Simply Natural Essentials - Non Toxic Skin Care Giveaway

    If you've been following Joy In Our Journey for a while now, you know that I don't usually talk about makeup, perfumes, the fashion industry, and the like here.  Not because I don't like makeup, but just because there's so much media hype with the cosmetics industry already.

    When I was contacted by Celina at Simply Natural Essentials, however, about taking a closer look at her homemade natural cosmetics, toothpaste, and bar soap, I was interested!

    Our family has needed to use homemade types of bar and liquid soaps for years now, due to our skin sensitivities.  Natural makeups that don't contain toxic ingredients? 
   
    Sure!  Sounds wonderful to me!

    Simply Natural Essentials' goal is to provide others with 100% truly natural and affordable beauty and skin care products that are both effective and luxurious.  Celina has been concerned about the abundance of unnecessary chemicals in the products being sold today that, in her opinion, can be harmful to all. 

    I'm excited to show you what Simply Natural Essentials was able to send for me to try:

Dreamsicle Bar Soap

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Safflower Oil, Glycerin (kosher, of vegetable origin), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifier), Soy bean protein (conditioner), orange mica (mica is naturally sparkly), and orange valencia essential oil.

    As I already mentioned, our family has been using either castille soap (purchased) or homemade goat's milk-castille-coconut oil soap for several years now.  We've left them unscented, because we weren't sure how our skin would react to scents, even those from essential oils. 

    When I unwrapped this delectable bar of Dreamsicle Bar Soap, its aroma was so amazing!  Now, you have to know that when I walk down the aisles of candles, air fresheners, or cleaning products in the store these days, I literally have to hold my breath.  I just can't stand the odor of artificial scents anymore.

    Strange, right?  I know.  I never thought I'd be like that - one of those people.  But when we began to remove scented products from our home, my husband's and daughter's year-round congestion due to allergies began to improve...and the artificial scents began to bother me.  They just smell so fake to me now. 

    Celina's Dreamsicle Bar Soap is absolutely amazing.  I love this! 

    (If you have ever used Trader Joe's Citrus Air Freshener, the Dreamsicle Bar Soap's fragrance is even better than that - truly!)

Simply Natural Essentials Minty Cinnamon Bentonite Clay Toothpaste

    Unless you're into buying or making your own bentonite clay toothpaste these days, you may think I'm just plain CRAZY to put this brown clay mixture into my mouth...and attempt to call it toothpaste.

    Well, the girls and I began using a purchased version of bentonite clay toothpaste about a month ago.  I told the girls they didn't have to use it.  They could keep using their normal natural care toothpaste that we buy locally in our stores here.  I warned them that toothpaste made from bentonite clay wouldn't contain foaming agents (sodium lauryl sulfate), so it would have a completely different texture than regular toothpaste.  It also wouldn't be bright white in color, from added titanium dioxide.

    Surprise, surprise - they liked it!  I've already had to purchase a second tube of the clay toothpaste.

    I kind of wished they hadn't liked it.  Ha!  Bentonite clay toothpaste is more expensive than regular toothpaste!  But it has some unique properties that make it worth using:

• Bentonite clay (food grade) is actually a polishing cleanser with antibacterial properties that has been used for centuries to promote digestive health
• Xylitol is a natural sweetener that has been shown to promote healthy teeth
• Sea salt
• Essential oils means no unnatural flavors!
  

    Simply Natural Essentials Minty Cinnamon Bentonite Clay Toothpaste is much like the product I've used from the local vitamin store in town.  It contains no foaming agents or harsh flavors or colors.  The cinnamon flavor is just how I like cinnamon-flavored foods:  not too overwhelming, but enough to notice it and enjoy it.  Celina can flavor this in a variety of choices to match your preferences.

    Celina wanted you to know that because her toothpaste contains bentonite clay, metal utensils shouldn't be used to scoop up the toothpaste.  Bentonite clay toothpaste needs to be stirred occasionally, so Celina has included a little wooden paddle that can be used both as a stir stick and to place toothpaste onto your toothbrush.  Handy!

Simply Natural Essentials' "Plum" Loose Eyeshadow

    This loose plum eye shadow was designed by Celina to match the color of a product I'm currently using.  I scanned a sample of the color I was interested in receiving, and described to her that it needed to have slightly blue tones instead of red tones, since my skin tends to turn purple eye shadow into a garishly reddish eye shadow.  The color turned out well, and I like being able to have the color customized to fit my needs.

    Here are some of the colors Celina has made:

pinks and purples

blues

greens

natural and white

    The particular "Plum" Loose Eye Shadow I received contains:

• mica
• titanium dioxide
• magnesium stearate
• ultramarine blue
• iron oxides
• boron nitride
• boron glow

    I found the loose eye shadow easy to use, and it glided onto my eyelids smoothly and gently. 

