Sure, say all you want about Kesha’s music (I for one am a fan of her ridiculous, I-know-what-I’m-doing excess), but she’s a strong woman. And she’s one of the first people who has talked about how eating disorders and sexual assault are related.

A few weeks ago, Kesha “went forth with a lawsuit” against Dr. Luke, her former manager. The lawsuit claims that Dr. Luke “drugged her, sexually abused her and physically assaulted her.” Kesha revealed this information to her doctors when she was in rehab for bulimia, Jezebel reports.

Sources have claimed that Kesha didn’t come forward about the assault (or press charges) earlier because she had been with Luke for more than eight years. She didn’t feel like she had free will.

This story really rang true to me because I, similar to Kesha, was sexually assaulted and subsequently developed an eating disorder (anorexia, to be exact). I didn’t see the link at the time, but after a few years had passed and I went through some successful therapy, I realized the two incidents were related.

I always assumed that I wanted to be thinner to fit in, or whatever, but after a lot of reflection, I realized it was a way to cope with the assault. I was quite young when it happened and it took me years to fully realize what had really gone down. But once I did, it was totally obvious that all that “control” I had over my eating was linked to the lack of control I had when I was assaulted.

Sadly, Kesha’s story and my story aren’t uncommon. In fact, another awesome woman revealed her story of sexual assault and anorexia recently on XOJane. However disturbing, though, these stories need to be shared.

Many people who don’t know better often shrug of eating disorders as no big deal. Like the XOJane author states, thanks to mainstream media portrayal, many people think anorexia and bulimia are diseases that relatively well-off girls who just want to be thin have. Truth is, these diseases are so much more, and they need to be respected.

I hope that Kesha’s story can help others who have been assaulted and have developed an eating disorder. None of us are alone and we sure as hell aren’t weak. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.

Related on EcoSalon

Carleigh’s Ass Rules: That Happened

Your Body Image in Bed: Sexual Healing

What Women Want Matters, a Lot: Welcome to the Sexual Revolution 2.0

Image: Christy Mckenna

The post The Sad Reasons Eating Disorders and Sexual Assault are Linked appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnWhen trolls invade real life.

Last week, I answered my cell phone while pulling up to a stop sign in my car. I will be the second or third to admit using your cell phone while driving is irresponsible; that’s why I don’t do it. I use a hands-free set. But I hadn’t even had the chance to reach for my set when two cyclists pulled in front of my car and began berating me. It took me a moment to realize this was what was happening, because one was taking a photograph of me with his camera. Flash-blinded, I slowly registered that the other cyclist was actually yelling with a level of smug approaching orgasmic: “What you are doing is ILLEGAL and DISTRACTING! You are BREAKING THE LAW! Do you understand how dangerous this is?” I appreciated the careful enunciation, but it was that last dollop of condescension I found the most delicious. It’s just one more reason to date a cyclist! So I can run him over.

It was true. I’d driven all of one block in a residential neighborhood – mine, and this is important – at the feckless speed of 20 miles per hour whilst on my phone. Even though I hung up the phone (more out of incredulity than guilt), the two cyclists continued behind me for two more blocks, deeply enjoying their special mission. Which is why I can report firsthand that being yelled at for nothing much in particular for two blocks is DISTRACTING. So distracting, I temporarily got disoriented in my own neighborhood and drove blindly for several minutes, pedestrians be damned.

Trolling happens all day online. It’s par for the virtual course. The internet is just full of uptight cyclists with cameras ready to reprimand naughty girls in shiny cars on cell phones. You never know what That Guy from High School will attempt on Facebook, or what angry email may come seething into your inbox ranting about some post of which the sender of said angry clearly missed the entire topic, not to mention point. A lot of times, they don’t even have the right site.

No big deal. But trolling in real life, by which I mean the one that doesn’t give you carpal tunnel? People, it’s time to get on down out of each others’ grills. I am concerned to find that trolling is finding its way even into the social habits of our noble cycling brethren. Perhaps they are an indicator species for the rest of humanity. The weak link, if you will.

I don’t think I’m the only one experiencing this. Our managing editor’s daughter was recently lectured by her school principal – this is elementary school – for having the nonconformist audacity to sport a single feather in her hair. It’s distracting! says the principal. No, it’s personality, and you don’t have to like it, but it’s none of your business.

