My Mother's Beauty Cabinet

Growing up, probably like every teenager, I began to think my mom was crazy.. well in my defense, she was a little and I'm pretty sure she'd agree. My mom was a hippie when hippies were cool and she has carried that nature with her ever since. But on top of being down to earth and quite eccentric my mom had a growing love for health and healthy living. This lead to countless questions, as I grew up, about what was in my lunchbox and why was I back in school a day after having strep throat feeling much better and WHAT NOT ON ANTIBIOTICS!?!?! (thank you mom for not explaining to me that now the world thought I was a walking virus!!) But that is a subject for another blog. Today I am here to discuss aging and beauty.

As I near my 30's my happy go lucky outlook on aging is harder to keep. I used to say whole hardheartedly that I didn't dread aging. That gray hair was beautiful and wrinkly skin told a story of laughter and smiles and yes some hardships. But as I look around I see less and less people aging gracefully and I look in the mirror and am sad to think one day, no matter what I do, this face will look drastically different. There is no stopping aging or death for that matter. Modern medicine and technology tries everything they can to stall this process but there is no cure. So we are better off embracing it and vow to do our best to take care of our bodies the best we can while we have them. On that note, there is nothing wrong with doing what we can, to help our bodies, especially our faces, age more gracefully.

I look at my mom today and finally see what all the many people in our past have seen. Damn woman you look amazing for your age and SEVEN kids!!!!! I'm mean just look at this face!

My Mom in 2007 at age 49

Isn't she beautiful??!! I think it is also important to note that at 19 my mom was in a horrible car accident where glass cut and was embedded all over her face. If you ask she can point out a few of the scars but for how horrible it was there is basically no sign of it now. 

Sadly a year after this picture was taken I saw both my parents age years in just a few months after the tragic death of my brother. While my mother's skin is still flawless there is a heaviness there that I've never seen before. She still looks beautiful and younger than her years by the way!!! (but that's the beauty of the face/eyes they are a road map to all the places you have been, good and bad).

So how has my mom maintained such brilliant, almost wrinkle free skin???? While she may have a few more tips then I have here, here are the things that I have seen my mother always slathering her body with. 

Number 1: Oil!!! specifically wheat germ or olive oil are what my mom uses. I personally don't like smelling either on my skin but the key point is oil. The main reason we wrinkle is because with age our bodies stop producing natural oils, specifically Vitamin E. Have you ever noticed that ethnicities with generally more oily skin don't wrinkle as much!!??! (oh you African American woman how I envy you in so many ways- born to dance, sing and never have wrinkles!!) So since I'd rather not smell like something you're about to cook I am sticking with Coconut oil and Vitamin E

Number 2: Face Soap???!! While I've seen my mom wash her face, I have no clue with what. That's because it is not part of her routine and she definitely does't use any store bought chemically laden crap (sorry this is a new frustration of mine) A quick rinse with some water or some grape seed wash and you're good to go. 

Number 3: This stuff!! Aztec Secret Indian Healing Clay. Never heard of it??!! Well welcome my friend to one of the most rewarding yet irritating beauty secrets. This stuff is AWESOME and yet I don't use it as often as I'd like, cause it does take some time to dry and to wash off and my son insists on asking me every 2 minutes "what's on your face mommy" But every time I use it, I think I really need to do this more often. My mom has used this since I can remember. Green face and all walking around the house. She used to put it on us kids (directions recommend using it for the whole family) and we used to lay under a fan trying to make each other laugh so that the clay would crack and stretch as it dried (ouch!) I think this goes hand in hand with the not washing your face daily. Your body needs to keep it's natural oils, yes, but sometimes you just need a clean slate and all that gunk pulled out of there. 

          

                                                                                                     (Me with clay mask on)

Number 4: Dry Skin brushing. Among these many benefits Dry Skin Brushing helps the inevitable toxins to circulate like they are supposed to and hopefully not end up as often in your face

                       

Number 5: Eating Healthy and Drinking lots of water (my moms favorites are to add lemon juice or raw Apple Cider Vinegar to her water) . Isn't this the cure for everything!!?? These days it's so hard to know if you are eating healthy, even if you are trying to shop wise. I find myself making more and more of everything from scratch just cause I'm so tired of reading labels and being unsure if I remember if that ingredient was ok or not. In general if you try to eat mostly raw unprocessed foods, organic and GMO free if you can, you are pretty well covered. Our bodies are actually pretty amazing things and are designed to get rid of foreign bodies and toxins, it's just this overload of toxins and cells our bodies can't recognize that end up hurting us. Today there are hundreds of Natural diets out there and they are great stepping stones and guidelines for people. But part of taking care of our bodies is making sure that we have enjoyment in our lives. We don't have to over indulge but if sticking too, lets say, a Paleo or Vegan diet stresses you out, don't do it!! Don't eat a pint of ice cream a day either, just cause it makes you happy, but my philosophy on everything in life is BALANCE IS EVERYTHING. Take for instance water, one of the best things for your body right? Well yea but if I decided to drink 5 Gallons of water in one sitting it would be like poison to my body. You can't go around being scared to breath because the air is polluted (did you know the air inside your home is often more polluted than the air outside!?) This world is not perfect and there is no way to escape all evils but the more we try to keep the evils on the lower end the better off we will be.

