Ningxia Red

Todd and I recently tried Ningxia Red for the first time and we are loving the benefits from it. We each drink 1oz in the morning with our breakfast. Sometimes we add in other Young Living Essential Oils and sometimes we drink it plain. We love trying out these fun "shot" recipes we found on the YL Blog.

Infographic Credit - Young Living Blog

Young Living recently came out with a new product called Ningxia Zyng, a sparkling beverage. I haven't had the opportunity to try the new Ningxia Zyng yet, but decided to try out my own version at home. I love sparkling water plain, so I figured I'd try out mixing it with Ningxia Red to see if I could help our bottle last longer. Todd does not love sparkling water, more specifically he hates it. He thinks it is disgusting. So, I didn't really think he would enjoy this drink.

One morning I decided to try mixing some sparkling water with Ningxia Red. I put a bottle of sparkling water in the fridge the night before so it would be nice and cool. I poured 1 oz. of Ningxia Red into a glass and filled it the rest of the way with sparkling water. Oh. My. Stars. This was SO YUMMY. I was worried it would get watered down and lose its flavor. I was so surprised that it still had great flavor plus it was nice and bubbly. I offered Todd a sip and I couldn't believe it, he loved it too!
Every morning we both have a glass of our "sparkling juice." Sometimes I add in other essential oils and sometimes we drink it plain. I love having something to drink along with breakfast that isn't sugary juice, coffee or tea. 

If you are interested in learning more about Young Living and Ningxia Red, check out the Young Living website. Wondering why I joined Young Living? Check out this post. If you are interested in joining for yourself you can sign up here. As always feel free to message me with any questions. 

Disclaimer - The information contained in any post and on my blog is for entertainment purposes only. This information is my own opinion based on my experiences and resources. Any information is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, ailment or situation. Please do your own research and make your own informed decisions when you are considering lifestyle and health changes. Always consult a doctor and seek the advice of your qualified health professional when making your health decisions or before starting any new protocol, particularly if you are pregnant, taking medication, or have a medical condition. Any links leaving this site are the opinion of the author of those sites and should be treated with the same caution as what you read here. 
Some posts may contain affiliate links, those specific posts will be noted as such. 
In the instance of household items / cleaning, please use caution when using any product, keep out of reach of children and pets. Always test products on an inconspicuous area for color fastness and to ensure there is no adverse reaction with the surface in which you are cleaning. 

Thieves Cleaner: Carpet Spot Cleaner

Next up in my Thieves Cleaner series: Carpet Spot Cleaner.

Be sure to check out my other Thieves Cleaner posts here:
Oven Cleaner - Degreaser and Deep Cleaning Scrub
Glass / Mirror spray

All Purpose Cleaner

An important note with regards to using this as a carpet spot or upholstery cleaner, make sure to test this on an inconspicuous area first. This is very important to make sure that this cleaner is compatible with whatever fabric / fibers your upholstery or rug is made of. When I first used this cleaner, I tested it on the underside of a couch cushion and also a corner of our rug that stays under our couch. This is important to make sure the cleaner is compatible with the fabric/fibers and won't change the texture or color of the fibers or have any other adverse reaction. And as always, the opinions stated here are my own, based on my own experience. It is not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any ailment, stain or situation of any kind. Be sure to do your own research and make your own informed decision. 

Okay, back to the cleaner. This is probably redundant at this point, but again, I referenced the Young Living Blog for dilution ratios. The infographic from their blog is included below for reference. 

Photo Cred: Young Living Blog

I wasn't really planning on trying out the carpet spot cleaner right away since the carpeting in our house doesn't get a lot of wear and tear. We have hard wood floors on our first floor and carpet on the stairs and second floor. We do have a couple area rugs on the first floor. With all of our carpets, I vacuum often and don't generally worry about spots. We do have two dogs and a baby, so they are bound to get some minor spots here and there, but I don't stress out over a little stain on the rugs. We keep the second floor gated off to keep the baby away from the steps now that she is crawling and as a result, the dogs aren't up there that often.

