So in anticipation of its arrival I just bought myself a bouquet of flowers. Guys or gals you don’t have to wait for someone to buy you flowers …
TREAT Yourself and buy them yourself. They don’t have to be expensive! A small 💐bouquet can bring so much JOY!
These days they are available everywhere. Besides my local florist of farmers market I love the flowers 💐 from Trader Joe’s.
Another thing you can do is buy a potted plant 🪴 of flowers 🌸 with greenery.
Plant 🌱 some love ❤️ in your home decor!
Flowers “boost your spirits” just looking at them!
Add fragrance and color to your day with a floral bouquet! 🌺
Our days in Florida right now are cool in the 40’s and we’ve needed to bundle up and cozy up with heat or by our fireplace. It had been dreary rainy days but the sun is shining brightly today.
So, I’m treating my rooms to a spring flower in a bud vase bathrooms.
Then separating more of that bouquet 💐 in vases or pots around the kitchen, living room and dining room.
Things have changed so much since the pandemic began. Men are diving into the beauty pond and has awakened them to take better care of themselves. Self-care is now becoming a part of their lives.
I’m getting ready to guest speak and explore all things beauty and fashion. It takes a lot to put a class topic and concept together but I love what I do. This year my topic is on male makeup and skin care.
It’s always a new adventure working and playing in New York City. It fuels your creativity and motivates you like no other city. The hustle and bustle is the heart of the city. The city truly never sleeps!
Are you a makeup artist, esthetician, plastic surgeon,dermatologist, own a spa or medical spa?
Chinese New Year is here and I have been enjoying celebrating. Food, family and time to reflect on our lives. It is also a time to open our hearts and spirit to attract and welcome good health, prosperity, happiness and overall year round good luck.
Did you know for the Asian people its not just about a one night NYE 🎊 🥂 🍾 celebration it’s a 15 day affair. They really know how to party and so much more! Family is the core of the festive and food filled celebration.
I am happy to be a part of the culture!
Red lanterns and lots of gold decor are abound.
Since I am an all American girl who happens to be of Chinese AND Polish descent. I celebrate it in my own way too! I love spreading the word and supporting small mom and pop businesses too. Eating, sipping or fun shopping Chinatown’s in USA and beyond are my happy place.
I love to explore
Now in beauty there are a few points of interest you might like to know.
No hair cutting or washing on New Year’s Day. Some prefer not to take a bath or shower as they don’t want to wash prosperity and luck away. The Chinese character for hair is the same as the first character in the word prosper. That is why they do this still to this day.
This festival time RED 💋 lipstick 💄 is a must especially if they wear lipstick. As you may know some Asian women prefer no lipstick. It just depends on their style. Red is a fire color. Sure to bring in your good luck and prosperity.
Bold colored fashions or hues of red (solo) in their outfits are worn to celebrate too!
My favorite part of celebrating is eating. Chinese Dumplings 🥟 are eaten and devoured with glee. The more the merrier! As they believe the luckier and more prosperous you’ll be in the new year. Fingers crossed🤞
The shape of these dumplings 🥟 resemble pieces of gold. Symbolizing wealth.
I hope you enjoyed these small bites of interest, food plus beauty on Chinese New Year. 🧨🧧🐇
Tidying up the last signs of Christmas 🎄 in your house and the holiday season? Me too.
In fact some of my neighbors can’t let go and still have their Christmas trees lit up inside and decorations in their windows and outside their front door.
So if you happen to find you have left over CANDY CANES let me stir your imagination and let’s make and enjoy a few things.
It’s cold 🥶 outside even in sunny 😎 Florida. 🌴 . We have our fireplace going and I’m cozy in bed with a hot chocolate with a candy cane hanging from my 👄 mug with lips. I just took a bath and enjoyed this recipe below. I love the smell, taste and minty feel of peppermint in food and on my skin! Especially my feet after a long work day or a day of travel. ✈️ So I refresh my skin and exfoliate it gently a bit too. I use this peppermint recipe especially in the winter.
Peppermint Kiss Foot Scrub
What you will need is:
1 cup of cornmeal (I prefer the fine one)
1 cup of powdered milk
Approximately 15- 18 drops of peppermint oil. Not cooking or food grade but aromatherapy essential oil.
And add a dash of water and stir.
I fill smaller mason jars with the above mix.
OR I pour into mini snack size baggies to have individual portions.
Take a shower or bath or just wash your feet and pat them dry a bit.
Sit at the edge of the tub or on a chair in the bathroom.
