How is it June/July already?
While I’ve been taking the time to enjoy the present moment much more these past few months, I can’t help but feel like, the older you get, the quicker it goes. June nearly slipped away completely without a new love list and I have a few ideas, articles and lovely things to share as usual, where if there’s an offer, the brand is generously making that available for you until the end of July!
1. Plastic Free July
Biome was founded in 2003 by Tracey Bailey. It is Australia’s leading zero waste, toxin free ethical eco store. They have Australia’s strictest ingredient standards, and are proud to be 100% palm oil free and a Certified B Corporation in an age where a lot of low tox brands are sadly still using palm oil. Biome range of products are good for your family and good for our earth. Their range includes waste free lunch boxes, reusable water bottles, coffee cups, straws and bags, a huge range of zero waste and plastic free products, high quality products that you will never need to replace, natural skin care, make up, shampoo bars and body care, stainless steel razors, menstrual cups, safe kids soothers and toys, Bokashi compost bins, and other homewares. Shop Plastic Free July Starter Kit (pictured above) HERE
Biome also stocks a large range of raw ingredients to make your own DIY skin, hair and body care, and DIY cleaning products. Making products yourself enables you to simplify, minimise, get back to basics and understand exactly what you are putting on your body and spraying around your home.
For the months of July and August, save a huge 15% off in-store and online at Biome with code LOWTOX19. Excludes shipping. Not valid in conjunction with any other offer. Expires 31 August 2019. This is huge if you’re needing one of the bigger ticket items like a water filter or bed linen. Enjoy! SHOP the plastic free range HERE
Follow Biome on Instagram @biomestores or on Facebook
2. Eco Meal Prep™
Eco Meal Prep™ are a super cool glass bento product who have a kickstarter going at the moment. They aim to raise awareness of plastic chemicals that can leach into food and disrupt health, and provide non-toxic and waste-free options to make meal prep easier for all. They’re launching Australia’s first Bento Glass Meal Prep Containers with 2 and 3 compartments that allow food to be separated in multiple compartments and built to prevent spilling in between. You can support their work by making a pledge towards their Kickstarter campaign HERE.
Follow Eco Meal Prep™ on Instagram @ecomealprep or on Facebook
3. Nue Bar
NueBar is a brand new company started by Sydney Naturopath Katie Hennah and her partner. So gorgeous. I’ve had a chance to try a couple of the products and they’re divine. Their personal care product range is all made in bar format, meaning that they are completely plastic packaging free.
Although NueBar may look like a bar of soap, it’s quite different. Soap is always alkaline (around pH 9-10), whereas NueBar is pH balanced to match the mild acidity of the skin and hair (range pH 4-6). In addition their hair and face care bars (body range launching soon) are handmade, vegan, free from palm oil, animal cruelty, sls, sles, silicones, parabens, artificial fragrance and other harsh chemicals.
They also have a Fragrance Free range which is worth a mention for the extra sensitive (or just those who prefer no added scent at all). This range contains no essential oils and is centred around Organic, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which as well as being rich in squalene and antioxidant phytonutrients is extremely low allergy. NueBar Fragrance free range still manages to have a naturally delightful smell though, this is due to the Fair Trade, Organic Cacao butter content, which gives it a delicious, mild chocolatey scent so you’re hardly missing out!
In celebration of their launch and plastic free July they are giving away a free bamboo draining tray away with any purchase for the first 200 customers with the code goplasticfree. SHOP HERE
Follow Nue Bar on Instagram @nuebar_australia or on Facebook
4. She Births® online course
I recorded a podcast for Nadine’s wonderful podcast which will be airing soon and it gave me the chance to ask her more about SheBirths as I’d heard such good things from people and even though my baby making time was a one hit wonder, I still love being able to recommend the best options to our Preconception Ninja community, who once it’s ‘on’, then there’s a beautiful birth to prepare for (and beyond!) She Births® is the only scientifically verified childbirth education course in the world, proven to improve birth outcomes for mother and baby. It was founded in Sydney in 2008 by Nadine Richardson, Director of The Birthing Institute. More than 8,000 expectant parents have completed She Births®.
Based on three pillars; Knowledge, Inner Strength and Outer Support, She Births® combines evidence-based and holistic techniques for a better and safer birth experience – including active birthing, yoga, massage, acupressure, breathing, relaxation and effective partner support. She Births® provides a comprehensive toolkit of skills for mum and partner, empowering mums to have better births and enabling partners to provide effective support. The course prepares couples for every birth scenario enabling them to create a beautiful birth experience, no matter what unfolds.
She Births® is available as a Weekend Course or as an Online Course – making it accessible across the world. The She Births® App was launched in January 2019 and is the first labour companion in the world. You can also listen to the She Births® Show Podcast is a place that will inspire your birth, evolve your parenting and help you live a life you love.
Get 10% discount on the online course with code lowtoxlife10. REGISTER HERE.
