Body Scrub Recipe

Body Scrubs have always been a luxury that I haven't granted myself, although I've always loved receiving them as gifts. They also seem to be the sort of beauty product you buy as a gift for someone when you don't really know what else to get them...unless you specifically know that that person loves body scrubs. Woopydoodyda.

Well, I think that we can now stop denying ourselves the luxury of body scrubs, and if you're going to give it as a gift, then why not make it yourself (especially if it's for a special friend - they will appreciate it even more!).

Ingredients:

- 200 grams of buckwheat flour

- 3 tablespoons of juniper berries

- 2 tablespoons of coriander seeds

- 1 tablespoon of ginger powder

(you will find all the ingredients, except for the flour, in the spice section of your supermarket)

Stick the whole lot in a food blender, and voilà! BODY SCRUB!

Wet your body in the shower, and then put some of the mixture onto your hand and rub it onto your skin. It smells lovely, and it will leave your skin naturally smooth. I also tried it on my face but found that it left my skin slightly dry -- so may be good for people with oily skin, and perfectly safe to use on the rest of the body.

The Big Clean - Shank Prakshalana

We can apply all the creams, and masks, and perfumes we like...but the truth is that if we're filthy inside, well, we're simply filthy.

As weird as this may sound, I devoured with great interest (in one day) a book on Intestinal Hygiene, by Dr Soleil (it's a group of French doctors who write on various topics). Now, I'm not sure what the title is in English because I originally read it in italian (translated from the French original)...I've leant it to my neighbor who still hasn't returned it. He might be getting a knock on the door later today so that I can post some other practical techiniques to keep our intestines and colon healthy.

I'm almost due for my second intestinal clean-out: the first went tremendously well (didn't that sound British!). I felt sooo light afterwards. You can really feel that whatever you eat is digested, absorbed and eliminated quickly and with great efficiency. I can say that I've never had problems with my intestines, and that I have always been regular. Well, after this clean-out I became even more regular! Like a swiss watch! It was like the time references around the world were the Big Ben, Greenwich, and my bowel movement! Even my skin looked fresher.

Before you go on reading, I just want to say that you do need strong will power to get through the 3 liters of salty water -- it becomes increasingly disgusting, but don't forget your final aim!!! CLEAN INTESTINES! CLEAN INTESTINES! (That's what the cheerleaders are calling out here on the right).

Back to the intestinal cleansing: here's a simple way of getting a clean intestine (or at least it's a start towards a clean intestine): we drink a large quantity of salty water until the water that is eliminated from your anus comes out clean. It's a very cheap technique, but you do need to dedicate two to three hours if you want to do it properly. The drinking of the salty water is probably the most unpleasant part of the whole process, but hey! Beauty has it's price (inner and outer).

Technique:

Choose a day in which you know you won't have running around to do and people to see: it's a day that you are going to dedicate to yourself. Make sure you have a light meal the night before, so that you digest properly and get a good night's sleep.

When you wake up in the morning, prepare 3 litres of salty warm water (the salt should be sea-salt, and you need 6 grams for every liter of water).

Put on some nice music...and drink your first glass. You will then do the 4 exercises (I will put them down below)....then drink your next glass. You will probably feel the need to evacuate...so go. If you don't need you, that's fine...drink the next glass, and do the 4 exercises again (these exercises must be done after every single glass -- they help the water move out of the stomach and into the intestines).

Once you've started evacuating, you will continue until all the water has been eliminated from your intestines and colon (and it will become clearer every time).
Once you've finished, resist the urge to drink fresh water (I really felt like drinking a sweet herbal infusion!), and put some brown rice on to cook. Dress it with some olive oil and fresh herbs.

On that day, abstain from sports and alcoholic or acid beverages. For the following three days, abstain from animal products.

The 4 Exercises:

1. Stand erect with feet hip-width apart. Stretch your arms up above your head and interlace your fingers. Bring your trunk from left to right (repeat three times per side).

2. Stand with your legs slightly open, and twist with your trunk from side to side: let your arms swing with your trunk (repeat a few times).

3. Come down to the floor: the position is like the one to do push-ups, except that your arms are straight and you're not keeping your body in the plank pose...you relax your legs and buttocks, and let the hips come down towards the ground. From this position you turn your head as though you were trying to look at your heels.

4. Squat down, and place your hands on your knees. Now twist the upper body from side to side: as you twist to the left, your right knee comes towards the ground and your right arm straightens (or almost) -- as you twist to the right, the left knee comes towards the ground and the left arms straightens.

Advantages of practicing this technique:

It helps get rid of temporary problems, such as pimples, constipation, head-ache, insomnia, lack of appetite and concentration, etc, as well as bigger cronic problems. This exercise helps to clean the inner walls of the intestines of the crusts, making the intestine a much happier place! Assimilation of nutrients definitely improves becuase of the greater surface of contact between the food we eat and the regenerated mucous walls (the authors describe of people who actually eliminated crusts and mucous which contained traces of antibiotics that they had taken up to 20 years before!! Imagine that!!)

Risks and Contraindications

There is a minor risk of not eliminating the water from the anus. In this case, you will patiently have to wait for it to be eliminated via the urinary tract. This is very rare, but can happen on occasions. There may be meccanical or physiological obstacles: a slight hypothryoid condition, a big mass of gas int eh colon, a mass of encrusted "garbage" in the intestines/colon, a lazy colon, the water not warm or salty enough....or even fear of the unknown or of failure -- basically a psychological block that doesn't allow the body to eliminate properly.

There are some things that can help in these situations:
- the Yoga candle pose (Sarvangasana)
- jogging on the spot

- belly dancing

- vigorous massage

- or an intestinal clean-out!

