Monday, December 28, 2015

Tub Scrub!



If you are anything like me, your bathtub is the very last thing you ever clean in your home. It seems ironic, in a way, since everyday you shower with soap in that thing, yet it still needs to be cleaned somehow!

We have hard water in our town too, so the build up is always frustrating. I have tried multiple homemade solutions, plus many store bought varieties, even some that almost made me pass out from the fumes, however nothing has even touched the stains...until now!

Introducing, the hands-down best tub scrub:

Thieves Concentrated Cleaner and Baking Soda!!!

Place 1/4 cup of baking soda in a jar, add concentrated thieves cleaner until you have enough to form a paste.

Grab a scrub brush and wet it and the tub down. Dip in baking soda mixture, and get to scrubbin'!

It took some elbow grease, but the built up scum and mineral deposits came off!!! I was shocked and very, very pleased!



Now! I just need to remember to do it more often so I can prevent future build up!

Happy Oiling,
Mandy

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Do you STINK?!

With so many family affairs, company parties, last minute shopping trips with mobs of people, and stress over whether or not your fudge will turn out this year, we are probably all wondering the same thing. Will my deodorant hold up?

Maybe you still use the store bought stuff that contains not so great stuff. Maybe you've switched to a better brand, maybe you are going a-la-natural. In any case, I have a better solution for you!

Last year I changed from a regular ol' mainstream to the cute little rock in a tube. It worked GREAT!...for about three months, then summer hit. About that time I started using essential oils. I played around with Stress Away, Purification, and Tea Tree. All worked great neat or slightly diluted, however, my overly sensitive skin didn't like having that much concentrated oil in my pits long term.

Fast forward to this month. Nothing is working. The rock has grown stalactites that cut my skin when I use it. The oils irritate me. So I have been using my husbands regular ol' guy deodorant in lue of a better solution. So, I finally bit the bullet and created my own deodorant paste! Goodbye toxic man smelling stuff, goodbye irritation, goodbye scratchy rock, heeeelllooo no more stink!


Get the STINK Out Natural Deodorant:

6 tablespoons Coconut oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cornstarch or arrowroot powder
15-20 drops of essential oils

Place ingredients into a glass jar and stir until combined. (If your coconut oil is super solid, you could warm it up a bit on the stove or in the microwave)


Essential Oil Suggestions:

Gentle Baby- gives it that baby powder scent most women's deodorant has

Purification- get the smell out with the best smell-removing oil!

Shutran- got a stinky man in your life, this is the oil you want for him!

Tea Tree- great oil for skin overall

Lavender- bring a calm smell with you wherever you roam



Happy Oiling,
Mandy


Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Clean Those Floors: With Thieves Cleaner!



We just finished potty training one kiddo. Now the baby has diaper rash that needs airing out. These circumstances call for some major clean up duty. Diaper free kiddos ALWAYS equal some sort of mess!

I know, I know we brag on Young Livings concentrated cleaner all the time. It's only because it is so.freaking.awesome. I no longer clean with any other product in my entire house. Bathrooms? Thieves cleaner. Kitchen? Thieves cleaner. Dishes? Thieves cleaner. Dusting? Thieves cleaner. So, naturally, when it comes to my floor, I use my Thieves cleaner there too! (I only wish I had had a bottle of this when we potty trained the puppy!)

We have about five different ways to clean our floors. I have all the floor types too: carpet, tile, and pretend wood floors. So here are different ways I use it to clean all our different floors.

Carpet:

Carpet Cleaner: place 2 cap fulls of thieves cleaner per gallon of water in the reservoir and clean carpets!

Carpet Freshener: fill mason jar with baking soda, add a few drops of thieves cleaner (or any essential oil, I love doing cinnamon around the holidays to make my house smell festive! Or, cool tip, most carpet loving insects hate tea tree!). Cut a circle of paper the size of the mason jar lid, then poke holes in paper to make a homemade sprinkle jar! Sprinkle mixture around carpets, let sit over night or at least 2 hours, then vacuum!

Spot Cleaner: mix one cap of cleaner to two cups of warm water. Use sponge or rough towel to dip in mixture and then scrub spot on carpet.


Tile:

Electric Floor Cleaner: I have a plug in floor scrubber that works on hard wood, fake wood, and tile. I use one cap of the Thieves cleaner in the water tank and fill the rest of the way with water.

Mopping: when the tile gets super dirty and has stuff stuck in the grout cracks that the electric cleaner can't get to, I use a heavy duty deck brush and scrub the tiles. I mix two caps of Thieves cleaner to every gallon, dip the deck brush in and scrub the floor. After I am done I use a towel to mop up excess water...but the glory of Thieves cleaner is, you don't have to rinse like you do with soap!


Hardwood/Fake Wood:

Electric Floor Cleaner: what I love most about this machine is I can move from tile to the wood floors without stopping! I use the same ratio. Also, I found it at a garage sale for a quarter of the regular price! Score!

Spray Bottle and Swiffer: this is my favorite method to clean the wood floors. I put one cap of Thieves cleaner in a spray bottle, top off with warm water, and spray the floor as I clean with my swiffer mop (Ok, ok the kids usually spray the floor while I follow them around hurriedly, trying to keep pace!). I put towels or old worn out cloth diapers on my swiffer head instead of buying the throw-away kind (plus ewww they put all sorts of nasty smelling stuff in those wet wipes!). I use to have a swiffer like mop that had a reservoir attached that you could refill. The kiddos played too hard with it one day and it's long gone now! But you could use Thieves cleaner in them as well, just stick to the same ratio of one cap of cleaner to two quarts of water.