Place down a bath mat or towel.
While skin is still damp apply this scrub and massage it in on each foot.
Then pay attention to the soles and calluses and dry areas of your skin. Massage in circular motions of your foot and work the scrub in.
This revitalizing foot 🦶 scrub smells dreamy and feels so invigorating on the feet
Leave scrub on your feet at least 5 more minutes and rinse well.
Your feet will feel brand new and your spirits will be too.
Who says you can’t enjoy and eat candy canes only during the holiday season?
My husband and our family have had it on and off since December. It’s tough!
Here is a remedy that really helped us!!!
Eucalyptus Rescue
This recipe is simple. You only need two ingredients and a small glass spray bottle. I found some gorgeous green colored ones.
1 bottle of distilled water (my preference)
1 bottle of Eucalyptus oil
Mix a few drops 💦 of the oil into the bottle you filled with water. A little goes a long way and depends on the size of the bottle.
Next BEFORE you go into the shower spray one of the shower walls with it. You’ll notice immediately that soothing scent. It will start to open up your sinuses and make you feel better! Take your shower as usual.
Another thing you can do is hang a bunch of eucalyptus upside down in the shower with twine. But I love ❤️ the oil method in the spray bottle. I like to make small batches but if you’d like to make a larger bottle use a 16 0z. Spray bottle and fill with water. Add about 4 drops of the oil.
Shake and spray! You’re good to go.
Next I placed some Vicks Vapo rub on the soles of my husbands feet after the shower. I followed up with a clean pair of cotton socks.
* If you’d like to you can add a slice of fresh ginger into the mug too.
Then I gave him a cup of tea. But not with a tea bag I made an elixir with a lemon 🍋 and honey 🍯 cough drop.
FYI I allow the cough drop to melt inside the cup.
I warmed up some hot water and dropped the throat lozenge in the mug or tea cup. His mug reads “Hello Handsome” He gets a kick out if it every time I serve him something in that particular mug. He drinks every last drop.
Add a slice of fresh ginger and lemon slices if you’d like too!
The eucalyptus scented shower, the cozy socks with the rub and the cough drop tea I made combined made him feel so much better. That and lots of bed rest and no screen time!
I repeated the next few days as needed.
Soothing in so many ways!
Added bonus… his feet felt so soft and a warm sensation filled his body. He’s much better now!
Obviously if you are allergic to ANY of the above. You may need to alter this recipe to your needs.
Whatever you celebrate I wish you a beautiful day and holiday season.
I’m back and have a chance to breathe and slow down. Wow! What a whirlwind it has been on my end. It’s truly called “holidaze” for a reason.
I loved helping my clients shop for the holidays and to treat themselves and shop for someone else. I love ❤️ serving them a glass of bubbly or champagne and serve them some healthy yummy bites like Brie and vegetables, nuts and fruit. A few sweets on the side can’t hurt.
I also love to make them laugh and put a smile 😊 on their face! One idea I love to do when entertaining is this…
Looking for a few good men?
My clients and friends are too.
I love serving them gingerbread men on a silver platter. I brand I love ❤️ and is so delicious is from the Stauffer Biscuit Company I found at the Dollar General store. But I ’m sure other stores carry them. I am picky about the taste of my gingerbread men and brand.
Only the best for my clients and friends!
On display I place a sign that reads “ Looking for a few good men” next to the silver platter of gingerbread cookies. They get such a kick out of it. Sometimes the simplest things are the best!
I also like to make my home smell amazing with a tease of the scent of gingerbread. Since I’m not baking gingerbread cookies from scratch the house does not smell like them but you can make an Aromatic Holiday Elixir in your home by simmering a pot of this.
What you will need for this fragrant DIY is:
A few drops of gingerbread essential oil
1 small orange sliced
2 cinnamon sticks
1 sprinkle of nutmeg
Add to a small saucepan filled with water. Place on low heat. Simmer away.
Your home 🏡 will smell awesome and feel cozy too!
Serve some hot cocoa and you’re all set. Marshmallows on top of course and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.
I hope you enjoy these ideas! All the decorations, twinkling lights, eat yummy things and have fun 🤩 with friends and family. Life isn’t quite the same anymore but we have so much to be grateful for!
Oh how I have missed YOU and blogging too! I know I’ve been “missing in action”. It is so unlike me not to post as I love sharing all things beauty,travel and foodie with you.
