I want to share a topic I wish everyone knew about. If they did, we’d have a much healthier Planet.

Let me set the scene by talking about crystals. Did you know that exceptional quality crystals have the most amazing frequency, just like exceptional quality essential oils? It’s no wonder my home looks like a crystal cave and smells like an aromatherapy spa! Crystals “call out to me” just like essential oils.

I’ve sourced crystals from many different suppliers over the years. The owner of one of my favourite crystal suppliers passed away a few weeks ago. Being a long-term customer of his, I was invited to his funeral. Showing up to his “FUN-eral” (his last party full of fun for his life) was a way I could thank him for all the help and discounts he’s given me over the years.

I arrived at the funeral home on Saturday morning, walked into the room and sat down. Within a few minutes my eyes had started watering, and something felt “off” with my breathing.

If you’ve read my last two bulletins about Emma’s son with eczema and Kylie’s headaches and allergies, you will have some idea of the impact that fragrances and other chemicals have on our health.

Sure enough, as I looked around the room where the funeral was being held, there were candles everywhere – some scented, some not.

Living such a healthy lifestyle and staying away from chemicals, I’m quite sensitive to synthetic fragrances when I do go near them. These weren’t natural beeswax candles, which I have no issues being around. I’m assuming they were soy or paraffin. I wondered why I was reacting so badly, so I came home and did some research. 

I learned that when soy and paraffin candles are burned, they release toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, toluene, benzene and acetone? These are carcinogens that can pave the way for various health problems, including cancer.

When you add synthetic fragrances into the mix, you create even more problems. That’s why I love our essential oils. When I’m diffusing Young Living’s essential oils, I know that my home is filled with nature, not nasties.

But filling our home with nature and then using commercial cleaning products is like kissing and punching ourselves at the same time. That’s why I’m also a huge fan of Young Living’s Thieves Range. It allows me to live the low tox lifestyle that my body deserves.

Enjoy Part 3 of my Thieves Range bulletins.

Poisoned Waters

There is a great documentary called “Poisoned Waters”, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Hedrick Smith. In it, he shows how we are slowly but steadily poisoning our Earth’s waterways with all of the chemicals we are using.

It’s easy to point the finger at the big companies. But what’s really interesting is

that the biggest environmental threat is coming from the everyday person, due to all the chemicals and toxins being using on a daily basis in personal care and cleaning products, cosmetics and sunscreens, and pharmaceutical medications.

These wash down our sinks and toilets, and make their way into our rivers and oceans. 

The toll this is taking on the Planet is starting to show. Researchers are finding genetically mutated marine life, such as frogs with 6 or 8 legs, female frogs with male genitals, and male amphibians with ovaries.

The most likely cause of these genetic mutations is exposure to endocrine disrupters, ie. chemicals that mimic the body’s natural hormones. 

This isn’t just affecting wildlife. It’s impacting our own bodies as well. No wonder cancer and other diseases are rising so significantly. Over the last 50 years, between 70,000 to 100,000 different chemicals have been introduced to the world, with 1500 new chemicals added each year.

In a 2005 study¹, 287 different types of industrial chemicals were found in the umbilical cord blood of infants born in the US. Of these 287 chemicals:

• 180 are known carcinogens
• 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and
• 208 of them cause birth defects or abnormal development

This is clearly a ticking time-bomb for us, and for our Planet.

But unlike other bombs, this one we can do something about, by creating a chemical-free home. It’s our consumer power that will lead to long-term change, so your choices really do help our Planet.

Gary Young knew this. Even 20+ years ago, he was teaching us “If you can’t eat it, don’t wear it”.

Fragrant Killers

Whilst it’s relatively easy to identify and eliminate chemicals in our every household cleaning products, we don’t always have as much control over fragrances. They are all around us, in perfumes, body care products, candles, air fresheners, sunscreen, laundry liquids, and deodorants, just to name a few.

I flew interstate on Monday. I noticed the toilets in the airline lounge had fragrances being pumped into them, and the soaps in the aircraft toilets were soooo heavily fragranced!

Did you know that more than 95% of the chemicals present in synthetic fragrances come from petrochemicals, and are capable of causing cancer, birth defects, nervous system disorders and allergies? That makes perfect sense when you read about Kylie’s reaction to all the scents and chemicals she was using in her home.

More than 75% of synthetic fragrances contain phthalates (pronounced “thalates”). Pthalates are powerful hormone disrupters. This means they mimic our own hormones and trick our body into increasing or decreasing hormone production.

It’s the tiny, repeated exposures we get from our chemical environment that actually mimics our natural endocrine system. That’s why many experts believe there is NO safe level of exposure for many of these chemicals.

Is it any wonder that infertility is on the rise, and girls are entering puberty at such an early age^2,3?

• In 1860, the average age for girls reaching puberty was 16.6 years
• In 2010, it was 10.5 years!!!

Phthalates and other hormone-disrupting chemicals are the primary reason for this. These chemicals can cross the placenta, impacting us from the moment we are in the womb. They reprogram our DNA, which means they are passed down for generations. You can see how we are creating a sick society, all due to our use of man-made chemicals.

But it’s not just infertility and early puberty that are the problems. Hormones affect virtually every system in our body, including our metabolism and brain function. So we are ending up with more obesity, learning difficulties, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Even if our body is strong and healthy, these chemicals still build up in our system by a process called bioaccumulation, and can eventually undermine our health.

I plan to be an incredibly health and vibrant 90 year old. To me, that means making conscious choices, and taking care of both myself and the Planet.

