Celtic Naturals » organic

Sweet Complexion for Valentine’s Day

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:15:30 +0000

Author: Angela J. Buckley

What better time of the year to use the antioxidant rich ingredients of chocolate and coffee in your skin care than Valentine’s Day? Capture the power of these rich ingredients to exfoliate and protect your skin with antioxidants. The darker the chocolate, the more antioxidants it has, so when choosing cocoa powder, darker is better. Multiple research studies have shown coffee to be the leading source of antioxidants in most American and European diets.It is full of polyphenols, a powerful type of antioxidant. When selecting coffee for your skin care, choose organically grown, locally roasted, unflavored coffee.

The following scrub and mask contain chocolate and coffee as their source of antioxidants. Following these recipes and the instructions will leave you with a sweet and glowing face. I recommend you prepare the scrub and mask before beginning your wash.

Wash

Begin with a natural bar of soap to wash your face. Lather the soap and rub your face gently using circular motions that are upward and away from the mouth. Rinse with warm water and pat dry using a clean towel.

Scrub

Apply the scrub to damp skin using gentle upward circling motions. Avoid such delicate areas as the eye. Focus on problem areas such as the T-zone. Feel free to use this gentle scrub on the neck and chest area as well. Rinse well using warm water and pat dry.

Mask

While your face is still warm from the scrub, apply the mask. Using your fingertips, apply the mask liberally to face and neck area. Wait while the mask begins to dry. When you begin to feel the tightening of the mask, it’s time to rinse again with warm water. Pat dry and follow up with your preferred toner and moisturizer.

Coffee Scrub

2 T. finely ground organic coffee beans (espresso level grinding is best so as not to scratch)

1 T. organic sugar or fine sea salt

2 T. organic almond oil

Mix ingredients together in a bowl, let sit for 5 – 10 minutes to allow the beans to seep into the oil.

Chocolate Mask

¼ cup organic yogurt

2 T. honey

1 T. organic chocolate powder, dark.

2 T oat flour (using blender to ground oats)

1 vitamin E capsule

Crush the capsule so the Vit. E is added to the yogurt. Discard the capsule. Add the remaining ingredients, stir and let it rest for 15 minutes. If the yogurt is very runny, add up to 1 T more chocolate powder and 1-2 T oat flour to absorb moisture and ease application.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/sweet-complexion-for-valentines-day-4031819.html

About the Author

Angela is the founder and Chief Sustainability Officer of Celtic Naturals. As a mother, trained engineer and environmental enthusiast, she believes it is possible to be green and glam. She specializes in teaching others how to live toxin-free. Her blog topics range from green living to healthy cooking, from gardening to organic self-beauty tips. Please visit www.celticnaturals.com for toxic free skin care tips and products.

Read the Labels: What’s in Soap?

admin — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 13:14:25 +0000

Author: Angela J. Buckley

As the words in the labels become lengthier, it is becoming more difficult to discern their meaning. Education is how you, the consumer, can protect yourself. Is there a product or ingredient name that you would like to have explained? Email me and we’ll respond. Have a comment, question or concern about one the ingredients below? Please let me know!

angela@celticnaturals.com Angela J. Buckley

Once upon a day, we didn’t have to read labels. You didn’t need to. You went to the Farmer’s Market to buy essentials, such as flour, oil and fruits and vegetables. Then you went home and “processed” yourself, that is, you baked, you sewed, you made it. As a result, you knew exactly what was going on your skin and into your mouth. However, as society progressed, individuals specialized in producing products. Still, the customer and the vendor knew each other. This intimacy in the marketplace served as a protection to the customer. Individual service, mindfulness of the customer’s needs and limitations where (and still are!) the hallmark of the small vendors.

Today, with globalization, the vendor is no longer uniquely tied to her customer. Without the direct personal interaction, labeling becomes a safety requirement. However, labeling is a shared burden. The manufacturer must honestly follow the law and serve the interest of its customers. Reading and writing is a two-way street. The manufacturer writes, but the consumer must read, and comprehend.

Labels by Law

Labels are designed by law to protect the consumer. However, the practicality of law is compromise between manufacturers, lawmakers seeking reelection and watchdog groups. As a result, different products have different labeling requirements. Soap, for example, has an exemption. Soap is not required to have any product or ingredient label on it. Other skin care products are required to list all ingredients that exist in the product at levels greater than 1%, unless the ingredient is specifically an active ingredient, or the ingredient has been listed by the FDA. In California, any ingredient found on their “Cancer List” must also be listed.

Below are terms and ingredients most commonly found in all natural soaps.