While I wasn't planning to try out this carpet cleaner right away, our dogs had another plan. They are both crate trained, but we've recently started leaving them out of their crates while we are out and about. We close all the doors and the upstairs is gated off, so really they only have access to the family room and kitchen which are basically a great room and the bathroom where we keep their water bowls. We've found they aren't as hyper when we get home since they have someone to keep company and play with. Well, apparently we were gone too long one day this week. I came home to this scene:

If you can't tell from that photo, let me give you some close ups. Excuse the poor phone photo quality and color variances between photos.

EEK! The dogs had gotten ahold of an ink pen and destroyed it, leaving blue ink everywhere. Our dogs' paws were dyed blue, the couch and rug were covered in ink stains, my husband's shoe strings were in shreds, toys, socks pillows all over and it was 9pm. I was so not in the mood to scrub the house. I did temporary damage control and picked up the shoe lace shreds, plastic pen remnants, checked the dogs mouths for any cuts, called the vet to make sure everything would be okay. They told me to monitor their behavior and if we noticed anything to bring them in the next day. Thank goodness they are acting totally normal, have their appetites and are just as silly as ever. Once I knew they were safe and okay, I set to work researching what on earth I could use to get ink out of our couch and rug.

I spent a good chunk of time the next day trying to find something that I could use that wouldn't be toxic. I called up the folks that have cleaned my parent's carpets and they suggested rubbing alcohol and blotting, not rubbing. So we started there. Todd was blotting away while I was watching the baby and wasn't having any luck. Then we remembered that when we purchased our couch, we opted for the upholstery protection plan and it came with a bottle of cleaner, so we tried that on the couch. It seemed to just spread the stain more, though it did lift a good bit of ink out of the couch. But it wasn't working on the rug. At this point, Todd had been attempting to clean this up for an hour and we weren't seeing results. We were starting to discuss options. Could we put a rug on top of our rug to hide it? Replace the rug? Cover with a coffee table? Flip the cushions? Any other cleaners to try? Do we hire a professional cleaner? Strategically place a blanket over the arm of the couch to hide the stains?
Then I remembered seeing the infographic above and that it mentioned a carpet spot cleaner. I had a spare industrial spray bottle on hand so I mixed up some Thieves cleaner according to the dilution ratio. Again, I tried it out in an inconspicuous area first to make sure it would be okay. There was a small ink stain under the chair, so I tried it out there first (I have no idea how they got ink under the chair, but nevertheless it was the perfect spot to test if this cleaner would be okay to use on our rug). With a little agitation with a tooth brush and lots of blotting, the stain started to disappear. I couldn't believe it. This was a small stain, but it didn't take much for me to get it out. So I moved on to the next spot. I would spray, agitate it with a toothbrush, blot it up with an old towel, then repeat. This went on for another 2 hours or so. By no means was this a quick or easy process, but we were seeing results. I couldn't believe it. I was so happy that these stains were coming out that we wouldn't need to resort to one of our alternative options. After all, purchasing a new rug and/or sofa isn't in the budget right now and we really didn't want to have to pay for a professional cleaner to come in either, plus, you can only strategically place so many blankets, and rugs on top of rugs can look out of place.
After all that cleaning, the rug was fairly saturated. I vacuumed up stray fibers that had come loose and blotted up as much moisture as we could. Then we decided to leave it be to dry and see how it looked in the morning.
Here is how it looked the next day after it dried. Again, excuse the poor photo quality, I was snapping these on my phone and the light in the room made everything appear a different color.

