13+ Wonderful Uses for Epson Salt-Naturally

Oh, Epsom salt—who knew that such an uninspiring ingredient could inspire such devotion? Epsom salts have amazing health benefits–here are 13 ways to use Epsom salts, including a relaxing bath, a face scrub and a hair volumizer. It’s also a miracle cure-all, helping to remove splinters and reduce swelling of sprains and bruises. One ingredient really does fit all!

I always knew that soaking in a tub full of hot water with a few cups of Epsom salts was good for relaxing muscles and drawing toxins from the body, but I could never figure out why. And it wasn’t until I spent some time at the Epsom Salt Industry Council web site that I learned that epsom salts—made of the mineral magnesium sulfate—are also a sedative for the nervous system.

When magnesium sulfate is absorbed through the skin, such as in a bath, it draws toxins from the body, sedates the nervous system, reduces swelling, relaxes muscles, is a natural emollient, exfoliator, and much more.

Relaxing and sedative bath: Soak in warm water and 2 cups of Epsom salt. Read more about the Amazing Health Benefits of Epsom Salt Baths

Foot soak: Soothe aches, remove odors and soften rough skin with a foot soak. Add 1/2 cup of Epsom salt to a large pan of warm water. Soak feet for as long as it feels right. Rinse and dry. Or try an Epsom Salt Peppermint Foot Scrub.

Soak sprains and bruises: Epsom salt will reduce the swelling of sprains and bruises. Add 2 cups epsom salt to a warm bath, and soak. To tame tendonitis, try these tips.

Splinter remover: Soak in epsom salt, it will draw out the splinter.

Face cleaner: To clean your face at night, mix a half-teaspoon of epsom salt with your regular cleansing cream. Just massage into skin and rinse with cold water.

Homemade skin mask: Apply the mask to damp skin. For normal to oily skin, mix 1 tablespoon of cognac, 1 egg, 1/4 cup of non-fat dry milk, the juice of 1 lemon, and a half-teaspoon of epsom salt. For normal to dry skin, mix 1/4 cup of grated carrot, 1 1/2 teaspoons of mayonnaise and a half-teaspoon of epsom salt. This simple honey face mask works wonders as well.

Skin exfoliator: Massage handfuls of epsom salt over your wet skin, starting with your feet and continuing up towards the face. Have a bath to rinse, read 16 foods for Beautiful Skin.

Remove excess oil from hair: Epsom salt soaks up excess oil from hair. Add 9 tablespoons of epsom salt to 1/2 cup of oily hair shampoo. Apply one tablespoon of the liquid to your hair when it is dry; rinse with cold water. Pour lemon juice or organic apple cider vinegar through the hair, leave on for 5-10 minutes, and then rinse. For dryness, here’s how to Repair Your Hair with Olive Oil.

Remove hairspray: Combine 1 gallon of water, 1 cup of lemon juice, and 1 cup epsom salt. Combine, cover and let set for 24 hours. The next day, pour the mixture into your dry hair and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then shampoo as normal.

Hair volumizer: Combine equal parts of deep conditioner and epsom salt. Warm in a pan. Work the warm mixture through your hair and leave on for 20 minutes. Rinse.

Epson salt is wonderful for so many different things. Works great for ecsema, psoriasis, any infections, itching, buring chaffing, etc. It also works wonders on yeast infections. 30 min soak in a warm tub with 3 cups for 3 days in a row, you are all cleared up. Hope this helps. My mom swore by this stuff when I was growing up, I hated it until i realized all that it can do!

From a friend who shares her experience....

Love when someone shares an idea they have seen and tell how it worked for them! Thanks Shelley!

Shelley Coffman

Ok so I decided to experiment with a couple of home made items. First I made home made Laundry detergent. Than used a piece of tin foil as a static guard in the dryer. Put a high static jacket and it worked. So no need for static sheets that cost unless you want the smell. Sounds nuts but as I told one of my gaming pals, I am crazy'`

Tips to Tame Spam, help you w/your Email

Email. You love it and you hate it. It can save huge amounts of time or become a black hole from which none of your free time can ever escape. To help you manage your email for maximum productivity, there are dozens of shortcuts and new tools. Following are some of my favorites.

