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:

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.

• 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 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!

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

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

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!

 ***********************************************

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

This is a book I not only wrote and illustrated, but I lived.

Though parenting books written by Dr. Sears and other attachment parenting leaders are full of advice on co-sleeping, there isn’t one single picture book that you could read aloud to your child about the natural beauty of sleep sharing.

Until today.

This book is gentle and beautiful and peaceful… filled with hand painted images of people and animals all around the world… animals in nature in every habitat sleeping in groups and litters and clans and packs.  And all over the world, people sharing sleep with their littles… in apartments and neighborhoods and villages and tents and RV’s and more… it is one of the most natural and effortless things for us mammals to do but something that doesn’t get illustrated often.

My favorite part of the book is that in the back of the book there is a letter from me, Dr. Laura talking a bit more about how sleep time is soul time, a time to integrate the days events, release them, and renew.

Nighttime can be a time for soul connections and for growth.  It is a very active time and the perfect time to nurture your little one.  Beyond co-sleeping, there are lots and LOTS of ways to nurture a nighttime bond with your child… there are lots of other great ideas for new parents and seasoned parents alike who would like some creative ideas on how to ease the nighttime transition and make the most out of the special time we have with our children at night.

Ideas that you can use right away, to start easing your nighttime routine into a time of peace and connectedness for your child.

As I wrote in my blog post about painting the images for the book:  (where you can see a sneak peek of the cover being painted…)

“No, you don’t have to share the same bed to foster a nighttime connection with your littles.  There are lots of things you can do as a parent to make sure nighttime is a time to reinforce your family bonds and help your little one feel secure as they sleep.

Restorative sleep is so important to the cuties who are growing and learning all day long… allowing their bodies to fully relax and their brains to cement the neuronal connections they’ve made during the day ensures that the next day begins as a fresh start, a new platform on which to leap forward.  Part of falling into that deep restorative sleep involves creating a safe and supportive sleep arrangement that benefits everyone.  It doesn’t have to be in the same bed, or even in the same room, although it could be.  In my book I talk about my very favorite ways to strengthen a nighttime bond with your child, regardless of where you sleep.

It’s not about sleep.  It’s about connection.

After all, night-time is soul time.

This is a great book to support any parent who seeks to strengthen their child’s restorative sleep and is a lovely picture book to read to every baby.   All babies intuitively love to see pictures of animals snuggled up as a family and people snuggled up with their children. This book fills a much needed void in the gentle world of heart centered parenting.“

I’ll be sharing more details with you next week about how you can get on of the very first edition, hand signed books directly from me!  Stay tuned… xoxo, Laura

PS — the winner of last weeks Intuition Card Deck drawing is…. drum roll… Gabrielle!!!  Congrats Gabrielle, my son picked your name!  I’ll be sending you the card deck this week!

These intuitively based cards are so positive, sweet and uplifting that you would have fun doing these with your children, your spouse, on your own… even with your pet!  The real gem of these cards is in the included Guiding Signs 101 Guidebook, which is where you look up the deeper meaning behind the card that you (or your child, or your spouse, or your pet…) has selected.

I was so impressed with how thoughtful and well written the card suggestions are… you can go as light or as deeply as you’d like to go with it.

If you want to leave room for your own intuitive interpretation, you can just read the little poem that accompanies each card to get a general feeling for what the card represents, then open to your own intuitions as you work it into your own personal context.  For those that want a bit more directions, there is a “Deeper Meaning” section that gives you a full passage about each card, and what I love about them is that they are all extremely positive and full of gentle suggestions and analogies to help you really get to the deeper meaning in the card.  Lastly, there is also a small list of question prompts that you can ask yourself about the card you have drawn, to give you some direction to the day or a thought point for reflection in your meditative times.

One of the things I loved most, beyond the thoughtfulness and sheer positivity of the guidebook, is how sturdy the cards are and the larger size.  The quality of this card deck surpasses most that I’ve seen.  The cards and large and simple, with bright graphics that immediately make me think this would be a super fun, powerful tool to share with children… so I highly recommend all the parents out there considering this as a wonderful parenting tool to help teach your little ones about intuition and how to have FUN and PLAY with how you would like to intend and create your day, or for problem solving, or for any way you can think of!

I love how the entire feel of the deck is positive and joyful… nothing in here that is negative or heavy in any way.  I love the safe feeling these cards give to the user.

The author and creator of the card deck and guide book, Kathleen Plant McIntire, is the founder of MoonBear Sanctuary in norther California.  She specializes in leading women’s retreats to sacred places all over the world and put her intention of transformation, empowerment, and healing into creating Guiding Signs 101.  I thought it was also very interesting that the artist Erin Cote (of www.ULaughAlot.com) is a play and laughter therapist and brings Laughter Therapy to businesses and hospitals… she is definitely a “feel good” soul!  I can feel this intention in the card deck very clearly.

Kathleen stopped by my blog to tell us a little more about how and why she created this tool:

“My very first inspiration for Guiding Signs came about 10 years ago while I was living in London and teaching a course on creativity, using the book The Artists Way as a backbone for the class.  At one point we were working on intuition and synchronicity and I realized that most of the women in my course were corporate wives who didn’t really “get” these concepts.  I asked what would be an easy and fun way to help people really understand intuition and synchronicity and I immediately received an answer, like a download from the universe.  I was instantly shown how everyone knows road signs and what they mean. Just as the signs on the road guide our driving I could clearly see that they could help people in understanding the signs that continually show up in our lives.  We just need to remember to pay attention and also to listen.