Glycerine: Glycerine is a natural humectant, which means that it attracts moisture. This wonderfully useful ingredient has many uses. In skin care, it is most notable for its ability to smooth and soften. It absorbs naturally into the skin while drawing in moisture. Glycerine is a natural byproduct of the soap making process. Unfortunately, during the ramp to WWII, glycerine was also need as an intermediate ingredient to use smokeless gun powder and other explosives.

Saponification (the soap making reaction) was the primary source of glycerine production, essential to the War Effort. It became patriotic (and profitable) in the USA to remove the glycerine from soap. The resulting soap was drying and aggressive to skin.

Lye: In order to make a natural bar soap, sodium hydroxide better known as lye, is required for the reaction. A warm lye solution is mixed with a warm oil/fat solution to create soap. In a proper reaction, there is no lye left in the soap, as it is broken down and consumed by the soap process. The proper soap is completed in a pH range that is safe for human skin, typically with approximately 5% extra oils for skin moisturizing.

Potassium hydroxide: The “lye” used to make an all natural liquid soap. Although the process requires more time (and energy), the reaction process is essentially the same. A liquid paste is created, then diluted with water and adjusted with a boric acid solution to bring the pH into range that is safe for human skin.

Sodium hydroxide: see lye.

Saponified: Saponify, saponification all refer to the soap making process. The saponified precursor indicates that the coconut oil has been used in the soapmaking process. Frequently, the manufacturer will then leave “sodium hydroxide” off the label, since it was consumed during the soap making process. Furthermore, all natural soap manufacturers attempt to write clear, understandable ingredient lists. Most consumers do not understand the proper chemical name of sodium cocoate, therefore, the label reads saponified coconut oil. There are currently no legal guidelines (as of yet) which say how an ingredient is named, so long as it is clear to the consumer.

Sodium palmate: saponified palm oil using sodium hydroxide for solid soaps

Sodium olivate: saponified olive oil using sodium hydroxide for solid soaps

Sodium soyate: saponified soybean oil using sodium hydroxide for solid soaps

Sodium cocoate: saponified coconut oil using sodium hydroxide for solid soaps

Sodium tallowate: saponified beef tallow using sodium hydroxide for solid soaps

Potassium palmate: saponified palm oil using potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps

Potassium olivate: saponified olive oil using potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps

Potassium soyate: saponified soybean oil using potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps

Potassium cocoate: saponified coconut oil using potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps

Potassium tallowate: saponified beef tallow oil using potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps

Sodium bicarbonate: baking soda

Sodium borate: Borax

Sodium tetraborate: Borax

Disodium tetraborate: Borax

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/skin-care-articles/read-the-labels-whats-in-soap-4031887.html

About the Author

Spa Night: Sharing and Caring

admin — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 13:21:04 +0000

Winter has arrived in all it’s glory in the North East and Midwest: snow, low humidity homes and offices, cold winds. During the holiday season, strong skin can become a challenge. Not only is the weather a problem, but holiday eating and tight schedules can stress out an otherwise healthy complexion. This year, why not combine an activity that is sure to help your skin and ease your schedule?

Gather the girls for an in-home facial party. Celtic Naturals provides themed, customized products tailored to your skin, teaches you the steps and gives you the recipes. After an evening of camaraderie, you leave feeling refreshed and sporting glowing complexions.

Care

This spa workshop empowers you to remove the synthetics and preservatives from your skincare. While sharing your time, you’re caring for each other, and your surrounding environment. By removing synthetics and preservatives from your skin care products, you are providing the healthiest ingredients for your skin. Not only are you helping yourself and your friends, you are helping the environment as well. Where do those chemicals go when you wash them off your body? Down the drain.

Celtic Naturals is committed to helping you reduce the chemicals that are washed down the drain. That’s why we are helping the environment one shower at a time.

Show them you care.

Please contact Angela to schedule your party.

Suggested Themes, Winter 2010-2011

Peppermint Twist

Silk and Honey

Winter Ginger

Comments or questions are welcome.

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Quick Brown Bread

admin — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:27:52 +0000

Critical for clear complexions is a healthy diet that is low in complex fats, high in Omega 3, 6 and 9s as well as fiber. Below is my personal recipe for a heart and skin healthy bread that is quick to fix, so you can make it last minute to go with your fall soups for family dinners. In the manner that I’ve put it together, it requires only one bowl for mixing and the bread, so it’s quick to mix and quicker to clean up.

This bread is classified as a quick bread which does not require the slow process of yeast to expand, but contains baking powder. It uses acids to react with the alkaline baking soda to react with one another in the presence of moisture. The resulting bubbles “leaven” the bread, creating a palatable light bread.

