Summer Adventures & Life Plans.

You may have noticed that I have been pretty quiet over the last couple of months. I just realised how busy my life was with everything I was juggling and decided to just chill out a bit and take the time to ponder on where my life was heading and where I want to wanted to be. I have some wonderful new clarity on the future and have set some goals to work towards.  

All my life pondering aside it has been a really fab summer full of BBQs, VWs, camping, picnics and sunshine. You may also notice that Doris (our VW campervan) has a sister now, I will introduce you to her properly soon. I have some big plans for her over the winter which I am super excited about!

Hope you have had a wicked summer. I will be posting more regularly again from now so watch this space...

Much Love

xkx

Wheat Protein in Ecover Washing Up Liquid... Eeek!

Most of you lovely people who read my blog on a regular basis will already know that I am gluten intolerant. I mention it here and there but I try not to 'go on' about it too much because I don't want a defunked set of genes to define me or my health. That being said it is a major part of my life that I have just learnt to live with. I have to check the ingredients of everything I buy to eat or drink, and I mean everything. If I am eating out somewhere I have to check how meals have been made and exactly what is in them, some places just hand me this massive allergy book of their food that I have to wade through and try and work out exactly what is safe-ish for me to eat. If I don't stick to being gluten free I get really ill, I get stomach cramps that are so painful that I can do nothing but lie on the bed and cry, I get numbing bouts of exhaustion, my whole body aches, I feel uncomfortably full even when I haven't eaten followed by feeling starving even though I don't want to eat. Then I get this weird brain fog so it is really hard for me to concentrate and I get cranky because everything is an effort. Plus a myriad or other symptoms. I'm sharing this here because I just want people to know that people aren't gluten free because it is the cool new diet, it isn't a lifestyle choice, its choosing between health and illness. (If it was a choice I would eat pork pies, black pudding, chelsea buns, oh the mouth watering list goes on).  

With all this in mind I bought some new Ecover washing up liquid at the weekend, I had just finished a bottle of the camomile scented one (this one has no wheat in it) and I was super happy with how long it lasted and how well it washed even the dirtiest of pans. I picked up the lemon and aloe vera because it was the only one the shop had. At home when I was waiting for the kettle to boil I absent mindedly read the ingredients and stopped dead when I read WHEAT PROTEIN! This spread a mild form of panic over me (I'm sure people with food intolerance/allergies with be able to relate to this). Wheat protein in washing up liquid, I would never have thought of reading the ingredients on such a product. I searched the internet to try and find out if it was still safe for me to use and couldn't really find an answer. I was mostly met with the reply of 'As long as you don't eat it haha', well thanks for this lighthearted approach to my possible foreseeable future on the toilet, but I am going to wash plates, bowls, eating utensils with this washing up liquid and if it has a lot of wheat protein in then it could cause me problems. 

So as a last resort I emailed Ecover for some help with this issue and they were really quick at replying and were pretty helpful, this was the reply that I got:

Good Morning Kirsty and thanks for your email

We do use wheat protein in our Lemon & Aloe washing up liquid but you would only really have an issue with this if you ingested the product as it makes up 0.04% of the product. Our Camomile and Marigold and Grapefruit & Green Tea washing up liquids don’t contain any wheat protein

I have a severe gluten allergy myself and I am fine with the lemon & Aloe but if you want to be extra sure then we would recommend rinsing the plates after washing.

After reading this I think that I will use this washing up liquid as it does only have a tiny amount in it, but I will keep an eye on my health and just see how it ticks along. I haven't been too well lately but I think I may have tracked it down to some cheeky barley malt in Vimto... Ooops. 

Hope this post helps people who might also be worried about this (I hope I wasn't the only one lol). 

Much Love.

xkx

Kitchen Glamour - Coconut Oil.

Coconut oil doesn't seem to that popular in the UK but I would not want to be without it in my kitchen/ bathroom cupboard. You can use this for both cooking and beauty, it is delicious on crumpets and you can even fry chips with it (I have never tried this but it does sound super yummy). I mainly use coconut oil for beauty bits and bobs though...  

I have found coconut oil invaluable when it comes to keeping my hair in good condition. It may not come as a surprise to you that my hair is not naturally bright red. I pre-lighten the roots then dye it red, so I find that I constantly battle with split ends and dry hair. You can  use coconut oil as a deep conditioner by melting it (you can do this by putting it into a cup, in a bowl of hot water) then smothering you hair with it and leave it in for 20 mins. It is best to wrap your hair in a warm towel because this helps your hair to soak in all the goodness. Then wash out, shampoo it first before you wet your hair because of the simple science that oil repels water. I'm not too keen on doing this though, I'm not always patient enough to wait and then to wash it out properly. The lazy way is to wash your hair as normal, towel dry then melt a little bit in your hands (about the size of of a 5p coin), make sure your hands are really oily then just scrunch it into your hair, especially the ends. You really don't want to put too much on because it will make your hair look greasy! You can then either let your hair air dry or blow dry it, I have found both works well. Doing this every time I wash my hair has really made a difference to the condition of it, which has meant the colour stays more vibrant longer and when I re-dye it it looks even redder. 

I also use coconut oil as make up remover. I used to use sensitive skin make up wipes but I found that they would flare up my eczema around my eyes and make them really puffy. So I started to use coconut oil instead. I melt a bit in my hands then I massage it around my eyes and wipe with cotton wool pads, then I rub the rest around my face. I wet my face with some water then just wipe my whole face with another cotton wool pad. Whatever oil is left on my face I leave there overnight and it is absorbed in the morning. It leaves my skin in wonderful condition and you don't have to worry about what chemicals are in your make up remover either. If I have a spot coming I dab a little extra on it at night and I find after a couple of days it will have disappeared (hopefully). It is also fabulous for any dry skin on the body and pesky dry cuticles, I just rub some around any problem areas at night and by the morning there is a great improvement. 

The last way I use it is to oil pull. I will probably do a whole post on oil pulling at a later date because it is a pretty amazing process that I only recently found out about. Basically you swoosh this in your mouth for 15-20mins twice a day and the oil pulls the bacteria from your mouth which means that your immune system is freed up to fight illness etc. 

The pot pictured above cost me under £10 from Amazon and it has lasted me 6months to a year. So it has probably saved me money for all the things I have replaced with it. 

I hope you found this helpful and I hope you have some rather lovely plans for the bank holiday weekend. Ed and I are going to a spa this evening for a bit of R&R.

xkx

Cheer Up Cheesecake.

The nights are beginning to draw in already and it seems like summer is graciously slipping away, if this makes you sad then this is the perfect recipe to give you a smooth, citrus cuddle.

Ed has had a stressful two weeks, so to keep him chipper I promised to bake him my Cheer Up Cheesecake. This is a lemon baked cheesecake that is light as a feather. This is the recipe I used to make this lovely, sunny pudding. I tweaked it a little though, I added the juice of two lemons and put a large tablespoon of lemon curd into the mixture. Next time I think I will double the lemon juice and even maybe add some lime into the mix just to give it a little more punch. I didn't bother with the raspberries on top either, I think this would have complicated the subtle flavour. 

This definitely cheered Ed up and put a smile back on his face. Well worth the effort.