Category Archives: WELLNESS

Salt Inhalers and Oral Ecology from Living Libations : Venice and online

March 22, 2017

I recently discovered the wonderful online shop and brick and mortar Venice shop, LIVING LIBATIONS and I am in love!

Living Libations is an exquisite line of serums, elixirs and essentials oils for those seeking the purest of the pure botanical health and beauty products on the planet.

I simply HAD to get their SALT INHALER after reading about Nadine on The Chalkboard. I was enthralled by a piece about where she addressed Oral Health (officially on board with her entire regime – well, most of it!) and then I just went full on digging around and needed to know everything!

The Salt Inhaler is a positively purifying device that cleanses the entire respiratory system by flushing out allergens and impurities. The salt inhaler, also known as a salt pipe has been featured on theDr. Oz show and named one of Alternative Medicine’s 2010 Best New Products.

I just started working with it and it’s pretty cool – so far, I am just getting used to it, but it’s supposed to be excellent for many reasons – here are few I found just poking around the web.

9 Health Benefits of Salt Inhalers

1. Helps with Sinus Ailments

Salt inhalation therapy has been used to boost overall respiratory strength and lung capacity. Studies from the 1800’s found that breathing pure, ionized (salted) air in salt mines could help reduce respiratory problems and the general irritation cause by smoking and air pollution.

2. Supports Harmful Organism Cleansing

Himalayan salt has been used as a cleansing agent against harmful organisms. In fact, it is a commonly used holistic health practice to help individuals with respiratory difficulties, and may even work better than some of the commonly prescribed options for these conditions.

3. May Help Reduce Swelling and Redness

Crystal salt helps reduce redness and swelling, aiding in the body’s ability to fight off responses that lead to deterioration in the body over time.

4. Detoxifies Air

We breathe in a shocking amount of chemical pollutants, as well as smoke, dust, smog and pet dander. Our lungs are under constant stress from air pollution. Similarly, many smokers have found comfort in using the Himalayan salt inhaler, as it helps reduce withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting.

5. May Help Lower Blood Pressure

High in the mineral potassium, the Himalayan sea salt inhaler may also aid in stabilizing blood pressure.

6. Deepens Breath Capacity and Promotes Mental Calmness

Given its ability to increase the body’s natural ability to breathe deeply, a salt inhaler may provide a variety of psychological benefits. The ability to breathe easily promotes their body’s own natural relaxation response.

7. Aids in Promoting Sound Sleep

Using a Himalayan salt inhaler is believed to help people breathe better at night. It may also reduce or eliminate night coughs, snoring, and breath-related sleeping conditions. In addition, some people find that Himalayan salt lamps such as this 3D moon night light design can boost their overall mood helping them to sleep more soundly.

8. May Help Reduce Mucus Build Up

Salt is a natural cleansing expectorant, and can aid in reducing excess mucous and general nose and throat stuffiness.

9. Moisturizes Dry Mucous Membranes

A crystal salt inhaler is great for taking aboard an airplane, as the salt hydrates the respiratory system while we travel.

I am pretty obsessed with oral care and flossing and tongue scrapping ( I bought the IONIC toothbrush and scraper she suggests)

I cannot wait to get to work with some of the oral goodies too!

8 Brooks Avenue #3
Venice Beach, California
Call (310) 399-7472 Text (424) 343-4170
Living Libations, Venice Beach Store Hours
Wednesday – Saturday:11am-6pm

You may also schedule private consultations where you will be pampered by a trained Renegade Beauty Consultant™ with customized care and expert advice to optimize your natural beauty.

For inquires or to schedule an appointment please email:

[email protected]

Living Libations was created by Nadine Artemis, beauty philosopher, aromacologist, and botanical muse, shaping plant-intelligence into palpable consecrations to blush senses and muse imaginations.

Living Libations is a line of serums, elixirs, and essentials oil that nurture beauty, enhance the immune, and promote healthy good oral care. Nadine is the author of Holistic Dental Care: the Complete Guide to Healthy Teeth and Gums.

Nadine’s official biography begins when she first combines flasks of essential oils to recreate Nina Ricci’s L’Air du Temps for a school science fair. These botanical-inclinations led her on petal-pathed adventures in creating organic beauty balms, reviving elixirs, healing oral care and perfumed poetry to quench the natural yearnings of many.

Nadine opened North America’s first full concept Aromatherapy store, Osmosis, in 1994. Since that day Nadine has since received glowing reviews for her formulations in the Hollywood Reporter, Flare, the New York Times, Vogue and The National Post. Nadine has also addressed gatherings at conferences, appeared on television and radio shows.

