Welcome to Natural Beauty with Baby - Healthy Ways to Feel Good with Littles!

Natural Cosmetics Week is back for 2025 (17th-23rd November), and I’m delighted to be involved once again to help champion natural and organic cosmetics. This year’s message encourages us to trust what’s behind the label, and puts the spotlight on the power of certified natural and organic cosmetics to help consumers avoid greenwashing. “We want to empower more people to make conscious choices,” said Dr Mark Smith, NATRUE’s Director General. “By trusting what’s behind the label, consumers support brands that genuinely care – and together we can drive a more ethical, transparent, and sustainable future for cosmetics.” What Is Natural Cosmetics Week? Natural Cosmetics Week is a collective effort to build a more honest and responsible future for natural beauty. For one week in November, brands, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, wholesalers, producers, cosmetic formulators, scientists, beauty professionals, and consumers join to spotlight the real impact of truly natural and organic cosmetics.…

To my dear Cara, Happy 7th birthday, my sweetheart. You are growing up to be such a funny, fierce, mysterious, and fabulous eldest daughter! In this letter, I’m going to talk about your life over the past year and the gorgeous personality we see emerging as you get older. I love you because you get excited about the weather with me. I love how capable you are. You’re pretty much the only person in my house who is capable of making me a ham and mustard sandwich. But no matter what you achieve, I’ll always love you and be proud of you, just for being Cara. In my letter, I’ll also include some of the little things about you. It’s the things we forget while life gets busy—the details lost amongst the demands of toddlers, laundry, cooking, and shopping. Things like you losing an absolute ton of teeth this year.…

“Why Does My Hair Still Look Frizzy After Flat Ironing?” is a collaborative post. Those twenty minutes you had just spent doing gentle flat ironing might be over for now. You look into that mirror expecting optimally silky flat-ironed results, but instead, you’re greeted with frizz that seems to have just appeared. Does this sound familiar to you? You are definitely not the only one who has experienced this scenario. Flat ironing frizzy hair is the tricky part because one would think it is supposed to be straightforward. Several sneaky culprits can stand in the way of your smooth hair dreams – even if you are properly armed with your flat iron. So, let’s go into the factors that cause your hair to still misbehave post-flat ironing and, most importantly, what can really be done about it. Flat Ironing on Damp Hair: The Hidden Reason Your Hair Still Looks Frizzy…

“Why Chinese Names Often Include Nature” is a collaborative post. To learn Mandarin online is to enter not just a new language, but a world of cultural symbolism—nowhere more visible than in Chinese names. You will quickly note how Chinese names work, and may notice how often names are drawn from nature: flowers, rivers, mountains, virtues, celestial elements… Chinese names (名字) are typically composed of two or three characters, with the given name chosen to reflect qualities parents wish upon their child. Nature, with its beauty and permanence, has long served as the ideal source of such inspiration. A girl named Lihua (丽花, “beautiful flower”) evokes elegance and grace; Haoran (浩然, “vast and upright like the heavens”) reflects moral grandeur, drawn from Confucian ideals; Shan (山, “mountain”) symbolizes steadiness and endurance. Names like Yun (云, “cloud”) or Tao (涛, “wave”) suggest fluidity and freedom, virtues that mirror Daoist views of…