Salt of the earth-pure aura review

I finally received the brand new Salt of the Earth new pure aura scent and I was very excited as I've heard such good things about using a natural alum based deodorant but I was yet to try one. 

 the only deodorant that's natural that I've really found to work is my DIY recipe also on my blog, so I was hoping to find another alternative for when I'm on the go or when I'm working out or riding my bike anywhere so I was really excited to get this one.

The salt of the earth pure aura comes in a spray bottle consisting of the alum, a type of glycerine, aloe leaf juice and flower extracts which was different to traditional stick alum deodorants, 100% natural and a lot more simpler to use as you don't have to wet it every time you want to get it on your skin. You just spray, and go!

The scent is lavender and vanilla but the smell of lavender is much more prominent than the light vanillary tones in the scent, so if you're not a fan of lavender this probably isn't the one for you. I used this for a few days to really see what it stood up to and I was rather impressed with my findings. On the longest and sweatiest day which included multiple bike rides and some pretty constant walking around the deodorant lasted from 9am when I put on a thin amount all the way to 6pm. That's over 9 hours! That's pretty impressive considering how much I was doing all day.

Overall I'm pretty impressed with this product and it seems like it'll come in handy on particularly warm summers days when I'm out a lot of the time and my DIY deodorant gets a little bit messy after spending a while melting in the summer sun!

The new Salt of the earth Pure Aura deodorant is available at crystalspring.co.uk

How to stay natural pre and post swim

I like most people love to swim. I go close to 3 times a week give or take the odd holiday or trip away. It is defiantly my preferred form of workout with my weekly Pilates and yoga sessions a close second.

The one thing I don't love about swimming though is the chlorine and what it does to my skin and hair if I don't treat it properly. Chlorine is a sanitiser which almost certainly should be added to every public pool for the health of everyone in it. However it may stop you catching God knows what from the hoards of people that use the pool everyday but there are also many reasons why it's not exactly the best ingredient in the world. Chlorine is a known carcinogen, is incredibly drying to hair and skin and can cause wrinkles prematurely. So if you still want to swim after knowing that it'd probably be best if you protect yourself from it but in the most natural way possible.

So here's what I use to keep my exposure as minimal as possible.

Before you get in the pool:

I oil up! Well, not too much anyway because you don't want to be leaving an oily film everywhere you go but oil will create a barrier between you and the water so slather on a body moisturiser and make sure to coat your hair too. I do this before I leave the house to save time and not risk looking like a total mental case in my local gym changing rooms. 

On my body I use a diy moisturiser which is a mixture of coconut oil and Shea butter to nourish and protect my skin. 

And now for my hair. I tend to oil up my hair quite a lot with a basic almond oil, even olive oil from your kitchen will do the job. I start at the ends of my hair and work my way up focusing mainly on the lower half of my head as it has the most contact with water than anything else. I use a decent amount to do this, more than I normally would to moisturise my hair but not so much that I can practically ring puddles of oil out of it. I then tie this up into a very high bun on the top of my head and I'm ready to head into the pool.

Now afterwards I shower immediately with plain old water at the gym change and shower again once I get home. When I do shower though I tend to use a clay based shampoo bar and hair rinse and then to prevent any chemical build up.

if I've been going to the pool for a few days in a row I turn to my more traditional shampoo by the brand Faith in nature followed again by a hair rinse. The faith in nature brand are a company against animal testing and their products contain all natural ingredients even including the use of ALES, which is a little harsh on my hair and the only reason I don't use this product every time I wash. This however is a good reason of why I do use this whenever I go swimming, it does a wonderful job of removing the choline from my hair!

I also use their shower gels for the same reason.

My feet are normally the first to get dry after a long swimming session and I've found the only thing that really works is Lush's Pumice power foot soap. I also use this in winter regularly on my feet too. It's also less than £4 which is a great deal for how long it lasts me but if anyone knows a good diy with less fragrance I'd love to know!

Once I'm out its a full moisturising session again and I feel totally chlorine free!

So that's how I keep myself as protected as possible from my frequent pool trips!

Tina

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Alibi health drink review

Alibi were nice enough to send me a few of their health drinks to try and I think I've found my new favourite post gym drink. I've recently got in the habit of packing one of these in with my homemade raw vegan protien snickers bars and I'm glad I did.

