Doing Better

Ayurveda is an ancient wellness system from India that in a nutshell is all about balancing three doshas (or mind-body types) through proper diet, practices, and herbs. I really like a number of MAPI products specifically for allergy support, and other members of our family use a lot of their supplements, seasoning blends, and teas too. They are a large wellness corporation and affiliated with both the Mahrishi University and Transcendental Meditation. You can read about their corporate social responsibility practices on their website.

Baraka is a small business in Northern California with a crew of potters who hand throw and glaze each of their neti pots. I really like their neti pots and accompanying mineral sea salt rinse. I know I would be miserable without them during allergy season, and they help me with colds too. I love their founder's story about how after she realized neti pots were the key to her own sinus health, she learned to throw pottery and started out using a friend's llama shed for her neti pot pottery studio. They carry a whole line of sinus support products.

Vital Living is a small business in Salida, CO. From their website: "Vital Living is a retailer & manufacturer of high quality handcrafted skin care, bath & body care, natural make-up, handcrafted herbal & nutritional supplements, loose leaf tea, bulk herbs, and natural pet foods." We use a lot of their self care products and source almost all of our essential oils from them.

A reusable, cotton booklet to take the place of disposable tissues - why not? The creator has a great story about how she came up with the idea while she was an engineering student at UC Berkeley. We're going to try out the Hanky Book on our next adventure since we go through a lot of tissues and we're intrigued by this idea, plus we won't have room to store all the tissue trash. If it seems icky, well, we cloth diapered and it doesn't get much ickier than that so we're not afraid! We'll let you know how it goes...