Simply Natural Essentials Lip Glosses . . .

    I had asked if Celina could make a reddish lip gloss that had a pink tinge to it, so it would go with pinks and most any color.  Red is a difficult color to make using natural ingredients.  The photo shows the lip gloss as being quite red . . . but it was actually quite pink - bright pink.  I tried it anyway, in tiny amounts.  While I still prefer my purchased red lip gloss, it's only because I just love that one color.  When I wear pink lip gloss, I'll wear this!  Celina is able to make lip glosses in many colors, but just know that red is a tough color to develop without using artificial ingredients or chemicals.

        Simply Natural Essentials' lip gloss contains:

• castor seed oil
• cetyl stearyl alcohol
• olive fruit oil
• beeswax
• hydrogenated castor oil
• soybean lipids
• lauryl laurate

• carnauba wax
• candelilla wax
• vitamin E
• mica
• iron oxides
• carmine

"Minty" Lip-Luvin' Calendula Lip Balm

    "Minty" Lip-Luvin' Calendula Lip Balm is just what it claims to be - refreshing!  It's a nice little tin of spearmint goodness!  It's a smooth lip balm that stays on my lips about the same length of time as regular chapstick, although this lip balm isn't as "heavy" as those waxy products. 

    Ingredients:

• calendula flower
• jojoba oil
• beeswax
• coconut oil
• spearmint essential oil
  

• shea butter
• stevia
• mica
• iron oxides

Simply Natural Essentials "Fair" Foundation Powder

    Celina sent me the color, "Fair" Simply Natural Essentials' Powder Foundation.  It's a light ivory for my pale complexion.  It wasn't an exact match to what I've been using these days, but I do like the look of it.  When I get a bit more sun on my face as the summer progresses, this will be perfect for me.

Muscle Rub and Green Healing Salves

    I didn't receive these for review, but Simply Natural Essentials also makes salves for healing and for sore muscles.  I'd like to try these sometime. 

    If you've been thinking about switching some of your beauty products to a more natural version, please consider Celina at Simply Natural Essentials.  She is delighted to begin developing custom-made natural skin and beauty products for you!  I found that she was easy to work with and had great customer service.

    Simply Natural Essentials offers choices of color in eye liner, eye shadow, nail polish, lipstick, tinted lip balm, and bars of soap made out of these colors:

    Simply Natural Essentials not only is concerned about developing skin care and beauty products that are good for your skin, they are also wanting to provide products that are much less expensive than the average line of cosmetics found at the cosmetics counter in department stores, or even online with other natural cosmetics companies.  Simply Natural Essentials are up to half the price of most online natural beauty products!

Prices for custom made, natural beauty products:

Foundation:  $10
Eye Shadow: $5-8 depending on size
Lipstick: $8
Tinted or plain lip balm: $5
Nail Polish: $8
Eye Liner: $5-8 depending on size
Soap Bar: $3.50
Minty or Cinnamon toothpaste:  $8 in glass jar; $5 without glass jar

Now, for the giveaway!

    Celina from Simply Natural Essentials has offered to give two of Joy In Our Journey's readers a wonderful gift of a bar of soap (your choice of color and scent) and one cosmetic in the color of your choice.  This giveaway will end on Friday, June 14th, 2013 at midnight (Pacific time).  The selected winners will have 48 hours to respond to my notifying email that they have won; if no response is heard, I'll select another winner.

    If you're interested in speaking with Celina from Simply Natural Essentials about their natural, homemade beauty and skin care products, she may be contacted at SimplyNaturalEssentials.

or  https://www.facebook.com/SimplyNaturalEssentials

Please, only U.S. residents are eligible to enter this giveaway.  Thank you.

Entrants must be 13 years or older; only U.S. residents are eligible to enter this giveaway.

I will select the winner of this prize using Random.org (via this Rafflecopter entry form, below).

I will be verifying the winning entrant's giveaway entry options to make sure they are valid.  In the past several months, multiple potential winners were excluded from winning even though their names had been selected randomly as winners, because they said that they had signed up for email subscriptions but had not completed the process, which includes clicking on an email you will receive to confirm your subscription.  An email subscription to Joy In Our Journey.com is not a requirement to enter our giveaways, but if you do use an email subscription option to enter to win, please make sure that you click on the confirmation email that you will receive.  That will validate your entry.  Thank you!   :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

    I received one of each of the products shown in this review, except for healing salves and sore muscle salves, in exchange for my honest thoughts about these products.  No other compensation was provided.

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