Using Essential Oils; A Party Green Consultants Guide

Green Colored Glasses will be featuring guests post from our independent sales consultants from time to time. This is our first one, submitted by Heather R.



It's back to school time again for many families and this is also a good opportunity to check your stock on essential oils.  If you don't have any or don't know much about them, then now is a good time to learn.  Essential oils can be used to treat common ailments naturally or just to freshen a room with out commercial sprays that may have toxic ingredients. Here are just a few to incorporate essentials oils into your life.

 

Did you know you can add tea tree oil to your kids shampoo to help prevent lice? Add 2 drops of tea tree oil to every ounce of your shampoo of choice, shake to mix well, and use as normal.  Tea tree oil has antibiotic, antiseptic, antiviral, and anti fungal properties.  If you mix 2 drops tea tree oil with 1 drop lavender oil and dip a cotton ball in it, you can use it to help treat athletes feet.

 

Lavender oil also has antibiotic, antiseptic, antiviral, and anti fungal properties.  If you have a first degree burn, rinse the burn under cold water for 10 minutes, then immediately put 2 drops of lavender oil on the burn.  Lavender is also known for its calming properties.  When you have a headache, mix 3 drops lavender oil and 1 drop peppermint oil with 1 drop vegetable oil.  Massage the mixture around your temples and the back of your neck, near the base of your skull.  If you don't have both lavender oil and peppermint oil, you may use one on its own. 

 

Another good oil to have on hand is eucalyptus oil.  This oil is good for congestion.  Mix 1 drop eucalyptus oil to 1 tablespoon coconut oil to make your own vapor rub.  If your not a fan of rubs and lotion, you could also put a drop of eucalyptus oil on a cotton ball and place in your pillow case to help with night time congestion. 
 

 

Now you have a little bit of knowledge about what you can do with essential oils.  Hope this comes in handy to start you on your way to a more natural way of healing.

Do you use essential oils in your home? Tell us how in the comments below.

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Piggy Paint - As Natural as, but prettier than, Mud.

Review and Giveaway!

I am so excited to share Party Green's Featured product for the month of June, Piggy Paint.  Piggy Paint is a natural, biodegradable, odorless, ecofriendly nail polish for people of all ages.  This polish is also non-toxic and hypoallergenic making it safe for all to use.  The colors range from bright & sparkly to pretty & pastel and everything in between. My favorite right now is "Peace of Cake" a lovely pastel, peachy orange color that goes right along with the Summer 2014 nail polish trends.

Peace of Cake

Many of us don't really think about chemicals in our everyday products, especially nail polish.  You are most likely aware that there are chemicals in your nail polish and remover, you can smell them as soon as you open the bottle.  What is the harm of those chemicals anyways?  I mean, it goes on our nails, they are tough and can handle the chemicals, right? Wrong! Anything you put on your nails can be absorbed through your nail bed, including all of those chemicals in your mani/pedi products. 

While a lot of nail polish brands have eliminated the "toxic trio", formaldehyde, toluene and dibutyl phthalate, or DBP, they are not banned in beauty products in the US so read your labels!  You definitely want to avoid these chemicals as they have been known to cause headaches, dizziness and fatigue as well as being known human carcinogens and have effects on reproductive and developmental systems.  I could go on about how bad those three things are but that is for another time.

Most nail polishes, while eliminating the above ingredients, still have other toxins that can be harmful to our health and environment.  Conventional nail polishes often contain other potentially dangerous chemicals including ethyl acetate, isopropyl alcohol, fragrances, dyes and more.  One way to tell how toxic your nail polish is, is to check it on the EWG.org Skin Deep Database(you can see that Piggy Paint got the best score of 0).  You can see the difference of the nail polishes on this styrofoam plate that has both Piggy Polish and a solvent based polish on it:

(I don't know if you can tell but the green is all the way through 4 plates!)

The best thing about Piggy Paint is obviously that it is free of chemicals, the residual benefits only make me love it more.
First, it is odorless!  How many of you have opened a bottle of polish to pretty up your nails only to have someone else in the room complain and you have to put it away or go some where else?  Not with Piggy Paint!  I was painting my nails in the living room when my boyfriend was watching a movie, he turned to tell me something and then I saw his face and could tell he was going to complain about me painting my nails.  Then I spoke up and said, "Can't smell it can you?" He couldn't, even when he gave a few intentional sniffs of the air.  One battle I will no longer need to fight.

Another awesome quality of Piggy Paint is, you can spill that pretty pink polish on your gorgeous white rug(I thought, can anyone have a white rug?) and you can clean it out!  Unlike solvent based nail polishes that will stain as soon as they come in contact with fibers, Piggy Paint is water based and will clean up as long as you do it while it is still wet.  Perfect for the little ones that want to do it themselves, though I still wouldn't recommend it on a white rug.

One downfall of Piggy Paint is that it doesn't last as long as the chemical filled ones.  With the right measures though you can make your mani/pedi last just as long without all of those harsh toxins.

1) You want to start with clean nails, soap and water will do just fine.  Dry.
2) Apply 2-3 thin coats of Piggy Paint
3) Allow to air dry for 60 seconds
You can stop there but for maximum chip resistance blow dry polished nails for 1-2 minutes on warm heat/low blower setting.
A topcoat and basecoat are also available in Piggy Paint for improved performance.  Checkout the "Make it Last" mini gift set to save money on the two.

My pedicures last WAAAY longer than when I paint my fingernails.  I can do just steps 1-3 and it lasts for weeks, chip free.  For my hands it will usually chip badly within the first couple of days if I do not do the blow dryer step.

Enter here to win your own "Make it Last" and colored Nail Polish:   Win Free Piggy Paint