All natural wood polish? Yes please!

Having the heart of a hippie & being cheap I often look for home cleaning products that I can make from what I already have around the house.
Plus the less chemical crap we use the happier and healthier we are!
So after scouring the internet for all of about 2 minutes I found a few recipes that caught my eye.

SO EASY!

As per usual with me I generally pick and choose from two or three recipes and then hybridize them to make something new, because that is how I roll.

Since we moved to Las Vegas we have gained a few pieces of furniture from my parents house - most were in need of some serious cleaning and moisturizing (kinda like our skin).

What I made...
There were quite a few recipes for basic dusting, but I wanted something a wee bit more intense especially since they will now be residing is such an arid desert climate.

Super Rich Furniture Cleaner and Polish

• 2T coconut oil (I like a less refined oil that retains some of the yummy coconut smell)
• 2T olive oil
• 1/3C white vinegar
• 1/3C water
• quick squirt of dish soap

That's it. Mix it up a bit and dip a rag in and go to town.

I was really surprised and impressed how well it cleaned and left the wood so much more alive looking.

You can add a few drops of lemon essential oil if you would like, but I was too lazy to go get my oil and it was glorious even without the oil, but either way works.

The ingredients.

The creation.

Here is a picture of the bookcase I was cleaning. I don't know much about it other than it has been at my parent's house for as long as I can remember so at least 35+ years.

The bookcase before.

 Here is the bookcase immediately after I wiped it down with the mixture. What a difference!

The bookcase immediately after.

I took this picture 24 hours later without any additional applications.

I used the same polish on several other pieces and have been just as tickled with how they have all turned out. 

Since this recipe is richer in oils I most likely won't use it to clean every time, but I will use it regularly to keep the wood nourished and healthy.

Thank you to Brittnay Thomas at The Pistacio Project for the initial inspiration! Keep up the amazing work.

Have you made your own furniture cleaner or other cleaning product? What is your favorite?

The beauty of clay!

Clay. So simple and so powerful.

Natural ingredients. We strive to incorporate the power of natural ingredients in all of our bad hippies products. Clays are such an amazing and powerful natural tool that are often overlooked.

Growing up the only consideration I gave to clay was that it was a pain in the ass to dig through and it did not make for a nice garden as plants aren't so fond of it.

Fast forward to a few years later...

Now that I run two businesses I get exposed to new to me things all the time - like clay and how it can be used in so many areas for healthy skin.

In my Rodan + Fields business our Redfine Mask contains koalin clay which has been used in beauty products for centuries. Koalin (also known as China Clay) helps clean and exfoliate your skin by absorbing excess water and oil into itself. It is a totally amazing clay...

My favorite and most widely used clay at the moment is bentonite.

"Also known as montmorillonite, bentonite clay is clay formed from the ash of volcanoes. The name “Bentonite” comes from the location of the largest source of the clay: Fort Benton, WY." - Global Healing Center 

Why is bentonite my fave?

It is all about electricity baby.

Bentonite produces an electrical charge when mixed with water. 

Say what?

This negative charge then bonds with metals and toxins in your body whisking them away and helping your body purify itself!

Bentonite + pits = WINNER!

This bonding with the nasty stuff is why I use it in our bad hippies all natural deodorant - it is also why our deodorant has a darkish color. Bye bye conventional deodorant junk, hello fresh happy pits!

I also believe this is why so many people that have switched from conventional deodorant to our natural product have experienced either little or no pit detox time. 

Yeah for less funk and gunk all the way around!

Bentonite is also amazing for your face!

It seems so counter intuitive to put basically mud on your face, but it is exactly what you should be doing.

The hippies also sell pure clay masks in our good for the body line just for this purpose.

To use mix (remember to never use metal to mix your clay, this will reduce its ability to bond with the toxins and metals in your skin) with enough water to form a paste and the apply to your face. 

It will be thick! 

Leave on your face for about 20 minutes and wash off with warm water.

Use this gloriousness 1 to 2x a week.

Want to switch it up?

• mix the clay with plain yougurt
• add essential oils like frankincense or patchouli for added awesomness
• can also be used on minor skin irritations like, scrapes, razor burn, bug bites, minor cuts, itchy skin, and blemishes

Do you use bentonite for any other awesome purposes?
Let me know what they are!!!

20ish things you may not know about the bad hippies...

It has been far too long since I have posted and even in the midst of the chaos that is moving two households more than halfway across the country I promise to try and do better...WAY BETTER!

