Being Beautiful in Preparation for Wedding Day

We are in full wedding planning mode.  A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of something we need to have, get, make or plan for, for my daughter’s wedding.  There are a lot of details.

Wedding shoe?  Maybe?

Reserving the venue and making purchases is the easy part.  Staying fit is a bigger challenge.  I wasn’t even considering this aspect, but my daughter has it on the forefront of her mind.  Imagine that!

She has always been interested in nutrition and skincare.  Her latest book of interest is The Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder.  While she isn’t interested in being this radical with her daily eating, she has adapted some of the concepts.  She drinks a green smoothie almost daily.

I have been benefitting from this as well.  I really like the green smoothies because they are not very sweet.  The idea of a smoothie sounds good but I can barely handle a fruit smoothie.  I had actually changed to drinking more vegetable smoothies any way.  Now my daughter makes them and I get to have her left-overs.

Juicing is very popular again but we just blend.  You have to blend the vegetables in a certain order to break them down as much as possible with a blender, for instance you add the lettuce first.  I know those vita-mix machines will blend everything at once to a thin consistency.  The cost of the machine doesn’t seem worth it to me, at this point.  I also know it is on my daughter’s registry.  Her fiance eats very similarly (yea!) so he would like for them to have one.

I love that my kids consider their food choices.  My 15 year old son even said to me this morning he needed to cut back on the amount of milk he drinks.

While my daughter was making her smoothie, and telling me about this book, I decided to mix up a facial mask.  She also suggested a combination of foods for an eye mask.  I mashed blueberries and mixed in a 1/2 tsp of tumeric, then added aloe vera gel.  The blueberries are a very powerful antioxidant and also very moisturizing for the delicate skin around the eyes.  The tumeric aids in circulation which helps keep the blood from pooling to create the dark circles.  Of course aloe vera is a gentle moisturizer that also thickens the mask and adds a nice, cooling effect.

My face mask today was a blend of grapes and parsley juice mixed with plain yogurt and clay powder.  The grapes are for diminishing fine lines and other antioxidant benefits.  The parsley is to brighten the skin and reduce redness.  My skin has a natural red undertone so I’m always using products (mostly parsley) to balance the red.

Yogurt is an antibacterial and moisturizer.  The clay absorbs impurities and adds thickness to the mask.  I use this right away so it is a little soupy but then I leave it out for a few hours or overnight.  I keep the leftover in the fridge and use within a couple of weeks.

Sorry, no after photos.  I like home spa treatments because they're fun to make using fresh ingredients I already have.

What are your Home Spa Ideas?  Post a link to your blog about your home spa days.

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