DIY Debunking: Plants Don’t Always Heal
Detoxing my home and beauty regime has been an eye-opening experience. The notion of “living naturally‖a typical-part of the DIY detox, has a lot of people talking about the dangers of modern chemistry and the health and environmental benefits of using more natural products. For the most part, I agree with this. But I’ve also...
Understanding Labels: Preservatives, Why We Need ’em and What to Watch Out For
Everything natural decomposes. It rots and/or grows mold, and eventually returns to the earth in the universe’s greatest recycling plan. This is awesome for long-term sustainability, but not so great when you want to make something now and use it later or kill something now (plant or animal) and eat it later. Hence humans have...
Understanding the Ingredients on a Soap Label
If you haven’t read last week’s distinction between soap and detergent, you might want to do that first  as this will make more sense! Before I get started explaining the ingredients, here are three important but not related things. I’m not a chemist or a doctor. I’m a romance novelist who runs a Pagan blog...
Soap Labels: The Good, the Bad and the Dirty
Before soap labels can make sense, the distinction between soap and detergent must be made. Soap and detergent are the two main category of cleaners we use, both in home cleaning products and on our bodies. I have a natural “soap good, detergent bad!†prejudice when it comes to my skin. I decided to do...
Introduction to Label Reading on Cosmetics and Food
One of the things I’ve had to learn how to do over the past few years is read ingredients labels, and I started with packaged food. For people with sensitive systems (like me) it’s important to monitor what we consume. I’ve also had to accept that the things I put onto my body, like lotion,...
Jax Makes Soap!
Interesting things I’ve learned about soap… Soap is what happens when you mix melted fat (animal or plant) and lye (either sodium or potassium hydroxide). The original lye used in soapmaking was ashes from a hardwood tree (although I’m guessing what you buy at the store isn’t made that way anymore). If you make soap...
Poppin’ Tags Like a Princess
I love thrift store shopping. I’ll get back to that in a moment. As part of my quest for detoxing my house and gorgeous routines (some people may have beauty routines, but as a princess, I have a gorgeous one 😉 I’m learning how to make my own soap. As a side note, if you...
5 Things that Sound Gross But are Eco-friendly
I’ve been thinking about eco-friendly habits lately. Or maybe I’ve been thinking about how to justify lazy habits as eco-friendly. I’m not sure, exactly. But I thought I’d share my ponderance with you. Here are five things you can do that sound kinda gross, but are actually green. Most of them will help conserve water....