Here are 20ish facts you may not know about the hippies - whether or not you wanted to know :) 

1. This whole adventure started because we wanted to make our own laundry detergent.
2. We started making our own soap because the store bought soap had tallow in it and we wanted to make our with no animal by proucts.
3. Our soap (and many of our products is vegan or we can make it vegan by request).
4. Many of our soaps can be used as solid shampoo.
5. Several of our soaps can be used to wash dogs & even horses or other livestock.
6. Plain jane can be used to wash your cat.
7. Care should be used with cats and essential oils.
8. Both our birthdays are in January.
9. We are moving to Las Vegas June 2018.
10. Moving is a pain in the ass.
11. One hippie is an omnivore one a vegetarian (vegan wanna-be).
12. One hippie works a traditional outside the house job.
13. The other hippie owns two (2) small businesses and also does contract work.
14. Neither hippie is a gambler even though we are moving to Las Vegas.
15. The bad hippie concept was born in Syracuse, NY.
16. The bad hippies became a real thing in Rolling Meadows, IL.
17. We take requests for products and if possible will create a product for you!
18. We teach soap making classes in the community.
19. I am an Aquarius. The bad hippie is a Capricorn.
20. We have one cat named BooBoo.
21. We love what we do...
22. One hippie is a marathoner and a triathlete (short ones, not the crazy big ones, yet).
23. If we never have to shovel snow again....we are totally cook with that.
24. We love to travel both domestically and internationally.
25. We have both been to 27 countries - so far.
26. One hippie has been to (we think) about 45 states.
27. One is a total bird nerd.

Are you surprised by any of these?

What are some of your fun facts????

Free your pits! Natural deodorant for the win!!!

Natural deodorant? Are you nuts?

Yes, yes I am and you should be too.

We have talked before about our skin being our largest organ and what you put on it goes into it and all the way into you too! EVERYTHING - lotions, exfoliators, soaps, laundry detergent, fabric softeners, shampoo, conditioners - EVERYTHING! 
The junk that is in these things gets pumped through our bodies.

We need to go back to basics.

I have talked before about all the extra crap in the products we use and why they are there. 

It makes no sense. 

This what the heck is that in there for and what does it do holds true for our deodorant too.


As consumers we are taught to look at the labels of the food we buy and look for additives, refined sugars, carbs, fats, all sort of other junk, but why don't we apply these same rules to the products we put ON our bodies too?


Have you ever read the ingredient list of your deodorant?
Doubtful, but you should. 

Here is the ingredient list from a popular men's deodorant:

Propylene glycol, water, sodium stearate, fragrance, sodium chloride, stearyl alcohol, FD&C blue no. 1, FD&C yellow no. 5

And here is the list for the same companies antiperspirant: 

Aluminum Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex Gly, elaeis guineensis (palm) kernel oil, C12-15 alkyl benzoate, cyclomethicone, synthetic wax, PEG-8 distearate, hydrogenated soybean oil, fragrance, sodium starch octenyl succinate, silica, maltose, PVP, glyceryl stearate, cetrimonium chloride

Go grab your deodorant and I bet you see much of the same.

Do you know what these ingredients are or what they do?

Conventional antiperspirants work to clog the pores in your underarms and prevent you from sweating in this way, except for the fact that YOUR BODY IS SUPPOSED TO SWEAT!!! 

There are a mess of studies that show and a huge body of work that indicates putting aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly on your skin is not good. 

Your pits need to be FREE! Let them breathe and do their jobs.
Oh yeah and your armpits are home to more than 20  lymph nodes that are part of your bodies larger lymphatic system which helps fight infections and keeps us healthy! Why wold you want to put all that crap right there next to your lymph nodes?

The deodorant we make has ingredients you can pronounce and that aid not hinder what our bodies do naturally!

Here is a list of what our deodorants contain:

• coconut oil
• shea butter
• beeswax (can also be made vegan by swapping for a plant based wax)
• baking soda (for sensitive skin we use arrowroot powder)
• cornstarch
• bentonite clay
• essential oils (various blends used for their amazing properties for your skin & body

That's it. No extra crap. You can pronounce everything. Oh yeah and it works!

For me, the longer I use it the less I actually sweat (which seems really weird) and the less I have to use it. 

If you have never tried natural deodorant you should give it a try - you may be surprised and your pits will thank you!
 

You can jump to our website by clicking here!

Do you have a favorite natural deodorant? I would love to know what works for you...

Black soap for a better clean? You betcha!

Activated charcoal & bentonite clay soap - a natural way to get the grime out.

Charcoal has been used for centuries from the ancient Egyptians that used it as a wound poultice to water filtration by the Hindus. It seems contrary that using charcoal and clay can help get you clean, but both have amazing properties that you can take advantage of daily.

These amazing benefits are exactly why we use this combo in our clay ninja soap. All of our castile soaps have the exact same base...olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil, distilled water, lye, & stearic acid.  That's it. After that we may add in herbs or in this case clay & charcoal, essential oils, or fragrance oils. Done.

These soaps are amazing. They moisturize, they clean, they rinse clean with no residue, they make your skin happy, and don't do nasty things to the environment. 

Making soap is so cool...

If you have never tried a charcoal soap, maybe it is time that you did. You can find our clay ninja in our castile soap collection on our website here!