Ron

After spending many years in Downward Dog, Ron realized breathing came naturally to him. So, he set off for India where he learned from Ashtanga yoga guru, Patabhi Jois.

After sweating for many moons under his tutelage, his guru’s parting words of wisdom were, “Ron, you be Action Hero.” With this prophecy of adventure in mind, Ron walked across the desert of India looking for savasana in the shade and a mantra in some mythical yogi-cave. Later, he toured as the Bare Naked Ladies yoga advisor perfecting bhujapidasana and passing through many sidhis.

On this hero’s journey, Ron realized that meditation is anytime, anywhere: breathing yoga into a pathless land. Now Ron is expanding that breathing into beats and weaving rhythms into dance music and ambient sounds that have listeners spellbound.

Together

Upon meeting, Nadine was compelled by Ron’s life-force, infinite intelligence and divine playfulness. He was enraptured with being alive and emanated a wondrous, crazy wisdom. To Nadine, Ron was a troubadour, a Prince of Song, and she was enchanted by his bardic grace and strength.

At first inhalation, Ron smiled at the woman that exuded the pure perfume of a jasmine flower. He was struck by her “real to the feel nature” and inner-wisdom-oasis. Ron knew he had found his “howdy-partner.”

Together, they embody a bliss that is caught rather than sought. The alchemy of their cosmic communion pours the levity of life into the sacred and the secular.

Some nights they would stay up “till dawn, imbibing and drinking all of Nadine’s elixirs and sinking into a world of Living Libations. Ron’s chocolate syrup spilled into her jasmine-juice, and then gold lightening burst loose. They played and played until this nectar was made. It was from that moment on that they forever abandoned to play; they bowed, they vowed, and hand in hand, they took the pathless land.

Out of this play their luxurious skin care, restorative essences, and purest of chocolates are made, tuning people’s senses to the adventure of living. In these creations, joyful petals, endless lands and green-leaf glee greet the boundless cosmos of your being. This is the ground to spin around and around and grow branches of bliss to all living things.

 

The One Quiz You’ll Ever Need: Maharishi Ayurveda for your Balance and Wellness needs:

March 9, 2017

Here is the ONE QUIZ you need to figure out your Ayurvedic profile!

I did it and WOW – I have some PITTA issues. I have heard that Maharishi Ayurveda is top of the line for all your AV needs. So of course, I stocked up. I just started my new regime. Cannot wait to report back!

Worry Free. Emotional Balance supplement from vpk, by Maharishi Ayurveda.

Top Seller

Worry Free — Worry Management

Occasionally worried or anxious?

  • helps relieve occasional anxiety
  • worry management
  • natural relief from worry & stress
  • calms the mind for deeper sleep
  • natural relief from everyday tension
  • calms & relaxes
  • promotes deeper sleep
  • powerful vata-balancing formulation with ashwagandha & jatamansi
  • vata, pitta, kapha balancing (vpk®)

60 Herbal Tablets $24.95

30 Herbal Tablets $13.95

 

Blissful Joy. Emotional Balance supplement from vpk, by Maharishi Ayurveda.

Blissful Joy

Occasionally feeling down?

  • uplift the emotions & relieve feelings of sadness
  • powerful formula with ashwagandha, arjuna & amla to support resistance to daily stress
  • vata, pitta, kapha balancing (vpk®)

60 Herbal Tablets $37.95

Maharishi Amrit Kalash – The Rasayana of all Rasayanas

Maharishi Ayurveda’s herbal food supplement, Amrit, is a Rasayana of Rasayanas — the quintessential ayurvedic herbal compound for all-around longevity, health and vitality. This super antioxidant contains dozens of ayurvedic herbs and fruits, each of which is a potent Rasayana in itself. Add to that the meticulous traditional processing, and you have a truly powerful Rasayana.

What, exactly, is a Rasayana? The age-old traditional Sanskrit definition is “that which negates old age and disease.” In another translation, a Rasayana is described as “that which enters the essence.” One of ayurveda’s chief goals is maintaining health, and Rasayanas are considered the primary method for promoting vigor and health. In other words, a Rasayana is that which preserves health and longevity. It also supports the experience of transcendence, nourishing and balancing at the deep levels of the physiology, and supporting the delicate state of balance necessary for this experience.

Vaidyas, or ayurvedic experts, say that Amrit supports “bala,” or the vital strength that helps the physiology maintain health. The “Nectar of Immortality,” as Amrit has been called, feeds the body’s seven tissues: nutritional fluid, blood, muscle, fat, bone, bone marrow and reproductive fluid. Amrit is tri-doshic, balancing the three ayurvedic mind-body types: Vata, Pitta and Kapha.

