Cleaning Up My Act....And My Skin

Let me start by saying that this post is late by my standards. I had hoped to get this written before Thanksgiving in case some of these great companies had Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. And some of them did. So I'm sorry to have not gotten this out in time for you to check out sales, but these products are worth it, even at full price. I promise.

Let me also say that I am not getting paid to write this and I did not receive any of these products free to write about. I paid for these with my own money and just want to share about them because I love them.

Let's start with an overview picture of what we'll be talking about, shall we?

Yep, this is it. This is my personal care stash. I love every single one of these products because of how well they work, but I love them even more because they don't contain any yucky stuff. And most of them support small businesses, which is huge!

If you are looking at cleaning up your skin care/personal care, I hope you will look into a few of these products. I promise, you won't be disappointed.

I'm going to break it down by brand. I may use more than is pictured, but for the sake of this blog, I'll keep it to only what I have a picture of at this time. :)

BRANDLESS: 

If you are looking to start incorporating some more natural items into your personal care/skin care routine, I suggest looking at Brandless. All of their products are THREE DOLLARS OR LESS! You may love some of the items and not like some of them, but for $3, I feel like it is worth giving a shot, especially if you aren't sure about changing all your products just yet. 

The items in the picture are the items I fell in love with from my first order. The toothpaste is a little sweeter than I was expecting so it took some time to get used to, but it is nice and does a great job. The night cream smells absolutely amazing and makes your skin feel great. The nail clippers at the top of the picture come as a set for $3 and they are excellent. We have broken a few pair of nail clippers in this house and I can tell you already that these are going to be able to last. The facial scrub is amazing for a good exfoliation every few days. It is a grapefruit scrub and doesn't have all the gross ingredients (research it if you need to) that some of those big name brand scrubs have. And those cuticle clippers are amazing, especially if you are someone who picks at their hangnails (like me). 

I will tell you that there were a few products I did not like. The shampoo left my hair feeling too dry. The conditioner was nice, but the smell didn't mesh well with anything else I use so I have stopped using that on my hair. We still occasionally use it on my daughter's hair, though. And the daily moisturizer was the worst for me. Because it doesn't have any gross stuff in it, there was no fragrance to cover the smell of the ingredients and the smell is terrible. But like I said a few times, everything was only $3 so I wasn't out much when I didn't like something. 

And the website has way more (including food and home items) on their website that I haven't tried. Check their website out. You can get $9 off your first order if you use this link as well. 

NORWEX:

You've probably heard of Norwex before for home cleaning items. I know that I started using their towels around the house a few years ago and haven't looked back, but I just recently checked out their body cloths and body balm and I am hooked. 

I use a body cloth to wash my face every single day and every single night. Because the cloths have silver in them, you can use them multiple times before you need to wash them. How many times you can use them before washing is obviously going to depend on how much product and make-up you use, but I can usually get a whole week out of one cloth. It will remove make-up, but they also sell make-up removing cloths that I've heard do an even better job at that. It's really nice to know that all I need to do is get this little cloth wet and wash my face. No crazy steps at all.

And this body balm is amazing. I get super dry patches of skin, especially now that the weather is getting colder. This stuff works wonders. I have tried all kinds of lotions (even some of those super fancy or medicated ones) and nothing works as good as this does. I just apply it directly to the spots and within a couple days, I don't even know that they were there. Seriously amazing stuff! 

This is one brand that I use more products from and I may talk about those in a different post, but I wanted to make sure to keep this one pretty focused on skin care/personal care. If you have a Norwex consultant already, feel free to contact them about these great products, but if you don't have one and want to check them out, you can look through my consultant's website here.

ARBONNE:

This is the newest brand to be added to my personal care routine, but is the brand I have known the longest. I actually used to sell these products over 10 years ago, but walked away because of a move overseas. 

I love this brand and everything they stand for. They have a long list of ingredients they refuse to use in their products right on their website so you can rest assured that they stand behind their clean product guarantee. They also have a couple charities that you can support just by purchasing certain products, which is a huge win-win for everyone! 