1. http://www.ewg.org/research/body-burden-pollution-newborns
2. Effects of Environmental Endocrine Disruptors on Pubertal Development, by Samim Ozen and Şükran Darcan, Journal of Clinical Research into Pediatry and Endocrinology. 2011 Mar; 3(1): 1–6. Published online 2011 Feb 23. doi:  10.4274/jcrpe.v3i1.01
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/puberty-before-age-10-a-new-normal.html?_r=3

The Thieves Range

There is no reason to continue using synthetic fragrances and commercial personal care and cleaning products when we have such a wonderful, healthy alternative in the form of essential oils and our Thieves Range of everyday household products.  

If you love the idea of having nature’s real aromas flowing through your home, then you won’t just want to use them on your body.

You will also want to use them to cleanse the air that you breathe. This benefits everyone – human or animal – who steps into your home or office, and it’s a great way to support good health, long-term.

I’ve already shared about our Thieves Laundry Soap and our Thieves Household Cleaner, so today I want to highlight a couple of other products in our Thieves Range.

Thieves Hand Sanitizer

I carry this in my handbag at all times, so I don’t need to use the chemical and fragrance-laden soaps in public washrooms.

I use the Thieves Hand Sanitizer for my hands, and for disinfecting items in my treatment room when I give massages and other essential oil modalities like Raindrop Technique. 

For example, I’ll use it on the head hole of my massage table between clients. And when I’ve given a Hot Stone Massage, after scrubbing my basalt and jade stones with neat Thieves Household Cleaner and rinsing them dry, I then put the Thieves Hand Sanitizer over the top so they are energetically and physically purified. 

If you look at the ingredients in a regular commercial hand sanitizer, you will see a list that looks like this:

Water, Isopropyl Alcohol, Caprylyl glycol, Glycerin, Isopropyl Myristate, Litsea Cubeba Fruit Oil, Tocopheryl Acetate, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Aminomethyl Propanol, and the essential oils of Orange, Lavendin, Geranium and Patchouli.

The Thieves Hand Sanitizer’s ingredients are:

Denatured Alcohol, Water, Aloe Vera leaf powder, Glycerin, Hydroxypropylcellulose, and the essential oils of Peppermint, Clove, Lemon, Eucalyptus radiata, Rosemary and Cinnamon Bark.

Notice the alcohol present in both products? All hand sanitizers must contain 70+% alcohol in order to be called a “Sanitizer”. But there’s a big difference betwen the two. 

Where other companies use their alcohol denatured with a solvent, Young Living’s alcohol is denatured with Peppermint oil!!! And our Thieves Hand Sanitizer contains aloe vera powder, which is part of why our skin feels so silky smooth after using it.

And of course our essential oils are the highest quality available on the Planet.

So when we use Young Living, we know we are getting “real” essential oils with no added synthetics. That’s because Young Living is a purpose driven company, not a profit driven company. Quality matters.

Thieves Spray

Thieves Spray is another option as a hand sanitizer. It’s an all-natural chemical-free spray, perfect for purifying surfaces. Its ingredients are very simple. It’s just:

Pure grain alcohol, deionised water, coconut oil, soy lecithin and Thieves essential oil blend.

You can carry it in your handbag or briefcase, and spray your hands after using public washrooms.

It’s a similar volume of contents to the Thieves Hand Santizer, but the Thieves Spray is a larger bottle so I personally prefer the Hand Sanitizer as it fits into my handbag easier.

However, Thieves Spray is more versatile than Thieves Hand Sanitizer, so I keep both in my home. Here are some of the amazing uses I’ve found for this Thieves Spray:

1. A Miracle Cleaner for Whiteboards

Whenever I’ve gone to use a whiteboard in a hired venue and it’s not 100% clean, I reach for my Thieves Spray. It’s the best thing ever for cleaning those semi-permanent marks off whiteboards….far better than a whiteboard eraser. It gets the marks off like magic! It’s also great for removing pen marks from plastic surfaces.

2. Mould Be-Gone

Thieves Spray is also my “go to” when I find mould growing on my shoes, handbags or travel cases. I just give them a really good spray, and put them in the sun to dry.

3. Fortifying your Rose Bushes

When I lived in Victoria, every few months I’d use it to spray the leaves of my rose bushes in an award–winning garden that I had created. It kept the rose leaves clean and healthy, and free from any outdoor annoyances.

4. Natural Air Freshener

Thieves Spray will double as a natural air freshener, and can be kept in toilets and bathrooms for this purpose.

5. Purifying Airline Seats

If you’re an avid traveller like me, you’ll find Thieves Spray a fantastic thing to spray on the seats and arm rests of the plane, to purify them from the last passenger.

6. Removing Sticky Marks

Thieves Spray has been great for removing sticky marks left on surfaces after a sticky label has been removed. And a few years ago I discovered another sticky substance, one I’d never had to face before….

I have 3 cats, and they love to smooch against the walls, especially near dinner time. 

Their salivary glands are working, and they mark their territory with this scented “drool”. Over time, this has resulted in some nasty looking marks over my walls and doors.

It was time to clean them off, so I asked my cleaner to use Thieves Foaming Hand Soap, because that’s normally my “go to” product for gently removing marks off the wall. But because this particular mark was a sticky mess of kitty saliva, it just wouldn’t budge.

That’s when I decided to try Thieves Spray. If it works on other sticky marks around the home, why wouldn’t it work on this?

Check out the pics below. My cleaner did 3 sprays onto the wall, and wiped with a soft cloth. She was absolutely blown away by how effortlessly the marks came off the wall with the Thieves Spray!!!

So now that you know more about these two products in the Thieves Range, which one do you think will work best in your home and lifestyle? Or will you be like me, and find it impossible to choose!

Here’s how to order…

If you already have your own wholesale account with Young Living, you can order through the shopping cart on your virtual office, or via phone or live chat with your local Young Living office.

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You will need their member number when you place your first order.

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