Everyone is making sure their bodies are as healthy and strong as possible. Part of that means taking supplements, who can help with many bodily functions. These can be healthier in some instances than other options. While it’s not a good idea to stop taking your medication, for example, adding in supplements, with doctor’s approval, can also be beneficial. But, there are so many options! How should you take your supplements?

Pills

Pill form is perhaps the most common way to take supplements. This generally means something either compressed into a tablet or held within a capsule. Pill form is a great way to get many supplements into your body in condensed form, some of which you might not want to taste otherwise. Make sure you check with sources from outside of the manufacturer, such as your physician, to make sure you’re taking the supplements which are right for you, in the right amounts. Manufacturers work hard for their information to be accurate, but not every super-powered capsule is best for everybody.

Gummies

Recently, many supplements have begun to be manufactured in gummy form! This is also highly concentrated medicine, even though it might look and taste like a candy. However, the great thing about gummies is that those whose bodies reject pills can often use them instead. Many options are available, from vitamin C gummies to Melatonin gummies for helping with sleep. Supplements like CBD come in gummy form, which gives them multiple benefits beyond the normal medicinal effects. The body processes gummy form medication differently and often it can be metabolized over a longer time-period as well.

Tinctures

Tinctures are available of many medicinal herbs and fungi. One benefit of tinctures is that they are often so potent that only a few drops will suffice. For example, for elderberry juice, you could need several tablespoons daily to boost immunity, but in tincture form, only five droplets might be required. This is space saving, calorie saving, and much easier to drop under the tongue. As ever, only use tinctures or extracts which have been cleared with your physician.

Remember, anything which is powerful enough to help bodies is powerful enough to harm if taken in the wrong amounts. Using supplements of all forms is a magnificent way to boost your immune system and help your overall health. Be smart and careful and be well!

Solar power has been touted for years as a source of clean, renewable energy. Homeowners in sunny locations may choose to have solar panels installed on their homes for reasons ranging from environmental concerns to the desire to reduce their energy bill. But when did this all start? And where is it headed going forward?

Solar Then

Technically, the first instance of humans using solar power was centuries ago when people used glass and mirrors to concentrate light to ignite fires. The first solar cells were created in 1883, though it was discovered that selenium created electricity when exposed to sunlight a few years earlier. Solar cells today are made from silicon, which began in 1954. A few years later, they were used to power satellites. Improvements in solar cell efficiency continued to be made from 1957 through 2016. Prices dropped significantly, greatly increasing the demand for solar power systems to be installed on personal residences.

Solar Now

Today’s silicon photovoltaic cells are far more efficient than the ones produced in the 1950’s. The demand continues to grow, fueled by greater efficiency, greater affordability, the desire to protect natural resources, and the fiscal benefits they offer. The most recent breakthroughs in efficiency allow for a rate of up to 34.5% efficiency in converting sunlight into energy. Today’s panels can be as affordable as $0.50 per watt. Solar installation continues to grow at an average growth rate of 76% annually. Solar power systems now have the ability to significantly reduce energy bills and to even eliminate them in some instances.

Looking Forward

Solar energy is expected to continue to grow, and quickly. In the U.S., the solar market is expected to be valued at $22.9 billion by 2025. Currently, the federal government offers tax credits to homeowners who install solar panel systems. These tax credits are a real driving force behind many homeowners’ decision to convert from just wanting to have them installed to actually purchasing a system. There could be a decline in the growth trend as those credits expire, but given the trend towards greater efficiency and affordability, it’s not likely to stop.

Solar power has come a long way since people first started harnessing it. From the early days of using reflected and concentrated light to set fires to powering homes using silicon photovoltaic cells, there has been a mindblowing amount of progress made. It’s highly likely that those trends will continue. One thing is for sure - humans are capable of doing some truly amazing things when harnessing the powers of nature.

Ideally, being in the restroom can be a spa-like experience, with soft colors and peaceful lighting. This, however, requires maintenance and remembering to take care of it. Understandably, right now you have a lot on your mind! Pandemic is stressful, and you need peaceful spaces more than ever. Which bathroom cleaning tasks should you be doing more often than usual?

Clean Your Tub or Shower

Chances are, your tub, like most people’s could use a good scrubbing. Ideally, your shower and tub should get a good scrub down every other week. Your bathroom is host to many bacterial combinations, with e.coli being one of the prime issues. Other than the bacterial issue, a clean tub is nicer to look at, and less likely to be filled with mold and soap scum, both of which can be slippery. Using a good abrasive sponge, like a walnut scrubber sponge, and an all-purpose spray (ahem.... MamaSuds!) is essential, along with washing inner shower curtains often.

