Making My Own Deodorant

After talking with my close friend, she told me about her homemade deodorant that she wears all the time. I have to admit, at first I was kind of skeptical. Does it work? Will I stink? Will I sweat a ton? Why make it in the first place?

After chatting with her some more, I looked up the ingredients in my deodorant and did some research. Did you know that your deodorant has aluminum in it and that you are putting it on one of the most fragile parts of your body?!? I sure didn't! I did a little digging and found that some research has linked over-the-counter deodorants to cancer. Now here comes my husband…"Well everything causes cancer!" Yes, yes..I know!! But, if I can make a change to lessen my chance of getting cancer, then by gosh (yes, I really did just say that), I am going to do it! So I took to the recipe that my friend used and make my own deodorant! Follow this link for the recipe. At first I did the second recipe that did not call for the double boiler. It did not work out so well (image below is of the first recipe). So I attempted the first recipe with the double boiler and it turned out much better. I did, however, add a ton more of the powders. I couldn't tell you exactly how much, but I want to say it was at least double. I like the consistency of the double boiler recipe much for than the other one. To answer my skeptical questions above: yes, it works! No, I do not stink! I do not sweat a ton but I do sweat. The key is that this is a deodorant, not an anti-persperant. You will sweat, like you should, but it will not stink.

While I was at it, being all 'healthy crafty', I decided to make my own toothpaste (recipe from Wellness Mama). Well, I used it for maybe a week and couldn't stand it. I didn't add the optional items (Grapefruit Seed Extract and myrrh extract). I also didn't add sugar because I thought that was crazy…add sugar to my toothpaste! Well, I should have! It tasted HORRIBLE!! I would like to try it again but this time I may make a different recipe. Wellness Mama has a few others on her site and once I make one, Ill let you know!

Easter

This Easter is our son's first Easter. With that said, I wanted to make it a little extra special and make his own Easter basket. I went to Party City and got the basket, plastic eggs, and basket filler ( Easter Grass). I bought all the items for the basket at Target. I bought him a stuffed bunny, Earth's Best Pear, Carrot, Apricot baby food pouch, Plum Organics Little Yums Organic Teething Wafers in Spinach, Apple, and Kale, and Baby's First Easter bib. I will fill the plastic eggs with a variety of Happy Puffs as the date gets closer, that way they don't become stale before hand.

Here We Go!

So I have thought about becoming a "blogger" for a while now and thought about all the stuff I wanted to share. Just finding time to sit down and create one has been a challenge, however, here I am! I am excited to share with you my first blog post about…MILK! My best friend and I were chatting about milk (no clue how we got on that topic, but not too strange for us either!) and we were discussing what is the healthiest milk to drink. So after doing some research, I found two great sites about milk. The first is from The Healthy Home Economist. In her post, she discusses why skim milk is making us fat and why whole milk is best. Here is an except from her post:

"How does drinking skim milk make kids (and adults) fatter? This apparent paradox occurs when you reduce the saturated fat in a person’s diet and he/she turns to carbs (grains and sugars primarily) to fill in the gap. It is the grains and sugars that truly make you fat, not saturated fat. I’ve said before on this blog that the more butter and cream I eat, the easier it is to maintain my weight. MUCH easier. The same goes for all of us. If you drink skim milk, you will be missing out on the satiating, blood sugar and insulin steadying affects of saturated fat, so your body will automatically give you sugar and carb (grains) cravings to make up for it. The body is able to MAKE saturated fat out of sugars, hence the sugar cravings that are impossible to control when you eat a lowfat diet that includes skim milk."

To read more, visit her site.

As a family, we do not drink that much milk. In the past, my husband and I always bought skim milk because we fell into the scam of those key words: skim, diet, reduced fat, fat free. We are slowly getting to the point of drinking whole milk but it is a process for us. First off, my husband is very hesitant about drinking whole milk, so we went from skim milk to 2%. We will probably drink 2% a couple more times before buying whole milk. I do have to say, 2% tastes MUCH better than skim milk and I already feel healthier. 

Now my son is not yet drinking cows milk, but when he does, I will start buying all of our milk from Braums. Why?? They don't inject their cow with hormones to stimulate milk production and they don't add antibiotics to their cow's feed.  Their milk is produced in Oklahoma (I live in Texas) and according to their website, the milk comes fresh from the cows and into their stores within 24 hours. Another great read I found online is from Kelly the Kitchen Kop. In this article, she discusses what milk to buy and why. It is a very informative read! To read her post, follow this link.

If you have any tips, comments, or questions, please comment below! Thank you for being apart of my FIRST BLOG POST!!!