You can also enhance your cleaning with essential oils!
Essential oils can be diffused to freshen the air, naturally deodorize any space, and enhance your cleaning products! Adding a few drops of essential oils such as Lemon, Pine, Purification®, Tea Tree and of course Thieves or Thieves Cleaner or your DIY cleaners is great way to improve your home cleaning.
These are some of our favorite oils to add to your cleaning routine. Tell us your favorite oils to clean with below!
Read more...Since living in Panama we are doing the laundry waaaay more often than before in the Northwest of the US. What makes the difference? well.. in the US it was high desert, that means dry climate, humidity at it's lowest at 12% and 4 seasons per year.
Here now in tropical Panama we have dry season about 3-4 months and rain season 8-9 months - humidity always high - in comparison to where we lived before.
Read more...![Water Is Life [I checked]](https://909c0d3efc63d4674cb4-62e8289cb2b35d2d929ba8c1b8f1d0d0.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/3503-5f247b8fa6bc0.jpg)
Ryan MikolashI used to live in a mining town and the water tasted...different. It was the key distinction from surrounding towns. “How do you drink that?”, I would frequently hear. You get used to it over time. The association between the water and the mine was always there but the annual municipal water report said that it was safe.I met this super smart lady and then married her. Concerning water, she said “nope, we need a good filter”. It took a little convincing.
Don't we get important minerals from water? It turns out that this is somewhat true but there are two important factors. First, we can easily get the vitamins and minerals that we need from eating fresh food [certainly not processed food]. Second, pharmaceutical chemicals are becoming more and more prevalent in water and we have no idea how that affects us. We all have expired pills in the medicine cabinet and the majority are thrown away. These chemicals eventually end up in our water. Think of the tens of thousands of prescription pharmaceuticals available in our pharmacies.
There are many other unhealthy items in our drinking water. Don't invite a serial killer to your family reunion. The most effective way to protect your loved ones from the unknown affects of these is to filter your drinking water.
To be clear, pitcher water filters or those that attach to the end of the faucet are not nearly effective enough. Also, if the physical filters are replaced as often as they are supposed to be, filtration gets expensive. I highly recommend a five-stage reverse osmosis system. They are not very expensive and not that difficult to install. Your family is worth it.
Drinking properly filtered water is the first and most important step towards a healthy lifestyle. I promise you you will feel a difference after a few weeks.
Bonus Feature: If for some reason your tap water stops flowing, your filters reserve tank holds typically 3-5 gallons of filtered water that can be used in an emergency. Nice.
That's what we are using now for about 5 years and we brought it to Panama as well.
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Cornelia MikolashWhat You Should Know About Essential Oils
Most people believe that when they buy an oil that is labeled as “100% pure” they are getting a PURE, genuine essential oil.
This is far from true most of the time. Not all essential oils are created equal and unfortunately one can have a pure oil and still NOT have a therapeutic quality oil because of the lack of care or concern given during the cultivation, harvesting and distillation of the plant.
Producing therapeutic grade essential oils is as much an art as it is a science. It has been reported that companies are allowed to label their oils “100% pure” as long as it contains at least 5% of the “actual oil” alleged to be in the bottle!
So that bottle you see at your local grocery or health food store, or even from apothecary shops and essential oil companies labeled “100% pure” means NOTHING!
Adulterated and mislabeled essential oils present dangers
Dr. Kurt Schnaubelt, PhD., world renowned author of several books in the field of aromatherapy (my favorite of his books: The Healing Intelligence of Essential Oils ) estimates that 95% of the essential oils produced in the world are adulterated or reconstituted. This means they are not pure, not genuine, and not authentic.
He states:
“There is endless ingenuity when it comes to adulterating essential oils. Adulterants are not always synthetic, many adulterants are of botanical origin hence natural, yet they still offset the balance of the authentic oil.”
This means, at best, they may be only partially natural and have lesser quality oils or chemicals mixed in, or worse, they may be totally man-made synthetic versions of the real thing. In either case, it affects the balance or action of the resulting oil in a negative way.
He states:
“There is endless ingenuity when it comes to adulterating essential oils. Adulterants are not always synthetic, many adulterants are of botanical origin hence natural, yet they still offset the balance of the authentic oil.”
This means, at best, they may be only partially natural and have lesser quality oils or chemicals mixed in, or worse, they may be totally man-made synthetic versions of the real thing. In either case, it affects the balance or action of the resulting oil in a negative way.
Oils produced in this manner may contain some of the therapeutic value but they are much more prone to produce an allergic reaction, irritation, and/or undesirable or toxic side effects.
Most of the oils on the market are manufactured for the perfume industry with no thought given to preserving any “therapeutic” quality.
Most of the oils on the market are manufactured for the perfume industry with no thought given to preserving any “therapeutic” quality.
- They are distilled at the same temperature, at the same pressure, and for the same amount of time.
- They are considered “perfume”, or “aromatherapy” quality, or “fourth & fifth quality” oils and are NOT meant to be used internally, and sometimes not even topically!
Don’t believe me… check the label on your bottle of essential oil, or the next time you’re at your health food store, check to see if somewhere on the label it states “DO NOT INGEST”, or “DO NOT APPLY TOPICALLY”.
This includes oils found at your local grocery store, in health food stores, in aromatherapy shops, and even from some of our so-called competitors.
These pictures are taken at a local grocery store to show you some of the signs and labels for the essential oils being sold there.
You probably have heard me talking a lot about harsh chemicals and your health, here are the top 5 reasons you should be using a plant based cleaner.
1. Safety
2. Air quality
2. Air quality
3. Environmental impact
4. Convenience
5. Cost
Read more...
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