Japanese Fashion

So, if any of you follow me on Pinterest, you have probably noticed me pinning a lot of Japanese fashion lately. Holy moly you guys, I have found my dream clothes! I don't know why I've never noticed Japanese fashion before but it is so fun! I discovered it the other day when I kept finding these outfits that I loved and they were called "Mori Girl". I thought maybe it was a brand so I looked it up and apparently it's a fashion sub-culture in Japan. I guess over there, they have different fashion cliques, I suppose we have cliques too but you guys, their outfits are like costumes! They are so fun! I found this blog that goes through all of the fashion styles over there (seriously, crazy cool) and looked through a bunch of them. Anyways, my favorite is Mori Girl.

Mori means "forest" in Japanese and basically the style is a girl who looks like she lives in the forest. The style consists of lots of layered clothing, simple colors, great textures, vintage looking, billowy and comfortable. From what I could find, this is actually a new "lifestyle" there, like how we have "goths" "preps" "cowboys" "hipsters" "hippies" "granola" etc. The lifestyle is described as being girls who love vintage things, take lots of pictures, love simplicity, have a natural look, and enjoy life in it's simplicity. It's pretty interesting, to me anyway! I'm pretty excited that I have found this style and can incorporate the outfit ideas into my own wardrobe. I've been back and forth between hippie/bohemian (loose and flowy) and retro/vintage (tailored and fitted) for awhile and this seems to mix them perfectly! A lot of the outfits I've found seem pretty costume-y for every day wear, even though I love them. Here are some examples:

What do you think? Too costume-y or do you think I could pull it off without everyone thinking I was crazy? :) Not that it matters anyway really! I just love it and kind of want to go shopping in Japan now... Take a look at the other styles, are there any that you love? Some of them are crazy!

The Oil Cleansing Method

A few of you have been asking questions about what I've been using on my face and how I use coconut oil in my "beauty regime". Ha, that sounds fancy! Here's a little back story first...

Basically since I graduated from high school (8 years ago! gasp!) I have been fighting acne. Sometimes it wasn't too bad, then other times it was cystic, red glaring terribleness rising out of my face. I still have people who ask me what high school I go to <facepalm> I began seeing medical doctors, holistic doctors, trying essential oils, vitamins, a new diet, more sun, less sun, creams, face washes, antibiotics, etc. etc. Nothing worked. Sure, sometimes the bumps would go down a little, then they'd just come back and be worse than ever. All the doctors said I needed to give it time, it would be really bad then would be good! Hallelujah! Except the good part never came... It's been frustrating to say the least.

I've never been one to complain about my appearance or wanting a different sized body part or what have you, but my skin? I could handle having the baby smooth skin I see on so many people. Especially, people I know do not live as healthy a life style as I do. I just think to myself, "How can they have such great skin and be eating/drinking/doing that?!" I know I shouldn't compare myself, but I couldn't help myself. It's something that can change about my body that is just stubborn and refusing to comply.

This January, Jared and I decided we need to change our lifestyle to be more healthy. Last year we both were sick alot, could sleep honestly for 15 hours straight at the drop of the hat, didn't have the energy to do any of the things we loved and I had debilitating headaches about every other day. We knew something needed to change. So we cut sugar out. Sure, every now and then we splurge if someone makes a special dessert, but really I don't miss it. I began to feel so much better! Jared did too, but this is my experience, not his ;) I stopped having headaches (!!!!!) gained a lot of energy and started sleeping better. Go figure, sugar you sly creature! After quitting sugar, my face started clearing up too. It didn't last long but it didn't go back to how bad it had been. Progress.

After we had implemented a new diet (basically cutting out the processed junk and spending more time making clean food) and were feeling a zillion times better, I began looking into beauty products. I figured if I was making my insides clean, shouldn't I be keeping my outside cleaner too? (I may have become a bit paranoid about chemicals and additives etc. so, keep an open mind haha I'm just a little crazy!)