Follow She Births® on Instagram @shebirths or on Facebook
5. Essential Oil for July: Peppermint!
Peppermint oil – is there anything more refreshing? The smell of this is so pure and delicious and my favourite uses for it are:
1. In a spritzer bottle to refresh my mood/perk me up, sprayed in the decoltage area. 6 drops in 60ml water in a little spray bottle.
2. In dark chocolate – have you tried my peppermint brittle chocolate before? It’s super yummy. https://www.lowtoxlife.com/peppermint-brittle-choc-hearts/. Enjoy!
3. Feeling sluggish, heavy headed, achy or with tension, a neat drop on the tongue or behind the neck works wonders
4. It’s also great for study/work when the focus is lagging. My favourite combination in the diffuser that I’ve loved for years now is the Peppermint 4 drops, Rosemary 3 drop. Half an hour at a time – you don’t want to run diffusers for hours on end. The pick me up lasts, so save your oils and go for short bursts. Great for when the kids have homework to do.
5. In a room with teens that errs on the stinky side or where the pet beds get kept, you can put 20 drops of peppermint into a small bowl with a cup of bicarb soda and use as a deodoriser just having it in the room there. Change it over every few days.
6. There are so many more uses but a last one I’ll share is that you can use it when making a body scrub and use as a footscrub or tired leg scrub with just 2 drops of peppermint added. A great jetlag ‘puffy vibes’ helper too to pop a drop or two into your leg moisturiser and feel the refreshing hit.
If you want more information on essential oils, I love and use Young Living and have done for nearly 5 years. Gary Young was a brilliant man who upped the industry standards and safety of essential oils – a true pioneer and a brand that I wholeheartedly support due to their ethical and environmental standards and practices as well as safe recommendations. You can read up on why I choose YL here
6. Interesting articles about climate change
Being passionate about addressing the climate crisis, I wanted to share a couple of articles I’d found interesting lately – especially as parents trying to navigate whether and how we talk about the climate crisis with our kids – from age 9 they tend to be hearing about it on the radio or junior news programs at school, but if they’re not and you DO want to discuss it without making them unnecessarily scared, then this article is a goody.
How to talk to your kids about Climate Change. Read the full article HERE.
I also found this one interesting – the forces behind climate denial are a real and present threat to the action so desperately needed. Meet the money behind climate denial. Read the full article HERE.
Want to see where the solutions are (because we don’t need to just halt emissions but draw carbon down to ensure we don’t raise temps beyond 1.5C) then the Draw Down Project is a great resource and book.
And one on the chemical industry lobby that I saw this month while we’re here reading about forces for bad. Being articulate enough to share the information about suppression and lobbying is key to being credible when talking about the real concerns with endocrine disruptors, carcinogens and irritants in mainstream products.
Here is the piece “Science lobby groups in the chemical industry”. Read the full article HERE.
7. Why smelling good could come with a cost to health
Music to my ears seeing these issues being written about more and more in credible, investigative journalism outlets such as the Guardian. Read the full article HERE.
8. Millenials’ health plummets after the age of 27
This was interesting and really, really sad even though I know it to be true from talking with parents across the country. Here’s to changing this quick smart!
The Research is starting to come out about Millenials and what this modern world is doing to our kids. Read the full article HERE.
9. Book of the month: Low Tox Life…by yours truly
Ok, stay with me here, I’m not doing this to blow my own trumpet, but the thing is, this month the book turns 1 year old. Can you believe it? I can’t! Thanks to you, it didn’t just get attention for a few months and then fizzle into being last year’s news. it has become a movement. “Low Tox” seems to have become common usage colloquialism referring to something being a better option for people and planet – how bizarre and amazing. I can’t thank you enough for recommending it and sharing it with friends, family and colleagues it continues to inspire change for people and that basically means a better world, so hooray for that, right? I’m excited to see it come out in Spanish before Christmas and then in French in January – my relatives are VERY excited they’ll be able to understand everything, finally! hehe. So, if you haven’t grabbed a copy of it yet, maybe celebrate its first birthday and go for it now. Stay tuned for a fun instagram competition we’re running from the 1st of July, too. Get your copy HERE.
10. Recipe of the month: Fridge Scraps soup
With food waste eradication being like taking 495 million cars off the road when it comes to emissions attribution, if you’re wondering where to start by doing something for the climate crisis, start with not wasting any more food and any food you do waste, composting it so it doesn’t end up releasing methane in landfill and we don’t waste all the emissions it ‘spent’ being produced. View the full recipe for my fridge scrap soup. So simple and delicious and very flexible in terms of what you throw in there. Enjoy it HERE.
So there we go, hopefully, a few ideas to get the creative juices going, expand the mind and try new things and do some deep reading. If you’re a small business owner with a wonderful low-tox product or service then please share with me below or pop us an email at [email protected]
Low Tox. Happy People. Happy Planet
