For quite a long time not too many people knew that I had stopped buying body products.  Even fewer knew I stopped using store-purchased cleaning products. That was all good and fine except its starting to get out.  With the development of this site, the Instagram site and just me sharing, its becoming a little more well known fact that she gave store-bought products, the BOOT.

♥

Part 1: the WHY

I thought it might be helpful to back up the cart just a wee bit and explain what drives me to create and use only natural, plant-based body and DIY household products.

Its not for any tragical reason, like I had a near-death experience because I used deodorant or nail-polish gave me a disease.

Its just, that avoiding chemicals has been a drive for me for as long as I can remember.

I am pretty sensitive to smells, (like chemical ones) and sprays, cleaners, fumes and so on.

Long before I ever knew you could get an education in plants, or learn how to be a therapist, I was already dolling out teas I knew and loved, that helped boost your immune system or helped a wound to heal, to friends at work, or family.

I was the office Shaman…  still am.

 

I cannot say for certain what caused this passion in me, all the nasty things in products just doesn’t FEEL like a good thing.  I had no idea what Sodium Laurel Sulfate was or what Triclosan could do to your body.  I had never even considered what an endocrine disrupter was or why I should be avoiding it.

The realization that manufacturers of products can hide anything they don’t want disclosed under the term “fragrance” makes me very angry.  As an aromatherapist, I understand how much “smell”  effects our moods, and how it can help our health and well-being.  How that same sense, is also being used to influence our shopping choices, the fact  that any and everything we are surrounded by in our homes, and outside, is bombarded with, mostly synthetic fragrance, is daunting.

As an aromatherapist this makes me very frustrated. The world of marketing uses fragrance to influence buyers, and that fragrance can be made of toxic chemicals, and, legally, hidden.

Even products created by companies for AROMATHERAPISTS or consumers who want to use “therapeutic grade” oils, I have found much to my dismay,  use synthetic fragrance, labeled as pure essential oil.

GAH

School gave me a VERY deep awareness (read fear) of all the things our bodies are exposed too.  From radiation to high fructose corn syrup, week after week I became more and more squirmy in my classroom chair, furiously taking notes.

Still unsure of where my education journey would take me, still trying to land somewhere between therapist to tree hugger, I really only know one thing for certain:  reducing the chemicals from my body, my home and the environment would forever be a theme, and one that will continue to drive my choices in EVERYTHING!

Im the lady pouring boiling water on the weeds now because I refused to put a spray on them.  I GROW ORGANIC PLANTS.  HOW COULD I use that spray?  Boiling water it is.  Its a laborious, not efficient and weed season is a lot of work, but I can use my plants in food, or teas or products, without losing sleep that I toxified them or the dirt they grow in.

THIS MATTERS! YOUR HEALTH MATTERS.  THE HEALTH OF YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR LOVED ONES MATTER. SKY and WATER MATTER; EARTH MATTERS!

 ♥

This is something that really REALLY matters to me; so much MORE now than ever before. I think its growing!  Like an idea that takes root, then is a seedling and eventually is that one WEED, that I didn’t boil, and now its taken over your whole garden!

It’s like that.

So now you have a little starting point for why I love to figure out how to make amazing eye shadow with rose petals or my own laundry detergent.  Why I LOVE being an Aromatherapist and why having certifications in Herbology and Nutrition make me smile every single night when I lay my exhausted head on my probably synthetically-made, coated in flame-retardant, pillow. (See the eye-rolling)

stay tuned for part 2: the HOW

 

byeeeeeeee.

~Annie