Back to Basics - Vegan for over a year! Ep.1

Well I've definitely gotten back to my roots! Sorry for my long absence but I've been on a path of rediscovery and I have to say that I love the person I've found within myself. I've lived most of my life just scraping by with no hopes, dreams, or goals for the future. Just surviving day to day as best as I can. Now I at least have hope! I'm going to be sharing my struggle, triumphs, discoveries, treasures, and new found hopes and dreams with you all.

I've been vegan for a little over a year now and it amazes me just how all encompassing the vegan life is and how quickly your entire life gets taken over by it. I've always tried to be 'aware' of my impact on our planet and such, but really.... Just how conscious can you be if you have no real knowledge to go off of?! I started by taking animal products out of my diet but quickly realized that some of the 'vegan friendly' alternatives are filled with more crap then the original foods. This opened up the world of GMO's to me, and a whole range of nightmares LOL. Having my mother living with me is a challenge on it's own. She tries so hard to be understanding and encouraging but it seemed like everything was deemed 'healthy' by her simply because it was 'fat free' or low sodium. She was born in the 60's, I've learned to think of it as the 'margarine era'. It took several attempts to make it clear to her that jello is not vegan friendly, since gelatin is derived from animal bones/hooves. That one kind of shocked me when I found out. I mean really.. Who sat around and had that idea to grind up some animal bones to eat?! Another thing, Soy is not always healthy! There was a few times at the store mom would pick something up and by like "oh it's got soy, it's healthy". GMO soy, maltodextrin, etc. No, it's not healthy. Yes I do eat soy and wheat, it's darn near impossible not to right? But I do try to avoid these thing as much as possible. So it's been a huge adjustment for everyone in my life. My mother, who believes that if she doesn't know what's in it then it can't hurt her, has learned to quietly roll her eyes while I spend hours reading the labels at the grocery store. My 17 year old brother asks questions and wears a permanently confuses expression at meal times, but he's a trooper and always tries it with a positive attitude. My co-workers tease, criticize me and try to trick me into eating animal filled foods. But they always mention how good my lunches look and smell ;-) and that gives me hope.

A co-worker of mine shared with me the story of how her youngest son nearly died due to ingesting cleaning chemicals and how now she uses products that are so safe you could drink them and survive. The real head turner is that they actually work as well as the artificial, chemical ridden ones, and they smell heavenly. This is yet another avenue of living a 'pure', natural, eco - friendly life. Why save the animals if we're just going to poison ourselves with fumes and DNA altering chemicals? I've always gotten massive headaches from bathroom cleaners and so have usually opted for an SOS pad, hot water, and some serious elbow grease instead. It's like itstinctual light bulbs have been going off all over inside me for my entire life saying "yes, this is healthy, do this, not that".

I'll be posting my favorite vegan things, transitional things that have made my life easier, etc. Feel free to ask questions and post responses.

September Eco Emi!

September
                                      
This month's box is amazing! Look how adorable it is in all of it's fall glory. Of course the first thing I noticed is that the green bag is actually made out of some kind of silky, polyester type fabric. Untill now I've only had mesh and burlap type bags witch are of course awesome in them selves, but this was a nice suprise.
Now I just realized that I forgot to do an August Eco Emi review. That's probably because I was thoroughly upset with it. But this month they made more than a come back. August's box was a bust for me because I was so excited that the main item was a mini skin care set, but they sent me one for dry skin. I have oily/combination skin. Apperantly this happend to several people as there was quite alot of outrage from other subscribers. Eco Emi handled the comotion incredibly well. They promptly put out a survey to determine theire subscribers individual needs in regards to hair and skin types among other details. But even after all that I still found myself a little apprehensive as to what this months box would entail.

I cannot rave enough about this box! It had three of my favorite things... honey, pasta, tea... Yes I am a food lover ;-) I was very impressed to see that we received a full size tin of mints instead of just four individual mints this time. These mints are a lemongrass mint flavor and smell amazing. A lip gloss was incuded which was a bit of a surprise for me as I haven't had one of those in any of my previous box's. It's a very flattering shade, slightly mauve red. I didn't notice any flavor and it felt smooth on my lips. I really can't stand sticky glosses and so this one is a keeper. Another rather unique item was the perfume. For some reason I was expecting it have a barely there scent but it's actually quite strong and very floral, musk. We received a large packet of bath soak that I'm dying to dive into. It's got oats in it so I imagine that it's very calming and moisturizing. Also included was an eyeshadow sample in Sandalwood (I beleive) which seems like a very neutral beige color, and of course our traditional chapstick. I couldnt beleive how delicious this months chapstick smells. I think it's some sort of Apple scent but oh my goodness it smells like the apple crisp candles at those super spendy candle shops. It's formula seems ultra creamy and the adorably cute little smiling bummble bee on the tube is just to cute for words.
My favorite about this month is all the foodie things they gave us. I'm a honey junkie and we received not one but two good sized packets of 100 % pure honey harvested in Florida, yumm. My mother and I both gasped at the honey and the box of pasta. We couldnt beleive how pretty the multi colored pasta is and we can't wait to make a beautiful pasta salad with it. Other then the mints a sample of tea was also included. Not just one but three packets of tea, all of which sound delish. The really unique thing that caught my eye about this tea sample was that one was caffine free, one light caffine, and one caffine. Talk about appealing to all levels right? So yes I think Eco Emi deffinately learned something from last months events and maximized the turn around. Nice work Eco Emi we love you!

