My New Fav Sunscreen

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In years past, I’ve recommended Colorescience Sunforgettable SPF 30 powder, which is a powdered form of titanium dioxide that is micronized (yet *not* a nanoparticle) and I’ve also blogged about Mission Essentials, whose sunscreen is locally made and produced… I still like both products and use them from time to time, but they both contain titanium dioxide.

In an effort to avoid titanium dioxide, I’ve kept up the search for the ultimate suncare cream.

 

I’ve found it.

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate in sunscreen:  Miessnce Reflect Outdoor Balm.

Why is it my fav?  It truly absorbs into my skin, leaves it only slightly white as opposed to thick and pasty white, and is made up ONLY of Zinc.

 

Woo hoo!!!!  I love love love it!

Alison Price, owner of OrganicGlow.com, is here to tell us more about why it’s the best sunscreen product available today:

 

The Miessence Reflect Outdoor Balm gold standard formulation is a whopping 22% microfine zinc oxide which offers protection from harmful rays while organic olive oil keeps the skin supple.

Potent antioxidants including natural vitamin E, beta carotene and polygonum extract, protect the skin from premature aging and prevent damage caused by the elements. Its a fantastically effective, broad spectrum sun blocker with no synthetic chemicals.

Environmental Working Group annually ranks the safety and effectiveness of 1700 SPF products and Miessence is consistently ranked in the Best Sunscreens list.

  • Non-nanoparticle zinc; Reflect uses micronized (physically crushed zinc minerals) that is 150 nanometers
  • Non-coated minerals; Reflect’s mineral zinc is not coated with aluminum compounds, silicone compounds or titanium dioxide
  • Creates a physical sunblock that bounces the sun’s harmful rays off of your skin, unlike chemical sunscreens that absorb rays

While you are shopping, check out our mineral foundations as well. At 25% zinc oxide, they provide up to 5x the amount of zinc oxide sun protection of other brands. Its awesome!

We also have the ongoing promo of 20% off orders of $150 and over, plus a free Organic Lifestyle Membership with that purchase that grants you 20% off all future purchases.

 

Thank you Alison!

Now I’ll just tell you upfront that sunscreen is not my number one recommendation for prevention of skin cancer.

Nor is it my second recommendation either.

No, I prefer to avoid peak sun hours and use sun protective clothing like rashguards, hats and sunglasses.

 

But man, when those beach waves are calling my name and I just gotta feel the sand between my toes… this is the sunscreen I use.  It is an investment in my health and the health of my children, so I go for it and use it liberally.

 

Here is a snippet from my Skin Happiness book that goes into the juicy details on sun protection… something I’ve wanted to share with you for a while:

 
I’ve grown up in a family that has been researching/discussing skin cancer ever since I can remember…  my father is one of the head scientists at the National Institutes of Health literally paving the way for melanoma research.
Discovering pathways and enzymes in the pigment cell that were previously undiscovered, my father *literally* wrote the book on pigmentation and melanoma.
Clearly, the dangers of ultraviolet exposure has shaped my life… traveling all around the world to attend scientific lectures on skin cancer with my father as the speaker of honor has impressed upon me not to ever take the damaging effects of the sun on our skin lightly.

And yet, as I made my own way through medical school and clinical practice… and then further as a natural minded mother… and even further understanding the spiritual laws of the universe… I began to see the flip side.  Not only how absolutely crucial the sun is to our existence, how healing light can be to our psychological well being, how vitally important Vitamin D is to our well-being… but also how downright toxic most sunscreens are to our bodies… I began to weigh seriously the real risks vs. benefits of avoiding the sun vs. sun exposure.

