ingredients list here.) A hydrating cream and a replenishing oil, the stretch mark system is essential oil free, so great for those who can’t handle them or who would prefer to avoid during pregnancy. Packed full of essential fatty acids to nourish the skin and formulated to help increase elasticity, this is one of my absolute must-buys. The oil drizzles out at an annoyingly slow rate and the cream dispenser needs some looking at (I have literally never had such bad hand and wrist fatigue trying to extract a body cream from the bottle!) but all is forgiven for the beautiful formulas and soft, supple skin they reveal.

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Best DIY All Purpose Kitchen and Bathroom Spray, Tub Scrub and Window Cleaner Recipes

Read article : Best DIY All Purpose Kitchen and Bathroom Spray, Tub Scrub and Window Cleaner Recipes

Over the past two years, I have begun weeding out more and more of my expensive and toxic household cleaners and replacing them with homemade substitutes that work as well, or even better.  You’ve all probably seen my homemade laundry detergent recipe (20.4¢ for homemade vs. $12-$14 retail) and I’ve recently added a homemade “shout” laundry stain remover recipe (now tested successfully on both colors and whites, by the way.)  Even our liquid hand soap has been replaced by my homemade foaming soap version.  Why would I go to the time and trouble of making these products at home?  Cold hard cash!  They can all be made for pennies on the dollar, when compared to what you are spending to buy them at the store.  Plus, they don’t actually take that long to make — some only a few minutes!

Beyond that, homemade cleaners, made with natural products, are better for the environment and exponentially better for your family’s safety and health.  The chemicals and ingredients (and their fumes) in typical household cleaners can be terribly dangerous and many build up in our systems over decades of use.  Even liquid hand soap, many shower gels, lotions, face soaps and dish soaps, sadly, even many toothpastes, now contain the “antibacterial” ingredient, triclosan.   In my opinion, you wouldn’t need to read more than one or two articles about this pesticide, before you would refuse to expose your home and family to it, but that’s a post for another day.  🙂 With homemade cleaners, you can be confident you are providing the safest and most economical options for your family because you know exactly what you’ve put in them.  It makes sense for your health, your budget and the environment.

I needed to make a quick Walmart run to restock a few ingredients to make my favorite DIY cleaning products.  The most critical need was for vinegar.  I was completely out.  You are welcome to check out my whole shopping trip in this Google+ album.

My local grocery store offers a great variety of vinegars for all my cooking needs, plus the white vinegar I like to use in my homemade cleaning supplies.

One of the most commonly used ingredients in making your own household cleaners and even personal care products is vinegar.  Raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar has some incredible health benefits, that we can discuss at another time, but today, I want to talk about white vinegar.  White vinegar is readily available and very inexpensive, usually around $2.50 a gallon, in our area.  I was excited to see that Heinz is marketing a cleaning strength white vinegar, now, with a slightly higher acidity (6% as opposed to 5%) than standard white vinegars.  This little boost in acidity, adds extra oomph and effectiveness to my homemade cleaning products without a noticeable increase in cost.  Score!

Heinz Cleaning Vinegar" src="http://www.busy-at-home.com/images/vinegar/08-cleaningvinegar.jpg" alt="cleaning vinegar" width="533" height="400" />

Only $2.98 for a whole gallon. That will make tons of “just for pennies” cleaning supplies!

If you haven’t cleaned with vinegar, before, you’re missing out on a very effective multi-purpose cleaner or cleaning ingredient.  For those just getting started with natural cleaning supplies, the biggest objection to vinegar is usually that they are afraid their home will smell like vinegar.  Honestly, you don’t notice the smell unless you are using it straight, and even then, that vinegar fragrance dissipates pretty quickly.  But, you can try this great tip I found over at Frugal Freebies for scenting your vinegar and then you won’t have to worry about it at all!

There are literally hundreds of uses for vinegar, some pretty well known, others may be new to you. For instance, did you know that not only is vinegar good for taking the itch out of bug bites, if you put it in a spray bottle and spritz it on your skin, the smell will go away in a few minutes, but you will be protected from bug bites for the rest of the evening?  Nothing could smell worse or be worse for you than the commercial bug repellents being sold, now.  I’m so excited to try this, next summer!   Along the same vein, pouring vinegar around the outside of your kids’ backyard pool will keep flies and pests away and if you do the same around the children’s sandbox, not only will it repel bugs, but it will keep neighborhood cats from using it as a litterbox.  I hate that!  This is such a good idea.