Why not give it a try? I’d love to hear what you think!

Ingredients

1 c. plain yogurt

1.5 c. apple or pear sauce

1 c. cornmeal

1 c. all purpose flour

1 c. rye flour

1 c. sunflower seeds

1 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t salt

2 oz soy or whey protein powder (typically 2 scoops)

2 T flax seeds

Mixing and Baking Instructions

Heat oven to 35o F. Spray standard loaf pan (9″ x 5″ x 3″) with olive oil. Mix yogurt and pear sauce in medium mixing bowl with wooden spoon. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Remove from pan. Allow to fully cool on wire rack before slicing. (Note: slightly undercooked bread makes for excellent toasting, a great way to quickly sneak in a warm meal during the cool weather months!)

Nutritional Content

Nutrition Facts
25 Servings

Amount Per Serving

Calories		105.6

Total Fat		3.3 g

	Saturated Fat	0.4 g

	Polyunsaturated Fat	2.0 g

	Monounsaturated Fat	0.7 g

Cholesterol		0.6 mg

Sodium		192.8 mg

Potassium		123.6 mg

Total Carbohydrate		15.4 g

	Dietary Fiber	2.3 g

	Sugars	2.3 g

Protein		4.4 g


Vitamin A	0.4 %

Vitamin B-12	0.9 %

Vitamin B-6	4.0 %

Vitamin C	0.6 %

Vitamin D	0.0 %

Vitamin E	13.1 %

Calcium	5.8 %

Copper	7.4 %

Folate	7.7 %

Iron	5.8 %

Magnesium	5.5 %

Manganese	18.4 %

Niacin	4.6 %

Pantothenic Acid	5.0 %

Phosphorus	12.2 %

Riboflavin	4.6 %

Selenium	9.5 %

Thiamin	6.0 %

Zinc	4.4 %

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Personal Environmental Activism

admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:04:37 +0000

Do you think the environment is important, but don’t have a spare moment to volunteer? Do you want to pass along strong environmental values to your children? Become a Personal Environmental Activist.

What’s involved?

Make a commitment to the environment.

Find an area of your life you can improve environmentally, ideas incude:

Reduce your use of harsh and toxic cleaning chemicals.
Reduce your personal exposure to toxins by using all natural skin care products.
Increase your recycling efforts.
Eliminate dryer sheets by using dryer balls.
Choose alternative transportation once a week: carpool, bike or walk.

Take action personally.

Share your experience with others.

The list of options above is by no means an extensive list, however, these are excellent first steps. Taking these first initial steps are simple and achievable improvements in your life. Fit these actions into your current life. When they become second nature, reconsider your actions and make improvements accordingly. It’s a reiterative process. We all learn as we go, and the environment will thank us for our efforts.

Congratulations! By becoming a Personal Environmental Activist, you have exhibited two very important characteristics: stewardship and leadership. You have begun the journey of stewardship, showing that you are caring, cleaning, supporting and maintaining the environment. Leadership by example is a very powerful tool. Children and neighbors will see your actions.

Please post your comments below. Take the pledge today. What will you do to become an PEA?

When Organic is Too Expensive

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:30:21 +0000

It’s easy to say, “I support the environment.” Sometimes, it’s just more difficult to pay for it at the cash register. Still, your health is important to you, your family, friends and future. So, if you are trying to economize and still eat organic foods, then choose the cleanest foods in your non-organic produce.

The top listed foods for cleanliness, called the “Clean 15″ according to the Environmental Working Group tested with significantly lower herbicides and pesticides than other fruits and vegetables. It is theorized that these goodies have tough skins which repel the pesticides. However, from personal veggie gardening experience, I suggest that these plants are also quite hardy and naturally resist pestilence, thereby requiring less pesticides in commercial growing settings. (Try growing them in your garden!)

Clean 15

Onions*
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapples
Mango
Sweet Peas*
Asparagus*
Kiwi Fruit
Cabbage*
Eggplant*
Cantaloupe
Watermelon*
Grapefruit
Sweet Potatoes*
Sweet Onions*

The starred items are those we have easily grown successfully in our mid-western soil. Try them in a corner of your flower bed.

Organic on a Budget

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:41:19 +0000

Are you struggling to make ends meet? In this time of economic stress for many, the most popular comment I hear regarding organics foods is that they are too expensive. Consider these two authoritative sources when deciding what works for your family.

More Nutrients: Prevention Magazine recently published a report stating that organic foods are found to have 50 – 75% more nutrients than non-organic foods. In local stores, the organic food is not 50% more expensive, so you are winning. More nutrients, same amount of calories! What’s not to love?