The Alibi company have excellent ethics which is what attracted me to them in the first place really. For every can of Alibi sold 500 litres of drinking water will be provided to the developing world. So vitamins for you and clean drinking water for those truly in need feels like a good deal for me. 

It is also vegetarian society approved, is 100% recyclable and comes in three different flavours; blueberry, citrus and pomegranate. My favourite has to be the blueberry one.

The packaging is simple and white which does look rather stylish when I'm wandering around with one in my hand but that's besides the point. It's all very well looking good but it is mostly what's inside that really counts.

So what is inside the health drink. Is it really that healthy? The drink counts as one of your five a day through the 45% of fruit juice in the drink. The fact it contains no added sugar, artificial sweeteners, caffeine or stimulants is another great plus for me. 

It's 45% fruit juice but what else is in it. Looking at the ingredients I can see a list of 21 vitamins and botanicals along with an acidity regulator and citric acid which can be expected from a carbonated drink.

Each flavour can is less than 90 calories too which comes from the juice and vitamins itself and not through any other additional nonsense which only adds to the benefits of this drink. Alibi health drink is available at Alibidrink.com

Tina

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Vegan swaps lip balms

I went out today with the intention of finding a replacement for my Burts bees lip balm as I'm running low, well, low in my opinion (I still have one left). Although Burts bees prides itself on being natural and even offering a lip balm recycle scheme I just didn't feel comfortable buying products containing beeswax anymore.
As a side note, I do still have a little beeswax left which I use for my natural beauty products, but as soon as that runs out I'm going to buy a vegan alternative. I don't believe that you should just throw an item away if you find out it contains an animal product or has been tested on animals. The way I see it is that the damage has already been done and you can either waste the item or use it until finished and then learn from it.

I found the best alternative brand while I was out which I'd never heard of before so I thought I'd share them with you. It's the brand Oilology which I discovered in TKMaxx which is a supprizing treasure trove for natural beauty alternatives if you keep your eyes peeled. It's also a great place for glass jars too!

These lip balms came in a pack of three too and the price was only £3. So not only am I helping the poor little bees out now, I'm also making huge savings considering each one of these is double the size of a Burts bees lip balm and it's cheaper for me to buy 3 of these than it is to buy one Burts bees lip balm!

The type of balm I chose was the Argan oil citrus flavour which I wasn't overly looking forward to as citrus is never really my first choice of anything. However I was pleasantly surprised! It tasted like a light mango and never turned my lips white or made them feel greasy which was a concern considering how oil based this product was.

The main ingredients list is; vegetable oil, soybean oil, coconut oil, Shea butter, candelilla wax, apricot kernel oil, jojoba seed oil, Argan oil, avacado oil and vitamin c. This is natural enough and an incredible alternative for me!

Tina

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No poo and shampoo bars

No poo is not exactly what it sounds like. It's not using traditional shampoo to cleanse your hair in favour of more natural options. There are many options available from water only to washing your hair in honey. 

After moving onto a sulphate free shampoo I was loving the benefits my hair was reaping. But still, something still felt wrong. The shampoo may have improved my hair immensely in comparison to the silicone filled others I had used before but it still wasn't exactly 'natural' was it? Also I wasn't a big fan of the packaging I was still throwing into the recycle bin every other month. It also didn't help that it was almost impossible to find a brand that wasn't ridiculously green washed and bought out by a not so animal friendly company.

So where did that leave me? Was it possible to find a natural shampoo that was good for my hair and wasn't owned by a brand with some rather questionable morals? I'm glad to say that there was! I was soon transported to the wonderful world of no poo and all the experimenting that was to follow.

So that left me with the shampoo bar/Castile soap option or a clay mud wash. And these were the two I experimented between until I found what worked best for me. (I'm now an avid shampoo bar user with a once every two months clarifying clay wash)

Shampoo bars (not to be mistaken with Lush's sulphate filled shampoo bars) are made usually through traditional cold processed soap making methods however they are formulated with hair in mind. They come in many different scents and have many different formulations depending on your hair type so you'll be sure to find one for you. The best news is I went from having to wash my hair every other day to now barely needing to wash it once a week!

But if you've decided how you'll wash your hair have you decided how you'll rinse or 'condition' it? Most conventional conditioners have to go out the window when you start no pooing but you need something to replace it and also something to wash all that product out of your hair.