Amrit is a two-part formula, for balanced, complete support: The Nectar herbal fruit concentrate (also available in tablet form) and Ambrosia herbal tablets work together to create overall health. Each contains different herbs so, for the full health benefits, it’s best to use both formulas.

The ancient ayurvedic texts bestow high praise on this traditional formulation. Charaka Samhita, the oldest existing Indian medical text, describes Amrit as, “enhancing memory and longevity; keeping body and mind limber; imparting radiance to the skin; benefiting quality of voice and effectiveness of speech; and increasing the fortitude of the senses and intellect.”

Amrit, the “Golden Cup of Longevity,” also promotes learning, retention and recall. Amrit helps with the aging process, supporting heart and cardiovascular as well as brain health by reducing free radical damage. For published research on Amrit, click here.

The Amrit production process hasn’t changed since ancient times, when only a select few knew the formula. Today, the formulation is still passed down by generations of ayurvedic physicians and prepared in accordance with the instructions in the traditional texts. It takes 250 meticulous steps to prepare — 22 pounds of raw ingredients are required to produce a single jar of the Amrit Nectar. Forty-four rare herbs are slow-cooked at low temperatures to protect vital nutrients which would be destroyed by heat. This specific attention to tradition and detail — using “antiquity processing” — ensures a genuine ayurvedic product of unique quality.

Fast-forward to the present day: the modern lifestyle had begun to seriously stress everyone out. Stress from the environment, stress from time pressures, emotional stress, mental stress, physical exhaustion — the well-being of people everywhere was tenuous. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation® program, gathered the most distinguished ayurvedic physicians and scholars of the time to see what could be done to alleviate people’s suffering. One of the primary fruits of these cooperative labors was a dynamic Rasayana to nurture body, mind and spirit in a very complete yet balanced way — Amrit. This elemental formulation represents a modern synthesis of great, ancient knowledge. Viewed in this light, the plethora of benefits Amrit offers is hardly surprising.

On a more scientific note, chemical analysis shows that Amrit contains an abundance of phytochemicals — protectors of health that have many beneficial properties, including strong antioxidant power — in high concentration. These include vitamins C and E, polyphenols, bioflavonoids, beta carotene, catechin, tannic acid, and resveratrol. Polyphenols are free-radical scavengers and chelators of damaging metal ions. They include both water-soluble and lipid-soluble antioxidants, and can regenerate vitamins C and E. Vitamin C helps promote immune function. Our body does not produce it, so it must be obtained from foods or food supplements. Vitamin E is an antioxidant that promotes youthfulness and helps combat lipid peroxidation in the brain. Resveratrol is a polyphenol with potent antioxidant properties. It helps protect LDL cholesterol from oxidation and supports platelet health.

Bioflavonoids are a group of polyphenols with the highest antioxidant power. These potent free-radical scavengers have been shown to help maintain healthy levels of both LDL and HDL cholesterol. They help combat LDL oxidation. “Bioflavonoids are present in their most concentrated form in herbs,” says Hari Sharma, M.D., author of Freedom from Disease. Research has established that complex mixtures of bioflavonoids have a synergistic effect that yields a benefit greater than the sum of the individual components.

Some of the substances in Amrit have not even been isolated and examined under a microscope. Yet, however tiny they are, they travel as vessels for nature’s own intelligence. Rare herbs and fruits come together in one very well-researched and potent product to provide you with health superpowers, courtesy of nature’s clever wisdom: a pure, antioxidant Rasayana. Meet Amrit.

I also took the DOSHA QUIZ and found out I am PITTA  and need this line for Pitta Dosha balance:

Wanderlust Hollywood Is Coming!

March 1, 2017

And here’s a sampling of what’s soon-to-happen. 

Re-Imagine Your Truth – An IN-Q Experience

Day-long creative writing conference 

Saturday, March 4 / 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM PST

Explore more facets of your unique creative voice and connect with others at this transformational day of storytelling and poetry workshops with National Poetry Slam Champion and multi-platinum winning songwriter, IN-Q. The day also includes a guided meditation with Light Watkins, followed by an Omni-breath session with Rabia Hayek, yoga, and the powerful discussion with special guest speaker Sean Stephenson, who will change the way you look at the life you live.

Jai Uttal Roots, Rock, Rama! Album Release Concert

Sat, March 11 // 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM PST

Wanderlust Hollywood is proud to present North American kirtanwallah Jai Uttal performing songs from his new double album. A fresh take on kirtan, his new “Roots, Rock, Rama” album fuses reggae, rock, folk, and Brazilian music making for a sacred dance of the devas. Participate in devotional call and response and experience deep peace and spiritual insight through the sacred sound current. Come together to dive deep with Jai and the Southern California bhakti community.

