Spiddal Botanicals

SLEEP DEPRIVATION!

There is no skincare product in the world that can rival a good night's sleep.

Here are some really great tips and useful info to help you get your needed beauty sleep :)

Turn down the heat!

At least an hour before bed, you need to look into cooling down your room. The ideal temp for sleeping is 16-20 degrees celsius.
Cooling the body helps slow down all the metabolic processes, including activity in the brain, promoting deep sleep.. Sleep with an open window if you can!

Stretch!

Exercising at night can hinder a good night’s sleep. It can suppress melatonin, and the adrenaline surge may make it difficult to relax. Stretching along with deep breathing can help relax you without raising your heart rate dramatically. It also loosens the muscles and improves circulation before sleep.
Try doing this stretch for 2 minutes: Lie down 6 inches from a headboard or a wall with your legs up extended up the wall. Let arms rest by your sides and breathe gently. You should feel a light stretch in your legs. Elevating the legs helps loosen muscles and aids in the prevention of morning leg cramps. When you have finished these stretches, try to go to bed within 10 minutes for a deep sleep.

Chamomile Tea and or raw honey

Chamomile works as a very mild tranquilizer and a sleep inducer.
Raw honey improves sleep quality as it contains an ideal ratio of fructose to glucose, to support the liver, an organ that works non-stop, during the sleeping process. Honey is great especially if you find yourself waking up intermittently through the night.

Lavender Steam/Cleanse

Try to incorporate lavender/chamomile into your night cleansing regime.
Slather your face in a lavender infused cleansing balm, massage your face for as long as you can and mildly steam it away.. It's like a mini relaxing facial every night, that you can do yourself!

Wash your facecloths well people....and please use natural detergent!

So many people have fallen in love with oil cleansing... Yay!
It's great and there is most certainly an oil to suit every skin type.

However, some of you lovely people have extremely sensitive skin.
It's one thing to convert to a 100% natural cleaning regime... but a lot of people are forgetting one very important thing... your face cloths.

Remember - you're putting the face cloth directly on to your face, so you want to make sure that you're washing it with non chemical ridden ingredients..

I try my best to always use soap nuts for face cloths.
I own at least 30 or so face cloths, I'm always picking up inexpensive ones, so I wait until I can wash a batch together and wash separately on a high heat to dissolve all the oils from the cloths. Face cloths made of cotton will inevitably become brittle over time, putting some white vinegar in the fabric conditioner helps. If used in the proper 'last rinse' cycle the cloths won't smell of vinegar!

I've been liking these soap nuts of late - http://purchase.ie/soap-nuts
Craaazily economical..

The bag also comes with a free packet of Little House on the Prairie daydreams should you be so inclined.
I most certainly am :)

'Tis mad how different someone can look with a sprinkle or splatter of freckles and different hair colour :)

Saw this on an Australian Instagram account (never liked the term, but anyway)

Found the most AMAZING raw honey in Ethiopia today. Can't wait to make some wonderful products with it

Are you an anxious person or do you have a lot on your mind at the moment?

Frankincense...

Apart from the countless skin problems that Frankincense essential oil can help with, I'd like to tell you about how great it is for people who suffer from anxiety or stress.

It truly is one of my favourite oils when having a meltdown.
It promotes deep breathing and relaxation, which in turn can open your breathing passages and reduce blood pressure, moving your mental state back to calmness..
I like to blend it with a mix of lemon, lavender & bergamot at the moment.
Pop some on a tissue, put a drop on a lightbulb/lamp and breathe easy.
It's quite pricey but really worth it in my humble opinion.

Used in conjunction with Dr.Weil's 4:7:8 technique,it's a revelation!

Can you guys believe it's the first of March today?!

I was a little generous this morning when making a cleansing balm so I have a 60ml jar I'd like to giveaway to a Nizhoni follower.

Ingredients are: cacao butter, mango seed butter, jojoba wax, hazleseed oil, avocado oil, tamanu oil, bulgarian rose oil, raw honey, sea buckthorn oil, jasmine oil, roman chamomile, blue tansy oil and vit e.

This balm (which can also be used for lips/dry patches, under drawing face masks etc) is suitable for all skin types.

It's full of fatty acids, antioxidants and other good stuff to cleanse and plump up your skin and leave you glowing :)

Just tell me your favourite essential oil below and I'll pick someone Monday morning :)

x

It's amazing that women 'daring' to bare their skin in the public eye without make up can make the front page of a national newspaper or a magazine... a women is apparently brave these days to leave the house without a full face of makeup on...

Very few people have perfect skin, I have to admit, it was refreshing to see Kathryn Thomas's bare skin.
She has under eye bags, wrinkles, broken capillaries, enlarged pores, sebaceous filaments, freckles and sun damage...

And Roz Purcell, I never even knew she had freckles!

Just like average women and don't they look just grand.

So ladies, stop beating yourself up over your lovely freckles or laughter lines and like yourself a bit more :)

As hamlet said to ophelia, "God has given you one face, and you make yourself another: the battle between these two halves of identity: who we are and who we pretend to be, is unwinnable"

Would you sleep on your toilet seat?!

CHANGE YOUR PILLOWCASE REGULARLY!!!!!!

Or learn to sleep on your back... without moving throughout the night ;)

What touches your face more than ANYTHING?!

Your pillowcase!

Try to remember to flip your pillow every night and change, if you can every second day, so you're always sleeping on a fresh cover.

Some people may think this is extreme, but very few of us see exactly how we sleep.. we all sweat and dribble throughout the night, a lot of people have oily scalps, dandruff etc.... if you have problematic skin, laying your face on a dirty pillowcase can make your problem skin even worse...

When it comes to microbes, most pillowcases and toilet seats harbour the same amount of bacteria..

So get washing people :)

Hazelnut oil... or, if you're fond of yourself.. Corylus avellana

Amazing oil for those who tend to have oily skin as it has a slightly astringent action.. It's also highly penetrative and ab fab in terms of tonifying and tightening your skin.

It's high in Oleic acid - 75.9% - and contains Vitamin E so it's a dab hand in strengthening capillaries and cell regeneration too...

It's my go to base for my own personalised oil blend :)

My little fingers are sore from writing names!
Thanks everyone who entered..

Brenda Barry, you are the chosen one!

You should have your balm by next week :)

Tea Tree Oil.
So many uses and benefits.

Don't over do it with Tea Tree though.. If you have sensitive/broken skin (with acne/pimples) try using it with a base oil like jojoba/hazlenut/Tamanu.