Easy DIY Household Cleaner!

I have two toddlers and a dog. I clean all the time! I'm an incurable neat freak. They bring the mess and I run after them with my spray bottle and cloth and wipe it all away.

But because I've got two kids and a dog and I care about their health and mine, I prefer to make my own DIY household cleaner instead of using store-bought chemical cleaners.

Yes, you can buy wonderful organic non-toxic household cleaners, but making your own is so incredibly easy and it's much cheaper.

I add my ingredients for my DIY household cleaner directly in the spray bottle. Currently, I'm recycling a 32-ounce spray bottle that used to hold non-toxic all-purpose cleaner. Really, any bottle will do — just keep in mind that if you're using an old Lysol bottle or some similar chemical brand, you should make sure to give your bottle a solid cleaning before use.

Smaller spray bottles will also do just fine, but note, you will need to modify the amount of essential oil used as this recipe is based on a 32-ounce container.

Easy, Green, DIY Household Cleaner!

Ingredients:

Water

Apple Cider Vinegar

Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap

Baking Soda

Tea Tree Essential Oil

Grapefruit Essential Oil

Eucalyptus Essential Oil

Directions:

Fill the body of your bottle halfway with water and halfway with apple cider vinegar.

If your bottle doesn't have a defined neck, then you'll need to leave some space in the body of the bottle.

Next, fill the neck 3/4 of the way with Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Liquid Soap, 1 tablespoon of baking soda, 20 drops of tea tree essential oil, 20 drops of grapefruit seed essential oil and 10 drops of eucalyptus essential oil.

Give your bottle a firm swirl before you spray. This is safe to use on counter tops, tabletop surfaces and high chair trays where food might touch.

The tea tree essential oil and apple cider vinegar are antibacterial, antimicrobial, antiseptic, and anti-fungal.  Eucalyptus essential oil is antiseptic and antibacterial and the grapefruit seed essential oil is a natural disinfectant. This concoction keeps mildew and mold at bay and it smells like fresh sunshine (yes, that's a scent!).

This blend works on mirrors and tiles, and even cleans your floor and the toilet bowl! It's like a magic wand — bibbity bobbity clean!

Ants also HATE the smell of this blend, so break this out in the springtime and watch them march right on out of your house!

Happy Cleaning!

June Love Affair!

Love Affair is a little blog series that I'm experimenting with and am super excited to introduce. In a perfect world, these posts will manifest on the first of every month. In reality, as I'm a mom of two toddlers and run my own business, life...well, you know the saying.

Each month I'm going to share three products/items that I absolutely can't live without. And no, I'm not getting compensated for promoting any of these products (unless explicitly stated). I'm simply sharing products that I use and love. Working in the wellness industry, I'm often asked these sorts of lifestyle questions, so this is a great platform for me to organize my mommy brain and share my love affairs.

So here we go!

June Love Affair!

1) Marble and Milkweed Rose, Cardamom and Sandalwood Botanical Fragrance:

Can you say yummy! This is definitely NOT your grandmother's rose perfume. While the charming and endearing, heart opening element of rose is abundant, so too are absolutely sumptuous and otherworldly sandalwood notes. The two scents play off of each other and are grounded perfectly by vibrant, peppery cardamom undertones. You know I don't do chemicals, and what I love about this company, as stated on their site, is the fact that all Marble and Milkweed scents are made entirely from precious natural botanical oils, resins, concretes and absolutes. No synthetics are used- ever! Oh, and the fragrance sticks to you all day long- JOY!

2) Pacifica Kale Juice Cleanse Mask:

A few months back, I took a good look in the mirror and decided I needed to do something about my tired mom of two face. Sometimes coconut oil (my go to) just doesn't fully cut it. I was so relieved when I found this super gentle AHA mask. It makes my skin so soft. I use nightly after washing my face with coconut oil. The AHA's are naturally derived from papaya enzymes and all ingredients are 100% vegan, cruelty free, paraben free, formaldeyde free and sulfate free. The result, healthy, happy, glowing skin. 

3) Veriditas By Pranarom Women's Deodorant:

I swear by this deodorant! I'm a yoga teacher, I move all day long and I have never been stinky or felt weary of raising my arms with confidence. The deodorant is made from pure essential oils and nothing else! Nothing.... The essential oil blends smell blissful. Just to be clear, the men's deodorant is awesome as well. The women's scent is floral while the men's scent is woodsy. It's like wearing perfume. Every time you move, a lovely burst of fragrance wafts upwards. Veriditas deodorants are non irritating, easy to apply (they come in roll on tubes) and a little goes a long way. Love, love, love....

See, this series is so easy and breezy ,) I'll be back with more in July!

Have you tried any of these products? Anything tickle your fancy?

Restorative Yoga

You’re lying on your back atop an ocean of blankets and bolsters. The room is quiet, the lights dim. So in tune are you with your internal rhythm that you can perceive the sound and feel of your heartbeat. You draw air in through your nose. Your inhale cools you as air floods into your lungs. You feel taller, more open. When the exhale finally comes, it’s warm, your face softens as you release any lingering tension from your body. Down into the blankets and bolster, into the mat and through the earth your tension dissipates — away. This is a taste of restorative yoga.

