Six months of natural and organic empties – Spring 2019

Hi Lovelies,

Welcome back! And welcome, if you are new here xoxo

Six months of natural and organic empties

Umm, yeah, this happened 🙂 I used to be on top of my empties posts, every month or a quarter at least. You guys know my style, my posts are usually very long because I try to cover every single base I can think of, from company itself, to ingredients, to user experience, whether I liked it or not and why, plus linking everything, products, reviews; you know the drill. Couple that with other projects I’ve had, reviews, judging for a few clean beauty awards and the constant upkeep with the social media and you would understand why these posts became the pain-in-th-you-know-what to do. However I think it is important for me to do empties posts so you guys could see that the products I am using and the reviewing are the same products, plus you guys want me to keep these posts up – so there you go, this is for you lovelies. Something’s gotta give though, this blog is a passion project of mine, not a paid gig, so I don’t want to spend all of my time away from my family, blogging at all hours of the day. So no more links, instead of elaborate opinions and explanations of why I think something is great (or not), I will group them in categories of “Repurchasing” “Not Repurchasing” and if you have any questions, ask. Most of the products will have either reviews or mentions in some posts or the other, so be sure to hit that search box. Thanks for reading in advance!

Continue reading “Six months of natural and organic empties – Spring 2019”

Bali Balm Review

Hi Lovelies,

Welcome back! And if you are new here, welcome xoxo

Bali Balm Review

How are you doing? I hope life is treating you well?

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet, all about a lip balm I love. Please step forward, Bali Balms*! If you follow me for some time or any time at all, you know I am a proper lip balm addict! As you could imagine, I have tested dozens and dozens of them, but it does not mean I like every single one of them – far from it! It is one area where it takes a lot to impress me, formulating a good lip balm is much harder than you think. Most brands just melt some oils, waxes and butters together, and while it is a correct formula for a lip balm, it does not mean it is any good. What I want from my lip balm is for it to have all natural ingredients (obviously!), be nourishing and also protecting my lips from elements, and perhaps most important factor for me is that it should STAY on the lips for good amount of time, and that is exactly where most of the brands fail. I don’t want to reapply my lip balm every five minutes, thank you very much! So long story short, there are just a handful of lip balms I consider good ones, and it is even tougher for them to end up in my Holy Grail Products list.

Continue reading “Bali Balm Review”

Let the creative journaling begin!

Hello Lovelies,

Welcome back! And welcome, if you are new here xoxo

So as I mentioned in my weekly musings post here, I have a new found love and a new hobby of creative journaling, and some of you wanted to know more – so this post is for you!

You see, I might have a *thing* or two or three or four or five or six or seven about cute stationary, and I had for years. One of the things I was looking forward to every single year was opening a brand new diary, but in all honesty, I never found them quite fitting to my needs. I mean how can anyone fit everything they need to jot down into those measly ten lines a day? I can barely fit all I want to write down onto the whole page – until I get bored/ frustrated mid April and forget about the whole thing until October or something. As I need to keep track not only of the household stuff but also blogging affairs, I spilled over to spreadsheets, which isn’t quite also me – too rigid and not creative enough. So my life was forever changed when I discovered creative journaling is a thing on Instagram – search #creativejournaling and also #bujo and yours will be too! True to my style I soon fell down the rabbit hole. Continue reading “Let the creative journaling begin!”

Weekly Musings #3 – Tired. My Name Is Tired. April 2019

Hi Lovelies,

Welcome back! And welcome if you are new here xoxo

How are all of you, I hope You are well?