Contraindications: DO NOT DO IF YOU HAVE AN OPEN ULCER, HYPERTENSION, OR KIDNEY PROBLEMS.

Frequency:

You can practice this technique 4 times per year (especially good during the change of season). If your first experience has tired you out a lot, it means that the effect has been deep and that you should probably repeat the second one after 1-2 months. With practice, this disintoxication becomes more and more gentle.

Why Salt?

Once upon this time, this technique used to be done with sea water. Salt makes sure that the water remains INSIDE the digestive tract, and does not allow it to be absorbed by the intestinal walls. The concentration of the salt in the water has to be similar to that of the blood plasma, so to avoid any loss of minerals due to osmosis. Salt is also a great disinfectant and killer of bacteria! Furthermore, salty water is a great way of softening the waste products that have hardened into crusts and that stick to the delicate intestinal walls.

IF you do have severe kidney problems, the same technique can be practiced by boiling a good amount of leek in 3,5 litres of saltless water, and then use this water to do the intestinal clean-out.

Nutritional mask for your hair

It's a few years now that I've been trying to grow my hair, and I always seem to reach a stage of "I can't stand it anymore!", and chop it all off. Well, none of that is going to happen anymore...I mean, looking back at photos of me with short hair reminds me of my "equastrian look". That's right, I sustain that I look like a horse, much to my best-friend's funny looks every time I use this expression. I just feel that short hair brings out the horse within me. It's a long story....I'd have to start from Etruscan history (on the right is a picture of me and my family on a day out)....exactly, I won't go there.
Anyway, so now that I have almost-long hair, I want to look after it properly, and I've found a wonderful recipe from the blog of Semplicemente Vera that will bring your hair back to life! The following amounts are a bit scarce for me (I have quite long hair)...so if need be, just throw in a bit extra yogurt, as well as everything else (caution on the turmeric.....stories of me as the Jaundice Monster later on....)

Here are the ingredients:
- 2 big spoons of natural yogurt
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
- 1 tablespoon of camomile tea
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 10 drops of vegetable oil
- 1 spoon of honey or malt
- 2 big spoons of lin seeds (instructions on how to prepare them down below)

Apply to hair and keep in for about 20 minutes.

Some notes before you run off to make it yourself! Please read on!

IF you have very light blonde hair, avoid the turmeric (or just use very little of it): it tends to give your hair a very golden color....yes, almost yellow. I have a sort of boring dark colored hair (not very dark, but not light enough to be considered blonde). I got talked into doing some blonde highlights a while back (yes, always blame others when you can), and they really took on the turmeric color! So just be careful. If you're not that light I'd give it a go, because it does make your hair a pretty honeycomb color.

The lemon juice, honey, and camomile are the lightening agents: don't imagine any sort of hairdressing chemical blonde results...but they do give a nice light to your hair, especially if you go in the sun afterwards.

The Lin seeds (aka flax seeds?): how to handle them: put them to soak the night before. What I do is that I put them in a sieve on top of a bowl, and put the water on top of them -- it's much easier to handle them when you'll need them the next morning. Basically, you just lift the sieve up and you'll see that they're already really oily! Now, the first time I did this mask, I wizzed them up and just mixed them in with the rest of the ingredients....the result is that I am still finding lin seeds in the bathroom!!! It took ages to get them out, and they just got all over the place, much to my mother's delight....so I learned my lesson. After you've wizzed them, place the whole concoction back into the sieve and press them with a spoon so that the foamy-oily stuff comes out. It's quite amazing...I would say that the consistency is how you would imagine lizard saliva to look like. So there you've got a very home-made version of lin-seed extract, which you can use for other recipies as well (such as natural hair gel: I'll put the recipe for this on soon). Wait a minute: don't throw out the fibrous stuff that's left! I just stuck the whole lot into my cereal bowl, but you don't need to do everything I say. I think it'd be really good in a salad, or just thrown into a soup as well. Very nutritious, so it's a pity to waste.

The Jaundice Monster: I don't know if you've ever dropped turmeric anywhere...well, if you haven't, and you're not intentionally planning to do it, steer well away! It stains everything yellow!
I apply the mask over the bathroom sink, with the bowl underneanth me.....you'll see, you'll try to start off all prim and propper, and then it just all goes down the drain when yellow stuff starts dripping everywhere. Once you're done, wrap your hair up in plastic wrap...trust me....you will soon find out that the heat from your head starts to "melt" the mask, and you'll have nice trickles of yellow oil coming down your neck and face...aaaaaaaaahhhh, the Jaundice Monster is here! Mmm....maybe not a good thing to do with a boyfriend in the house. It's very attractive: a yellow head, with yellow stuff coming down....good enough to test anybody's love.
Lesson to be learned and remembered:
- do not wear a white top when doing this (unless you need an excuse to throw it out)
- do not sit on mother's white divan while waiting for it to seep in...actually, get yourself back into the kitchen and clean up the mess you made!
- wear a singlet top that's easy to take off

I can tell you the mask works: I did one this morning, and my hair is really soft and shiny. My sister refuses to look at me from how good my hair looks (and it just reminds her of her beautiful long hair that she cut off not so long ago...). She even sustains that I made her cut her hair so that I would look better! The madness of it all....I wasn't even on the European continent when she did the deed!

Photographic film

Did you know that photographic film is made of gelatin (in my sister's terms: cow knees)!! After some research I have discovered that no vegan-friendly (or animal-friendly) film has yet been invented....looks like digital photography is the least expensive and most environmentally friendly photography there is.

The Moon's Secret

The Moon's Secret