The widest used rinse is probably watered down apple cider vinegar but to be honest in the uk it is extremely expensive and near impossible to get a hold of in the uk but white wine vinegar and red wine vinegar do the job just as well. The only things I have against the vinegar rinsing is the smell. You can smell it in the shower and on your hair afterwards as it dries. Then the smell totally disappears! That is until you sweat or get caught in the rain and in England, that's a common occurrence

So being a little fed up with my rinse and smelling a little bit pickled I thought it was time to do some experimenting. Lemon juice! It worked pretty much the same and didn't stink, however there was one issue my naturally dark hair seemed to be getting lighter and lighter from the lemon juice. But I found a solution soon enough through the wonderful world of tea. In place of my water in the lemon rinse concoction I used tea which has appeared to pretty much have kept the hair lightening at bay for now.

Do you use shampoo bars or do you want to try them? Let me know!

Tina

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DIY All natural deodorant

After searching through the world of natural deodorant like a woman with no hope I finally discovered one that worked. A diy recipe I could make myself for not even a quarter of the price I was paying for store bought ones that didn't even work.

I've perfected this recipe over the years to be the perfect texture and not fall apart or melt and also so it works and doesn't stain my clothes, so I thought I'd share it with you!

I've really thought a lot about what goes into my deodorant recipe and every ingredient I've used has a reason to be in there and here's a little reason for each one...

I use coconut oil as its a natural anti fungal and antibacterial. The Shea butter moisturises the skin and gives the deodorant a nice texture that doesn't melt too much under hot climates. 

I add bicarbonate of soda as it works incredibly well at not just masking your 'natural scent' but neutralising any odour. The wax is there just to solidify the mixture further and it does wonders at preventing coconut oil stains on your clothing. 

Lavender essential oil is soothing, anti bacterial and provides pain relief for minor burns or skin irritation. Then finally tea tree oil is a natural antiseptic and cleaner which can work wonders for your skin.

Ingredients:

3 tsp Coconut oil

Bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp Shea butter

1/2 tsp Vegan wax (I have some beeswax knocking round the house from my pre vegan days)

A few drops Lavender essential oil

A few drops Tea tree essential oil

Fragrance oil (optional)

Aluminium tin 

Ceramic/glass bowl

Spoon

Melt the coconut oil, Shea butter and wax in your bowl then spoon in your bicarbonate of soda and mix. Before the rest of the mixture cools throw in a few drops of your essential oils and your optional fragrance. 

Pour your mixture into your aluminium tin and once it's set your ready to start using it! I apply once a day on cold days but if you're being particularly active it will probably be better to apply twice a day as heavy perspiration can wash it off a little. 

If you use this recipe or have any suggestions for improvements let me know I'd love to hear how it's worked for you!

Tina

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Raw Vegan snickers bars

This recipe is one of my favourites by far as it requires so little skill it's unreal all you need is a blender or food processor of some sort and a baking tray to make an insane supply of delicious sugary vegan goodness so get ready to make these incredible raw vegan snickers bars

Ingredients:

- 1 and a 3/4 cups of cashews

- 3/4 cup of coconut flour

- 3 cups of dates

-1 tablespoon almond butter

-A bit of vanilla extract

- small amounts of water

First lay out your baking tin and line with baking parchment. You may need a couple as this recipe makes a lot of delicious bars. Then blend together 1 and a half cups of cashews, 1 cup of dates and all of your coconut flour to make your base. Add a very tiny bit of water if it's having trouble blending and I find that blending small amounts at a time makes you get through the process a lot faster.

Then you spread that into your baking tins and stick them in the freezer while you make your caramel layer.

For the caramel layer blend together the rest of the dates, some vanilla extract and almond butter. You may also need a tiny bit of water here too to make the 'caramel' a little softer and easier to blend and spread. Now remove the trays from the freezer and spread the caramel mixture on top. Once you've done that chop up the remaining cashews and sprinkle them on top of your trays.

What is this missing though? Chocolate! I went for the sweet freedom brand cocoshot as basically all the hard work had been done for me. Spread that across your bars then put the trays back in the freezer for a few hours.

Once the bars have set its time to cut them! Slice the trays into standard chocolate bar sized portions and enjoy. Any remaining bars can be put in tupperware and stored in the fridge or freezer for future use.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy your raw vegan snickers bars

Tina

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