So I found online that you could wash your face with coconut oil, and as I have been oil pulling for a few months now and have discovered the magical amazingness of coconut oil, I figured I'd give it a shot. Here's the rundown (it's so simple, it's ridiculous!)

1 - Get your coconut oil and a wash rag and head to your sink. Coconut oil is solid at room temperature but don't worry, once its on your hands you just rub it around and it'll change to oil consistency.

2- Wet your face with your hands. If you're wearing eye makeup and washing it off (you can do this with the coconut oil too!) then wet over your eyes too.

3- Dip a couple fingers into the coconut oil and scoop out a couple fingernail size chunks (make sense?) Rub the oil in your fingers to thaw it out.

4-  Rub the oil all over your face, rub it in good too, don't let it just sit lightly on your face. If you're washing off eye makeup, I usually rub it over my eyes after my face so I don't end up rubbing makeup all over my face in the process.

5- Wet your wash cloth (get used to doing this blind if you're washing off makeup!), wring it out, then drape it over your face. I usually do warm water but whatever makes you comfortable. Leave it there for about 15 seconds.

6- Using that wash cloth, run it over your face a couple times to remove the oil sitting on top of your skin. Don't scrub super hard. Just lightly rub it off.

And you're done! After your skin dries, if it feel tight you can rub a tiny bit of oil onto it as a moisturizer or use pure aloe vera.

A few extra tidbits:

If you feel like you need to exfoliate, just add a bit of baking soda to the oil before you put it on your face. It's awesome! I do it about once a week.

If you have an unruly zits that just won't go away, I have had success with tea tree oil in reducing the redness and size. Just dip a q-tip into the bottle and dab it onto the cold sore. Try this on your hand or somewhere else first to make sure you don't have a crazy reaction to it. Some people are sensitive to certain oils.

Again, I have only been doing this for a month and am not an expert on any kind of natural/beauty etc. But this is what I have found to work well for me plus it's chemical free!

I have read that you can use extra virgin olive oil, castor oil (mixed with evoo), avocado oil, jojoba oil, or sweet almond oil as well. I have included a bunch of links below that talk about it. Do some research too, google it, find what you like. This is just what I've found. I may incorporate some castor oil mixed in with my coconut oil at some point but for now I'm keeping it simple and trying it out.

You can buy coconut oil in some beauty sections of the store but it's way more expensive than the cooking kind and it's the same stuff just in a different bottle! I just get mine from Raley's, a grocery store here. I've heard the Trader Joe's organic coconut oil is great too. Basically just look for organic, unrefined, pure coconut oil.

I've also read that coconut oil could clog your pores, while I haven't experienced this, some may. Again, I am very new to this and trying different things but giving them enough time to actually show results. So if you find things that work best for you, I'd love to hear about them! Acne is an ongoing struggle for me and I would love to find the miracle concoction!

Here are some links to blogs that talk about the Oil Cleansing Method in more detail:

The Oil Cleansing Method
Wellness Mama
Overthrow Martha
Little Miss MBA
Thank Your Body

HOLY COW!

Umm... so it's been awhile! Miss me? Well, I have unfortunately been struck with the winter doldrums for the past while and have been utterly uninspired! It's been the worst. But, the sun has been showing her lovely face more lately and I'm feeling chipper so here we go again! Here's a little preview of what you've been missing out on...

In January I visited my sister in Springville, UT and got to ride the train down from Salt Lake. Did you know I love trains?  I LOOOOOOOVE TRAINS!

I finally up-cycled this old cork board that was left at the house when we bought it. I'm super excited with how it turned out!

I've been listening to a lot of vinyl lately. I just love it. Also that I snagged this album at a yard sale for 50 cents. FTW!!

Oldie but goodie, been missing home a lot lately...

As sad as it is, those are pretty much the only photos I've taken since Christmas (aside from ones with my adorable nieces but I just let parents share their kiddo's photos, cuz I'm weird like that!). Winter is not an inspiring time of year for me and I am so excited that it's drawing to a close!