I spent several years researching this, and playing around with my gut feeling on the issue, honoring my *knowing* that I need to feel sun on my skin, with my “knowing” that only a few minutes of sun exposure begins to mutate the DNA in our cells, with potentially cancerous results.
Skin cancer being the most common cancer in our country (about half of all cancer cases), it’s not one to ignore.
So… not taking either side lightly, I have found my balance, the comfort zone I recommend to patients, and I’d like to share that with you here:
  • First, the bad news.  There are still not ANY sunscreen industry regulations issued by the FDA at all.  None.
  • Some chemicals in sunscreen (like the oils, petroleum products, and retinyl palmitate found in most sunscreens) have been shown to actually increase the rates of skin cancer lesions, when directly applied to the skin.  And yet they are liberally being used right at this very moment, pouring into bottles to stock on the store shelves for us to use this summer.  No regulation whatsoever.
  • On top of that, many of the chemicals in chemical blocking sunscreens are shown to disrupt our natural hormone pathways.  In fact, oxybenzone, the most COMMON chemical sunscreen used, has been shown to disrupt hormones and is *not* (repeat NOT) recommended for use in children.  That’s right.  Look at all the “kid’s formula” sunscreens out there… they all contain oxybenzone.  This chemical not only is a hormone-disruptor, but it is particularly well absorbed (which is why it is so commonly used) so applying to your skin it becomes internally absorbed within minutes.  Which means children, who are still growing, are getting systemic doses of hormone-disrupting oxybenzone circulating through their bodies on a daily basis, hour after hour, day after day, all summer long.  It’s horrifying.  Using a chemical sunscreen is (to me) worse than using no sunscreen at all.
  • More bad news… mineral based sunscreens are increasingly being made in nano-sized particles so that they blend into the skin better… and unfortunately, this means they can potentially be absorbed systemically as well. Even mineral based sunscreens like zinc or titanium dioxide are potentially toxic if they enter your body, so you want to be sure your product does not use nanoparticles.
  •  ALL sunscreens have a drawback.  All sunscreens (chemical and physical) effectively decrease your skin’s ability to manufacture Vitamin D.  You really can’t underestimate how important Vitamin D is… it has been shown to prevent cancers, strokes, heart disease, boost your immune system, strengthen bones, prevent osteoporosis, decrease mental disorders.  We need it.  Point blank.
  • Almost all of us in the Western *modern* world are vit D deficient.   If you don’t get daily sun exposure, take a Vit D supplement.  If you use sunscreen, take a Vitamin D supplement.  If you work inside or go to school all day long… you must take a Vitamin D supplement.  This is the Vit D supplement I recommend for adults, and this is the Vit D supplement we give to our children.
  • Also, sunscreens give the user a false confidence… at least with no protection, sunburn develops and gives us a common sense indicator to GET OUT OF THE SUN!  And to be much more careful next time!  With sunscreen use… all common sense is gone.  With no threat of a sunburn… sun exposure can continue on double and even triple the length of time that one would normally be in the sun.  Yikes.

But there is good news too.  Lots of different ways to protect your skin… you just have to play around with what time of day you go out in the sun and what different parts of your body you want to focus most on protecting.

  • That’s why my ultimate solution is that partial sun avoidance is infinitely better than sun protection.  Partial sun avoidance.  Meaning that I sun protect the portions of my skin that are routinely and repetitively exposed to sun (like my face and my scalp and my eyes and my shoulders) and I intentionally allow incidental sun exposure on alternating body parts… leaving them uncovered.
  • I also try to avoid the mid-day rays of the sun all together.
  • There was a huge investigational study that backs this up — even though it is pretty much common sense as well…  Sunscreen was third on the list in order of favored ways to protect yourself from sun damage and skin cancers.
  • The most important #1 way to protect from ultraviolet exposure is avoidance.  Avoid going out in the sun during the peak UV hours (midday.)
  • The second best way to protect from the sun, if you are going out in the peak hours and/or going to be out for many consecutive hours, is uv protective clothing.  Rash guards, hats, sunglasses.

  • The third?  That’s Miessence’s Reflect Outdoor Balm, my friends.   xoxo, Laura

PS — want more natural and holistic and sensible skin care advice?  From moisturization to exfoliation to nutrition and more?  Check out my Skin Happiness book right now!

Honey To Speed Wound Healing (and reduce scarring!)

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You already know I love honey to ease seasonal allergy symptoms… this pic shows the honey lollipops I love to make… and literally my son’s allergy complaints are non-existent this year.

And you know I scour the medical literature on your behalf to bring you all the positive, uplifting, cutting edge and natural health advice possible… (like how chocolate is great for brain and heart health!  Yes sir!  Give me another!)

So I’ve got something else easy and natural that is proven to work, even in the cynical and cold/calculating world of medicine… honey stood up as a wound healing champ!

