Most of us already know natural solutions are better for the environment. They’re also better for your skin than most commercial products, and much less expensive. However, not all skin is created equal. Depending on your unique skin type, you’ll want to reach for a different natural solution. Here, we break down some common skin issues and the ingredients that help combat them.

Breakouts: Honey

What is algae?

Scientifically, algae are aquatic organisms that thrive through photosynthesis. This includes a great number of organisms, but for our purposes, we’re going to focus on spirulina and chlorella.

What’s the difference between spirulina and chlorella?

Chlorella is a single-celled green algae made up of chlorophyll pigments (hence it’s bright green color.) Due to its incredibly fast reproduction rate, chlorella is a very sustainable food source.

Very dismal news came through in October that the Great Barrier Reef had suffered mass bleaching and a major part of it had died. This led environmental writer Rowan Jacobsen to publish an obituary, “The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old." But there’s still hope, and these positive news stories form 2016 certainly prove it right!

During college, I began having trouble sleeping because my brain, which was full of to-do lists, would never hush up. Now, it’s post-grad, and I’m still somewhat of a restless night-experiencing insomniac. Lucky me.

Fresh herbal teas are fantastic, and they have been used over many centuries to improve people’s emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. Herbal teas can be the most beneficial and delicious when brewed from fresh herbs, and nothing beats an herbal tea made from freshly grown herbs you’ve produced yourself. So, why not try growing your own herbal tea garden? Most of the herbs used in teas are easy to begin and continue growing.

Foundation and blush are great for really giving your skin an overall glow. That said, it can be hard to find all-natural versions at an inexpensive price. With these recipes, you'll never have to worry about running out of your favorite foundation or blush: You'll know a recipe you can make on the fly to replace it in a jiffy!

Foundation

The Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast covers the current planetary transits which affect people in different ways and to various degrees of intensity.  Take notice when it is a Personal planet (Sun / Moon / Mercury / Venus / Mars) interacting with a Social (Jupiter/Saturn) or Collective planet (Uranus / Neptune/Pluto).  And pay extremely close attention when it is a Social planet interacting with a Collective planet because that means something *big* is brewing that will move large groups of people along their evolutionary paths. Tun

The Ancient Aztecs used the Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia spp.) as food and medicine. I know it doesn’t look like something you’d want to grab – or even eat – but it’s packed full of powerful properties.

For many of us, death is not something we think about until someone close to us passes. We may find ourselves ill-equipped to handle the intense emotions that come with losing someone we love. We may not want to think about death as it could make us upset or frightened, yet it is the people who reflect upon dying that find both a deep gratitude for being alive and an urgency to focus on what matters most in this life.

Some non-culinary adventurous people fear the vegetables that lurk at the edge of the produce section. You know they are vegetables, and probably good for you.  But you hesitate to buy them because you don’t know how to cook them, or you fear what they might taste like once you put them on the table.

Leeks are one of those vegetables.

They are stately, upright stalks that look a bit like green onions on steroids. They are, in fact, related to the onion, belonging to the allium family of vegetables.