Akoma Natural Skincare

Mood-boosting tips

 

1) Go for a walk

 

Walking is a great way to boost your mood and it also a great way to lose weight and improve overall health.

 

Going outdoors for a walk has been proven to boost your mood, the natural light stimulates the brain to produce serotonin that helps lift your mood.

 

 

 

2) Go to bed early

 

Late nights can cause a problem if you are getting less sleep than you need, this can increase anxiety, tension, and sadness.

 

Studies have shown that lack of sleep reduces emotional and physical well-being, reduces optimism, and even contributes to the onset and worsening of physical pain.

 

How you can help yourself:

 

1. Try to go to bed 30 minutes earlier every night
2. Make your bed a restful haven. Splurge on good pillows. Also consider treating yourself to soft sheets
3. Try drinking milk or a relaxing herbal tea to help you fall sleep more easily

 

3) De-clutter your space

 

It’s harder to relax when you look around and there are bills and papers around you. Organizing your home and office is a really good way to help boost your emotional health. Having things in order can actually calm anxiety and some people even seem to find cleaning therapeutic.

 

How you can help yourself:

 

1. Each weekend, tackle a different area of your home or office.
2. Buy organizers to store your things in a neat, easily accessible way.
3. If you don’t have one already, consider getting a diary or notebook to help you organize your thoughts.
4. You can also make to-do lists (rather than memorize them) – it can really help to calm anxiety and checking off each task as you accomplish it provides a sense of fulfilment.

 

5) Consider aromatherapy

Aromatherapy involves the use of concentrated, aromatic plant oils called essential oils.

If you’ve never heard of it before, you may have seen it before in the form of naturally-scented bath salts, body lotions, and massage oils.

A study in found that people exposed to the scent of lavender or rosemary essential oils felt more content than people who didn’t use essential oils.

Try body lotions, massage oils, and bath oils.

 

Nina

 

Skin care Advice.

 

 

1.       Don’t wash your face too often.

 

I know how this sounds – particularly when our mothers probably told us otherwise. But washing your face too often can cause the skin to lose moisture. Make it two to three times a day – no more than that.

 

2.       Do not apply baby powder to heat rashes.

 

If you add baby powder before a rash occurs it can prevent rashes. But after a rash appears, baby powder only worsens symptoms by blocking pores.

 

3.       Regularly going to a sauna will not keep your skin healthy.

 

Too many trips to the sauna can lead to damage to veins leading to inflammation. Also, the heat can take away moisture from the skin and this will make you look older. So although it may feel like it cleanses your skin this is only the case if you use the sauna in moderation.

 

4.       Apply sunscreen as often as possible.

 

Applying sunscreen once before going out in sun is not enough, what is most important is the frequency of application. This is because the cream is washed off by water, sweat and various other factors. Apply your sunscreen often to really protect your skin.

 

5.       Wash your feet often when you have athlete’s foot.

 

Some people say not to wash feet with soap when you have athlete’s foot.  This is bad advice as the fungus that causes the disease is much more active under humid and hot weather. If you sweat a lot, then you should clean your feet often with soap and wear cotton socks to absorb the sweat.

 

6.       Do not dampen your feet with vinegar to treat athlete’s foot.

 

This urban myth recommends soaking your feet in vinegar to kills the germs. This method can cause chemical burns in many cases. Also, the acid can kill the good part of the skin that protects inner tissues from harmful substances and cause inflammation. We suggest you consult a doctor instead.

 

 

 

A bit of advice I found, hope it’s helpful.

 

 

Take care

 

Nina

A liquid black soap recipe..

 

I recently saw this liquid soap recipe on the internet and thought it might be nice to share it with you, so that you can give it a go, take a look…

 

 

2tbls of Chamomile Flowers
2tbls of Lavender Flowers
2 Cups of Distilled Water
2tbls of Hemp Seed Oil
1tbls of melted Shea Butter
 

First thing to do it make a tea with the herbs and let that sit so it is strong. You then need to add about 8ozs of African Black Soap, let this sit overnight. Next add oils and mix well. This mixture is great for moisturizing your body and hair.

 

 

Let us know if you try it yourself.

Take Care

Nina

 

 

 

I recently came across this image of an upside-down rainbow and thought that I would share it with you. The rainbow is apparently rather unsual – where as normal rainbows form when light penetrates raindrops and comes out the other side, this upside-down one is made when it bounces off ice crystals in high-level cirrus clouds, sending rays up towards the Sun. How amazing is that?  Well it made me smile.

Take care

Nina

The hard work that women do, particularly our mothers is often taken for granted. My feeling is that we should honour the hard work they do/have done for us.  So here I thought I would send my regards to all those hard working women and share a beautiful poem…

 

 

Womens Work by Maya Angelou

 

Dani Minogue gives up her botox injections.  The 38 year old Australian singer, who is  a judge for the UK’s X-Factor TV show, has had many comments made about her face being expressionless as it doesn’t appear to smile or show emotion.

 

 

Minogue has said that she has taken the comments on board and is going to stop her Botox injections and go for a more natural look.

 

 

She said:

 

“For the X Factor is it actually quite useful to be able to have facial expressions!”

 

 

Perhaps the tide is now turning – back to good old natural skincare treatments.  Perhaps we should send her some Shea Butter. Lets hope this is will see many stars following her example and ditch these treatments for healthier skincare treatments.

Nina

 

John Hughes an American director passed away over the weekend. His films include The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Home Alone.  He was only 59.

 

His films have had a great impact on our generation and we have continued to watch them as we grown older. His passing might not seem to have anything to do with skincare but, for the generation that watched these films they did have style.  Style and skincare are not that far apart, so I hope you don’t mind that I pay tribute to John Hughes here.

 

I’ll leave the post with a quote from Ferris Bueller

 

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

 

- Ferris Bueller.

 

Take care

Nina

Weddings and Soap making.

I’m off to my sisters wedding this weekend. So I looked up weddings and soap on google - I know I seem to be able to talk about nothing else today! But a lovely nice soap makes me happy (it’s the little things). I stumbled across another make your own.

 

 

For the tutorial below, they use 3lbs shea butter  and 2 tablespoons sweet almond oil as the scent.  They also added 1 tablespoon natural brown pigment and almond grit for exfoliation.  You can find other ingredients and experiment.

 

You can buy your own mould or cut your own rustic shaped bars  which takes a lot less time and is cheaper.

 

The above image is of 3 lbs of shea butter. Cut it up into little chunks to speed up the melting process if you like. This is optional though.

So put your shea butter into your pot and start cooking! the butter will eventually start to melt. Make sure you stir often to break up any clumps that form – this is why cutting it up beforehand pays off. It is harder to stir a huge old block of solid soap.

 

Once it is fully melted and liquid, stir in any colouring and then add your essential oils. Finally you pour it into your pre-oiled mold if you are using the plastic molds – here they used olive oil. If you are using a wax paper lined box of some sort there is no need to oil, obviously.

 

Leave it about 24 hours so you can be sure they are fully hardened.

If you are cutting bars, use a very sharp knife, not serrated. You can score them lightly and use a ruler to make sure you have uniform bars.

Here are examples wrapped in parchment paper and natural cotton twine and also in little natural cotton cloth pouches and tied with some wool yarn! Be sure to include “handmade by ….” on your wedding favor soap tags so your guests know you made it yourself!

 

 

Another quick note - make sure you pick a scent you love, even having the soap around may scent your reception area! (which would be lovely) After your wedding, the scent will always remind you of your wedding day too.

Many thanks to do-it-yourself-weddings.com for theses instructions.

Take Care

Nina

While we are on the theme of soap…

Nina