The world is not out to offend us. Sadly, it is indifferent to us. And it turns out, other people are not just figments of our reality. They move and stuff. Unexpectedly, even!

Continuing in the automotive theme of trolling, because we couldn’t be more American right now: Last week I was at a dinner. I came out to find my car had quite literally been sandwiched bumper to bumper between two cars. Har, har. I marched into the corner cafe and asked around for the owners of both vehicles. No dice, just lattes. Forty minutes later, I was beginning to get annoyed. I called the police, and together we knocked on doors. At last, one hipster came darting out to move the geriatric green sedan backed up against my car’s nose. As he passed me, he preemptively put up his hands in such exaggerated fashion I thought he was crunking and was jealous because I don’t know how to. But no, he was just manning the defense. You’d think I had plans to eat his face. Now, maybe this kid has a habit of blocking other motorists and has developed this defensive mechanism to deflect violence to his person, but I’m going to venture he expected a big can of bitching out.

And then there’s the woman in the minivan who gave me the bird when I actually saved her from a fender-bender today. No good deed goes unflipped.

There have been enough of these incidents lately to give me pause before I go tweet and like some more. I started thinking about all the times I’ve snorted in derision at that one SUV that is the first on the hill to sign up for a crooked parking job. The times I’ve barely held my tongue, wanting to chide a child at the market for acting, unoriginally, childish. The moments where I have raised a fist, imagining what it might feel like to lift just the one finger. Pity it requires lifting a finger.

Maybe that woman on her cell phone needs to be on her cell phone. Maybe the guy who turned like an idiot isn’t such an idiot, just having an idiot moment. Maybe one day you need to be the idiot, and that’s okay. We actually don’t know why people are doing the stupid things they’re doing, and unless they’re putting us in harm’s way, we could care less so we should care less. People are limited, like furniture. Stupidity is as reliable as death and taxes, and more so in some places. Live and let live and live some more before perfection freaks us all out and we need plastic slipcovers.

By the way, the proper retort to all this is not, “But people really are that dumb and selfish. This is why I hate them.” The proper retort is: “I can’t believe you are knocking cycling, Sara. So not green. You obviously hate the planet.”

Let’s keep the trolling online where it belongs. This is practically what the internet was made for. Take that world, I have a blog!

tl;dr Be nice.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: cinnamon_girl

The post The Insider’s Guide to Life: Lower Your Birds appeared first on EcoSalon.

The reaction to this series by women of all ages via social media has been really amazing. When EcoSalon introduced it two weeks ago, launching with Americana Couture designer and author Natalie Chanin, fashion writer and textile artist Abigail Doan, Owyn Ruck of Brooklyn’s Textile Arts Center as well as occupational therapist and FiftyRX3 writer Jill Danyelle, many people either wrote to us at the site or commented via Twitter and Facebook. Among some of the reactions, the series is being used as reading material for knitting groups; while others have expressed that without the ability to sit quietly and use their hands, they’d need to jump back on anxiety medications.

Maybe there’s something to all this handiwork?

How it all began: When I came across this blog entry from sustainable designer and writer Natalie Chanin, it not only piqued my perception of the positive effects of “women’s work,” but it brought to light a real aspect of how using our hands to do meaningful tasks can benefit our overall health and well being.

Chanin cites neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, author of Lifting Depression:

“Lambert shows how when you knit a sweater or plant a garden, when you prepare a meal or simply repair a lamp, you are bathing your brain in feel-good chemicals and creating a kind of mental vitamin. Our grandparents and great grandparents, who had to work hard for basic resources, developed more resilience against depression; even those who suffered great hardships had much lower rates of this mood disorder. But with today’s overly-mechanized lifestyle, we have forgotten that our brains crave the well-being that comes from meaningful effort.”

With the sustainable stretching out of the fashion movement, there’s been a serious harking back to the glory of heritage and craft and designers with good ears are listening. And well they should with generations strong of everything from indigenous artisans to Depression Era stitchers coming out of the woodwork to teach, inspire and pass on before the knowledge is lost. Designers are listening and incorporating these aged techniques and making them fresh, new and revolutionary.

A designer with those aforementioned “good ears,” is the last member of our series. Titania Inglis designs a line of minimalist-inspired clothing made of experimental constructions and functional details. Her third collection “References vintage glamor via geometric forms created through bias cuts, origami pleating, and ingenious seaming. A sleeveless dress reverses from a prim suit dress to a low-backed mod frock, while diagonal-seamed dresses approach the ideal of zero waste.”

