Have you seen our latest giveaway??
I’ve been loving the Illumai Biome Haircare System, a truly unique trio of products designed to restore your hair’s natural balance and luster.
Check out my review here and enter to win below!
About: Natasha Uspensky, CHHC
Recent Posts by Natasha Uspensky, CHHC
THE online beauty shop for all you choosy chicks
When it comes to beauty products, I am nothing if not supremely choosy. I mean, I created a whole blog about it. But most of us who are not professional bloggers and wellness experts just don’t have time to research a million different beauty brands and ingredients, or cross-check everything with the EWG database. So finding a great online beauty shop that does the work for you is just, plain awesome. We’ve featured many different natural beauty shops on The Organic Beauty Blog, and there are a lot out there to love. But what I love about The Choosy Chick is that they carry such a wide variety of natural beauty brands, at a variety of price points.
A big complaint I hear from our readers is that going all-natural/organic is expensive. Thankfully, with the explosion of the natural beauty scene over the last few years, this is no longer the case! The marketplace for natural beauty products now mirrors that of conventional products in terms of price — with super effective, budget-friendly brands rubbing elbows with smaller scale, luxury brands. But the big difference in quality (and of course safety!) still applies.
5 Ayurvedic secrets to digest better this Thanksgiving
I’ve always been super irked by that image we all have in our heads of post-Thanksgiving bloat, fatigue, and fullness. Truth be told, it is totally possible to eat a big, filling and festive meal and not go into a food coma immediately after, or worse yet, throw off your digestion for days. All it takes is employing a few Ayurvedic secrets to digest better this Thanksgiving!
Try these tips and enjoy this lovely holiday with no side effects:
Fall Smoothie and Green Juice!
SPONSORED POST: I’ve partnered with Milk & Eggs, an amazing farm direct grocery delivery service, to bring you guys some delicious, super seasonal, and always healthy recipes a few times a month. I’m so excited to share some of my favorite dishes with you!
Fall is kind of a weird time of the year for our bodies. From Halloween through New Year’s, we can get bombarded with all kinds of festive holiday foods that are higher in sugar and fat than we would normally eat. Even though the weather might still be nice in the fall, this can be a shock to our systems (if we’re otherwise healthy eaters) that can lead to compromised immunity, sluggishness, and a bit of a strain on our livers and digestion (not to mention our waistlines). Since I know the fall and impending holiday season is going to bring some “off” eating, I like to be extra on my healthy eating game in between holidays, to both give my organs a rest, and offset the effects of the holidays. Naturally, there’s nothing like some beautiful fall smoothies and green juices to do the trick!
So this week, I changed my standing Milk & Eggs order to get the Organic Cleanse Fruit and Veggie Bag, which is loaded with beautiful, seasonal produce perfect for juices and smoothies. In addition to the usual gorgeous greens, berries and beets that I get in my regular farm sampler bag, the Cleanse bag comes with a bunch of apples, lemons, and ginger that are amazing for seasonal cleansing. At just $20, I can’t believe what an awesome value this Cleanse bag is! I easily pay at least twice that at my co-op or health food store for this much organic produce. And the great thing is, since the food is coming directly from local farmers, I can be sure that everything is in season, which makes it so much easier to digest and assimilate!
Miss Having Squeaky Clean Hair? Try this.
The one downfall to going for all-natural and sodium lauryl sulfate free haircare is that you just don’t get that soapy, lathery, squeaky clean feeling. Now, technically, we don’t want our hair to be squeaky clean — that means we’ve stripped it of the natural oils that keep it luscious and hydrated. But for those who use lots of product on their hair, an occasional squeaky clean wash that gets rid of all that built up gunk on the hair and scalp can do wonders for bringing back some serious shine and luster.
In my experience, there are two ways to get squeaky clean hair, without resorting to all those chemical-laden products we used to use.
The DIY Option:
A raw apple cider vinegar hair rinse was one of the first hair DIY’s I ever bravely concocted, and it has never let me down. By now, we all know the magic of raw apple cider vinegar as an amazing tonic for health, digestion, and skin, but it’s uses for hair are just as potent. Due to it’s acidity and high levels of natural alpha-hydroxy acid, ACV is amazing for clearing the hair and scalp of built up product, oils, and dirt, and balancing the pH of hair. This leads to squeaky clean hair that is balanced, shiny, and luscious, without over-drying.