Findings that were recently published on April 12, 2012 in the International Wound Journal show that when honey was used on all types of wounds, it:

  • promoted healing
  • minimized necrosis
  • minimized the amount of skin that sloughed off the wound
  • reduced wound size
  • decreased affected area around wound

Not only did it help speed wound healing, but we aren’t talking in just a handful of wounds.  I’d be happy to use honey as a topical dressing even if it only had a small chance of helping… but it actually made a measurable improvement in over 84% of wounds!!!!

We are talking:

  • post operative wounds
  • general skin wounds
  • infections
  • burns
  • ulcers
  • pressure sores and more!

Honey has well-known antimicrobial benefits, doesn’t spoil, is easy to have on hand and is portable (no refrigeration required!) so it really makes perfect sense to use as a secondary wound dressing in children older than 12 months old.

First be sure to flush out any wound with lots of water… for a long period of time.  Then, depending on wound type you may consider a topical antihistamine, anti-inflammatory, or antibacterial dressing, and then honey.  Or maybe not, because honey does have those properties as well!  So for very minor wounds I would feel encouraged to go with deep cleansing and then honey as a dressing, and having deeper or larger wounds evaluated by a physician.

Because honey is so safe and so effective for so many different types of wounds… and because it speeds healing and decreases the amount of skin that is affected by the wound, I am pretty confident that honey would reduce the appearance of scarring as well.

So for post operative wounds or acne infections or stretch marks or injuries that you want to minimize scarring in… bring on the honey!

Sweet news, indeed!  xoxo, Laura

My attachment parenting bedtime storybook… and links to get your own right now!

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So do you have a little one you’d like to snuggle up with and read this story to?  Or do you know the perfect new parents who could use this positive, supportive book to help establish a nighttime routine?  Or do you have a baby shower to go to soon?  Or do you just love picture books?

  • Here is where you can get your copy on Amazon.com… and they ship free!
  • Here is where you can get your autographed copy straight from me… and I ship with love!

 

Thank you so much for checking out my latest children’s book… I’m really thrilled with it and especially love the hand painted artwork that I created and how it turned out on the pages… let me know what you think!  Oh, and if you purchase a book and feel moved to leave a review for it on Amazon, that would be amazing!!!

 

xoxo, Laura

Awesome idea… eco-friendly garden border

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This is such an amazing idea.  I love it, and can’t wait to get started on this in my own garden.

Living in the south I LOVE the bottle trees all over (so much so that I painted one!) and this is another cool way to extend that funky vibe along the border of your garden.  And bonus, it’s a great eco-friendly way to recycle your wine bottles and other glass bottles, and double bonus, create an artistic and unique garden edging for FREE!!!!

So whether you love this because if the beauty of it, or because of the eco-friendlyness of it, or because of the cost-effectiveness of it, you just can’t lose.

I first heard of this idea from Melanie, so I invited her to stop by my blog today to share a bit about how she created hers.  These lovely images are from her own garden!

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“This is a simple project.  
  • First, collect the wine bottles.  
  • I took the gradual approach and collected a few at a time.  On the night before our neighborhood recycling pick up, my daughter and I would collect a dozen or so bottles from different houses.  Soon the word got out that we were collecting wine bottles and the empties were simply delivered to our door! 
  • Personally, I prefer the bottles without the labels, so I soaked the bottles and scraped the labels offer with a dull kitchen knife.  It’s fine to leave some adhesive goo behind, since it won’t show up in the ground.  Labels, however, seem to stay on forever.
  • Creating the garden border was easier than you’d think.  I dug an eight to six inch trench and stuck the bottles in the ground upside down.  I used the loose soil to adjust the depth of the bottles so that they ended up 3 – 4 inches above ground.  
  • Some height is nice, so you can actually see the bottles.  The more glass you have exposed, the more prone the glass is to breakage.  Even so, I’ve only broken one or two bottles in the 4 years since I installed the wine bottle border. It’s no big deal to replace the bottle.  
  • I like the look of the darker glass, but the lighter glass (from white wine bottles) encourages the growth of some stray plants inside them.
I think these look like tiny terrariums. 
  • You can be more precise than me, but I like the variety. All in all, it took me a couple of months to accumulate the bottles and only an hour or so to install. Enjoy!”
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Thank you so much for the inspiration, Melanie!!!!
Want some other fabbo reader ideas?
  1. Check out Diane’s idea of using a Rain Chain to collect free, fresh rainwater…
  2. and Natasya’s idea of using vertical space in your garden…
  3. and these fantastic garden eye candy ideas from Diane and Gabrielle, along with tips on organic gardening by Elania!
How is your garden growing, dear reader?  Mine is lush and at the very beginning stages of growing out of control!  A border around my herb garden is just the thing I need to work on right now, so this is perfect timing.
My corn is tall and crazy, my lettuce is bountiful, my carrots are still babies as are my melon and tomato plants… beans and peas growing growing growing… a pumpkin patch brewing in the corner… the only thing that was a total fail for me this year was my red pepper plants.  Any ideas why?  I’m not complaining… I’ve got a lot of good eating and canning ahead of me this summer!
                         Here is to a bountiful crop for all of us… xoxo, Laura