If you read any of this kind of posts (see here & here) you will know what they are all about, but if not, let me tell you. in these kind of posts I am letting you into my world behind Green Life In Dublin. If you tried your hand at blogging, you might know how much of hard work goes into it – everything from taking decent pictures to testing the products (six weeks for skincare, no less in my case!) to hours and hours of research on newly discovered brands, products and ingredients, to actually finding time to put the review together – it is just a lot, man. And don’t get me started on the other side of blogging, the upkeep of social media! Sometimes I am on top of things for weeks, but other times I am drained, not going to lie. Coupled with busy family life and work with their own stresses and struggles – that’s a lot of plates to spin. And I feel deeply tired. Today is the last day at kids school before Easter Break, and I am typing this straight after the school run, even before my breakfast, all while trying to remember my today’s to – do list in my head and trying to mentally calculate how to cram everything I need to do in less than two hours, because today is a short day at school. All of the rooms need hoovering and mopping, I have a mountain of clean clothes on the dryer racks staring at me right now, with loads of washing waiting. Hello, my name is Renata, and I am never caught up with the laundry, ever. My mind is drawing a blank on what to prepare for dinner later today, and let me confess I am not looking forward to the kids playdate later today. The friend stays over for four hours at a time, so you can imagine the noise and the mess – I am feeling drained just thinking of it. Now that I am typing all of this, I am kind of realizing I have been running on empty all this year past New Year’s Eve. You know Blue Monday? Well, it kind of is still going strong for me.. I think I need a break.

Ok, pull yourself together Renata, people are not here to read about you losing your marbles – and besides, when you are tired, learn to rest, not to quit. I thought of quitting for a second, when I had hell after posting a bad reaction to a certain brand’s product. What happened next, the brand owner immediately flagged me to this green beauty heavyweight, who came down like a ton of bricks on me – her email hurt far more than my burned face. The brand has to deal with negative publicity because of my actions, I now lost all my credibility and so on. I will spare you the details and the names, but I won’t ever forget it.Being far away from everything and everyone in this Green Isle, I keep forgetting that everyone else is connected and can and will use those connection to shut mouths. So, all this aside, let’s look at the things I have been doing/ reading/ watching /brainstorming lately? In no particular order, here they are.

The latest reading list can be seen on my IG post here:

See my thoughts on these books in the comments. Any recommendations for good books in the health and wellness realm are always welcome, so please feel free to share. And thanks for the Dublin City Libraries for making this possible 🙂

I don’t know how about Your country, but here in Ireland climate change is happening in front of our very own eyes – it is 12th of April now, and yet the grass is frosted in the mornings, what is happening? I am not the gardener of any sort, but I think that is not a good news for plants &  I assume it will affect the produce. The wind stays freezing cold even if the sun is shining, I haven’t felt brave enough to ditch my winter jacket yet. Imagine feeling hot and cold at the same time? Yes, that’s me most days. The last winter jacket I had from Next was not wind-proof at all, so I spent the last two winters shivering cold, even though Ireland is blessed with mild winters, the temps dropped below 0 for about a week only. Now that we are technically well into the spring, there’s still so much of colds and coughs going around. We missed quite a bit of school due to illness in winter, so despite feeling majorly under the weather, we are soldiering on – I give the kids NYR Organic Elderberry Syrup & NYR Organic Thyme & Honey Syrup – feeling kind of panicky, because I am on my last bottles of both. Mentally taking note to watch out for 20% off NYR sale, haha! We have had a couple of storms this winter, but thanks God nothing like The Beast From The East last year – that experience has left me scarred. Up until then I was lax about the demand-supply of products, but funny (not!) how a bit of snow can stop the entire country in it’s tracks when they’re not used to it! I still remember camping in the bedroom for a week straight because out east facing living room was 5*C FRIGGING DEGREES WITH NOT ONE BUT TWO HEATERS ON! I had to wear a coat and a hat inside to go cook some sort of a dinner, which consisted throwing something into the over and then quickly running back. It was even less funny when we ran out of the food on the day three, ventured out into the cold only to find all the nearest supermarkets and convenience shops closed within ten mile radius. (except for one Russian shop, which saved us then).  So my mind, fuelled by the anxiety, is now panicky before every winter and I feel the need to stock up on absolutely everything I could possibly need to last us the winter. If you want to see what natural remedies, teas & homeopathic remedies I tend to stock on, let me know and I will be happy to put that blog post into schedule come next autumn. It wouldn’t make much sense before it, would it? For those of you with you with no patience (like me), there’s this post right here on my natural arsenal against colds & flu (with a fabulously bad pictures to match) and a post on OreganolP73, which is the natural antibiotic I use here. The products are mostly the same, if I find something that works, I stick with it.

Umm, for some reason I can’t see the captions on any IG posts when I browse on my laptop, only on my phone – does anyone else have this problem too, could you let me know?