Bacn
You know what spam is — unsolicited email that adds fat to your inbox — but bacn can be equally annoying. The term "bacn" was coined by a group of podcasters a few years ago to refer to messages that are better than spam, but still not personal email. More specifically, bacn is junk email you've actually signed up for — whether you meant to or not. Maybe it's a newsletter from your college, or a marketing push from the online catalog where you bought a present last Christmas. To get them to stop sending the bacn, you need to unsubscribe.  But doing this manually — hitting the unsubscribe button on the bottom of every one of these emails is extremely time-consuming — so you need an unsubscriber.

In Yahoo Mail, the unsubscriber is easy to activate. Simply click on the Unsubscriber application on the lower left hand side of your Yahoo Mail. Then click to "Create my Unsubscribe Folder," and an unsubscribe folder will automatically appear in your folder list. Now, just drag unwanted emails into that folder, and an app called OtherInbox will work to unsubscribe you from those email lists. Even if you can't be safely unsubscribed, emails from these senders will be moved automatically into the unsubscribe folder, so you never have to see those emails again.

If you use other mail clients, there are third party browser extensions like unsubscribe.com that basically do the same thing.

Spam
When you get junk that's completely foreign to you, offensive, or an obvious scam, do notunsubscribe. Use the Spam button instead. When you click the Spam button, Yahoo and other email providers prevent subsequent emails sent by the same sender from getting into your inbox. They also use your actions as feedback to improve the various filters of their spam defenses.

Trying to unsubscribe from spam, especially the obviously smarmy emails, is possibly the worst thing you can do. You are basically emailing back to a spammer telling them that your address is a live one; they will then sell it to other spammers, so you'll get even more junk!

Organizing The Email You Want
You probably know all about creating folders to organize your inbox. But did you know that you can use a free web app to comb through your inbox and find all those receipts from online purchases that you're supposed to keep track of? Slice organizes everything you've bought online from large merchants, such as Amazon and Apple, as well as daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial. They take care of tasks like tracking packages and giving you all the info you need to facilitate a return.

Managing Large Files
You know when you have a really big photo or video file you want to send, but either your email client or theirs has a size limit and won't let it though? Services like relayit.net and whalemail will allow you to send them. And Yahoo Mail users have a program built right in that lets you send files up to 100 MB in size. You can find the Attach Large Files app in the Applications section underneath your folders. (If you don't see it listed, you can add it to your list by clicking the plus sign.)

Yahoo! Mail Shortcuts
If you're one of the nearly 300 million or so Yahoo Mail users, here are a few new keyboard shortcuts just for you:

Want to switch between preview mode and the complete list view? Easiest way is to just use hit the "V" key, and it instantly toggles your view.

Want to write a new message? Hit the n key; to reply, hit the r key.

And my personal favorite: Shift-K — it lets you take an email you have read and mark it as unread so you don't forget to go back and actually answer the person. You can also hit the Mark as Unread button if you are reading on a mobile device and want to remember to go back later to answer when you are on a computer. Another way to do this is to flag a message for follow up. In that case, hit the "L" button to mark it. Shift-L unflags it.

Enhanced Yahoo Mail Security
Maybe your password has been hacked in the past or maybe you just like to keep your email super safe. For you, Yahoo introduced a new feature that enables you to add a second sign-in verification. Once this feature is activated, any suspicious account sign-in attempt will be challenged by an additional query beyond the initial password validation. Learn more about it by clicking here.

Simply my thoughts today.......

Helpful hints, ideas. They come in many ways and can change things for us to make life easier and more productive. I love blogging about things I find out about to share with others. It's simply one way I can feel I am doing a little of my own ''PAY IT FORWARD'' in my life. I've always helped people. It started when I was a little girl, and later on in my career choices. I'm happier when I am helping others and that is the best way I can really describe who I am. It isn't to make me feel better, nor to look good. I think to want this you have to be born with it. I really do. Everyone will help someone out, but to how much, how long, when, and to who,  is something per individual. Many of us just do it, and it is second nature like a habit is. I like it....and wish more would turn back to being this way. It is much easier to be kind, to offer a hand, say a kind word than to feel up inside with the hostile feelings, and raise our blood pressures, keep our mind more on hate and not feel good about ourself really inside. A smile comes natural, but so does a scowl. I hope to change my face to 'up' all the time, and that of those around me. I know I have work to do on it, but feel it is so worth it personally. I do believe it will make me happier inside, and a better person to be around. Maybe little by little, it will change the world into a more caring one if we all do this and do it daily. ''PAY IT FORWARD'' is more than written words. Will you?

