Daily Archives: October 27, 2013

A few months ago, I won a giveaway from Hearts.com and Nourish Organics. I got quite the haul- body wash, body lotion, body butter and hand soap all in their Lavender Mint scent. Nourish Organics bills itself as “concern free”- it’s gluten free, vegan, no animal testing and eco-friendly. The lavender mint scent isn’t overpowering. It also isn’t your grandmother’s lavender. The mint helps it stay fresh rather than cloying as lavender scented items can sometimes be.

The body wash does smell a tiny bit different from the body lotion. To me it smells like the air after a rainstorm.  I’m still using the products, though I have used their body wash in the vanilla almond scent previously. I really like the body wash. It doesn’t foam up like most commercial body washes do, but it does clean effectively. The body wash is non-drying and leaves skin very lightly scented. The body lotion doesn’t hydrate quite as long as I’d like, but I’ve got severely dry skin due to a side effect of a medication I use. I found the body butter worked better for the dry patches on my legs and it made my hands feel velvety. The first item I used was the hand wash. It has a great scent, rinses off easily and doesn’t dry out your hands.

It’s obvious I really like Nourish’s line of products. I also like the fact that they are a small company, they have quality items and gorgeous packaging. They recently released an argan oil line and facial skin care line that I’m eager to try. I also appreciate their “concern free” policy. SInce I must avoid gluten, it’s great to find an effective line of gluten free products. Nourish is certified organic by Oregon Tilth and it’s nice to know they do not test on animals. But concern free doesn’t mean they skimp as far as anything else is concerned. You’re still getting excellent products and they’re reasonably priced.

Check out Nourish at nourishorganic.com, also available thru ulta.com!!

Filed under: gluten free, natural-organic beauty Tagged: beauty, cruelty free, gluten-free, Nourish Organic, organic, product review, vegan

I can't be responsible for someone else's actions, can I? I am a mother and as a mother I will always feel partly responsible for what my son does even though he's not a child anymore but I can't tell him what to do. So why do I feel like it's my fault, the fact that he's fucked up again. He was doing so well. Everyone said so. The truth is he wasn't doing so well and I should have realised it. I knew it was too good to be true for him to stay drug free after years of being an addict. I should have insisted he had some sort of professional help. No one can be addicted to heroin for years and be expected to cope in the real world without proper help.
My sister rang to say they'd found prescriptions for methadone in his room. They weren't in his name. He obviously couldn't manage without and has been buying the stuff. My first thought was that he must be back on the heroin. So he's let everyone down and lied to everybody again. Why am I not surprised? He's now broken the trust of everyone who has bent over backwards to try and help him. My sister and her husband won't have him to stay at theirs now, no matter what he does....and I can't blame them. He's going to end up homeless again and I know what that means. If he's not using heroin now then it's only a matter of time before he does. If he's homeless he'll seek help from the very people he needs to stay away from, the dealers and other addicts.
I've managed to talk to him once. He's blaming everyone but himself. He swears he hasn't used heroin. He says he was under so much pressure to get off the methadone quickly, start work and prove himself that he felt he couldn't tell anyone or ask for help. He said he couldn't cope with his moods and methadone was the only relief. I feel sure that he has some sort of mood disorder, like me. Maybe bipolar, maybe not. I've tried before to get him assessed but it's impossible while he's still using. I'm sure he's self medicating but it's a vicious circle. How do they differentiate between mental health and substance abuse and how one thing affects the other? I do feel for him. I know what it's like to have everyone thinking you're fine and telling you how well you're doing, when really you're in bits. I can understand why he kept it all to himself but at the same time he should have been man enough to talk to people.
I haven't been able to contact him again. I have no idea if he is ok. I don't know what to do. I don't know if there is anything I can do. I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall. I feel helpless. I just want him to be alright.

“A Public Health Case for a Safer Injection Facility in San Francisco, CA”

This is a film that highlights an issue that most of us would rather not think about: the day-to-day lives and the moment-to-moment needs of intravenous drug users. In the film, we learn that drug users are people too, with their own set of special needs. The chief of these needs is a safe place to shoot up, without having to worry about unsafe conditions.

It tugged at my heart that many of the IVDUs (Intra-Venous Drug Users) who were interviewed voiced concern about shooting up in places where they might be seen by children, families, pregnant women….it affected me in two ways: first, that the IVDUs were really concerned that they might cause trauma or other harm to these groups that they identified as vulnerable. Second, it is clear that they feel that they are a potential source of contamination, just by seeing them, and that makes them a lesser person. They feel like lesser people who don’t want to contaminate the “professional people,” as one man said, simply by being who they are: junkies, crackheads, meth freaks…..PEOPLE. So there is a grass roots movement run by former and present drug users to create safe space for IVDUs to use their own drugs without haste, using clean equipment, in a respectful, nonjudgemental atmosphere. I’m for it. As one man in the film said, drug use is not going to go away. The “War on Drugs” has been a dismal failure. I am SO on board with this. If my life circumstances allowed it. I would be right there, right now.