04 October 2006

Spring Cleaning time. “Oh go away!!”

Cleaning with Aromatherapy.

Eucalyptus Essential Oil
Use in a vapouriser to repel or kill insects
Blend with Lemon and lavender Essential oils to create an invigorating air freshener
Use directly on stubborn stains such as sticky gum residue from price stickers

Lavender Essential Oil
When vapourised, makes an effective insect repellent
Wipe all internal cupboard surfaces with Lavender to deter moths and silverfish and act as a natural disinfectant
Combine 1 tablespoon of Lavender essential oil with 1 litre of water in a spray bottle to mist over carpets to quickly dispatch fleas
Wipe window frames and doorframes with Lavender to keep flies, moths and mosquitoes and ants away
Add a few drops of lavender to your final rinse when washing clothes

Lemon Essential Oil
Use in a vapouriser to remove strong cooking odours
Mix Lemon together with vinegar and water to clean window and glass
Add 1 drop of lemon to a warm water when washing out the fridge, freezer of oven for a natural deodoriser
Use I drop of lemon directly on a cloth when wiping down work surfaces, cupboards, sinks and tiles

Peppermint Essential Oil
Use a trail of Peppermint essential oil where ants appear, they detest the smell or if the surface is painted, put the oil on a cotton wool ball and place in an appropriate corner.
Use a few drops of peppermint essential oil in warm water to rinse out rubbish bins around the home, for a pleasant and anti bacterial aroma.

Clean Kitchen Bench: 8 drops of Lavender Essential oil, 10 drops of Lemon Essential oil, 5 drops of Eucalyptus essential oil. Keep in a dark bottle, stored away form light and heat. Great disinfectant and anti-bacterial and leaves a beautiful aroma. Use it diluted in water for all kitchen surfaces, including the floor, or just spray all around for a fresh clean kitchen

Window Cleaner: 100ml colourless vinegar, 100 ml water and 5 drops of Lemon Essential oil. Mix the water and vinegar in a mist bottle, add the Lemon oil. Spray the windows or glass with a fine mist then polish with a soft dry cloth.

Refreshing Spring Vapouriser blend: To help you get through those spring cleaning chores, vapourise the following blend in your oil vapouriser. 2 drop Eucalyptus Essential oil, 1 drop peppermint Essential oil, and 3 drops of lemon Essential oil

Skin cleansing for Spring:
Here some simple, natural, low cost and homemade cleaners, scrubs and masks. To make your own face/body scrub, try this ground some almonds or apricot kernels, mix with honey and your face cream). For a great masque to draw out impurities try mixing dry yeast with witch hazel and a couple of drops of peppermint extract or oil. Witch Hazel is a great natural toner. Almond oil or Apricot kernel oil can be used as gentle cleansers for your face as well as massage or adding to your bath to moisturise the skin.
Now, inside our bodies could do with a Spring Clean too. The best place and most important place to start is with the colon. Visit your Naturopath or local Health Food Store and ask for a quality fibre blend. This will aid in bowel regularity, scouring the intestinal walls, and ridding the body of toxins.
Acid foods

Some foods can cause the nerves to fire off and other foods help calm down the nervous system. You probably know of someone who is always fidgety, talks and thinks faster than most other s. They seem to try and get 16 things done at once and although they do get some done they often take on too much. They sleep on the edge of sleep and wake feeling unrefreshed. The speed at which they go and the stamina they seem to have can make you feel tired just watching them and in fact they get cranky because you’re too slow at the job. These people have a high level of acidity in the tissues of the body.

The pH of the blood has a very small range and the body will adjust it by buffering any change. But which foods affects the blood level is quite different from what you may expect through your taste buds.

A Pineapple taste acidic to the tongue and when it hits an empty stomach some people can really feel it burning. It digests and is taken by the blood to the cell, the cell takes the energy form the pineapple and throws the rubbish back into the bloodstream. Surprisingly the waste of pineapple is alkaline. On the other hand meat or porridge or cheese creates an acidic waste. In fact neatly all fruit and vegies have an alkaline effect and almost everything else has an acid effect. The problems come when the acid forming foods dominate the diet.

So check what you eat. If you have cereal, toast and coffee for breakfast, it’s all acid forming. A sandwich for lunch is a hoax for the body. Would you really be full on just the salad that is in between the 2 slices of bread? The bread is a filler, offers little nutrition and is acid-forming. Add a muesli bar or the like and at least 60% of lunch is acid. Look at the snacks you eat. Anything out of a package is acid-forming. Ideally we need 80% of what we eat to be fruit and veg and only 20% being everything else.

Start the day with vegetable juice such as carrots, beetroot and added barley grass powder. Make sure you daily diet includes 2 pieces of fruit. Have salad for lunch with a small amount of nuts or meat or soup with wholegrain or legumes. For dinner aim for vegies being 80% of all you eat. Do this and you will feel calmer and brighter, sleep better and have a lot more energy.