PEANUT BUTTER SHEET CAKE- To Die For!

Ok...those who know me, know I am a ''sweets'' person...(notice the s..hah) and that I simply am addicted to anything peanut butter. Seriously...just to smell it makes my mouth water. I guess it is due in part that the most of any ''sweets'' I got as a child actually came more in form of peanut butter. So, when I saw this recipe, I KNEW IT WAS MEANT FOR ME!!!! lol...and yes...I am sharing it! Can't say I have yet to make it, but give me a day longer and I will!!! Just found it. I sure hope there are others out there who have this super love of the creamy stuff with me.....ENJOY!

Peanut Butter Sheet Cake 
(by Nina Jones) 
Mix in pan and bring to a boil: 
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter 
1 cup water 
1/2 cup butter 
Sift the following and add to the above mixture: 
1 cup sugar 
1 cup brown sugar 
2 cups flour 
1 tsp salt 
1 tsp soda 
Mix and add to the above mixture: 
2 eggs 
1/2 cup buttermilk
 1 tsp vanilla 
Stir well and pour into greased or parchment lined cookie sheet pan (jellyroll pan). 
Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees. 
Frosting Mix in pan and bring to a boil: 
3/4 cup butter 
6 Tbsp buttermilk 
1/2 cup peanut butter 
Take off stove and add: 
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar and 1 Tbsp vanilla.
 Pour over warm cake. 
AND INVITE ME OVER!!! I'LL BRING THE COFFEE!!! :)~

Help w/New Braces on Teeth

Wear A Mouth Guard For New Braces 
When you (or your child) get braces, be sure to ask the orthodontist for a sports mouth guard. It's a semi-flexible plastic bite guard they want the kids to wear when they play any kind of contact sports so if they get hit in the face, the braces don't get impaled on the inside of the cheeks.

Well, when you first get braces, the inside of the cheeks are SOOOOO tender - they get shredded just from talking and eating. Wax on the poky parts does help, but the bite guard REALLY helps at night. It gives the cheeks a real relief from the constant shredding action of the braces and lets them heal up some.

So had to share this: PUMPKIN-CREAM BREAD

I think we all have great pumpkin bread recipes. It's so easy to make and so perfect for the season.  Pumpkin mixed with cinnamon and spices and baked into a pie or bread is on the top of my list of favorite things in this world.

Which leads to the biggest problem I end up having with it: I could easily sit down and eat a half a loaf of a good pumpkin bread. Then, I could see myself taking a break for an hour and coming back to eat the other half.

I'm speaking from experience.

So my goal here was to play around with a recipe to make it so I could still wolf it down like a glutton but not feel so guilty about it.

Because I honestly believe that even though moderation is a wonderful thing in life, some things are meant to be exceptions.

Chocolate is one.

And a bread that I wait all year to make is the other.

So after tweaking some ingredients and getting rid of others altogether, this is what resulted. It's probably not as sweet as my favorite pumpkin bread (that can easily be fixed by adding more sugar which I don't want to do), but it was the perfect pumpkin texture and really quite good (especially the second day)!

The ribbon of cream cheese is a tasty addition. There are about 46 calories per slice.

Pumpkin and Cream Bread

Yield: 2 loaves (14 slices each)

Batter:

1-1/2 c. pureed pumpkin

1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce

1 whole egg

3 egg whites

1 c. all-purpose flour

2/3 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. Stevia Cup For Cup sweetener

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/2 t. ground nutmeg

Cream filling

8 oz. reduced fat cream cheese

1/4 c. granulated sugar

1 T. all-purpose flour

2 egg whites

1 t. vanilla extract

1. For the Batter: With an electric mixer, beat the pumpkin, applesauce, egg, and egg whites on medium speed until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine the flours, Stevia, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Slowly mix the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture.

2. For the cream cheese filling: Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, egg whites and flour until creamy and smooth.

3. Grease 2 8x4x2" loaf pans. Divide half of the batter between the two pans. Pour half of the filling in one pan and the other half in the second pan and smooth with the back of a spoon. Top with the remaining batter.

4. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Don't overbake or your bread will be dry on the edges. Cool and remove from pans. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

One serving (2 slices) = about 100 calories