 

As you can tell, it is a great improvement compared to where we started. However, there were still some ink spots on the couch (left side of the cushion and on the arm rest) and rug, so that evening we got the cleaner back out to try to lift out the rest of the ink. After more agitation with a toothbrush and blotting with a rag and letting it dry out again, here is how it looked the next day:

There is still a spot on the rug that I'm not sure will ever come out. There is still some faint blue on the arm rest, but the cushion looks worlds better. It isn't perfect, but it is good enough for us, I'm not aiming for perfection here. We use this room all the time and with two dogs and a baby, there are bound to be more stains in the future. It is clean, the dogs are safe and healthy, our baby has a safe place to play and crawl and we have a room to spend time in as a family and space to welcome friends and family into our home. Our house isn't straight out of a magazine, it is lived in and sometimes we make messes and sometimes things aren't picture perfect, but that is okay because it is home to us. I'll reference one of my favorite quotes "I will hold myself to a standard of GRACE not PERFECTION" - Emily Ley. (check out her blog post on this subject here). So much goodness, truth and grace in that. I'm so thankful for grace, and for a patient husband who helps me scrub carpets for hours on end when I'm frustrated and would rather be doing anything but cleaning, and for our dogs' health and that this situation wasn't worse than what it could have been, and for our daughter's health and her laughter & smiles that always brighten my day.

I'm also thankful to have natural cleaning options that are safe to use and aren't full of chemicals and that actually work! If you are interested in learning more about why I joined Young Living, check out this post. If you are interested in joining for yourself you can sign up here. As always feel free to message me with any questions. 

Disclaimer - The information contained in this post and on my blog are for entertainment purposes only. This information is my own opinion based on my experiences and resources. Any information is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, ailment or situation. Please do your own research and make your own informed decisions when you are considering lifestyle and health changes. Always consult a doctor and seek the advice of your qualified health professional when making your health decisions or before starting any new protocol, particularly if you are pregnant, taking medication, or have a medical condition. Any links leaving this site are the opinion of the author of those sites and should be treated with the same caution as what you read here. This post may contain affiliate links. In the instance of household items / cleaning, please use caution when using any product, keep out of reach of children and pets. Always test products on an inconspicuous area for color fastness and to ensure there is no adverse reaction with the surface in which you are cleaning. 

Thieves Cleaner: All Purpose Cleaning Spray

Next up in my Thieves Cleaner series: All Purpose Cleaner.

Be sure to check out my other Thieves Cleaner posts here:
Oven Cleaner - Degreaser and Deep Cleaning Scrub
Glass / Mirror spray

Once again, I referenced the Young Living Blog for dilution ratios. The infographic from their blog is included below for reference. 

Photo Cred: Young Living Blog

I picked up an industrial strength spray bottle from my local hardware store and mixed up the cleaner according to the dilution ratio for the All Purpose Spray on the YL infographic.

Once it was mixed up, I set to work on our bathroom. Just like with the glass cleaner, I was interested to see how well this would actually work. I tested it out on our bathroom sinks first. I sprayed everything down and cleaned the sink using a rag and a small scrub brush to get into the hard to reach spots - the drain and behind the faucet. The sink looked great! The water spots, liquid soap drips and toothpaste marks all came up with ease.
Next up: the tubs. Our bathroom doesn't get a lot of natural ventilation and we have hard water. I had recently started noticing some spots on our tile and build up on our shower head. I sprayed down the tile and shower head, and since I wasn't sure how much elbow grease I was going to have to put into this, I let it set a minute while I cleaned the toilet. I came back to the shower with a scrub brush and rag and set to work. It did take a little more scrubbing than on the sinks, but I was able to get the spots off and the build up off the shower head.

So far, I'm happy with this all purpose cleaner. It did take a little extra scrubbing on the super dirty spots, so I'm wondering if I should try a different dilution ratio for those situations, but I was definitely able to get everything cleaned with this version.

Plus, I'm very excited that my cleaning bucket has gone from this:

to this: 

I'm so happy to be getting rid of cleaners that are full of chemicals and to have natural cleaning solutions. Plus, my bucket is lighter to carry around :)

If you are interested in learning more about why I joined Young Living, check out this post. If you are interested in joining for yourself you can sign up here. As always feel free to message me with any questions. 