Dirty Dozen: Still not convinced? The Environmental Work Group (mother group to the Skindeep Database) has released their most recent Dirty Dozen list. These fruits and vegetables are the most likely to absorb pesticides and herbicides: chemicals that you don’t want to consume. If you’re trying to eat healthy on a budget, try avoiding these, or preferably eating their organic counterparts:

Celery
Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Domestic Blueberries
Nectarines
Cherries
Sweet Bell Peppers
Spinach, Kale & Collard Greens
Potatoes
Imported Grapes
Lettuce

Baking Soda

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:10:15 +0000

The What, Why and How.

What is Baking Soda?

Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), more commonly known as baking soda, is a powdered crystalline substance that is refined from the ore natron. Mined primarily in the United States, this naturally occurring element offers many opportunities for simple cleaning.

Why is Baking Soda so ridiculously useful?

Today’s 5 star word is “AMPHOTERIC.” Remember your high school chemistry class? They talked about acid and bases, you might even remember the word alkalinity, but amphoteric? Probably not. An amphoteric material, quite simply, can act as an acid or a base, depending on its surrounding environment. That is why baking soda is so useful to the natural chemist. Baking soda is amphoteric.

How to use Baking Soda in skin care?

Baking soda can be used effectively in the following ways: as a scrub, as part of a facial mask for acne, or as an ingredient in soap. The very fine particles of the baking soda allow for a very fine, light exfolliating experience. Apply just the powder to your face, moisten your finger tips with water or a hydrosol, and gently rub. The baking soda as an ingredient in a facial mask allows the mask to both soften the skin as well as balance the skin oils without aggressively breaking down facials oils, which are essential for protection from harmful radicals. In your soap, the baking soda acts as a softening agent for your water, allowing the soap to gently yet effectively.

If you are committed to an all natural skin care program but live in an area with particularly hard water, you may find that all natural soaps without the baking soda “dry” out your skin. In fact, the ions dissolved in your water are preventing your soap from working effectively. You have a few options:

Move to an area with softer water (a rather costly option).
Install a water softener.
Install a shower filter.
Seek out all natural soaps, such as Christmas Orange, Orange Oriole or Chain Bite Citrus, that include baking soda in the ingredients list.

Sea Salt

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:53:16 +0000

Sea Salt

Do you know there is a chemical difference between your table salt (NaCl) and sea salt (KCl)? Both are chemically identified as salts and both use the anion chloride. However, table salt, mined from the earth is a compound of sodium and chloride, whereas sea salt, won from sea water, is a compound of potassium and chloride. So, what’s the advantage?

In regards to the skin and the products we combine with the salt, the primary advantage for your skin is the minerals that are left in the salt when processing sea salt, but do not exist in table salt. Unrefined sea salt contain 98.0 % and up to 2.0% other minerals: Epsom salts and other magnesium salts, calcium salts, potassium salts, manganese salts, phosphorus salts, iodine salts, over 100 minerals composed of 80 chemical elements. The composition of crystal of ocean salt is so complicated that no laboratory in the world can produce it from its basic 80 chemical elements.

Epsom salt is primarily a magnesium sulfate. Research shows that magnesium effectively transderms (can enter the body through the skin). Magnesium has been shown to reduce muscle soreness and spasms. You probably knew from your mother or grandmother that soaking in epsom salts made you feel better when your muscles were sore, but now there’s science to show how and why.

Cite:

Magnesium Website Online Library

Three Skin Care Tips for the Holidays

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:58:29 +0000

Today is Christmas Eve. For many of us, this means, wrapping paper, Christmas trees and harsh winter weather. How do we maintain that perfect manicure and healthy hands with all the baking and cleaning? Protection is the key.

Wear rubber gloves when running through those last minute cleaning chores. I personally try to hit all the last minute dusting items like baseboards and window sills before my family arrives (at least the ones they can see!) But that warm water and soap for extended periods of time can be difficult on your cuticles. Simple protection like gloves can work wonders.
Keep you and yours healthy this season with regularly handwashing. If you chose, antibacterial bar soaps are available, but not really necessary. Moisturizing all natural soaps will reduce the need for lotions. Remember to lather well for 20 seconds, rinse and dry well. Handwashing is the most effective manner to remove germs, yes, more effective than hand sanitizers.
Once the festivities are over and the guests are gone, you still have to contend with the tree. If it is ‘live’, your hands may be exposed to tree sap and pointing, prickly needles. Again, protection is the answer. A pair of leather gloves will make this onerous task gentler on your skin.

We at Celtic Naturals wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas. Please enjoy the season’s joy and wonder. May your days be healthy and bright.

Sincerely,

Angela J. Buckley