I have been upping my trusty Tea Which Keeps Me Well In Winters – that applies for any time of the year, plus it is delicious, so I think you would benefit from reading that post too 🙂 Other tea favourites of the moment include matcha, Yogi Throat Comfort and Numi teas with turmeric, which are the best kind of turmeric teas around. I scored them very cheaply from Holland & Barrett a while ago, and now seeing how good they are, I would be happy to pay their worth – only to find out they have been discontinued. Just my luck, huh? Something else I am looking into in natural health realm, is liposomal vitamin C, a thing that is new for me – which is supposedly the best vitamin C on the market, made in a way that it bypasses the digestive tract and goes directly into the cells?? I have to be honest, I balked at the price of it – 50€ for 30, way out of my price range as it is, You need to take two packets per day, which makes it last for 15 days, meaning it’s 100€ for a month for me alone. So if I wanted to get it for my family for four winter months, I would need to spend I-need-to-sit-down-for-this 1600€!! I know, I know, you can’t put price on health, the health is a foundation of everything. But even if I had that much money to burn, I’d put it away for a house deposit if I am honest. So my curiosity was piqued immediately if there’s any way to DIY it, and turns out there is! There are lots of videos on Youtube, which I am not going to link because I don’t have makers permissions to do so, but now that you know, you can search for them yourself. Unfortunately all of them used a sonic jewelry cleaning machine (say what?) and I don’t have it. I have left my research there and then, with a thought to come back to it the first chance I get, which never happened… Anyone knows anything about DIYing it? Any tips, clues or links to clean food grade Vitamin C (not produced in China) would be appreciated. Also, any holistic tips on exposed gums? that’s another thing worrying me greatly. I have been doing this DIY oil pull from the Nadine Artemis awesome book The Renegade Beauty, which is basically coconut oil with probiotics and I am experimenting adding things like turmeric and coconut charcoal to it. If you want to see the rest of my super simple DIYs, see this  post. Oh, by the way, this book is absolutely awesome, I highly recommend it. If you buy only one book this year, this is it 🙂 Your mind will be blown, promise.

I also took a bunch of new photos for my Natural Beauty In TKMaxx post on my recent visit to Blanchardstown store, so keep an eye for that, I am going to update the post really soon.

What else? I have been doing Oprah’s and Deepak Chopra’s 21 Days Meditation (it is still on, look for it on social media!) but I just can’t do it for the life of me.. Seemingly simple act of stopping my thoughts for 15 minutes is impossible for me. I try to do it while the kids are at school and I am home alone, but the monkey brain can’t be silenced no matter what I do – the best I have done is sitting still for about seven minutes and then getting up to continue doing stuff on my to do list. I have also been watching The Truth About Cancer The Eastern Edition and taking notes, but only from episode 6 only. Also I recently discovered Mark Hyman’s The Doctor’s Pharmacy podcasts, they sound good! Now that I think back, maybe I should have added all those with the reading list to my recent Favourites post?

What also should have been added to that favourites post is my new found love for creative journaling, something I also wasn’t aware of before. I always had a *thing* for cute stationery, notebook, diaries and such, finding them not quite suited for my needs, I am now jumping for joy at the thought of creating my own! I am working on my post of it, as I am still a beginner and not sure if I want to share my scribblings versus true art I see on other people’s pages. If you are like me and in any way inclined towards journaling, just search #creativejounaling or #bujo (short for bullet journaling) and your life will be forever changed 🙂 I predict you might part with your cash in your nearest art and craft store soon after, just like I did.

That’s it for today, see you here next Tuesday, my posting days. I think I will publish prepared posts in the next two weeks, but will skip the social media thing to give myself a bit of a break, I hope you are cool with that?

Please like and share my posts on social media, it really helps to get the green beauty word out – and you will forever have my gratitude!