Disclaimer - The information contained in this post and on my blog are for entertainment purposes only. This information is my own opinion based on my experiences and resources. Any information is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, ailment or situation. Please do your own research and make your own informed decisions when you are considering lifestyle and health changes. Always consult a doctor and seek the advice of your qualified health professional when making your health decisions or before starting any new protocol, particularly if you are pregnant, taking medication, or have a medical condition. Any links leaving this site are the opinion of the author of those sites and should be treated with the same caution as what you read here. This post may contain affiliate links. In the instance of household items / cleaning, please use caution when using any product, keep out of reach of children and pets. Always test products on an inconspicuous area for color fastness and to ensure there is no adverse reaction with the surface in which you are cleaning. 

Thieves Cleaner: Glass and Mirrors

I'm absolutely loving how versatile this Thieves Cleaner solution is. I am continuing our efforts to remove traditional cleaning and cosmetic products that are full of chemicals from our home. Next on my list of products to switch over are all purpose cleaner and glass/mirror spray. Today I'll discuss the glass and mirror spray. I'll share the all purpose cleaner and results later on.

Please excuse the dirty window, this was after I mixed up the cleaner but before I had a chance to test it out :)

To make the glass and mirror spray I first gathered my supplies. I already had Lemon Essential Oil and white vinegar on hand and ordered a glass spray bottle online. Since this "recipe" calls for Lemon essential oil, I mixed the cleaner in an amber glass bottle. Citrus oils can eat away at plastic, so I opted for glass. Check out this post on the YL Blog for more essential oil storage suggestions. Just like when I cleaned my oven, I referenced the Young Living Blog for dilution ratios.

Photo Cred: Young Living Blog

Once I had everything all mixed up, I was anxious to test it out to see how well this would actually work. I tested it out on our bathroom mirror first. I started out using paper towels to clean the mirror. The spray worked great and the mirror got cleaned, but I had to go back over it several times to get the paper towel lint off. After cleaning the first bathroom, I remembered that the YL blog suggested using a lint free cloth and aha! I remembered that my mom had given me a couple a few months back and they ended up buried under our dish towels. So I dug one out and set to work on the second bathroom. The lint free cloth worked great! I didn't have to go back over the mirror several times like I did with the paper towels. Double bonus is that the lint free cloths are washable and re-usable. Less cleaning effort and less waste. I'd call that a win-win. 

So far, I'm happy with this glass / mirror spray. I'm interested to see how it works out on all our windows, I haven't tried it out yet since I like cleaning windows on cooler days when I can open them up and do the insides and outsides at the same time. It is way too hot around here to be opening up windows and allowing precious air conditioning to escape. 

If you are interested in learning more about why I joined Young Living, check out this post. If you are interested in joining for yourself you can sign up here. As always feel free to message me with any questions. 

Disclaimer - The information contained in this post and on my blog are for entertainment purposes only. This information is my own opinion based on my experiences and resources. Any information is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, ailment or situation. Please do your own research and make your own informed decisions when you are considering lifestyle and health changes. Always consult a doctor and seek the advice of your qualified health professional when making your health decisions or before starting any new protocol, particularly if you are pregnant, taking medication, or have a medical condition. Any links leaving this site are the opinion of the author of those sites and should be treated with the same caution as what you read here. This post may contain affiliate links. In the instance of household items / cleaning, please use caution when using any product, keep out of reach of children and pets. Always test products on an inconspicuous area for color fastness and to ensure there is no adverse reaction with the surface in which you are cleaning. 

Thieves Cleaner: Oven Edition

This is a judgment free zone right? I hope so, cause I'm about to share some dirty details about my kitchen, specifically my oven. I like to think I run a pretty tight ship around here. We always have clean clothes and sheets, the floor is vacuumed, bathrooms scrubbed, dishes are put away and the kitchen is cleaned up after meals. Our oven is another story.

Here it is, in all it's glory. I forgot to take photos before removing the racks and before spraying down the door. Here the door is shown already soaking in cleaning spray.

I can't remember the last time I deep cleaned this bad boy. I mean, I've wiped out major spills or overflows, but haven't given it a good deep clean in far too long. Almost every time I pre-heat the oven or bake anything our smoke detectors go off. And the way our house is wired, when one goes off, EVERY detector in the house goes off. Which is incredibly annoying for obvious reasons, but it also sends the dogs into a frenzy which adds an extra element of craziness. So anyway, it was time for a good scrubbing to get all that baked on nastiness outta there.

