Establishing a personal daily care practice can bring many health balancing benefits for all your body systems. Learning how to care for your skin, body & mind daily utilizing essential oils, hydrosols, carrier oils & natural skin care products can aid in many health related concerns well beyond the surface of the skin. Not many people realize that your skin is partially a digestive organ. Your skin interacts with, soaks in things and expresses others. What you put on your skin should be healthful, supportive and nutritive.
Finding natural, simple and pure care products to nourish your body & mind can substantially reduce toxins, heavy metals, chemical preservatives, colours, artificial fragrances & unnecessary fillers to reduce your overall chemical exposure. When we reduce these stresses on the body, it is better able to manage our immune response, and ALL of our bodily functions from mental health to proper cellular replacement and repair. There is not one single cell in your body that isn't affected by your thoughts, actions, daily care (or lack there of). Take care of your body and it will take care of you. The art & science of 'aromatherapy' go far beyond just good smells. Making essential oils a part of your daily life can bring so much good into your cells!
Spring time will soon be upon us. Longer days, more sunshine, warmer breezes and fresh greenery is soon to start showing. The late parts of winter and early parts of spring time a fabulous to time dedicate to renewing our body and our mind with dedication to self care. Dry brushing the skin once a week can be a helpful part of skin renewal. Following that with a nice bath or shower, then patting the skin dry and oil application can come next!
Having daily &/or weekly self-care practices can help to improve not only your skin and outward appearance, but can translate into better mental health, improved circulation, immunity & more. When you take time to establish and maintain good personal care, the benefits can extend well beyond your own personal health to that of your family’s health. When we become better at caring for ourselves, we are more likely to feel a sense of happiness and willingness to approach life with a sense of joy, and desire to care for and be with loved ones. These practices could be as simple as the daily face care routine you adopt, the once a week dry brushing you do before a bath, or going for a massage once a month, to an elaborate care routines that can be an integral part of each day that takes an hour or more - knowing what it takes to refill your well is important.
From a parental perspective, if your children see you caring for yourself and establishing good self care practices, then they learn what self care is, what benefits it has and hopefully will continue on in their own way to create their personal care routine as well. If you are constantly scrambling to “find' time, both you and they will continue to struggle to “find' time for practice.
If you actively choose to “make” time, this is a different thing all together. I know my family certainly appreciates how I’m a nicer, kinder and more pleasant person when I’m dedicated to the practices that help to refill my personal well. If I’m cranky, having a bad day or am just not thinking clearly, there are times when my family has openly said… “Maybe you should go do yoga or have a bath!?”… This is a very clear signal that they understand that I’m a different person when I return back from self practice.
When it comes to skin care and body practices nourishing the senses I highly encourage you to seek out natural products. Products that take advantage of the powerful therapeutic elements of pure essential oils, instead of synthetic fragrances that can be part of potential health problems down the line, even for those who are not currently “scent sensitive”. Choosing simple, natural & pure ingredients might be a bit more expensive up front than commercial mass produced products from the department store, or maybe comparable in price to designer mass produced products, but believe me, the benefits of pure products with simple ingredient lists will pay you back in the end. Reducing the chemical load on your body, helping support someone local or a smaller scale business and feeding your body inside and out, these are all great reasons to use small batch, locally made skin care.
