Bathroom | The Minimalist Mom

Your Clutter Coach

May 7, 2012 By theminimalistmom 7 Comments

Source: theminimalistmom.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Sometimes you need more help than a book or a blog can give you.

Sometimes you need a friend to remind you to donate those bags of unworn clothing that are sitting in your basement.

Sometimes you need someone to make a plan for you, motivate you and keep you accountable.

Sometimes you need a Clutter Coach.

I get a lot of emails asking for help. I always respond (even it takes me a while) with advice, suggestion and encouragement.

And I always wonder, did they carve out a weekend to clean out that attic? Are they in the throes of home purging and feeling beaten by the process? Did they pull out some boxes from under their bed, lose a few hours looking through old junk, and then decide it was all too much work?

For some time I’ve wanted to help beyond the posts on this blog. Something very personal for paring down and living smaller.

A book wasn’t the answer. There are already some great books out there like Family-Sized Minimalism and Clutter Bootcamp for inspiration and how-to. A book can’t hold your hand, give you a kick in the butt or suggest another method for dealing with all that mail.

I want to do those things.

I want to see closets go from jam packed to roomy.

I want to help people get more sleep.

I want to find solutions for the mud room clutter that can be so hard to reign in.

So I’ve started something new.

Your Clutter Coach

This is for people that:

can’t make the time to declutter even after reading a lot of books and blogs on the subject
get sidetracked by old photos and trinkets every time they attempt to clean out the guest room
have pared down their stuff but it crept back quickly
need motivation and accountability to clear clutter for good

Your Clutter Coach is a personalized decluttering program. It’s tailored to your lifestyle, your needs and your schedule. It’s me kicking your butt and you kicking ass.

You can read more about the services here.

If you’re interested in the program I am currently giving away one free Four Week Clutter Coaching Program at Parenting with Crappy Pictures (if you haven’t visited this site before it is hilarious). The giveaway is open until Tuesday May 8th at 8pm PST. Head on over to read the details and enter.

PS. This will be the only time I mention Your Clutter Coach in a big post like this.

Filed Under: 2011 Challenge, Bathroom, books DVDs and media, car free, Clothing, DVDs, etc, Finances, Furniture, Getting Started, Gifts, giving, Guest Posts, Health, inspiration, Internet, Kids, Kitchen, Media: books, minimalist with kids, Minimize Yo Butt, moving overseas, Off Topic, One Simple Thing, paying it forward: wedding edition, Project 333, shopping mistakes, Storage, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

game changer

March 22, 2012 By theminimalistmom 79 Comments

WARNING: for male readers or women that don’t want to read about “female troubles” or “aunt flow” or the experience that billions of us have once a month, stop reading now. I am sharing a simple living find that has literally changed a week of my life every month and saved me a lot of money. Back to normal programming after this post.

My friend S has told me many times that something would “change my life.”

Sometimes the thing that was going to change my life was an olive tapenade or a face cream. I do love her exuberance for the little things.

But here is where I tell you, this could change your life.

I’m going to be frank in the next few paragraphs. You might feel that you know me too well by the end of this.

That’s okay.

If I even get a handful of you to consider making this switch, if even one person does make this switch, well then, being candid about my menstrual cycle and the complete and utter failure of traditional feminine protection products will have been worth it.

Today I feel like shouting from the rooftops, I am free. No longer will I deal with pad or tampon failure. No longer will I be stuck wearing panty liners for that utterly annoying pre-period spotting.

I am done with you Tampax and OB. I am done shelling out a lot of money for your expensive products and I am done carting a handful of them around in my handbag. I’m done using bulky pads that leave me wanting to shower five times a day. I’m done with tampons that are uncomfortable and shift and become painful while I’m running or doing a workout.

I’m done with menstrual products that remind me every freaking minute that yes, I have my period and yes, I’m uncomfortable.

That’s no way to live for a week every month.

I’ve found the Diva Cup and I am never going back.

This is a game changer. A GAME CHANGER.

I was hesitant at first. I tried something similar, an early version of a menstrual cup, back in university. It never fit right and at one point I stood up and the thing moved and emptied. Luckily I was at home at the time. I swore off trying alternative menstrual products after that.

