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No poo – tested for you
Well, ok, it wasn’t a completely selfless act, I do dig these kind of diys. I have been meaning to write this post since last Wednesday (that’s when I tried some recipes) but I wanted to wait till I had some pictures. As most of the times, I am not completely happy with them but I am afraid if I wait until I am, I will never share this with you. And that would be sad because trying out these recipes really was a revelation for me. So: do try this at home!
I tried some of the recipes from this ByzantineFlowers post, namely the soap nut shampoo, the green tea conditioner, and the coffee scrub.
Soap nuts The soap nut shampoo I simply did because I had those nuts (that are berries) at hand. It’s actually what we’ve been using to do the laundry with, I had no idea you could use them as shampoo. Boiling the soap nuts in water for 30 minutes, preparing the shampoo every time you want to use it rather than storing it – the procedure is simple yet somewhat time-consuming, so I am not sure I will stick with this one in the long run. The liquid does have a distinct smell, which I find neither particularly unpleasant nor particularly pleasant. It’s ok. As to whether this shampoo worked or not – I find it hard to say. I mean, my hair did get clean and looked nice but I can’t say for sure that it was the soap nuts, or simply washing my hair (after all, some do use water only), or …
… The green tea conditioner. Now this one I loved. My hair usually is very hard to comb (I don’t even use a brush). I have gotten used to it and don’t even think about the discomfort anymore but those days are over! I was skeptical, and wondered how this was supposed to work, after all, the green tea is water, and won’t that just run down before I even got a chance to rub it in? I have no clue how it worked – but it did. My hair was super-easy to comb, and it did look nice (again, I can’t know for sure what to contribute that part to).
Green tea The real revelation however was the coffee scrub. It is easy to make, relatively cheap yet it feels really expensive (which is the best, right?), feels nice, and makes you smell so good! I only deviated from the original recipe in so far as I used coconut fat instead of olive oil. Again: because it was at hand – and also because it is supposed to be good for Pitta (yup, I just had to sneak in something Ayurveda). Also I used vanilla sugar instead of regular since I had prepared a jar full a while ago (you just put a vanilla bean in a jar with sugar and let it sit), which we don’t use anymore (the sugar being white). Same goes for the coffee: we haven’t been drinking any lately, so this is the perfect way for me to enjoy its smell anyway.
In the original recipe it says it’s against cellulite but I just went ahead and used it as a full body scrub. Peter was concerned that maybe that way I’ll just end up spreading cellulite. Very good point, so I will keep you posted as to whether I suddenly develop cellulite on my nose or something.
I have been combining using this scrub with the Ayurveda massage technique from the morning routine, so I fancy myself getting the benefits from both. I am no expert though, so I don’t know, I am just going with my gut here. Another thing that’s great about this scrub (yes, there is more!) is that the coconut fat (or whatever fat/oil you’re using) keeps your skin from drying out in the shower. At the same time, you don’t get so sticky that your towel or clothes feel greasy after using them. Your skin just feels really nice and smells like coffee – how cool is that?!
Coffee scrub FYI: all this coming from someone who normally doesn’t use more than shampoo and soap in the shower – read: I don’t get excited about beauty products very easily. Yesterday I even managed to get Peter excited about this coffee scrub. His only concern was that he was going to a lecture, and that the coffee addicts among the guests might be tempted to start licking his skin. No reports of the sort have been filed, so I guess this delicious scrub is safe for use in public. Well, maybe not the actual use but you know what I mean.
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Ginger – my best f(r)iend
After having had the most horrible stomach aches after pretty much every meal for two weeks now, I finally seem to have found the root of all evil: my beloved ginger!?
First off, yes, I am aware of the irony of me being on such a health trip, and at the same time not really taking any time to look into (or have someone look into) this problem. My stomach was burning after seemingly anything I ate, my digestion was a nightmare – yet I kind of didn’t do anything about it. I attributed this to the sudden changes in my lifestyle I’ve been making, and just hoped it would go away once my body would adjust. As the saying goes, it’s easier to see the splinter in other people’s eye than the log in your own. So maybe this was karma.
I just don’t like going to doctors, especially not here where you don’t even have a specific doctor you go to – you go to a so-called health center, and you’re assigned whoever happens to be on duty that day. Plus I get the impression that the medical practice here is very “traditionally western”. It seems to me that antibiotics are subscribed as if they were skittles. I am just not into that.
Yesterday however I started looking up doctors in town with an Ayurvedic background or a homeopathic one, willing to bite the bullet, and pay for a consultation outside the tax-funded mainstream health system. Then Peter and I had a heated discussion about my state, his concerns that I was downplaying it, etc. And somehow, I don’t remember exactly how, we realized that the number one food that I have increased my intake of since I got into Ayurveda was ginger. It suddenly dawned on me that all the times my stomach couldn’t tolerate a meal, I had added ginger, and I had done that with about anything since it’s supposed to be so good in so many respects.
Perfect example of how there really is no universally valid recommendation, that it always depends on the particular case. For now that I’ve come to this conclusion I suddenly have been able to see all the lines where it says in which cases not to eat ginger – and they were all the symptoms that I had, or rather: developed in a chain reaction after continuing to eat ginger (high metabolism/high Pitta, diarrhea, all that good stuff).
So, today I avoided ginger, drank peppermint tea in the morning to soothe the stomach – and I haven’t had problems all day. I guess I did get around consulting an expert this time after all, and became a little more of my own expert (not sure whether that really is the take home message from this ordeal though).