Teacher Training intensive:

Radical Freedom: The Alchemy of Presence & Tantric Meditation Intensive with Scott Schwenk

February 24–March 24 / Fridays from 1:00–6:00PM

In all forms of Alchemy, fire is present. Within each human being, behind all the thoughts, body sensations, and emotions is a spark of dynamic awareness which is free from conditioning, and the source of joy, love, and prolific innovation and creativity. This tantric meditation intensive is deep training in consciously living. 

Heart of Devotion Workshop with Krishna Das

Sunday, April 30 // 3:00–6:00PM

With a remarkably soulful voice that touches the deepest chord in even the most casual listener, Krishna Das has been called yoga’s “rock star.” Unite with fellow seekers and experience the power of group call and response chanting. No experience necessary. KD will also share personal stories from his years on the path and take questions from the group. 

For more information on all Wanderlust Hollywood events, please visit: http://wanderlusthollywood.com/events

 

The NOW: Massage Boutique Opens in Silver Lake Restore Your Body. Reset Your Soul.

February 27, 2017

The NOW, a Los Angeles based massage boutique, heads east, opening its third location on the hottest stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. The massage boutique, which has quickly become the most sought-after new wellness destination for locals and globe-trotting influencers alike, reinvents the way people think and experience massage by creating a luxury service in a convenient, affordable, and accessible way.

The divine, affordable menu has been improved and is totally customizable – offering enhancements depending on each clients preference and wellness needs. They’ve got your heat therapy, deep tissue, muscle recovery gel and hydrating eye masks. For more spiritual and sensory experiences, The NOW is incorporating crystal-healing foot soaks and aromatherapy add-ons.   Check this link for details and prices.

With their goal to service Los Angeles and beyond, doors open on the east side this month, answering the demand of their clientele that spans the city. In keeping with the other two locations, The NOW is a quiet haven that sets the perfect scene for resetting and unwinding. Designed to feel like an oasis in the city, the interiors are inspired by nature, with elements reminiscent of Tulum.

Features exclusive to Silver Lake include their handmade crystal grid installation comprised of 300 quartz, citrine and Smokey quartz crystals. The space reflects their signature look by incorporating a hammock, two swings made from raw wood, and an exclusive water feature. In other words, you will want to move in.

The expansive retail space will feature their upcoming line of home goods, candles, diffusers, custom pillows, handmade ceramics and Gara Danielle x The NOW jewelry in addition to the best holistic beauty and wellness products that are carefully sourced globally.

Pricing starts at $35 for a 25 minute massage, $60 for a 50 minute massage and $90 for an 80 minute massage

  • The Journey Room featuring 6 chairs is a social space focusing on the head and foot massage (seated massage)
  • The Moment Room featuring 11 rooms is a private yet communal space for full-body massage (table massage)

The NOW Silver Lake
3329 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
323 922 6007
www.thenowmassage.com

 

 

The Oaks Ojai for a Solo Spa Retreat

February 17, 2017

The Oaks Ojai  is a totally old school spa and I love it – just like Ojai – down to earth and serving nothing but realness.  I am obsessed with Ojai (who isn’t?) and this spa reeks of Ojai history.  I went solo for a couple of days of healthy, clean eating, and QUIET – perfect to clear and rejuvenate my mind, body, soul. And oh did I. It was BLISS.

I had a fantastic massage, ate super clean and simple food, watched small groups of ladies do pool aerobics ( I was recovering from minor surgery – don’t ask –  so I took it way easy!) I forgot my bikini – no prob I walked around in a robe and undies and no one noticed or cared or even looked twice. The chef will work your diet very specifically. I really felt like I was in the 70’s for some reason and loved every bit of it. The women at the desk so amazing. It felt like camp.

My casita was gorgeous – totally private and my little Spanish villa to myself. I confess to spending half my time in the enormous tub.

The Oaks Ojai is majorly unpretentious and perfect for a mother-daughter getaway. The crowd was not your uber-snobby LA wellness workout warrior freaks – but just normal women or all shapes and sizes. Many were older too, so once again, a great for a mom-daughter thing.

They have lots of event weekends (hikes, yoga, etc.

Make sure to check out upcoming programs.

And let’s not forget the town of Ojai is dreamy. You can step out and you are right in the center of it! SO MUCH GOODNESS EVERYWHERE!


Wasn't kidding about walking around totally comfy just like THIS!