Using the Cards to Create the Cards: My first step in creating Guiding Signs 101 was to find a gifted and inspired artist who shared my vision to bring my idea to life. I created two cards that were merely a green circle (to symbolize yes) and a red circle (to symbolize no). I asked the cards about working with the first person who came into my consciousness; my friend Erin Cote. I got a Green light. Later I had the idea that I should instead work with a professional artist with a well-established reputation. Each prospective artist I asked about–no matter how many times I would ask–revealed a Red Light. And every time I checked back about working with Erin, it would be a Green Light. As you can see, from the very beginning, I valued and listened to the guidance from the cards.

Together, Erin and I knew that the cards were already created on another plane, and we were simply listening for guidance and direction. It was the future–where they already existed–that drew us toward them.  Our job was not to “create” them. Our job was to open ourselves so we could be a portal for what wanted to come through. Our job was to listen with our heart’s ears. Yes, the ears of our heart! It is no accident that the word ear is in the word heart. We held a trust that the universe would deliver the perfect answers and direction to us.

Energy of joy, love and fun:  The energy that has gone into the cards has been one of joy, love and fun. We allowed ourselves to be in a state of wonder, curiosity, and service to humanity. We discovered being in a playful state is a great way to access ultimate, free-flowing creativity. We set intentions to play while creating them as we knew that play naturally brings us to the creative right side of the brain. Erin lead us in silly playful exercises that would make us laugh. Or I would have us move energy through our bodies by being fierce and getting into our warrior selves. This would also get us grounded and connected to the present moment.

We discovered a greater part inside of us that knows far more than our mere minds! We realized how many things are created through striving and effort, often resulting in a negative energy running between the people doing the creating.  It was important to us for the creation of every aspect of the cards to be done through love and joy and getting ourselves out of the way so we could listen with our innate intuition, with our hearts.  We had such a beautiful connection to each other and to something far greater than ourselves in the creation of the Guiding Signs 101 cards.  The feedback we are being given by many who are using the cards is that not only is it helping them tune in to their intuition and guidance, it is creating connection and intimacy through sharing the cards with a partner, children or friends. You can visit www.guidingsigns101.com to learn more.”

Kathleen was generous enough to send me a card deck to look over and then use as a giveaway!  That means one of you gets this lovely set for free!  Just leave a comment below and I will select one comment by next Monday in a random drawing and mail it right out!  Anyone can enter, so tell your friends!  xoxo, Laura

One moment one food is safe to eat, the next moment it is not.  Or a supplement that was highly recommended is now under fire for being unsafe.  One doctor tells you one thing and one tells you another.  What your accupunturist advises is different from what your chiropractor recommends.

It’s hard to find one single thing that you can totally trust… is the FDA reliable?  Are the organic foods you purchase at the supermarket truly organic, with GMO seeping into all of our crops?  Is that medication the right one for you?  In the right dose?

Sometimes it feels like we can’t trust the food we are eating, the supplements or medications we are taking, or the people advising us along the way.

But there is always one thing that you can turn to for your health.  One thing that, no matter how smoggy and polluted our cities may become, no matter what drug meets what criteria for the FDA, no matter what specialist advises and no matter what food is hot one moment and not the next… direct contact with the earth is always available to you.

Directly touching the earth… sometimes it’s the one and only thing I can turn to in my day, knowing that the soothing current of the earth’s electrons is washing over me and literally neutralizing my free radicals and reducing inflammation in every single organ system in my body.

It doesn’t matter if you have a million things going on or nothing wrong at all… directly touching the earth… not consuming anything, not waiting for a medication to kick in and not waiting to feel guilty about the food you just ate… just touching the earth with your feet or sitting on the grass with your body or laying on  blanket watching the clouds drift by or walking by the ocean with your feet in the waves… imaging studies and blood tests and common sense and ancient wisdom all agree… the earth is ever there for you, ever supporting you, ever washing away the inflammation from your day and the damage done to your body, ever renewing you and ever ready.

Some days within 1 second of touching the earth I can feel the relief washing over me.  My headache soaks down into the ground or my shoulder tension melts away or my nausea vanishes or whatever stress I am holding onto leaves.

There is nothing that the earth can’t hold.  From the tallest skyscraper to the smallest blade of grass.  From your joyful dancing under the sun to your secrets whispered into the ground to your tears soaking in under the nighttime sky.  If you don’t feel well and you don’t know where to turn… if you feel great and you want to celebrate… just touch the earth every single day.

You don’t need permission from the government and you don’t need to know the latest medical news and you don’t need to read the scary headlines and you don’t need to double-check the label and you don’t need a pharmacy to hand it to you and you don’t need a doctor to recommend it… although I’m doing just that!

The one thing you can always turn to is the earth.

The one thing that reaches every organ system and every cell in your body is the earth.

The one thing in our entire universe that supports life and exists to allow life to blossom all over it’s entire being is our earth.

When you are out of contact with the earth your body feels the build up of inflammation and free radical damage and feels stressed and out of sorts.

When you come back in contact with the earth your body feels relief that is so intense it can be addicting!

Strive to contact the earth every single day.

Are you trapped in shoes?  Here is a simple video I did that will encourage you to kick those shoes off and have you freeing your feet.

If you live in an area where the earth is hard to access… or if you have an illness or condition and you’d like access to the earth’s soothing energy flow for more hours in a day then you can spend outside, check out these earthing products that help bring the grounding of the earth directly into your home.  From sheets and mattresses to keep you grounded all night long to computer pads to seat pads and more, click on over to Earthing.com to find out more!

xoxo, Laura