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Renata.

green life in dublin
Green Life In Dublin, green beauty and lifestyle blog
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Natural & Organic Spring 2019 Favourites

Hi Lovelies,

Welcome back! And welcome if you are new here xoxo

Natural & Organic Spring 2019 Favourites – Green Life In Dublin

How are you all doing? I hope you are well? Now that the sun is out and my SAD has lifted, I feel so much better and feel the zest for life coming back. It also means I got interested in my products so much more, so therefore I have been testing lots, sifting through what’s good and what’s not – and sharing the best with you! Ready to get started? I thought you would never ask 🙂

Continue reading “Natural & Organic Spring 2019 Favourites”

Pure Anada Natural Make Up Look & Products Reviews

Hi Lovelies,

Welcome back! And if you are new here, welcome xoxo
Pure Anada make up look

How are all of you? I hope You are well?

Sunshine and improving weather had me all interested in make up again, so here I am putting together this simple and yet pretty natural make up look for you. Special shoutout to Live In The Light (Code GREENLIFEINDUBLIN15 saves You 15%) who  exclusively carries Pure Anada products and has sent me new lip & cheek rouge by Pure Anada to try. I chose a shade Isabella* and I am absolutely in love with it, can’t put it down ever since discovering it.

If you follow me for quite some time, you will know that I have so much love for Pure Anada, I have used their make up for years and they are always featured in my Yearly Favourites. Pure Anada products are really pure with no fillers, minimal beautiful ingredients, and they do work beautifully, so if you want a nutshell of a review, here it is – I am in love with the products and I will be back. And I need to purchase multiple backups of their mineral foundation as I never want to be without it! They do samples for only about a dollar of nearly all the products, and they are really generous samples, they will give you about two weeks of use I would say? And in that time you will definitely be able to make up your mind if the product is for you or not. My first order was full of samples, and I came back for full sizes for nearly everything, and I think you won’t regret it too. They say if you are ordering only samples, you can use the code “samples” to bring your shipping cost to only 2$ – so see if it works for you. It didn’t for me, but I am an international customer, plus the shipping is very affordable at round 7€ (that’s 10 Canadian dollars for you), so I didn’t mind too much.
I am not sure if all of their products are vegan, but they clearly state it in the description if they are. The company also does skincare and body care, as well as nail polish and adorable sets for little princesses.

I also wrote about Live In The Light online store too, all will be listed at the end of this post for those of you interested. For now, shall we start talking about the make up? I thought you will never ask!

Continue reading “Pure Anada Natural Make Up Look & Products Reviews”

Love Lula Beauty Box March 2019

 

Hi Lovelies,

Welcome back! And welcome if you are new here xoxo

Love Lula Beauty Box March 2019

Umm, a little confession here – despite being so happy with the latest Love Lula beauty box (not one but two make up products, you people!) I am sort of late posting about it.. Insert blushing emoji here. Love Lula is the only subscription box I am getting, and I am really happy with it. I’ve been getting it close to two years now, and I have to say they do a very good job at including a good variety of products that are a delight to discover. Continue reading “Love Lula Beauty Box March 2019”

Natural Products in TK Maxx

Hi Lovelies,

Welcome back! And if you are new here, welcome ???

Natural Products in TK Maxx

Today I am coming at you with a short post on what you can find in the beauty section in your local TK Maxx, or TJ Maxx for my US green beauty sisters. This has been my secret weapon for years, and I I hope more of you will discover this great place to shop and save a bit of money too. This is especially great for people like me, when you have no Wholefoods or Detox Market or any place indeed where you can get anything your heart desires under one roof in your city. A good few stores are now jumping on the natural beauty bandwagon, but when you actually look into the selection, it is oftentimes very expensive or just plain greenwashing brands and products. So what’s a gal to do? Apart from going online, check out TK Maxx! Continue reading “Natural Products in TK Maxx”

Love Lula Picks – Kae, Emani – March 2019 [AD]

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Welcome back! And welcome, if you are are new here xoxo

Love Lula picks March 2019

 

As I explained in my last month’s post, Love Lula* wants us, lucky ducks also known as Love Lula bloggers, to post about the products we pick in the same month, so therefore I am changing the way I blog about them too. I used to collect a few products over time and only then post my reviews, but from now on, I have decided to talk about the products I pick in the given month on a first impressions basis, and give more detailed feedback about my last month’s picks at the end of the post. I think this will work out pretty well for all of us, don’t you think? I will do the same for the Love Lula Beauty Box posts too.

Continue reading “Love Lula Picks – Kae, Emani – March 2019 [AD]”