Crunchy Times at the Lewis House

I never thought, in  million years, that I would ever desribe myself as "crunchy."  You know, like one of those granola, run your car on discarded french-fry oil types?  I always thought I leaned more toward the high-maintenance end of the spectrum, what with pedicures, and a healthy Sephora addiction.

But lately . . . well, I'm starting to at least sway over to crunchy.  I guess it started with wanting to make something for Todd, something homemade, for Valentine's Day last year, and finding recipes for homemade granola and energy bars.  Those were highly successful around here, and are in regular recipe rotation.

Then one day I ran out of my favorite Bath and Body Works sugar scrub, and knew I was too cheap to replace it, so I started looking into how to make it myself, and realized it was totally cheap and easy -- and makes a fantastic Christmas gift, too!

THEN, I read about this method of facial cleansing with a mixture of grocery store oils, and tried that, and it is awesome, and along with the homemade facial oil I made, makes my skin all soft and pretty.

From there, I was sold.  I now spend a lot of time gathering recipes for homemade bath and body products.  So far, I've made the facial cleansing oil, facial moisturizing oil, sugar scrub, aftershave, shaving nick salve, mouthwash, lotion, and body oil.  All completely natural, and custom-scented with essential oils.  And I don't know if this is too much info for you about my personal hygiene, but I'm TOTALLY considering making my own deodorant.  

The more I read about essential oils and natural herbs and remedies and such, the more interesting it is.  As a lifetime migraine sufferer, I'm really starting to think about all the junk that I put in my body -- both through foods and prescription drugs -- along with all the junk I slather ON my body.  I mean, I love a good fancy-smelling lotion as much as the next person, but I can't even pronounce half of what's in the ingredients list.  And I just don't think that all those chemicals can be good for me.  I'd really like to see what my poor little brain would do if it is given a chance to be prescription-drug-free.  People survived for many generations without all the fanciness that we get from the pharmacy these days.

And, yeah, I'm tired of giving half my money to the insurance company and the other half to doctors and pharmacist.  

So now, I'm giving a lot of thought to learning as much as I can about all this to see just how healthy and homemade the Lewis House can become.  It's way too late for me to go to medical school, but I'm still plenty young enough to become a certified herbalist, and just HOW cool would that be?

Pretty cool, I think.  (Although I'm still not planning to give up on that Sephora addiction any time soon.)