I have been traveling ✈️ for work and play. Puerto Rico, California, Palm Beach 🏝 Florida. Oh what glorious fun! When I work I always fit in time to enjoy a city and add a day or two of adventure and fun!
But with travel and a busy schedule comes a chance of getting a cold or worse. So I started to get symptoms of a cold. I went to the doctor right away to nip it! They gave me cough medicine and antibiotics. It’s wasn’t fun! But it wasn’t Covid or the flu that is going around.
After that came an unexpected late in the season hurricane in 🌴Florida! All whirling around while I was sick in bed.
I had to get back to work as soon as I could for Black Friday and Shop Small Saturday days at my beauty bungalow. So I did but then who knew? I’d be bit by three angry WASPS 🐝 three different days. My leg swelled like a killer whale. I was limping with laryngitis too as the upper respiratory infection wasn’t done with me too!
My husband loved that part! All I could do was squeak. So tough!
So you see I’ve really been through hell and back. I’m tired from all the medications and trying to work and keep it all together. I have to take care of my clients and their holiday shopping needs with my Beauty Elves at my business.
I do want to share some beauty & foodie recipes with you but I’ve got to work. I have not even begun Christmas & Chanukah shopping yet. How about you? Are you in a holidaze and going crazy right now too?
If you are… I hear you and am right there with you! Hang in there.
Don’t laugh it feels so brisk and cold here in Northeast Florida! 🌴 The temperature is 50 degrees. I know you’re laughing at me. Or us. Yes I’m turning into a true southerner. Our weather is so unpredictable one day we’re sweating and another day we’re beyond cold. Freezing 🥶
My husband is whining and bundled up too. We’ve got cozy socks, sweaters and pajama bottoms on.
So, I decided to warm us both up with some hot apple 🍏 cider. It’s working. Now to an old trick my mom did up North during the winter. I put a pot of 💦 water on. You know the size pot like making pasta. But I’m not. My mom swore it makes the house warmer in the fall & winter and adds moisture to our air.
But I wanted to take it a bit further and make a Cozy Pot of Potpourri. I like to scent the air with the following.
1 orange 🍊 sliced
Citrus deodorizes the air too!
1 Apple 🍎 sliced red or green it’s up to you!
A sprinkling of cloves.
A smidge of pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon of luxe Vanilla.
* I once got a gift 🎁 of vanilla from my husband and I love this useful kitchen addition from his international travels. I use it in so many different ways and find it is extra fancy stuff!
2 cinnamon sticks are optional. It looks pretty in the pot. But optional.
Toss all of the above in the pot of simmering water you boiled but lowered the flame. Let all of it mix, mingle with each other and dance in the pot. I just shut off that simmering pot of scentsational love!
My kitchen and house smells so aromatic fresh & delish!! Play with this recipe like I do and vary it any way you’d like.
Thanksgiving and the other holidays are fast approaching if you’d like to scent your home “naturally” and without room sprays, inexpensive candles and plug-ins. Try this!
It’s my favorite time of year. I love 🧡 The scents of fall and all things 🎃 pumpkins and decorating my home and my business office with fall decor.
I miss Beautiful New York and walking through Central Park especially when the leaves are in full fall peak bloom! I’m Florida fall leaves and all are not quite the same. But I do love the exotic palm trees 🌴 all around me!
So because a few of you asked I thought I’d share one of my favorite pumpkin DIY scrub recipes I like to do! You don’t have to buy one! Make your own on the cheap! Especially if you have the ingredients on hand. This can also be used as a exfoliating FACE Polish. But if you have acne or Rosacea. Skip it. You’ll want to eat this mix but don’t! It smells so delightful when done!
What you will need for this Aromatic Body Scrub:
1 cup of brown or white sugar
1/2 cup of sweet almond oil
1/2 cup of coconut oil (organic)
1/2 cup of pumpkin in a can
Sprinkle of nutmeg or Pumpkin Pie Spice!
A large mouth mason jar.
🎃 Stir all of the above in a bowl.
🎃 Place in a glass jar. Scoop out a soup size spoonful when you’re ready to use.
🎃 Apply on clean damp skin. Work in circular motions. Neck, hands.arms,stomach,buttocks,legs,feet and enjoy the exfoliating beauty of this scrub.
🎃 Leave on your body at least 15 minutes.
🎃 Rinse well and apply your favorite body oil or lotion.
Your skin will FEEL so delicious and soft.
Did you know pumpkin is a “turn on” for men? If you want to create a little magic. You know what to do!
Life, Lipstick, & Glowing Skin 