Pink Cheetah Nails

Cute? I saw this look in a Sephora catologue and thought it looked rather easy and really cute.
To start I used a simple pink sally girl color for the base and let it dry. Then I used the Cina Nail Creations Nail Art Pen  in white to do really easy white dots and of course let it dry before proceeding to the next step. Next I outlined random sides of the white dots with Cina Nail Creations Nail Art Pen in Black, let it dry. Final step is of course the top coat. The nail art pens are somewhat water soluble so correcting mistakes is easy, but that's also why the top coat is crutial.
So what do you think? I think next time I'll try zebra stripes, hmm.

All products used can be found at Sally Beauty Supply or basically anywhere ;-)

Tarte For True Blood Palette

This is by far my Summer favorite! I never considered myself a 'Trubie" untill I realized how much I love this. I bought this palette a couple months ago because I was on the hunt for 'healthier' eyeshadow and wasn't much luck with the drugstore brands. Now I know this palette isn't the best as far as ingredients go, but its better than most. It's at least paraben free anyway.

 I chose this palette over the other 'more natural' choices for several reasons but the first reason was the overall bang for your buck you get with this one. The palette includes 17 shadows! And the're rather large shadows to boot. You also get the ephaseyes liner, lifted eye primer, & lights camera lashes macara. All that for $52. Then of course there's the fact that it's designed for the True Blood fourth season premier. I love that show! I really wish it wasn't so graphic tho.

So the shadows are big & there's many of them, plus the packaging, but let's talk about the actual colors of the shadows................

Colors themselves? Wow. Colors names? True fanger love lol. These colors are massively pigmented & in general, great quality. The only issue I've had with the shadows is that some of the glittery ones fallout onto my cheeks. Not the shadow, just the glitter. But still, it kind of makes me feel like a teeny bopper again. Other than that I haven't had any creasing or any other negatives for the shadows & the've become my everyday shadow.

I've been sticking with the guide book that came with the palette. It just seems easier since I haven't had time to really play with it freelance style. There's 2 neutral(ish) looks in the guide & the've become my everyday looks as of late. The 2 Looks are called "not your average waitress" (more of a natural, smoky eye & is my favorite) & "Luminess Fairy". I might have that wrong but it's something with Fairy in the name. The Fairy look is a lighter, more sutle, golden tone eye that I really like but feel might be a shade to light for me since I've got a summer glow going right now.

Long story short. I love it, it's worth the money, I don't even look at other eyeshadows because this is all I need. So the whole True Blood Line also has a lip surgence & a cheek stain. I didn't need these so I haven't tried them. But I have heard that they are wonderful as well. All the tarte for True Bood Products are available on both sephora.com & tarte.com. Tarte is having a 30% off friends & family sale until August 15th. Unfortunately this discount doesn't apply to the True Blood Products but hey, it's still a good sale. Want to know my secret to aplying these looks? Keep reading.

Yep, its this EcoTools eye brush set! These brushes are seriously the perfect shapes! I've never had it easier when it comes to doing my crease colors. The best part is that the set is only $8 and with EcoTools choose to live beautifuly program you can score a $7 coupon.   

Things to share

Eco Tools is a highly raved about drugstore brand of makeup brushes and beauty products that focus on being as eco friendly as possible. I recently bought a set of these brushes and am totally in love with them! So I whent to their site and found something really amazing. They actually have a makup brush and other beauty product recycling program! It's called the Choose to Live Beautifully Campaign and how it works is that you send them your leftover or cast away beaty products and they recycle them and send you a coupon for $7.99! The set of eyeshadow brushes that I purchased were $7.99, so basically you get a free eco tools product in exchange to recycling your old ones. I've never thought about recycling my old makup brushes or leftover body washes and shower sponges. I just thought they weren't recyclable. So for more information check out their Choose to live beautifully page and make an even larger difference while staying beautiful!