Titania Inglis in her studio

Inglis lives and designs and rides her vintage bicycle everywhere in Brooklyn, and chronicles her adventures and misadventures in the fashion world on her blog, Fade to Green.

Regarding the importance of using her own hands to design, to communicate and ultimately, to achieve sharp mental clarity, she has much to say.

“A lot of people outside the fashion industry don’t seem to realize that all clothes are made by hand, to varying degrees. Yet from the initial sketches, to selecting fabrics, to draping and cutting and sewing and fitting a garment, every step requires the human touch. Sewing machines don’t run themselves, as anyone who’s ever tried to use one can attest!

It was the hands-on nature of clothing design that drew me to it, for reasons I couldn’t fully articulate as a young woman. I set out to become a graphic designer, but within weeks of starting design school, I realized that I found infinitely more satisfaction in creating a physical object with my hands. Fabric, with its drape and heft and texture, and clothing, so intimately interacting with the human body, were perfectly tactile, and perfect for hands-on work.”

Swatches from dye tests for the Titania Inglis collection

The designer continues: “For me, design begins with the materials. I drape most of my pieces by hand as a way to explore what the fabric wants to do, what directions it wants to go and what shapes it can make. In my designs, every seam needs to justify its existence, every cut in the fabric serves a specific purpose, and I find my way there by hand, by draping and pinning and snipping and marking each pattern piece, one at a time until I have a complete garment.”

Inglis says there is rich satisfaction in every step of the process: “When I’ve successfully draped a piece so it sits just so, when a pattern is beautiful in and of itself, and finally in seeing the finished piece and how it moves on the body. I often go through three or four muslins per piece, pinning and re-fitting and sometimes re-draping an entire garment until I’m satisfied that everything is right with it: the fit, the proportion, the details.”

Titania Inglis’ Studio

One showroom rep commented recently told Inglis her line was “so simple and yet so complex.” Reflecting upon this, Inglis observes, “I think that’s a reflection of the work I put into refining each piece. My work process is almost meditative; I come into my studio, prepare myself a steaming mug of green tea, cut off a length of fresh muslin, and I’m ready to go, completely cut off from the world outside. When I really get going, I can work for hours on a piece, late into the night, snipping through the fabric and feeding lengths of fabric into the eager sewing machine to create a muslin, then fitting and pinning and re-working it until it’s perfect.

I love clothing design for its communicative and aesthetic possibilities, but also very much for the craft of it. Many designers prefer to simply hand off sketches to a pattern maker, but for me, the process is the design. It feels a bit pompous to talk about the integrity of the piece and purity of form, but those are qualities I strive for, and I really can only get there with my own two hands.”

Image: supersonicphotos

The post Using Your Hands to Soothe the Brain: Part 3 appeared first on EcoSalon.

After days spent racking my brain to choose nine things you don’t need to be happy, now I can’t keep more from surfacing. If this list keeps growing, it might mean that happiness is attainable without anything at all. What a concept!

But just for fun, let’s continue counting. Here are 9 more things you don’t need to be happy. Really.

1. Optimism. There’s nothing more annoying than all the self-help mumbo jumbo that preaches “think positive” – and implies (explicitly or not) that by doing so, you will get what you want. This theory leaves us in the lurch and in fear of having even a speck of a negative thought. The universe is not directing the traffic of our lives according to our thoughts. We earth folk, although blessed with free will, are not more powerful than the randomness of life.

This is good news. If you happen to be a cynic or wake up on the wrong side of the bed once in a while, don’t fret. Having a positive outlook 24/7 is not required for happiness.

2. Caffeine. I’m actually sitting in Starbucks as I type this and it’s occurred to me that I could be a lot happier if there were fewer coffee shops serving rocket fuel to every human on the planet. Fewer Starbucks means fewer caffeinated people – and no landfill droves of millions of paper cups.

I was perfectly content for the six months I gave up coffee. Life was fine. But I can tell you this. The moment I took my first sip of a non-fat triple shot cappuccino after those six months, I was indeed rocketed into another dimension. I don’t need caffeine, but I like it. So there. Just don’t make me go to Coffee Bean. That’s where I draw the line.

3. God. Religion and anything related is a topic fraught with tension, but we shouldn’t ignore the obvious, which is that many people all over the world live life happily and successfully without worshiping or praying to any being. Organized religion is not the only road to salvation. Why is it that only the non-religious realize this?