Seasonal Cooking With Milk & Eggs: Kale Pesto Rice Bowls and Healthy French Toast
SPONSORED POST
I have to say, it is a super gratifying feeling to wake up every Monday morning to find two big bags of healthy, local, organic produce and groceries just waiting on my doorstep. It’s like a blank canvas of healthy awesomeness. What delicious things will I whip up this week? It’s a surprise every time.
I’ve partnered with Milk & Eggs, an amazing farm direct grocery delivery service, to bring you guys some delicious, super seasonal, and always healthy recipes a few times a month. I’m so excited to share some of my favorite dishes with you!
Peanut Butter Healthy French Toast
French toast is one of my favorite comfort foods, so I’ve been determined to make it healthier, especially before I get little M obsessed with it too.
The best and easiest way to make healthy french toast is changing the kind of bread you use. I like to use sprouted, whole grain bread instead of the typical crappy white bread, which instantly makes it a healthier, fibrous breakfast, instead of a high glycemic sugar bomb for the body.
The other healthy modifications include omitting sugar or maple syrup, and using peanut butter and fruit instead! Peanut butter is naturally sweet, and makes this yummy french toast even higher in protein, which is great. If you need even more sweetness in the batter, you can mash up a banana and mix it in, but I personally find that the peanut butter plus some added berries when serving makes the french toast sweet enough, and I can feel good about serving it to my toddler.
The BEST Lactation Cookies Around
I never thought that I would have to worry about milk supply with a one year old, but alas. Little M turned 14 months and started nursing like an infant again (growth spurt? developmental leap? who knows!), and my boobs just can’t keep up! I’ve been upping my lactogenic tinctures and eating more milk boosting foods in general (read my 6 Ways to Boost Milk Supply for details on both of those), but I needed a little extra oomph. That’s where these delicious lactation cookies came in! Seriously, this recipe is the best one I’ve found, and I’ve searched far and wide.
Mini-Meditations: Mom’s secret to getting through the toddler years
Back in the day, when I was a freewheeling ladypreneur who set her own rules and schedule, before the baby, and nap time schedules, and play dates… Back when all I had to do was take care of me, and I did a damn fine job of doing it…. Wayyyy back then, I had a lovely little meditation practice. I would wake up, put on the tea pot, and sit on my meditation cushion in front of the floor to ceiling window in our Brooklyn apartment. I had a little altar, with all the things I thought belonged there — a big ceramic buddha head, some candles and crystals, all the good stuff. For 15-20 minutes, I would sit and focus on my breath or listen to a guided meditation. I felt grounded and I felt good.
But that was oh so long ago. Now, my daily schedule is dictated by an adorable, opinionated creature with needs of her own. She wakes up in the ungodly hours between 6 and 7am, and so begins our daily adventure. During her naps, I cram in as much relaxation and self-care as I can, while still keeping myself fed, my business afloat, and my house in (relative) order. Needless to say, that leaves little time for my meditation practice of yore, and that hasn’t been a big deal… until now.
Best Natural Teething Remedies for Babies
It seems like babies spend the better part of their first year teething… and then, right when you think you and your little are getting a break, the molars come in!
Being a firm believer in natural remedies, I was always slow to turn to baby Tylenol or Motrin, especially since our teething dramas went on for months at a time (and giving your little those medications for more than a few days ina row can be really damaging to their sensitive digestion, liver, and kidneys. Plus, a few studies over the last few years have shown an increased incidence of asthma and wheezing in children who received frequent dosing of acetaminophen in the first year of life (I will not that the results of these studies haven’t been completely conclusive, but even a hint of controversy is enough to give me pause).
So when at all possible, I give my little one natural remedies first, and only switch to over-the-counter medications if all else fails, never as a first line of treatment.
These 5 best natural teething remedies below are very effective and completely safe. I’ve listed them in order of efficacy, from least to greatest. Always start with the lowest level of intervention and work your way up the list!