In June I had a bad reaction to the Hazel eyes, eyeshadow duo by Physicians Formula's organic wear line. I had bought both of the duos that my local Fred Meyer had in stock and had no issue with the other duo. I quickly realized that I was only reacting to the light pink shade that was in the duo and not the dark brown color. This puzzled me because the ingredients for both colours are the same. So that lead me to consider that the reaction wasn't to the overall product or line of products but that the light pink in particular may have somehow become contaminated. My theory on this is simple... Crap happens and sometimes you get a bad batch. I still am totally in love with Physicians Formula as a brand and after how they handled this incident I'm even more devoted to the brand.  I emailed the company letting them know what happend and asking if they were aware of any bad batches recently. They got back to me promptly and not only offered me a refund but also sent me a return label so I could ship them the eyeshadow so "they could test it for defects". Now that blew me away. Yes most companies will offer a refund but to ship the product back to them at their cost and actually test it really impressed me. This company truely cares for their customers and I'm grateful for their amazing service. I also recently recieved nearly $30 in checks from them for the 'try me free' program they offer. So yes I had a fluke but this company is still at the top of my list and always will be.

Organic Splenor's online shop is now up and running! The're still adding and adjusting but I'm excited are you? Their blog is also now going strong. Subscribe and share your love for healthy beauty! Also I finally did my first youtube video! On Organic Splendor of course. Please give it a look and subscribe, like, comment, anything.  

July's EcoEmi box was amazing! I seriously love every product and the packaging. If you haven't jumped on this wagon I insist you do. For more information check out my EcoEmi page or check out their site

July EcoEmi Box!

This month's box blew my mind! It was so cute. When I opend the box a bunch of tiny pink star confetti fell out. My constant favorite thing about these boxes are the reusable, eco & culturally sustainable bags. Just look at how awesome that one with the key on it is ;-)

Ok so at first glance the stand out favorite of my roomates and myself this month is the fortune cookie soap. Yes you read correctly "Fortune Cookie Soap" how adorable is that?! At first glance it even had a fortune in it which mom and I both were incredibly excited to read. But when I pulled it out all it said was a discount code and that it was made with lavender essential oil (my favorite scent btw). So we were kind of disapointed about that but the discount code is actually very good. The soap is purple and has a hint of glitter to it, it smells divine and made the perfect addition to my 'girly bathroom things'. The cookie soap retails for about $2.75 I believe. Totally a deal to begin with! I will deffinately be ordering some of these for the next round of goodie bags I need to put together. 

July's Box like I said was full of so many usefull things. It came with a really generous size sample of coconut oil that I can't wait try. I've been dying to try this as a hair mask. I passed the two floor cleaner samples on to my mom who was strangely happy about it. The little case of cinnamints whent dirrectly into my purse for future emergency situations. One thing that really impressed me when I finished unwrapping everything is that I realized that the lotion (shown on the right) is a brand that my local Rite Aid carries. That was exciting for me because I'm always on the look out of natural, effective, resonably priced products that are available locally. This box was nothing but amazing things this month and I can't wait to dive into them!

For more information please see http://ecoemi.com/ and please take the time to read their about me and Did you know pages as they are truly touching and eye opening.

Organic Splendor

Hello again! I wanted to share this amazing foundation with everyone. This line of cosmetics is called Organic Splendor and is so far the best natural foundation that I have found. The owner of the company, Denise, was so kind every step of the way. She not only chose the right shades for me but she also gave me tips on how best to apply it in order to get the desired coverage I need.

So to start I want to say that I normally use Make Up Forever's Matt Velvet foundation which is full coverage and water resistant. I've been on this 'path' of swapping all my products for more natural and healthy ones but until this point I've never found a natural full coverage foundation. I have really oily skin and even with my favorite cosmetics I still manage to get shiny after a few hours. I must admit that I don't really like mineral/powder foundation because not only do they rarely offer full coverage but with my oily skin they tend to go on splotchy looking and slide right off in a few hours. So I honestly didn't have high expectations but man was I wrong.

Denise assured me that this foundation was buildable to any amount of coverage and it definitely is! As per her guidance, I mixed the powder foundation with my Burts Bees daily moisturizer spf to make it more of a liquid foundation for easier use and application. Given my doubts about it being full coverage or not, I mixed it really thick so it was more like a paste. So much for the easier application lol. But I was instantly amazed at the coverage and how it evens out my skin tone. So because of how thick I mixed the product I ended up with a really thick application. But in spite of that it didn't look very cakey at all and I was truly amazed after a couple hours of wearing it. At about the time that my normal foundation would allow my skin to become an oil slick this foundation seemed to resettle itself on my skin without needing so much as a blot or additional powder. The picture of me was taken after 6 hours of wearing the foundation. Pretty good if I may say so myself. So please watch my video and subscribe to my blog and youtube channel if you like it and want to see more. Feel free to send my any questions, comments or recommendations you may have. Have a Happy & Healthy Day!

Organic Splenor sites:
http://organicsplendor.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ORGANIC-SPLENDOR/118753451485843
http://www.youtube.com/user/deniseotterson
Oganic Splendors Blog