4. Intelligence. I adamantly agree that women can be both smart and pretty, but if for some reason I had to choose, I think today I’d prefer pretty. Why? Because it gets tiring being smart. And I’m exhausted!

Most days I can’t watch the news, much less have an intelligent conversation about current events. Between the stock market, natural disasters, unstable psychopaths wreaking havoc on innocent people, world hunger, violence against women – I’m upset too often. What’s so horrible about a slight dose of ignorance? Call me stupid, but sometimes I’d prefer to be stupid.

5. Crystal Ball. The less I know about the future, the better. It used to be that I was riddled with fear if I couldn’t see how it all turned out; whether you’d stay or go, love me or leave me. So I would leave you first or better yet, never stay in the first place, because not knowing how and when it would end was too scary. Today I’m a different creature. I find comfort in the unknown and practice letting the future alone and being present for love and my life today.

6. Chanel handbag. Oops, how did this one get in here? I mean, really. No one needs a Chanel bag, period. And to be completely candid, I once purchased such a bag. It was at a time when my work was very lucrative and I thought (or hoped) a sophisticated, exquisitely made black bag would satisfy a deep yearning within me.

This morning I caught a glance of that particular Chanel hanging in my closet. Did it make me happy? When I first bought it, yes for about five minutes, but now…not so much. Actually, it makes me a little bit annoyed.

7. Resolved “issues“. I have no qualms telling you I go to therapy once a week. I’m one of those humans that grew up crooked and needed a little correcting. So be it. In fact, I think more people should be in therapy, especially married people.

Yes, a weekly appointment on my calendar means there is unfinished business, more “stuff” yet to come up and discuss. I continue to dig, deeper and wider and with more gusto. Why? Because the more I uncover, confront, grieve, accept, release, the better and happier I become. Everything need not be packaged up perfectly in a box with a bow, stored away in the basement in order for one to feel relief and some semblance of happiness.

8. Approval. We can’t control what other people think of us. People who don’t know you well will have perceptions and come to their own conclusions. The important thing is not to change yourself in order to get someone to like you. The key is not to care if they like you or not.

Of course, it would be ideal if everyone everywhere liked you, but if you love yourself and just one other person thinks you’re awesome, then you are. Quit trying to gain the adoration of people who don’t matter, and focus on the ones that do.

9. A reason. Did you predict we would end up here? If so, you win. It took me 17 reasons to realize 1) one might be happy and not care why or 2) one isn’t happy (or is) but doesn’t particularly appreciate someone feeding them reasons how or why or when one could or should be. Therefore, my last reason is a reason. It is possible to be happy for no reason at all.

So there, I said it. Now go and be happy, just because.

Image: con Costanza

The post 9 More Things You Don’t Need to Be Happy appeared first on EcoSalon.

Last week we gave you Part 1 of  “Using Your Hands to Soothe the Brain,” featuring designer and author Natalie Chanin, textile artist and Ecco Eco founder Abigail Doan, and Jill Danyelle, Occupational Therapist and founder of FiftyRX3.

When I came across this blog entry from sustainable designer and writer Natalie Chanin, it not only piqued my perception of the positive effects of “women’s work,” but it brought to light a real aspect of how using our hands to do meaningful tasks can benefit our overall health and well being.

Chanin cites neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, author of Lifting Depression:

“Lambert shows how when you knit a sweater or plant a garden, when you prepare a meal or simply repair a lamp, you are bathing your brain in feel-good chemicals and creating a kind of mental vitamin. Our grandparents and great grandparents, who had to work hard for basic resources, developed more resilience against depression; even those who suffered great hardships had much lower rates of this mood disorder. But with today’s overly-mechanized lifestyle, we have forgotten that our brains crave the well-being that comes from meaningful effort.”

Here in Part 2, Owyn Ruck, one of the founders of Brooklyn’s widely respected Textile Arts Center weighs in on how using our hands not only enhances our sense of well being, but how it also creates a sense of self-sufficiency.

I think it is inherently human to desire self-sufficiency. Behind it all, we are just trying to survive. It may be cheesy and a half-way joke when people talk about the “apocalypse” and being able to construct a house or make clothing, but knowing how to use your hands to create things that are useful, never mind beautiful, is vital to our self-worth and provides a feeling that we can survive anything. As kids, we want to shoo the adult away (“I can do it myself”, “let me do it!”) and that continues through our lives, though as technology advances, we become more and more dependent on machines, or others, doing things for us.