But since having a baby I’ve become even more unhappy with what the drug store has to offer. Tampons were painful, didn’t fit right even after testing out going up and then down a size, and let’s just be blunt here: you have to change the thing every time you go pee or you’re walking around with a urine soaked tampon string. Expensive and not a lot of fun.

I tried using pads more but they have their own down falls. Bulky and on a long walk I’d get chaffage. They’re also fantastically messy. No skipping through a field of wild flowers when all you can think about is taking a bath.

The Diva Cup changes all of this. I literally forget I have my period. Sure there has been a learning curve for inserting it and for emptying it. Especially for emptying it. Be patient. Your bathroom might look like a crime scene the first few times. But after some practice I am now on easy street.

The other amazing perk of this system: put it in when you think you’re about to get your period. No more SURPRISE, you need to ditch that lunch date to rush home and change everything below the waist and find some upholstery cleaner for your car. No more wearing a stupid panty liner for three days hoping to “catch it” and then it comes on full flood and you’re up red creek without a paddle.

And I think it’s totally minimalist. Just this little cup that you can get up to a decade of use out of. It has it’s own little bag and is very small. Easy to tuck into a handbag or a cosmetics case while you’re on vacation. Again, no more last minute dash to a corner to store for very overpriced (because they’re already overpriced) tampons.

Okay, I’ve said my bit.

If you are interested in knowing more I’ve linked to sites where you can read more about the Diva Cup. These are not affiliate links and I haven’t been compensated by Diva Cup for writing this. I just feel more women need to know about this awesome alternative so I am shamelessly using my blog to get the word out.

DivaCup.com

To Purchase Canada & Worldwide: Luna Pads

To Purchase in the UK: Moon Times

Has anyone else tried the Diva Cup?

Filed Under: Bathroom, Health

Stop Organizing, Start Simplifying

March 20, 2012 By theminimalistmom 23 Comments

Source: decorology.blogspot.com via Benita on Pinterest

A television crew is coming to our home this weekend. They’ll be filming my little family over a few days for a lifestyle show that airs in North America. Another interesting experience this blog has brought my way.

I am neither obsessively cleaning nor crash dieting in preparation.

I am not buying expensive throw pillows or mirrors to glam up our little home.

I’m not paying a professional cleaner to take a toothbrush to our bath tub.

I haven’t bought myself a new camera ready wardrobe.

I haven’t booked a make-up artist to beautify me each day of the shoot.

What am I doing?

Organizing.

Organizing is a dirty word to me. A loaded word.

“If I just got more organized my house would be _____, my kids would be ______ and my life would be ______.”

For so much of my life I thought the reason I failed at housekeeping or couldn’t find the time to write or couldn’t “do it all” was because I wasn’t organized.

I developed elaborate and time consuming systems for keeping my wardrobe in order. T-shirts stacked in perfect squares, underwear and bras placed in alternating rows in drawers and my closet divided into sections for work, casual and formal wear.

An afternoon of hard work was undone within a week. A few loads of laundry haphazardly put away and, once again, I was back to drawers that would barely shut and a closet that I had to weed through every morning to put an outfit together.

This same cycle repeated itself with so many areas of our home. The office, the kitchen, the living room. I’d invest in a piece of IKEA furniture that was going to “save us” and after a weekend of work our home looked fantastic. Books lined up by height, picture frames tastefully displayed and a few pieces of decor for fun.

It wasn’t long before opened mail was wedged in next to the picture frames, the books were dusty and out of order and the decor was hidden under leftover packaging from new electronics.

Until this week I had given up on organizing. Simplicity and owning less stuff has brought more order to my life than organizing ever did.

So why am I organizing now? There’s a process to this television shoot and a timeline. Our possessions will need to be moved out of our home and then quickly moved back in and unpacked. To make the process smoother and faster I am organizing.

Of course, I am organizing and doing some decluttering as I go. We have a garbage bag full of Chris’s clothing for donations and a small box of toddler toys to give away. Henry’s just had a growth spurt so I’ve put away all his 12-18 month clothing and transitioned him into 2-3 year sizes. I do love how we skipped buying a size – another reason to buy adjustable sized clothing.

The beauty of organizing when you own less stuff: it’s an easy process and the results last longer.

Tell me, are you still organizing or have you moved onto simplifying? If you’ve reduced what you have do you find it easier to keep everything organized?