This is where my new favorite cleaner comes in.

I've been using Young Living essential oils for over a year now and have been so pleased with how much they have helped me and my family. I had been wanting to try their line of Thieves products for awhile but just hadn't ordered them yet. I figured, I use semi-natural cleaning products so why switch? Well, I came across this video which totally opened my eyes to all the chemicals and lack of regulations on cosmetics and cleaning products. And since I was running low on a few cleaners I decided to go ahead and order the Thieves Essential Rewards Kit on my next order. There were several products I wanted in the Thieves line and it was less expensive for me to order them all together in the Essential Rewards kit than separately. If you are a Young Living member and haven't checked out their Essential Rewards program,  you definitely should. This is different than being a wholesale member. The ER program does have a 50pv minimum each month but you also accumulate pv each time you order and you can redeem the pv you earned for products. It is basically free money.

Back to my oven, I whipped up a mixture of 1 capful of Thieves cleaner with 1 cup of water and some baking soda.  I also mixed up some of the Thieves all purpose cleaner in a spray bottle. I followed these dilution ratios found on the YL blog. I sprayed down the dirty parts of the oven with the all purpose cleaner, then loaded up the really greasy / baked on stains with the baking soda mixture.

I let it all set for 10-15 minutes then came back with a rag and bristled cleaning brush. I'd scrub a little, then wipe it up, scrub some more, wipe. You get the picture.

Here are the results:

So much better right? I mean, look at it shine! There are still some spots that I couldn't get off, but the baby was waking from her nap and was hungry. I'm sure if I had more time I could have gotten this thing totally spotless, but when you have a screaming, hungry baby, the oven can wait. It looks a million times better than it did before. Plus, the Thieves cleaner is full of all natural ingredients, which means no terrible chemicals in my oven or our food.

I'm slowly swapping out our chemical laden products for natural solutions. I love having cleaning product options that are safe to use around children and pets.

If you are interested in learning more about why I joined Young Living, check out this post. If you are interested in joining for yourself you can sign up here. As always feel free to message me with any questions. For now, I'm going to go bake some peach cobbler in my freshly cleaned oven.



Disclaimer - The information contained in this post and on my blog are for entertainment purposes only. This information is my own opinion based on my experiences and resources. Any information is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, ailment or situation. Please do your own research and make your own informed decisions when you are considering lifestyle and health changes. Always consult a doctor and seek the advice of your qualified health professional when making your health decisions or before starting any new protocol, particularly if you are pregnant, taking medication, or have a medical condition. Any links leaving this site are the opinion of the author of those sites and should be treated with the same caution as what you read here. This post may contain affiliate links. In the instance of household items / cleaning, please use caution when using any product, keep out of reach of children and pets. Always test products on an inconspicuous area for color fastness and to ensure there is no adverse reaction with the surface in which you are cleaning. 

Light the Fire Promotion

Essential oils seem to be everywhere these days. You can hardly take a peek at your Pinterest feed without seeing someone pinning something about essential oils. Naturally, after seeing several friends pinning this information and hearing them talk about oils and how they have helped them, I became very intrigued as to what these things were all about. I started hearing a lot more about oils about the same time we found out we were expecting our first baby. I became very aware of what products I was using as I didn't want to expose our unborn babe to any unnecessary chemicals or toxins. I began researching natural health remedies, DIY cleaning and laundry products, alternative cosmetics products. You name it, I was on a mission to rid our home of chemicals. I guess you could say the "nesting" stage they say pregnant women go through hit me good. haha. Now, keep in mind, this was all research, I didn't go totally granola and off the grid and live in a hut in the middle of no where making all my own clothes and living without electricity. I still wear deodorant, eat the occasional junk food, wear store brand makeup and enjoy watching cable tv in my air conditioned home.