We are often so removed from the process of creating, that we miss out on knowing the basic satisfaction of taking the time, care, and knowledge that it requires. Everything is so fast-paced, we are able to skip so many steps, that we forget how simply even knowing how to fix something gives us power. The act of being able to fix something we love, even if we didn’t create it from scratch, gives us a glimpse into the knowledge behind an objects making. It takes the power and control out of the hands of someone else and gives it right back to us – we get to relate to an object, and ensure that it is built to last. It’s a great sense of freedom. Even in a sense of finances, we are taught to feel that money equals freedom, but what if you didn’t even to need to buy half the things you did, you could make them or simply make something last longer? That’s freedom.

When we first started Textile Arts Center, a lot of the trust we had in the whole venture was this gut feeling that there was a general stirring and change within people, that they’d want to take classes and have the meeting place. Maybe it’s the same as you, we are around a lot of creative people in New York City and Brooklyn in particular and have seen this DIY trend growing for years now.

Without a doubt, I think that it’s because we have distanced ourselves from creating. Not only the feeling of creating, but people are sick of the same machine-made objects. Technology has allowed us to become lazy. We’re told it makes life “simpler”, but I think all it’s done is left us yearning for more meaning from the things we own and the objects we surround ourselves with. We place so much importance on the object itself, when we could feel much more satisfaction from the process of creating. It seems life is actually much more emotionally difficult and sad as we constantly search for more stimulation, and make an empty monetary exchange for objects that actually mean nothing.

In our not so distant past, grandparents and great-grandparents (depending on your age) still made their clothing, or at least knew how to mend them. Handmade items were more the norm but they treated these objects lovingly. My grandfather likes to retell the story of when he lost one of his few button-down school shirts that had been hand made and how much trouble he was in! Or Isa often recounts the sheets and towels that she still has of her grandmothers, that are all hand embroidered. A once common practice by young women who were beginning to create items for their home and married life.

We’re so absent from these ideas now, that they are hyper-romantic to us. A desire to go back to these days, where things seemed more lovely, I think is very common for 20-40 somethings. I think his has been a growing trend, and spans a lot of age ranges depending on where you live, but I can definitely say that it seems people are more adamant about it. In recent years, we’ve seen some great changes in attitude toward independent designers and fully hand made clothing. A willingness to buy less, higher quality, classic pieces for our closets, as our appreciation for the work increases. We desire uniqueness and rely on fashion and the things we adorn our bodies with to express it. What better way than with “one of a kind” and hand made items?

What do you think of the idea that working with our hands and the idea of it being a “mental vitamin?’

What do I think? It’s amazing! And it’s such a great visual. Going to your fridge in the morning popping a giant, sunny pill of creative energy. The new year rolls around and we resolve to make sure we exercise enough, and eat right. While these are important aspects of our physical and mental health, creativity is sadly often forgotten from this equation.

I wish trades would come back, where it was expected that we decide at an early age what we want to learn to be really good at so that we can rely on it for our livelihood. Something that allows us to exercise our right brain, and makes us money? What is better than that? And isn’t that the dream?

I see sort of an epidemic among my peers/young adults my age, of discontent with jobs and a “career path.” The most common answer I feel I hear to the big question of “what do you want to do?” is to simply not work in an office, or to “work for myself”. And I can understand the annoyance with us from an older generation – it comes off as entitled, that we shouldn’t have to work hard, we have enough experience and intelligence to do exactly what we want when we want to.

But what I’m starting to feel is that maybe it is about greater desire to get back in touch with this idea of trades, and using our hands. Or maybe just getting our “hands dirty” in theory. Even if not within a technically creative business, allowing the creation of ideas to be the creative part. Maybe there can be more emphasis put on this as we search for jobs, and what to do with our lives, rather than climbing the ranks to higher salaries at jobs that we could care less about. The emphasis is on getting the “good job” rather than the job that feels good. I think there is a chance that we are deterred not by the idea and fight of “climbing the ladder”, but where the ladder ends up.

Of course this comes hand in hand with a full change to our society and giving up such a consumerist and materialistic mentality. But I think that’s where the desire to make things, even as a hobby, comes in. There has to be a way that as a society we can foster this “mental vitamin” idea and add it to the list of things you automatically associate with good health and force yourself to make time for.

