Tag Archives: Healthy ingredients

Natural Skin Care

Natural Skin Care – Coconut Oil as Replacement for Beauty and Skin Care Products

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Coconut Oil Instead Of Many Beauty And Skin Care Products!

Once you realize that majority of beauty and cosmetic lines contain extremely toxic and cancerogenic substances, you may find yourself lost in deciphering the ingredient lists and trying to figure out which products are safe.

How about throwing away your dangerous and expensive creams and products and go get some virgin coconut oil?

Oh Lou Lou! Natural Skin CareUsing some high quality virgin coconut oil as base/carrier and adding some essential oils and couple of other ingredients you can literary replace majority of skin care products. Plus it will save you lots of money!

When applied topically, coconut oil will reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by keeping your connective tissues strong and flexible. It will also help with exfoliating the outer layer of dead skin cells. As a result, your skin will look fresh, younger and smoother.

Contrary to many claims that you can see lately on social networks, VIRGIN coconut oil is non-comedogenic (it does not clog pores)!

In fact, when used in its purest form it works wonders for any type of skin including acneic! This is because Coconut oil is anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal. For example, Candida, Staphylococcus aureus, and other pathogens, fungi, bacteria and viruses are destroyed by coconut oil.

DIY recipes on how to use coconut oil as base ingredient for different beauty and skin care products are posted daily all over the web.

Also, the entire concept of many handmade organic small-batch skincare start-ups including ours http://ohloulou.com is based on using mostly VIRGIN coconut oil as a base for its products.

If you don’t have the time or desire to learn about it and make it, we can gladly make it for you – see our range of purest possible organic skincare products Oh Lou Lou!

Coconut oil can be used in hundreds different ways, here are some of them

  • Make-up remover. Apply some coconut oil with a cotton ball and clean your make-up just as you would use a regular make-up remover. Wash off with some warm water and pat dry.
  • Facial cleanser. Massage some coconut oil onto face and neck. Wash off with warm water and pat dry.
  • Shaving lotion. Massage some coconut oil on area to be shaved, and shave as usual. Coconut oil is a good antiseptic due to lauric acid and helps with shaving cuts.
  • Face and body moisturizer. Mix some coconut oil and essential oil hydrolat (the water collected when plants are steam-distilled to gather essential oils).
  • Deodorant. Apply some coconut oil directly onto your armpits. I mix coconut oil with a small amount of baking soda and it works perfectly.
  • Facial/Body Scrub. Mix coconut oil with baking soda, or oatmeal with a dash of cinnamon, for a gentle facial scrub. Add organic cane sugar for a good body scrub.
  • Insect repellent. Mix coconut oil with essential oils known as insect repellent: peppermint, citronella (Java), rosemary, tea tree oil, geraniol, catnip oil etc.
  • Natural Sunscreen.  You can find here a Quick Recipe for Natural Sunscreen 
  • Facial Cream. Ladies,  instead of throwing tons of money on big brands you can try this 5 min. DYI Anti-age Facial Cream

Just make sure to look for organic, cold pressed, unrefined, virgin Coconut oil. Refined coconut oil is indeed comedogenic (pore clogging) and we don’t recommend it for skincare products.

For true lovers of DIY you can find a bunch of more sophisticated recipes like for example  Top 15 Coconut Oil Skin Recipes 

Check out a great free resource on the benefits of coconut oil Coconut Oil Ultimate Guide 

Remember – what you can’t eat you can’t put on your skin!

Food On, Beauty Out 🙂

Sources and Credits

Healthy Food Essentials, Quick Healthy Recipes

Health Benefits of Sesame Seeds. Delightful Sesame Halva Recipe

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Health Benefits of Sesame Seeds

Sesame seeds are an excellent source of copper and a very good source of manganese, calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin B1, zinc, molybdenum, selenium and dietary fiber.

Health benefits, amongst others, include

  • Relief for Rheumatoid Arthritis
  • Vascular and Respiratory Health Support
  • Colon Cancer, Osteoporosis, Migraine and PMS Prevention
  • Zinc for Bone Health
  • Sesame Seeds’ Phytosterols Lower Cholesterol

(Source)

The great news is that sesame seeds are delicious and easy to incorporate in most of the dishes. Here is one example.

Delightful Healthy Sesame Halva Recipe

Halva is a dense, sweet dessert commonly made in the Balkans and many Eastern parts of the world with each region having its own traditional recipe for making it.

This healthy and easy raw halva recipe uses only 3 ingredients: sesame, honey and coconut oil.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 400g sesame
  • 40-50g coconut oil
  • 400g raw honey
  • Some crushed nuts (walnuts, almonds etc) (optional)

Toast the sesame seeds for few minutes until they slightly darken.

Cool and then put in the food processor.

Add coconut oil (previously warmed up). Blend it all.

Add the honey and the nuts. Put in the mold and refrigerate for half an hour.

Enjoy!

 

Quick Healthy Recipes

No Guilt Liquid Center Chocolate Cake

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Mmmmolten Chocolate Cake

Healthy Chocolate Cake Melting CenterThis recipe is a variation of the old recipe (Gâteau au chocolat moelleux) I modified  in order to use healthier ingredients.  Instead of wheat flour, white sugar, butter and cow’s milk I use spelt flour, brown unrefined sugar, coconut oil (or ghee) and dairy-free milk alternative.

My kids and family love it  and in fact did not notice too much of a difference. Give it a try – it is easy to make and tastes heavenly.

Preparation time 15 min.  Cooking time 30 min.

Ingredients

  • 200 grams of dark organic chocolate
  • 140 g coconut sugar or other organic unrefined sugar
  • 140 g coconut oil (you can use ghee instead if you prefer)
  • 4 organic eggs
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder (you can use sodium bicarbonate)
  • 2 tablespoons of milk (nut milk or coconut milk)
  • 100 g of spelt flour

Healthy Chocolate Cake Liquid CenterSteps

  1. Preheat the oven on 175°C
  2. Melt the chocolate and coconut oil on low heat. You can use the double boiler if you want, I found that it is enough just to make sure you cook it slowly on low heat.
  3. Add milk. Mix it until you obtain a nice homogeneous chocolate mixture.
  4. In a bowl beat the eggs and sugar until you obtain a light colored and slightly thick, foaming mixture. You can use the mixer (medium speed) but make sure you don’t overdo it (it should not become too thick).
  5. Add flour previously mixed with some baking powder or sodium bicarbonate.
  6. Gently incorporate the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
  7. Cover the ovenproof glass baking dish with baking paper (ovenproof glass  is one of the healthiest and  least expensive options).
  8. Put it in the oven for 25-35 minutes or until the sides of the cakes are firm but the center is soft. The less you cook it, obviously the more liquid the center of the cake will be.
  9. To serve, turn out the cake, and place on the serving plate, bottom side up. Decorate with some mint leaves and/or berries.
  10. Don’t eat to much 🙂 It is much healthier alternative compared to regular molten cake but it still full of sugar.