Filed Under: Bathroom, books DVDs and media, Clothing, DVDs, etc, Media: books, Storage

Stop Washing Your Hair: An Experiment in Simple Grooming

March 7, 2012 By theminimalistmom 28 Comments

This might sound like a dare. A dare in the vein of Jackass or a bizarre reality TV show based on personal hygiene stunts.

It’s not.

I just wanted to try something new, something that could simplify my life and save a bit of cash, and see the results. I have a sensitive scalp and get dandruff when the seasons change and if I move and the water is harder or softer than the previous city. So I…

On the no 'poo system

Stopped Using Shampoo on My Hair

If you follow this blog on Facebook you may have seen me post a picture of my hair back in January. I was testing out the no ‘poo method: a light baking soda and water rinse to the roots and apple cider vinegar and water rinse to the ends of the hair (you can get more info on this method here). I tried it for two weeks and then gave it up.

There were two things I didn’t like about the no ‘poo method. The first was fairly legitimate, I didn’t like how my hair felt. It felt quite dry. Now, I have read a lot of comments from others that use this method and have coloured hair as well and there was a mixed bag of “fantastic!” and “couldn’t make it work for me.”

The second reason I didn’t like the method was that I didn’t like pouring cold water on my hair and scalp in a hot shower. I know, what a baby. But the shower is a little haven of personal time for me. I didn’t enjoy getting the shock of a cold water mix on my scalp in the middle of it.

Some of you asked on Facebook if my hair smelled from the no ‘poo method. I didn’t notice any odours, either from the apple cider vinegar or from lack of shampoo. I even got my husband to give it a whiff and he said there was no smell to it.

So after a couple of weeks of the no ‘poo method I went Full Monty.

I Stopped Washing My Hair

Don’t freak out. I still rinsed with water but I gave up on shampoo and the no ‘poo mixtures.

As expected, there was an adjustment period. Even after a good rinse my hair felt heavy at the roots and oily. I kept at it though and the heavy feeling at the roots went away after two weeks.

I got in the habit of brushing my hair before bed and first thing in the morning. This pulled the oils from my scalp further down the hair shaft and I had less of the ‘greasy roots and dry ends’ look and feeling that I had with the no ‘poo method.

Interesting to me is that normally I avoid brushing my hair once it’s air dried or been styled (blow dry + flat iron). More brushing usually means huge fuzzy hair. When I stopped washing my hair, brushing actually kept it styled longer and looking shinier.

My scalp initially felt worse with no hair washing and I was getting dandruff. At the two week mark it started to improve. A week after that and my dandruff was almost gone. This defies the info I found here in a Huffington Post article about not washing your hair.

The plan was to keep going with this method for a few more weeks. I wasn’t convinced it was for me, my hair felt a little too stiff without shampoo, but I wanted to give it a little longer. I hit a roadblock when I got my hair coloured last week. The stylist said he had to use shampoo to get all the colour out.

A Shampoo After Six Weeks of Uber Minimalist Hair Care

You’re probably thinking that getting my hair washed after a month and a half without conventional hair products would be orgasmic. Like a first meal after being stranded on an island.

It wasn’t.

Even the person that shampooed my hair said it didn’t feel dirty or overly greasy.

Sure, it was shinier and felt a bit lighter but it wasn’t a dramatic change.

5 days after getting a cut and colour - haven't washed it yet

After this experiment I’ve decided that while the no ‘poo method isn’t for me, I do like the results from washing my hair less. For now I’m going to play it by ear. I’ll do some stretches of just rinsing my hair and then when I feel it needs a pick me up, I’ll use shampoo.

Anyone else tried the ‘no poo method?

More posts about hair and grooming:

Programming note: I won’t be able to respond to comments or emails for the next day or so. Our little Henry is going into the hospital for surgery to help him breathe and hear better. Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.

Filed Under: Bathroom, Health Tagged With: bathrooms, hair, no shampoo, toiletries

minimalist make-up (if there is such a thing)

January 24, 2012 By theminimalistmom 67 Comments

all that remains...

One summer I had two very important weddings to go to – my brother’s and my best friend from college’s – and decided that I would finally be a grown up and get grown up make-up. I was 22, had my first post-university job and thought an important step on my journey to adulthood was to toss all my mismatched drugstore make-up and blow over $200 at the MAC counter.