The last (unphotographed) few months have been filled with searching for recipes for homemade beauty products, visiting new babies in the family, and watching a lot of Netflix. I'm not kidding you guys, I just can't get over this winter slump.

But, on the plus side, if you've seen me in the last couple years you'll have noticed that I have ridiculously awful adult acne... I mean, really, just awful. I haven't been able to find anything that works, been to dermatologists who pumped me full of antibiotics that did nothing, tried store bought vegan and organic face washes and such and no avail! Nothing worked. Then I found all these recipes for homemade/natural solutions to beauty products and my life has changed! I began washing my face with coconut oil, it sounded counter-productive but I tried it and OH. MY. GOODNESS. My face started clearing up after 3 days. And that never happens. My skin is still not awesome, but I'm getting close to a month mark of no chemicals on my face and I can't believe the difference! It's so exciting! Anyways, so that has led me to all sorts of natural solutions to beauty products. I'll share some more in detail of what works for me and what doesn't once I've tried them for awhile but it's really fun!

Well, that has been my last few months. Not terribly exciting but that's life in Elko! I kid, kind of, but really this is a cool place <insert ridiculous grin here> I hope you have all been able to avoid those pesky winter doldrums and are getting pumped for sunshine and flowers coming soon! TTFN!

THANKSGIVING BREAK

It's funny how accustomed I've become to my new life. I used to see a member of my family about once a week when we were living in Cedar City, and see Jared's parents even more often than that. Now that we are all the way up here in Elko, it's harder to take trips to see family so they are few and far between. But we have friends here and so we kind of just get used to our little bubble of work and weekends and every day routine. Then we go home. And it all changes. I realize again how much I miss everyone. How fun it is to just hang out, play games, and chat with family and not have to think, "we need to cram as much as we possibly can into the next few days because who knows when we'll be down next?" And seeing our nieces growing up too fast and trying to catch up on lost time is so hard!

Six months ago, if you had given Jared an amazing job that was closer to our family (or anywhere else for that matter) I would have been excited to go. But I realized on this trip, that if we move any time soon, I am going to be incredibly sad. We have made some amazing friends here in Elko. Some of whom I consider part of my family. I am so happy that I've been able to meet such amazing people and be able to share our lives with each other. To clarify, we have no reason to be moving any time soon, it was just something I was thinking about when I went to my parents. And that's another thing- obviously, my childhood home will always be "home" but I realized I referred to Elko as home and truly meant it. I've never done that with anywhere I've lived.

It was so great to see our families this week. Talking about everything under the sun (mostly ancient America and the relation to the Book of Mormon- AMAZING!), playing frisbee golf, playing with our 6 nieces, catching up with siblings, eating scrumptious food, shopping and taking silly photos. It was refreshing to be face to face with our families. I miss them a lot! We're so glad that we are able to travel home and that we have technology now to keep up to date with our families.

I hope your Thanksgiving breaks were all filled with family and yummy food!

Bloglovin'

Do you like to follow different blogs? By family members, friends, or on any other topic known to man? Do you have them all bookmarked and have to go through clicking on each one, going to their page every day, not knowing whether or not they posted but just wanting to check? I know I used to do this.

<<< here comes the shameless plug for Bloglovin'>>>

Then I found Bloglovin! I love this site! I follow a lot of family and friend's blogs but also design, fashion and photography blogs and I was missing out on a lot of content. With Bloglovin, you add all the blogs you want to follow and whenever one of them makes a new post, it comes up on your feed. It's awesome. Plus, they have a great app for Apple products (and I'm sure Android as well) that's streamlined and easy to read on the go. It's such an easy way to have access to all the blogs you want to keep track of. Plus, it's all FREE! Gotta love that!

So go register on Bloglovin, add all the blogs you want to follow (like mine for instance?!) and enjoy seeing all the new content in one place! Thanks friends, I hope you enjoy Bloglovin as much as I do!