I did discover one quick remedy (or rather: Peter pointed me to it), which is obviously no solution for the actual problem but which helps the immediate symptoms, and sometimes that is needed: baking soda. Just dissolve about a tea spoon or so in a glas of water, and drink – works within minutes. Baking soda seems to be good for a lot of things, so I guess there is a post about it in the future …
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Spring cleaning pt. 2
Although I didn’t get as far as I had hoped, I still got the chance to try out some no poo cleaning techniques – and can therefore make some actual recommendations:
- Oil and a mix of vinegar, water and lemon (roughly equal parts) turned out to be my best cleaning friends, I didn’t use much besides that. When it comes to oil and grease stains, it’s really a fighting-fire-with-fire kind of method – and it works, too! The spice rack being located above the stove was covered in a sticky layer of cooking grease and dust. I just dabbed some paper towel in oil and wiped the sticky surfaces. Just use the cheapest you have/can get, doesn’t need to be you precious EVOO. This is obviously only step one, unless you’re content with replacing the old grease layer with a new one (that will get yucky in a few weeks). This is were the lemon/water mixture comes into play. Why not use that one first? Well, I guess you can, but when I tried it felt like I needed to use much more force with that one – using oil was a lot easier.
- I tried out the recipe for cleaning the oven (actually started with that one since you’re supposed to let it sit for 8 hours). I found that the ratio in the recipe made the mix to dry, so I just went with my instinct and added more water until it took on a “wasabi-like” texture (if you were to conclude from this that I have a sushi-related problem you’d be right on). Also, I used about double the amount of the original recipe. I got good results – I am telling myself that the stuff that I couldn’t get of has been there even when we moved in. This recipe is perfect for me since I am not a very patient person. I tend to get sloppy at the end of a task but luckily, with this recipe, I do not need to worry about whether I am going to die from the next meal I prepare in the oven after cleaning it. Sometimes you can have the cake and eat it, too!
- Oh yeah, maybe the most useful piece of advice that I managed to ignore once more after already having made the mistake: filter the lemon juice before you pour it into a spray bottle. Otherwise the pulp will clog up the pipe/spray head thingy. Or: don’t use a spray bottle, just dab the cleaning rag in the liquid.
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Claimer
Whenever I check out blogs, I stumble over the disclaimer part. One part of me is all: Oh shit, I don’t have one! Better fix that. It almost seems like that’s the first thing you should write before you start posting! Another part of me wonders: Really? Is it necessary to tell people that I am not responsible for what they think about, and do with what I write? I mean, sure, words are powerful but this seems kind of insulting. I don’t want to assume that my readers are idiots. But I don’t know, maybe I’m naive.
I am curious, though, what would happen if I did the opposite – made a claimer. IF I were to write such a thing, it would look like this:
I hereby declare that I, and I alone am responsible for your thoughts and actions. I am an expert on everything (which is why I write a BLOG). So please do exactly as I say, don’t even bother thinking for yourself, and by all means: sue me when something goes wrong!
What do you think would happen IF I made such a claimer? What would a lawsuit look like IF I did? “Well, I am sorry Miss W. but you DID say on your BLOG that you were responsible for anything anyone thought. So when Mr. Schnickelfritz, after reading one of your articles, cut off his left thumb to see if he could transcend physical pain, it’s really your fault. You did write that claimer, so – this one’s really on you.”
Is this how things work?
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Going with the flow
It may not look like it but there is actually a lot going on that I would like to write about. Mostly Ayurveda stuff, since I’ve really been hooked, not just on reading but trying out stuff. I’ve noticed some amazing changes that I want to write about. Now that I am off work for the next eight days, hopefully I will get at least some stuff out there.
In a way, this post is connected to the Ayurvedic train of thought – and not just because according to Ayurveda, everything is connected. Being a person who loves planning stuff ahead, making lists and such, and often being frustrated when everything doesn’t go according to plan, (= a person with a dominant Pitta dosha, if I should express it in “Ayurvedic”), I decided I wanted to take a break from locking myself into a fictitious schedule, and just go with the flow instead. Do what I felt like, when I felt like it, instead of doing what I had planned out the night before simply because I HAD A PLAN. Yes, I was going to follow my intuition. I know that I am going to state the obvious here when I say: it worked amazingly.
First I wrote a bunch of letters and e-mails to friends and family that I had been “planning” to do for so long but never could find the right mood to sit down to. Then the sun came out and I realized the light in our apartment was perfect to take some pictures of the jewelery I have been making. I uploaded them right away, and wanted to share them but – and this is really very unlike me! – I quit before I was done, because the weather still was nice and my boyfriend suggested we go for a walk.
We decided for Gunnebo castle, which we don’t do very much, although it is very pretty there. I forgot to bring my camera but I let it go, even though there was a ton of stuff I would have wanted to share on my blog. We ended up not walking around much either, since the ground was still covered with ice. It was still worth the trip: It turned out that the restaurant wasn’t on winter schedule anymore, and it just happened to be lunch time. I recommend lunch at Gunnebo castle to annyone who comes to Gothenburg, anyone who is into seasonal, locally grown food. Also, the atmosphere is very nice, old school Swedish “herrgård”.
All in all, this experiment of just going with the flow, following my intuition was a success, I want to practice it more often.
Ok, now for the part of the day where I did take pictures – the jewelery. I am not even going to pretend to be humble – I am really pleased with the results. Things that manifest as beautifully in the real world as we envision them are a great but rare pleasure. These are definitely in that category of things:
- You’ve got the lock, pretty baby But I’ve got the key … (Johnny Lang)
- Eyelets are not just for scrapbooking!
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And the earrings:
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- Yes, one of the strings doesn’t quite look like it’s supposed to – but I luv ya anyway!
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Whaddaya think? I am thinking of selling them (and the pieces I have visions of but not created yet, hehe), like on etsy or something. Any of you have any experience? Cuz I don’t, so, tips and feedback are really appreciated!