Of course, vinegar is one of the most commonly used natural cleaners for glass, mirrors and windows.  My problem has always been that I still ended up with streaks when using it straight.  Then I read Andrea’s post, over at Simple Organized Living.  Her glass cleaner still utilizes the acidity of vinegar for super cleaning and degreasing, but with the addition of a couple other ingredients, leaves glass sparkling and streak-free!  

Window & Glass Cleaner

Ingredients

• 2 c. water
• ¼ cup vinegar
• ¼ cup rubbing alcohol
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch

Instructions

1. 
2. Mix all ingredients by pouring them into a spray bottle, replacing the lid and then shaking. You definitely need to shake this, again, before each use, because the cornstarch will settle to the bottom, but you will have sparkling clean, streak-free windows for pennies!
3. Here's my mirror before cleaning with my homemade window cleaner. I had no idea how hard it is to take a picture of a mirror and have the schmutz actually show up, but it's there -- all the smudges and spots there in the center.
   
4. And here's the after, with fingerprints, smudges and spots cleared away and the mirror completely streak-free!
   

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Did you know that using a cotton ball to blot vinegar on cold sores will help dry them up?  Mix one part vinegar with 10 parts water and apply it in the same way, to help clear up acne.  Apparently, even warts can be treated by dotting a small drop of vinegar onto the pad of a bandage and then applying directly to the wart.  Replace the bandage each evening, for 7 days, and the wart should be gone.

When it comes to cleaning your house, there are even more practical uses for vinegar:

1. Use in the laundry to soften clothes and reduce static cling.  Just pour it into the fabric softener dispenser in your machine.  The vinegar smell has never been in our clean clothes, afterward.
2. I use white vinegar to clean the tub of my washing machine, by adding vinegar to the fill line in my soap dispenser and then running the cleaning cycle.
3. Vinegar is food safe, so there are many ways to use it in the kitchen, like cleaning the inside walls, shelves and drawers of your refrigerator.  You can also use a solution of 1 part vinegar, to 1 part water, to safely clean the residue from fruits and vegetables.
4. Use white vinegar in your dishwasher, in place of Jet Dry, to eliminate water spots and help rinse away soap residue.
5. Use vinegar as one of the ingredients to make your own bathroom cleaners.  These are my two most favorite recipes for cleaners that disinfect and clean like crazy in the bathroom.  Love them!

All-Purpose Kitchen and Bathroom Spray Cleaner

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon Borax
• 1 teaspoon finely grated Fels Naptha
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon castile soap
• 18 drops lavender essential oil
• 5 drops tea tree oil
  

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I found this next recipe over at Cajun Joie De Vivre  and it is definitely a keeper!  I have changed very little, but the recipe below is how I make it.  I use it for tough lime, soap scum build up and other stains in the bathroom; and I actually use it on my kitchen sink, too!  It works better than any commercial bathroom cleanser I have ever tried and its so inexpensive to make, requiring only small amounts of ingredients that I always have on hand, because I use them in many other cleaning supply recipes, as well.  This is another staple, that will make cleaning your bathroom so much easier!

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Tub and Shower Scrub

Ingredients

• 1 cup baking soda
• ⅓ cup white vinegar
• ½ cup Castile soap
• ¼ cup washing soda
• 1 Tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 10 drops Germ Fighter essential oil
  

Instructions

1. Mix baking soda, salt and washing soda.
   
2. Stir in the vinegar and allow it to foam up and then settle back down.
3. Add coconut oil, castile soap and essential oils.
   
4. Mix until all ingredients are combined. The mixture will be moist, but crumbly. Pack into a container with a tight-fitting lid.
   
5. To use, spritz the affected area with the spray bathroom cleaner, from the recipe above, or with water. Let it set for a couple of minutes and then sprinkle a small amount of this scrub on a damp cloth to clean built-up soap scum, hard water or lime deposits and other tough stains.
6. The power of this inexpensive, all-natural cleaner is evident in the picture, below. The left side has already been scrubbed and the right is about to be. When I first discovered this formula, the author wrote that I would be scrubbing off build-up that previous cleaners left behind and I didn't even know was there, until I started scrubbing with this one. She understated the issue!
   

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For the purposes of economical, ecologically sound and effective DIY household cleaners, white vinegar will be a must in your cleaning arsenal.  I think Heinz Cleaning Vinegar provides the best value and cleaning power for the money spent and it will be a staple under my kitchen cabinet.

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I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and HEINZ.   #CBias #SocialFabric #HeinzVinegar