Month: March 2018

Ethical & Natural Beauty Routine – How to transition

March 31, 2018

While cleaning a few months ago, I was amazed to find so many travel and sample size product in my possession while I had “cleanser” and “moisturizer” on my grocery list to purchase that same week. I decided to use them all rather than purchasing new beauty products. The best part was that it would save so much money because I had a lot of them. It also gave me time to research brands, look at reviews and ask for recommendations for natural and ethical beauty products.  That way I would be able to switch my beauty and body care routine to more natural products by slowly replacing products as I run out. I chose to do this because I hate for anything to go to waste.

As I mentioned, I just started to transition toward conscious living so I was lost in the sea of “natural” products and which brands to trust. So I turned to my socially conscious woman group to help me out (thank you so much for being their ladies, you are awesome! And if you are from that group, don’t forget to say hi). We might not all be from the same coast, but it helped me so much to do my own research, look at their recommendations and decide which I want to try. Let’s be honest, I have a list of products I want to try now because all their recommendations look amazing.

If you are just like me, don’t be afraid to ask for information, join communities (online or local), research brands and discuss with friends and family. I discovered lots of local businesses just by looking online. At the end of the day, you will have to take a leap of faith. It will be just like any other new products and your skin may or may not adjust well and it might take a few weeks to see results. The good thing is you can probably find a local store that carries many natural brands that can look at your skin, the products you used before and point you in the right direction.

Following those amazing discovery of brands and people, I have a very detailed list of products to try and even made some orders as well because I will soon run out of moisturizer. I will test those products and make sure to update you with my monthly favorites. This will be a new line of articles coming at the end of April so make sure to subscribe to the blog or follow me on Instagram. I would also love to read your story, what are your favorite products, what you use and what you would recommend. If you liked the article, please let me know with a “like”. I wish you a fabulous week and look forward to reading you.

10×10 Challenge – What I learned

March 24, 2018

Hi everyone! Today is the last day of the #10x10friends challenge with #thesociallyconsciouswoman group on Facebook. The challenge was 10 items of clothing (including shoes and jackets) creating 10 outfits for 10 days. It was so much fun to see everyone’s 10 pieces and how they created outfits for the day, reflecting both style and personality. I was excited and inspired every day to see how pieces would come together and discovered various ethical brands along the way. Most of which I had a chance to look at and created a wish list of items for when the time comes to replace parts of my wardrobe. It also inspired a project I will be working on in the next few weeks so stay tuned. As this adventure comes to a closing, I reflect on what a minimalist style, capsule, and ethical wardrobe mean to me. I noticed the comments on the group that some found the challenge to be natural and somewhat easy to them. I am sorry to say that was not me. I work at a law firm in Nova Scotia. The weather on the East Coast is still cold, snowy and very rainy. Only using 10 items of clothing which included a pair of boots, a pair of shoes and my winter coat left very little to play with for 10 days. That was the real challenge. I only “cheated” by swapping a shirt for a warmer sweater. I never realized before that I have 2 wardrobes: an office and a casual/at home. Despite feeling trapped in 3 pieces of clothing some days, I sat down in my room on day 7 and really looked at the clothes in my closet. As it turns out, I have about 50 items of clothing in there which is far less than I expected. I started the process to be more conscious of my purchases a few months ago, buy less and more ethically. I have barely bought anything since and use what I have. I felt silly to put so much pressure on myself for only 10 days and started to appreciate the little changes I slowly make.

Use what you have

With this experience, I realized that I have more things that I actually use. Don’t give me wrong, I need more than 10 items for 10 days but I will downsize and keep only what I love and use. Eventually, I want to incorporate more ethical brands and I started with a new spring purse from Matt&Nate (check it out on my instagram).

And thanks to Kijiji and second-hand stores, the pieces I have no use for will make someone else very happy and be used to their potential. On that note, I started to sort my beauty products and made sure to use them rather than buying more. It might not be easy every day to be content with what you have and not purchase new things. But it gets better when you only have things you love.

Declutter

Physically

The major thing from this challenge made me want to start going through my possessions to decide what should stay according to what I use regularly. Rather than keeping all the things and accumulating, I choose to only keep what I love. I like to think about it as less cleaning, laundry, and more space for me. As a write this, spring just started so it might be spring fever to clean and purge my house.

Digitally

I realized I never cleaned my computer. Like ever. Anyone else like me? It is kind of out of sight out of mind. I have external hard drives of electronic things and an inbox full of unopened emails sorted in various subfolders. It is so easy to push it off and do it “later” since it is not really in the way. Somehow, it is still on my mind and slowly but surely, I included a digital decluttering to my list of spring cleaning.

Did you join us for the 10×10 challenge? I did you do? I would love to read you about decluttering, downsizing, capsule wardrobe or 10×10 challenge.

 

The Socially Conscious Woman Group

March 15, 2018

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Hi everyone! Welcome to my little space of the web! I finally decided to launch this blog after months of research and looking at other bloggers. I wanted to make this pace my own and share all that I love about fashion, beauty and travel but in a simple and conscious way. If you want to know more about me, please visit my page on the blog.

I recently joined the Facebook group “The Socially Conscious Woman” which was launch by Tara Teng this past week. I feel very privileged to be part of that community and get to know all of those amazing women. Those women inspire me by being entrepreneurs, strong and bold. Which is how I am able to take the leap and launch my blog today. They are so inspiring, welcoming and caring.

On that note, I am joining them in the 10×10 challenge : 10 days, 10 items of clothing and 10 outfits. This challenge starts today and we will be sharing our outfits, styles and inspiration on social media, so make sure to check it out. I have to say not everything in my wardrobe is from an ethical or local shop since I am learning to purchase responsibly. Some pieces are from a secondhand store, some were gifts and some have been in my wardrobe for years. Nevertheless, I will wear each pieces and display them with love. I hope you can join or follow us in this challenge.

I look forward to this blog’s journey and share with you all everything I love and am passionate about. I would love to read you so leave comments below.