Number 6: Multi Vitamins. My mom will tell you how to eat healthy all day long and then she will tell you the importance of vitamins. Sadly no matter how great the food or how healthy the body our bodies just are more often not able to get all the nutrients they need solely through our food anymore. So invest in your future and find a quality every day vitamin and take it.

Number 7: and this is general, use as many natural cosmetic products as possible. You will rarely see my mom with makeup and she'd probably tell you to invest in something made with natural ingredients. You will never see my mom put on aluminum laden deodorant!! I've got an awesome homemade recipe for that!! ( I will share on another post of all my homemade recipes that I have been working on). And generally anything else she puts on her body smells like earth or maybe lavender or sage. 

Number 8: Exercise.. yea yea yea .. we all here it but that's because it's true! We all know the benefits to exercise but do you take into account that it is great for your skin? Pushing all those toxins out helps it to not store up in places like your face. It tones your muscles and skin, gives you a natural glow and produces endorphins  that keep you uplifted and those worry wrinkles at bay! And probably more!! So get up and get moving! 

The important thing to take from all of this is that there is no one way. I am still working on intruding all natural soaps and products into my life. It's neither easy nor cheap but my mom is proof that the more natural way does result in gracefully aging. So will you join me as I slather my body with oil and sit at the computer typing away while the clay slowly dries and tightens around my lips??!! I hope so! and then we can all enjoy as we stare into the mirror at age 50 and think "damn I look hot!"

a Motherhood

As a little girl I never was the type to day dream about my future husband or even my wedding day. I didn’t even start thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up until late in middle school and when I did all I knew for sure is that I wanted to work with children. However, I did day dream about my future children and what kind of mom I would be. I thought about how I would make every little moment of their lives special with crazy lunches and snacks when they came home and experiences of fun and traveling. To be honest in all my day dreams there was never a husband, well there was but I never imagined him. I don’t know really how common or rather uncommon this is for other woman but I do feel out of touch watching Bridal shows, which I love, when the woman say this is what they imagined since they were a little girl. Brides aside, my point here is that it was in my bones to be a mother and now that the chaos of a newborn and the whirlwind the first two years creates on your body, mind and marriage is calming down I am finally able to find my true joy and contentness in being a mother. Don’t get me wrong I felt joy the second I held my son for the first time and every time I looked at his sweet face since that day. But parenthood is HARD ( I feel like I should bump up the font size to 100 for that word). It is! And there is no way of day dreaming the Happiness or Frustration that raising a child brings to your life. You just have to do it! In any case I find myself here with an amazingly smart yet stubborn Toddler rolling on the floor laughing hysterically and awing at the wonder in front of me and the next minute suppressing my inner Hulk and trying not to punch a hole in the wall because I am just too overloaded. But looking back I love every minute of it and would rather be here staying at home with my son then any of my 50 other life’s ambitions. However, at the end of the day, even if I’ve sat on the sofa chatting with another Mom for half of it, I am more exhausted then when I used to work and go to school full time. Sometimes I feel guilty that I am not doing more as my husband slaves away in the Hot sun or Freezing cold for 10-12 hours a day just so he can provide for us and while I’d love to use my degree I worked so hard for and am paying out the woohoo for I can’t drag myself away from this instinctual drive inside of me. This is me! This is where all my talents come together for one purpose, to be a MOM. Not just any Mom but one my children will one day be proud of and hopefully want to be like. The best Mom that God and me can be. Maybe I should say that again, the best Mom that God and me can be! God revealed this truth to me recently and I can’t tell you how much burden it released from my shoulders. I could never be the mom of my dreams without God giving me the energy, the wisdom, the love and the patience that I need, because all my own stuff runs out within an hour of my son waking up. But with God by my side I can have a restart any time I need it, and trust me I do a lot of restarts and find myself apologizing to my son  a LOT. But that is part of being imperfect, being human and what matters most is that your whole heart and soul  are in the game and that you are doing everything you can to raise good hearted wholesome individuals who have the tools to provide for themselves a healthy and happy life. Beyond that life is out of our control and we have to realize and come to terms with the fact that all of this effort and intention may be for not but if it isn’t then we’ve truly lived. In the end, or rather a new beginning, I find myself with a new consciousness about my life as a Mother, and a wife for that matter, and excited to see where this journey will lead me, my husband and most importantly my children.

Motherhood- where you totally lose yourself and then find yourself all over again.