So anyway, on top of all that research, I started doing a TON of research on the different brands and types of essential oils, and I mean a TON. I think I read every blog, research site, testimonial site, essential oil comparison article out there. This was my "summer reading" for 2014. I became very fascinated by them and started trying out a few that summer from Young Living that I ordered through a friend. I loved the results I was seeing and how they were helping me with my overall wellness. This same friend gifted me a diffuser and starter oil set from Young Living for our baby shower. After that, I was hooked. I was diffusing different oils almost daily and loved having natural remedies to help with our family's overall wellness.

I've now been using Young Living essential oils for over a year and I'm still in love with them. I'm so thankful to have a resource for natural products to help our family. I had been ordering through a friend and this spring I decided to sign up as a wholesale member. This works like a Kroger Plus card or Costco card. If you join as a wholesale member you get 24% off retail pricing on your favorite products, you have the opportunity to join the Essential Rewards program where you earn points and free products. The Essential Rewards program requires a minimum monthly order, but the wholesale membership does not! The membership lasts for a year and all you have to do to renew the membership is place a 50PV order at some point during that year. 50PV is equivalent to roughly $50.

Premium Starter Kit with Dewdrop Diffuser

The Premium Starter Kits are am amazing deal. Depending on which diffuser you select, this is a savings of at least $80 by ordering as a kit rather than ordering everything separately. 

The Premium Starter Kit Includes:

Diffuser of your choosing! (Home, Dew Drop, Bamboo or Aria)

Premium Essential Oils Collection;Lavender 5-ml

• Peppermint 5-ml
• Lemon 5-ml
• Copaiba 5-ml
• Frankincense 5-ml
• Thieves® 5-ml
• Purification® 5-ml
• R.C.™ 5-ml
• DiGize™ 5-ml
• PanAway® 5-ml
• Stress Away™ 5-ml
• AromaGlide™ Roller Fitment
• 10 Sample Packets
• 10 Love It? Share It! Sample Business Cards
• 10 Love It? Share It! Sample Oil Bottles
• 2 NingXia Red® 2-oz. samples
• Product Guide and Product Price List
• Essential Oil Magazine
• Essential EdgeMember Resources

Interested in learning more about Young Living? Check out their website here:
Young Living Homepage. Be sure to check out the information on their Seed to Seal process too.

If you are ready to take the plunge into essential oils and taking the next step towards wellness, I'd love to have you on my team! You can sign up here.

Essential oils are useless unless you know how to use them. If you want to take a step towards wellness by joining my team, I want to help you know how to use these oils and get the most out of them that you can. If you sign up as a wholesale member and purchase one of the Premium Starter Kits using my referral link, I'll send you this awesome welcome kit.

This welcome kit paired with a Premium Starter Kit (PSK) will provide you with an abundance of resources to help you get started using essential oils. The reference book is AWESOME and the Everyday Oils collection that comes with the PSK has 11 of the most commonly used essential oils Young Living offers. This is the perfect starter set to begin using essentail oils. Plus, Young Living recently re-vamped the PSK, so now you have your choice as to which diffuser you want!

As if all this wasn't enough Young Living has decided to offer an amazing deal on these Premium Starter Kits now through August 14th. They are offering a major discount of 10% off Premium Starter kits for existing members and $10 off for all new members! If you are an existing member, there is no limit on how many you can order. Please do take note that this does not include the Aria or NingXia Red versions of the Premium Starter Kits.

What better time to take a step towards wellness than now? $10 off a Premium Starter Kit PLUS the welcome kit I mentioned above. It doesn't get much better than this!




Disclaimer - The information contained in this post and on my blog are for entertainment purposes only. This information is my own opinion based on my experiences and resources. Any information is not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or ailment. Please do your own research and make your own informed decisions when you are considering lifestyle and health changes. Always consult a doctor and seek the advice of your qualified health professional when making your health decisions or before starting any new protocol, particularly if you are pregnant, taking medication, or have a medical condition. Any links leaving this site are the opinion of the author of those sites and should be treated with the same caution as what you read here. This post may contain affiliate links.