In the picture you see the RE9 Advanced Prepwork Soft Focus Veil and Hydrating Dew Cream. I was a bit skeptical of the soft focus veil originally, but I am super glad I gave it a shot. My skin color is very hard to match for a CC Cream, but I still wanted something to help cover up any redness I might be having. This does a great job. I was also worried that the small tube would run out super quick, but I feel like I have barely even put a dent into after using it for a little over a month. The Hydrating Dew Cream feels amazing. It's just dewy enough when you are putting it on so you know you aren't missing a spot, but it quickly just soaks into your skin to give your skin a very nice, natural glow. 

And then we have the FC5 Daily Shampoo and Conditioner. Again, I was super skeptical of these. Mostly because I had tried another brand of natural shampoo and conditioner and hated it. Man am I glad I gave these a shot. They do not disappoint. A bit of warning though, a little goes a long way with these two. Just trust me on this. 

There are so many great products I could share with you from Arbonne (nutrition, beauty, skin care, etc), but I'll leave it to these four products for now. Like Norwex, if you have an Arbonne consultant already, please contact them about checking these out. If you don't have one and are interested in these products, this girl right here would love to help you out.

And they have a great return policy if you wind up not loving their items. It really is risk-free to check out what they offer. :)

NATIVE DEODORANT:

First things first, let me apologize for this picture. I know it is not the best looking one, but I wanted to show you the scents that I have in my own house. 

I decided about a year ago that I was tired of rubbing regular deodorant on my armpits. I could go on and on about why this is, but I will spare you that information since there are a ton of other people posting about it on the internet. You're welcome. 

Anyways, I knew I needed to try something and turned to my trusty Facebook friends to give me recommendations. After looking at a few brands, I chose Native because they have a sensitive line that does not include baking soda. I didn't know if I would have a reaction to baking soda, but I decided why chance it if I don't need to. 

And I am still using the Native sensitive line today because it works so great and smells amazing. They have many more scents than what is pictured here, but these three come in a set for a bit of a discount. The two that have scents in this set smell so lovely and the scent lasts all day without being overpowering at all. If you sweat a lot and are looking for something to keep that from happening, you may want to look elsewhere, but if you are just looking for something to cover up your sweat smell, this is going to work great for you! Even after my toughest workouts, I don't smell sweaty because of this stuff. 

With free shipping and free returns, you really can't go wrong giving this company a try. You can even get a free mini-deodorant by using this link.

HOPE-N-DREAMZ

Let me start off by saying that I debated sharing this company or not. Not because their products aren't amazing (they really are), but because they are a local company to me. If you are in my area, please check these guys out. If you aren't in my area, look around your area for a local soap maker. They are usually more than worth the money. 

This is a small sample of what they sell at vendor shows around the area. If you are local, you can keep an eye out on their Facebook page here to see where they are. You can also send them a message if you are looking for a specific item. 

Our kids love the bath bombs you see in the picture. We have tried five different scents and they are all amazing, but the Frooty Pebbles one is definitely a favorite around here. The scents of the soaps can not be beat either. Since everyone has different likes when it comes to scents, I won't go so far as to recommend any, but you can see our favorites in the picture above. ;) We just started trying out the sinus relief steamers and they are great. They are less potent in the shower so if you need a good dose of help, I recommend putting one (or maybe even half of one) in a bowl of hot water for you to lean over with a towel over your head. This will definitely help clear those sinuses for you. 

The beer shampoo in the picture is something I don't use, but my husband swears by. I need way more conditioning than he does, but my husband loves it and uses it daily. 

Not only are we supporting local by using this company, but we are also reducing our waste since everything is packed with minimal packaging and we aren't using any plastic bottles. 

Again, this is is a local company to us and while I am sure that they would be willing to products, I bet you can also find a similar company near you so that you can support local. :)

Welp, that's it. These are the products that I use to body, face, and hair clean. I hope that you have enjoyed this blog and I hope that you will give some of these companies a chance. Let me know in the comments if you have any other products or brands, I should try out. :)