So I did it.

I got the full complement of brushes, bronzer, powder, foundation, six different eye shadows, lip gloss and mascara.

For both weddings I did my full make-up with dramatic eyes and heavy foundation. I felt a little silly at both events because I’d never worn that much make-up before. I looked good but it looked like, hey, there’s Rachel wearing make-up.

I made a commitment to “do my face” for work every day which I quickly forgot. Back to my regular routine, mascara, maybe a bit of eye shadow, and my investment make-up and brushes sat unused for years.

Buying expensive things isn’t a hallmark of adulthood. Oh how I wish I had learned this earlier in life.

My make-up bag is now, you guessed it, very simple. As pictured above I have:

tinted moisturizer and foundation primer
two eye shadow brushes
mascara
eye shadow kit
lipstick

Most days I just wear mascara but once or twice a week I like to jazz things up and put on my ‘face’ for date night or just because.

Now, I’m not into shopping for make-up. I find it overwhelming and have bought a lot of useless products in my lifetime. The items I have right now are great, work well for my skin type, colouring and needs. How did I find them? I asked other people what they used.

If you’re make-up challenged ask for help. Not necessarily from a sales person but from someone that has a look that you like. I found my tinted moisturizer from my older sister and my eye shadow kit from my twin (who found it via a friend). The lipstick was purchased from the make-up artist I had for my wedding. I’ll run through a couple of the products because I like them a lot. Note: some of them are what I would consider spendy. But, as you can see, I don’t have a lot of make-up and what I have I use.

Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer. If you’re not into heavy foundation this stuff is great. I recommend the foundation primer as well because the tinted moisturizer seems to look better with it on. I’ve experimented with drug stores brands of tinted moisturizer before but never found one that worked this well. If you have a cheap drugstore find let me know in the comments.

Too Faced Naked Eye – Soft & Sexy Eye Shadow Collection. This could be called eye shadow for dummies. The kit has three sets of three shadows that work together for three different looks. The kicker is that it comes with instructions cards for each of the three looks. This collection is a bit sparkly so if I were working in an office I would have gone with the Natural Eye Neutral Eye kit.

Paula Dorf Lip Color Sheer Tint in Breathless. When I went for a trial run of make-up for my wedding the make-up artist introduced me to this lip stick. It’s a very neutral natural colour. Just gives your lips a plug. I’ve dabbled in lip gloss for years but as I mature (read: get older) I don’t like the sparkly look of a gloss.

My other make-up secret: I get my eyebrows tinted. I don’t have a lot of eyebrow. Comes with the territory of not having a lot of body hair. So while it’s nice to not have to shave my legs that often, it’s a drag not having prominent brows to shape my face. I tried for a number of years to fill them out a little with powders and liners but it was a hassle and never looked natural.

A few years ago I discovered eyebrow tinting when I was getting my measly brows threaded. I haven’t looked back. If I had to choose I would toss the make-up all together for the nice defined arches my Esthetician gives me. Here’s a before and after. Excuse my pasty face in the after shot. I had the flu over the weekend. It wasn’t pretty but I’m now back on solid food.

brows without tint

I have eyebrows!

After a lot of trial and error (and wasted money!) through my teens and early 20′s, I feel like I have finally figured out what works for me on the make-up front.

Less really is more.

I don’t cover up blemishes any more. Instead, I give them some air and patience. I get my brows done every six weeks if I can but sometimes it’s more like 2-3 months. If I’m looking extra tired or my skin is looking sallow I don’t reach for more make-up. Instead, I try to get more sleep, eat more vegetables and drink a lot of water.

When I got married in 2007 I found an inexpensive make-up artist for the big day. She asked me to look through magazines before our consultation for make-up looks. I tried but there really wasn’t much that caught my eye. It was all very heavy handed. I just wanted to look like a better version of me. After a test run with false eye lashes (not for me!) we settled on some neutral colours.

On the big day I woke up to find a zit on my nose. Such is life.

wedding day pimples rock!

Of course, truly minimalist make-up would be none at all. But I’m into every day minimalism, the kind that anyone I know could apply to an area of their life. It’s not about eliminiating everything but making it simpler with less stuff.

Okay, tell me your make-up finds and gems! Link back to websites if you can.