Empowered Birth Awareness, save the date!

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I was watching Good Luck Charlie the other evening with my daughter on The Disney Channel, and the mother of the sitcom went into labor as part of the plot line.

As predicted, the following scenes were full of screaming and panic.

I leaned over to my daughter and told her, like I have many many times before, that real birth is not like this. That giving birth to a baby is one of the most natural things we do as women, in fact, it is the reason that human being have survived on this planet in the first place!  Women successfully birth babies, and it is a wonderous thing.

The show made it into a very scary and very alarming ordeal to be desperately survived, not enjoyed. Yet, I said with absolute sincerity, if I could relive a day in my life and have the joy of experiencing it over again, the birth of each of my children would be in my top spot… followed by any time that I nursed… followed by dating my husband… followed by the rest of my life.

What you experience on the day that you give birth is nothing short of wonder and magic and awe and it is the closest most of us ever come on earth to witnessing a pure soul looking at you.

Being handed the soul of my daughter and the soul of my son right after I birthed them… well, there just aren’t any words.

And when we allow it to be, when we mentor our daughters to remind them that birth is not something to fear but something to celebrate… that birth isn’t experienced as pain but instead as a rite of passage… that birth is a meaningful journey that I would do over again in a heartbeat… we change the future for our daughters and for mankind.

Even if your birth experience was less than ideal, do you really want your children growing up only knowing about birth from the scary images seen in movies and on TV? I distinctly remember as a child being very afraid of having children and telling my mother I didn’t think I could ever do it.

That is laughable to me now because I know the truth is that becoming a mother is the only thing I am certain of that I have done well. But it wasn’t laughable to me as a young girl, it was horrifying.

I want more for my daughter. I want her to make a choice to become a mother out of joy and the desire to have a family if she wants one… not weighing fear and pain against outcome and nervously going forward with it despite her fears. That is what I did, but that is not at all what I want for our future generations.

So I ask you to save the date this Labor Day and all week afterwards… Sept 3rd through the 7th. This is Empowered Birth Awareness Week (EBAW) and is celebrated internationally. I blogged about it last year too, here.

If you have any way to contribute, either on your own blog or media outlet or in your own neighborhood or even just privately in your own home… perhaps lighting a candle or having an open discussion with your own daughter, please do.

 

I would like to make a small contribution of a give away: five archival quality (200+ years without fading) professionall printed Giclee Art Prints of my original canvas artwork “Goddess Delivers”… a $250 value.

I painted this painting with lovely indigo and violet hues to reflect the sacred spiritual aspect of giving birth as well as to honor the woman’s own divine intuition.   As the goddess in the painting feels her body begin to ready for birth, she allows the waves of her contractions to lift her higher and higher in grace. Grounding to the earth, she steadies herself physically by rooting her feet into the edge of the massive ocean, feeling her connection to the earth spiral and swirl, mixing into each oncoming series of waves. 

 

Turning her gaze upwards, she connects with the joy of the souls, loved ones who gather in celebration all around her, as she feels the soul of her child coming into its own with love, happiness, and eager anticipation of life.

Riding the crescendo of contractions that come to her aid and help her deliver her child, she raises her arms in welcome of the surrender she is experiencing and the rhythm of this precious event. 

 

Here is to all the light workers, birth workers, doulas, midwives, woman and children who experience the divine in childbirth every day.

 

 

  • If you would like to support EBAW, please forward this post to your friends and family, and find out more on Barbara’s website here and on her FB page here.

 

  • If you would like to enter the giveaway for a print of Goddess Delivers, leave a comment below!

 

  • I will re-post this again in September during EBAW, and you can leave a second comment on that blog post as well to be entered two times to win!

 

xoxo, Laura