Restorative yoga is an invitation to slow down, retreat inwards and silence the chatter. In a culture where the ongoing mantra is a flood of “do, do, do — achieve, achieve, achieve — be better, better, better...” an invitation to quiet the mind, step outside of that headspace and into the body and realm of the breath is not only relaxing but life altering.

"The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear." - Rumi

It just may be that one of the keys to finding balance in the modern world lies in a consistent restorative yoga practice. 75 million American adults are currently living with hypertension — that is one out of every three people. 3.3 million American adults currently live with an anxiety disorder. 60 million American adults are affected by insomnia. 100 million American adults live with some form of chronic pain. Restorative yoga, with its emphasis on balance through the practice of connecting with the breath and quieting the mind, may be just the prescription we need.

Meditative and slow, Restorative Yoga draws upon the yogic limb of pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses, offering practitioners the opportunity to quiet the mind and cultivate peace. Integral to the practice of Restorative Yoga is mindfulness and meditation. To aid in this holistic process, Restorative Yoga calls upon the use of abundant props such as straps, blankets, bolsters and blocks which help the practitioner manipulate their body into a state of relaxation, which in turn helps to release tension, activates the parasympathetic nervous system and encourages the mind to be still. Unique to the practice, restorative poses are held for upwards of ten minutes. During this time, practitioners can be guided through a meditation, they can engage in pranayama and connect with their breath, or perhaps perfect stillness where the practitioner is invited to enter into a sleep-like state.

Research is beginning to point to yoga, Restorative Yoga in particular, as one of the best natural ways to combat stress-related illnesses and disorders. According to the Harvard Health Publications, over 55% of people who practice yoga on a consistent basis, conclude that it helps them get a better night’s sleep. Science supports this claim. The baroreflex, a reflex associated with blood pressure is activated during reclining and inverted positions (common to Restorative Yoga) and this activation promotes sleep and reduces stress hormones.

 High Blood Pressure, dubbed “the silent killer”, is a particularly insidious condition affecting approximately 1 out of every 3 adults. A regular Restorative Yoga practice has the potential to greatly reduce your risk of high blood pressure. The science behind this is clear. With high blood pressure, the pressure of the blood pushing against the walls of the blood vessels is extremely strong, causing the heart to have to work much harder in order to pump blood effectively through the body. In time, this can lead to hardening of the arteries, heart failure, strokes and heart attacks. Luckily, Restorative Yoga is particularly effective in reducing the diastolic number.

Blood pressure is gauged by reading the systolic over the diastolic. The diastolic number, which should be no greater than 80, is the most important number when it comes to a blood pressure reading. The reason Restorative Yoga is so beneficial to those suffering from High Blood Pressure has to do with the fact that stress is a major trigger when it comes to High Blood Pressure and slow, breath-centered Restorative Yoga helps with this. When practicing Restorative Yoga, the heart is not put under stress, the body's requirement for blood and oxygen decreases and the muscles soften and relax, activating the parasympathetic nervous system which stabilizes the autonomic (fight or flight) nervous system.

In addition to counteracting stressful conditions, Restorative Yoga is detoxifying and cleansing, having a profound impact on the lymphatic system, due to pranayama practices. Deep, mindful breathing helps to better circulate helpful fluids through the body, encouraging bad fluids and toxins to become eliminated waste. In particular, poses that invert the legs, such as ‘legs up against the wall pose’ allow gravity to act naturally on the lymphatic system, the system in the body responsible for the filtration of toxins and circulation of antibodies.

Research shows that Restorative Yoga has the ability to lessen the severity of mood disorders and depression. The science behind this being that Restorative Yoga poses stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which causes the heart rate to slow, dilating blood vessels, which leads to an increase in digestive and glandular secretions which in turn, calm the muscles. A body in such a relaxed state is less likely to suffer from stress-related and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.

"Yoga is not a work-out, it is a work-in. And this is the point of spiritual practice; to make us teachable; to open up our hearts and focus our awareness so that we can know what we already know and be who we already are."- Rolf Gates

Due to their deeply therapeutic and calming effects, restorative yoga poses just might be the antidote for many of our modern western ailments. As outlined above, a regular restorative practice can help lower blood pressure, lessen anxiety and depression, assist with the management of chronic pain, and ease insomnia. It can also relax back and nerve pain, assist with flexibility, lessen the severity of arthritis, boost the immune system which has the potential to ward off a host of ailments from the common cold to cancer. Restorative yoga, rooted in the tenets of ancient yogic wisdom, is an often overlooked and arguably life-saving remedy.

In gyms and studios, people are often attracted to the classes that promise the most sweat and the highest calorie burn, but what restorative yoga lacks in the calorie-burning department it makes up for in the department of therapeutic benefits. With yoga in the west shifting from its original roots in mindfulness towards an athletic trend and fitness phenomenon, restorative yoga holds at its heart the ultimate purpose and goal of yoga — samadhi, or union with the divine. Through deep introspection, connecting with the breath and quieting the mind, the practitioner of restorative yoga is able to transcend physical space, transforming, balancing, and relaxing their way to awakening the divine within.

Ready to give Restorative Yoga a try? I offer private sessions via ZOOM

and teach a weekly ZOOM Restorative class on Wednesdays at 1 pm EST.