I adapted this recipe from a Nigella Lawson (love her btw) recipe. It’s really simple and makes a healthy options for breakfast or brunch even if you’re having guests. Plus part of the recipe makes use if a hammer (love that too!).

Simple Breakfast Parfait

Ingredients:

• 1 10 oz. bag of frozen strawberries thawed (I use frozen because they’re out of season here, feel free to use fresh)
• 2 large oatmeal raisin cookies (I got mine from the bakery)
• 1 cup of greek yogurt (plain or vanilla)
• 1.5 tbsps raw sugar (turbinado)
• 1/2 lemon

I’m always looking for ways to spend less time doing my hair, but still keep it healthy. Here’s 3 quick tips I’ve learned to help do both:

1. Wet your Hair Before You Wash It – It may sound strange, but I’ve found that I use less water, less product and spend less time detangling when I fill a small spray bottle with water and saturate my hair with it before I begin my Hair Routine

2. Always Detangle Hair Wet and Full of Condish – I definitely lose less hair when I detangle in the shower with sopping wet hair. I use my shower comb, and separate each section applying glomps (that’s a technical term, LOL) of my favorite conditioner.

3. Manipulate Your Hair Less – Try and find two hairstyles, plus at least one protective one that work for you and rock them in succession, instead of playing in your hair everyday. (You hair will thank you, trust me). For example:

Ok now this is one of my favorite recipes, and it’s quick, easy and cheap too! Many of you will eat this as a side dish, and the way I’ve posted it here, makes about 2 servings. Me and Sexy are vegetarian though, and I’ve easily eaten this by itself as my meal.

The key to this dish is fresh ingredients. You can use dry if you wish, but it really won’t have the same flavor.

Simple Pasta Parmesean

the amount of chopped basil and garlic I used

Ingredients:

• 1/4 pkg ziti (or pasta of your choice)
• 2 qts of water
• 1 tbsps olive oil
• 1 pat of butter
• fresh parmesean cheese
• 2 tbsps chopped fresh basil leaves
• 2 cloves of garlic minced (We really like garlic, so you can reduce this to 1 clove if you don’t)
• garlic powder to taste
• 1 tsp Nutritional Yeast (Optional)

Ever since I found out about honey’s healing benefits, I’ve been troving the web for more ways to use it. This is is one of the ones I came up with after cobbling a few together.

Honey is a natural antiseptic and antioxidant and has wonderful skin cleansing properties. It even contains a protein that helps kill bacteria and can help reduce inflammation and scarring.

Love. That.

Honey Face Mask Reipe

Ingredients:
1 tbsp raw honey (I’m sure you can use regular honey too)
1 tbsp olive oil (I use first cold pressed organic)
1 egg yolk

If you have natural hair, or you are striving towards natural living you should definitely check out Kinky Hair Chick. Lily Ashe has tips on hair, eco-freindly fashion, green product reviews and her very own podcast! Lily interviewed me for her podcast last week. I talked about some of the natural recipes and hair ideas I’ve shared here on Savvy Brown as well as what propelled me to make healthy changes in y life. Check it out by clicking the link below!

So during my visit to Georgia NY, I was happy to find some of Oyin Handmade’s hair products. (They only sell to salons and through their own website so check yours to see if they carry it and you could save on shipping). I’ve been a quiet fan of their products for a while since I discovered none of their products use any “icky” ingredients like parabens, dimethicone, or sulfates. Creator Jaymla Bennu and her husband Pierre make all the products themselves (with some help of course) at home in the Baltimore area. The product I decicded to buy that day was the Juices and Berries Leave-In Conditioner. For those of you familiar, it’s very simliar to their Greg Juice and Frank Juice with a few different ingredients and a different scent.

Oyin Handmade “Juices and Berries” Leave-In Conditioner $11.00+shipping

Ingredients: Purified Water infused with Horsetail, lavender, nettle, roses and chamomile; organic flaxseeds, organic aloe vera juice, vegetable glycerine,essences of lavender, sweet orange and ylang ylang, grapefruit seed extract, citric acid, fragrance and love!

The first two things I noticed about this product were the lack of oil in the ingredients, and the fragrance. I usually make my own leave-in conditioner and I’ve always included some oil as a sealant to lock moisture in. I was surprised that this