Happy oiling, Mandy

On-the-Go Hand Cleaner

It's that time of year again. Everywhere you go people pull little bottles from their pockets to wipe their hands down with. I don't know about you, but I find the addition of alcohol to be a little drying, and quite unpleasant if you do a quick rub down and then eat your lunch!

Fortunately essential oils offers a different approach!

Introducing: On-The-Go (alcohol free) Hand Cleaner!

The first recipe is a spray bottle method. Having it in a spray bottle can be super convenient for washing down your table at a restaurant, cleaning the handles of a shopping cart before your kiddo starts chewing on it, cleaning off your hands, or even doing a quick breath freshening.

Thieves On-The-Go Spray Cleaner:

15-20 drops of Thieves blend essential oil

Place in glass 2oz spray bottle and top off with water or witch hazel (whichever you prefer).

This second recipe mimics those convenient gel bottles everyone carries about, without the addition of alcohol.

Thieves On-The-Go Gel Cleaner:

2 TB Aloe Vera
1 TB Witch Hazel (or Water)
1/2 tsp carrier oil (almond, olive, fractionated coconut, etc)
10-15 drops of Thieves oil

Mix together in small squeeze bottle (approx 1oz) and use as needed.


There you have it! On the go cleanliness for all!

Friday, August 14, 2015

Frankincense and Lavender Natural Body Wash

I got this recipe and idea from Mommypotomus blog.  Every time I saw the picture I couldn't help but want to try it.  My belly is getting really big now from two babies stretching it out and I wanted a soap with a LOT of moisture.  Frankincense and Lavender have always been known for their awesome ability to support skin health, so those are the oils I chose for this recipe.  And forget the skin wellness properties, they smell AMAZING together.









Here's the recipe:


  • 1/2 cup of Castile Soap (I use dr bronners)
  • 1/2 cup of honey
  • 1/2 cup of Olive Oil
  • 20-30 or more of Essential oils.  I used 30 and I think it could have used more.


I thought it was weird at first to use honey for body wash, like it would be sticky or something but it's not at all!  It actually makes it a little thicker and more luxurious.

I absolutely love this body wash.  I don't love making products all the time, I'm more inclined to buy something.  But this is something I will keep making.  I already ran out of my first batch so that is on my to-do list for today!

Enjoy!!

Get your own oils Here or Email us for Questions!

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Spot-B-Gone!



I have three boys. And a dog. And dirt in my backyard. And paint in my art arsenal. I also feed my kids things like berries, juice, chocolate, and occasionally brightly colored popsicles. Then, there is me. I spill *everything* on myself. I constantly battle grease stains on my shirts and, unfortunately, have thrown away some beloved items of clothing because I could never get them out! BUT! No more! I have discovered an alternative to tossing my treasures. Thieves Cleaner! Yup, it strikes again! I am pretty sure I will never let myself be out of this stuff for the rest of my life!




Spot-B-Gone w/ Thieves Cleaner

1 Tbsp Concentrated Thieves Cleaner
1 Tbsp Warm Water
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
2 Tbsp hydrogen peroxide

Mix ingredients in a 4 oz spray bottle and shake gently until combined. Spray on spots until saturated, then wash normally.


Mud? Chocolate? Wine? Grease? Berries? Paint? Nope. Not a problem anymore!

What spots challenge you?

Happy oiling, Mandy

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Marker on the Wall? Use Lemon Essential Oil

One thing that's inevitable when you have kids is marker on the wall... or on the door frame, floor, counter..... almost anywhere.

My son, who now is 6, had a few coloring frenzies on the wall.  The first one was below the big white board we have in the kitchen.  He was coloring on the white board with a dry erase marker and then decided to color on the wall.  He was too young to really know it was wrong, because he was coloring on the white board a foot up... so why not color on the wall?   I wasn't sure what to use,  we only had natural products in the house and my 'go to' was vinegar with water.  At this point, I only had a few oils, and the thought of using them didn't even occur to me.  The vinegar kind of faded the marker as well as take some of the paint off!!  That was not a great solution.  I year later I ended up painting over it.

But then came my daughter.  She had this urge to draw everywhere, that budding artist.  She's drawn on my yellow and white striped wall, in the hallway, on the floor and the worst one is that she drew with Sharpie on our closet door frame!!   We had left that one there since not many people come over and go back in our bedroom closet... but it wasn't pretty.

Fast forward a year or two when I first got my kit,  I noticed some people using lemon to clean off things on their wall and floor.  So I got the urge to try it.  I remembered the Sharpie on the door frame.  I was so curious... did it work?  I dropped a few drops of Lemon essential oil on a rag and gave it a scrub.  Lo and behold, IT WORKED!   It did take a little elbow grease but I was surprised how easily it did come off after being there for over a year.


I was shocked at how well it worked.  Now that my kids are a little older now, they know not to draw on the wall but I have a feeling that the two little ones I'm about to have are going to have some urge to draw on the wall.  I think all kids do.  

Give it a try!  You'll be amazed!

*note- I would try it on a small area first to make sure it wouldn't take paint off or ruin furniture.  But I've never had it do that :)

If you want to get Lemon Essential Oil, you can go here and get started with your own kit.  Or you can email us and we can order it for you.