Back in Business! (GIVEAWAY!)

Wow, it feels good to open up the laptop and write a new post again! PLUS, I am so excited to be able to visit each of you this morning and leave a comment after so long of just reading!! I hope I haven't lost too many readers :)

And, just like I promised, it's time for a celebration giveaway!!

As you know, we've switched most of our food to organic/natural, and that has extended into other products around our home, too, like shampoo, soap, and cleaning products. I don't consider switching the home products to be quite as important as food, but some of the ones that come into contact with our skin are something to consider because of some of the ingredients, for example parabens which mimic estrogen and therefore can have an effect on our hormone system that we are so desperately trying to manage!!!

My favorite website for natural products is vitacost. There are tons of reviewed products, from vitamins to laundry detergent. And their prices are better than at least the stores in my area, usually by a couple of bucks. For my giveaway, I will be offering one of two products- you can choose which one you'd like!!

E&O Peppermint and Tea Tree Hand Soap: Alot of the naturally-fragranced products use lavender. I got the world's largest bar of all-natural lavender soap for our downstairs bathroom in the spring, and at that time I mentioned to my acupuncturist that we'd switched to natural soaps, and I had this amazing lavender one, and she told me that lavender oil is used in some instances to bring on your period, so I shouldn't use it during the 2ww! Ack!! So when searching for a new (period-inducing-free) bathroom hand soap, I was really happy to find this one. The scent is just right- not too overpowering or girly (for the very manly husbands)- and it definitely does not dry out your hands. But it also cleans very well- so I have a bottle at the kitchen sink, too. Plus, the blue bottle is really pretty, and the soap is paraben free!!

Earth Friendly Wave Lavender Dishwasher Soap: Okay, since I don't wash with this soap, I allow it to be lavender. Ha! It really does make the kitchen smell nice!! But more importantly, I have found this product to work better than cascade! We don't have a very new dishwasher, and I am not one to rinse all my dishes, and when I was using cascade, alot of my glasses would not get clean on the inside- to the point where I just started handwashing all the glasses. Amazingly, this product gets all my glasses clean!! (Unless, I put something really icky in there without rinsing it, but that is my fault...) I am always impressed by how well this product works, and it doesn't contain bleach or any other harmful ingredients that are prevalent in other dishwasher soaps. (I was using Palmolive Eco because it is free of alot of the other chemicals, but then I checked the label and it contained bleach!) Anyway, I think you will be impressed with this product. You have to remember to shake the bottle before putting it into your dishwasher though :)

So there you have it! I hope you will want to enter this giveaway and go explore the natural products for you and your home! (I'm not being paid by vitacost- I did email them to see if they wanted to partner, but I haven't heard back yet- still hoping they will want to in the future!)

To enter, leave a comment and tell me which product you'd choose and why! I'm keeping it simple :) (ETA: No comments after 5pm EST Friday. I'll announce the winner (random) on Saturday morning!)