Image: Mr T In DC

The post Using Your Hands to Soothe the Brain: Part 2 appeared first on EcoSalon.

I admit it, I have cravings. Not just for dark chocolate, but for tweets.

It starts when I wake up and notice I need a Twitter fix – or a twix. Getting tweeted is now more important to me than my mother complementing my shoes – pretty shoes with bows or ankle straps that I purchase with her in mind. (Mom really likes these kind of shoes).

But tweets are the new approval. Sorry, Mom. I’m looking at the birdie for love, and smiling. It’s a gratifying picture. Except, of course, when the tweets don’t add up. If Twitter is over capacity, it is not because of me. The approval ratings can be disappointing. My tweet tooth feels a hole, a void, a cavity if you will. It can hurt something awful.

For this reason, I’m convinced, therapists will soon be healing a generation of Twitter followers with complexes from not receiving enough tweets in their formative years when they actively sought reassurance from countless strangers in the great abyss.

I look to strangers, too, in the tweets of San Francisco, to form a Twitter bond – strangers like Mayor Gavin Newsom, the 4th most followed politician on the service. See, most of my social contemporaries who aren’t web writers or famous Hollywood stars aren’t quite sure what kind of animal tweeting actually is, or what social networking means, or why some among us feel the need to sign in daily with mundane accounts of their comings and goings or to write witty and  pointless haiku – or twaiku, NPR observes.

I explain it is all about professional networking and exposure, not to be confused with Facebook, which is for sharing, too, but much more of a social animal. I’m drawn to Twitter to connect with other eco web entities, allow my own posts to gain visibility, and of course, to be part of  that club; The tech savvy one.

While the opposite of exclusive, it is an impressive club, so much so that any marketing executive connected with any university, magazine, business, grass roots cause or retail store must be equipped to set up an account and work it. By working it, I mean, spend part of the day following the Twitter trail that leads to the sort of club members you would want to take to lunch. The members you would want to be following you. And so you tweet them half way.

Getting re-tweeted is an art of sorts. For example, my colleagues are also Twitter hounds who crave tweets, and we share a reciprocal relationship, in which you tweet my link and I tweet yours. If I forget, a colleague might guilt me about being remiss and say “a little bird told me you forgot to tweet!” They might enjoy their tweet revenge and not scratch my back for a whole week, and then I have to rely on some stranger to do it.

I suppose all of this pop cultural blither is intended to send a message to followers and readers and colleagues, and even Facebook friends from junior high who see my links and posts on the social site.

Listen up, tweety pie. Tweet if you love me; tweet if you are horny; tweet if you are very small (a baby tweeter); tweet if you are large (a meaty tweety). If you don’t, I will just assume you don’t like me.

You can find Luanne on Twitter at @inthegreenlane or follow this list for all EcoSalon writers.

Images: Productive Dreams; Lawrence Borel; Dewaldp; Thoughtpick; Twitrounds

The post My Tweet Tooth Needs a Twix appeared first on EcoSalon.

In an idyllic world, you could file your stress along with completed assignments when the clock strikes five. In reality, it tends to follow you home after a taxing day at work. If throwing on a pair of cozy pajamas and sinking into your sofa with a good book just isn’t enough to rid your mind of worries, try aromatherapy. This fragrant method of therapy can alleviate much more than just anxiety:

If humdrum routines have faded your passion into apathy, take a bath enhanced with peppermint essential oil to awaken your zest for life.

We all feel out of touch with the world sometimes, so combat those occasional sentiments of loneliness by mixing a little marjoram essential oil into your body lotion.

Have minor disputes caused you to fly off the handle lately? Well, you don’t need a counseling session to abate your heightened sense of irritability. Just burn some lavender incense and let the calm wash over you.

Whenever you’re feeling blue, add several drops of neroli essential oil to a bowl filled with steaming water, cover your head with a towel and inhale this uplifting scent.

You’re always up to speed on the latest trends, but scanning through all those fashion magazines is hardly a ticket for high self-esteem. Light a sandalwood essential oil soy candle and show your insecurities (and the magazine) the recycling bin.

Interested in around-the-clock relief? Make your own essential oil perfume with these aromas and soothe these emotions all day long.

Image: estrilda

The post Easy Aromatherapy Guide: 6 Scents to Relieve Stress, Boost Your Mood & More appeared first on EcoSalon.