Unclog Your Drain

Nobody wants to shower while standing in six inches of filthy water. You avoid water flow problems by unclogging your drain regularly. Especially if your whole household uses one restroom, cleaning out the drain monthly is a great plan. There are specialty tools available that go into the drain and pull out the gunk stuck inside. It’s a gross job, but the benefits are great- less soap scum, no water backup, and fewer bugs climbing into your home from drain pipes.

Fresh Toilet Means Love

Look: nobody likes cleaning a toilet. It’s just not the most fun task, and getting down on the floor to do it can be complicated for some people as well. However, it’s a critical, weekly task, especially during flu season! Your toilet functions several important tasks, all of which are not the cleanest jobs in the house. Making sure they’re fresh and not disgusting to use is a kindness to yourself, and all who live in the house. Plus Mamasuds Toilet Bombs make the job safe for anyone to clean them!

Whether you’re entertaining guests or (right now) not, having a sparkling clean bathroom can help you to feel more secure. If you need help, so do many others! Call in experts to assist you to care for tasks you have no time to do, and they can help you make sure your home is prepared for whatever life brings.

Your home can be a haven from the world, but if the air in your house isn’t clean, it can cause major problems. By making sure your house is well ventilated and has good humidity levels, you can prevent dirty air from circulating and keep your health in check.

Remove Humidity

A little bit of humidity isn’t a big issue, but when your house is too humid, the air quality can go down. By using the fans in your kitchen and bathroom, you can cut down on humidity and clean up the air. Using a dehumidifier and even growing indoor plants can also help to decrease humidity and keep the air in check. Even replacing old carpet can help you to cut down on the humidity in your home and keep your air circulating without bringing problems through your ventilation system.

Clean Your HVAC

Everyone depends on their ventilation system, or HVAC, to keep their air circulating and keep the air quality high. But if you want your HVAC to be effective at keeping your air clean, you have to make sure it is clean itself. You should regularly vacuum the dirt and debris that gathers in your HVAC vents. In addition to vacuuming vents, you should also make sure that you are changing out air filters regularly so that your air quality can stay great. Dirty air filters only contribute to the circulation of unclean air, so stay on top of filter maintenance.

Make Sure to Vent to the Outside

With all of the vents you likely have in your house, from the dryer to the oven vent, you must keep your vents venting to the outside. Recycling air from your dryer and oven vents can lead to potentially dangerous gasses circulating in your home. Your house and your health should have external venting. This is a pretty small step that can do a lot for the air quality in your home and help to keep your family breathing easily every day.

Keeping the air quality in your house as good as possible is an important part of protecting the safety and health of your family. By taking small steps to improve air quality, you can make your home the safe and comfortable place it was always meant to be.

When people buy a home, they are often thinking about all the things they can do to improve it and make it their own. While homeowners tend to dream big, they often forget about the importance of simple things like proper ventilation. Having good ventilation can improve your home in many ways.

Cleaner Air

With good ventilation, you can improve the air in your home and help it to be clean and breathable. This process will result in air that is good quality and easy to breathe, an important element because indoor air is often even more polluted than the air outside. Having a well-ventilated space with clean air will also improve air quality so that allergies and asthma will decrease, and bacteria and viruses will be less likely to spread in your home. This means that ventilation can result in cleaner air that will keep you and your family healthier and safe from many potential illnesses.

Lower Humidity

Improving the ventilation in your home can also help you to decrease humidity. You may think that opening a window can help bring down humidity, but if you live in a humid area, the opposite can be true. A ceiling fan is much better than opening a window to remove humidity from the air. While not necessarily bad in and of itself, humidity can lead to problems, especially in the most humid areas of your house. Ensuring good ventilation in your bathroom and kitchen can prevent damage from moisture and keep the humidity at manageable levels.

Increased Comfort

Having good ventilation can also just improve the comfort of your house overall. Quality ventilation allows for your house to be more consistently heated and cooled and ensures that you and your family will feel comfortable with the air in your home. Most houses have warm and cool areas that seem especially difficult to control. With proper ventilation, you can ensure that heat spreads evenly in your house and you can avoid having colder corners or hot spaces in your home. This will help to ensure that everyone is at a comfortable temperature no matter what season you find yourself in. 

Taking care to keep your home well ventilated and improve older ventilation systems will help you to keep your house safe and comfortable throughout the year. No matter where you live, having good ventilation will improve your circumstances and strengthen your health.

Having a clean home in addition to a home with good ventilation is important for your family’s health. Check out our all-natural household cleaning products here!

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused so much stress and strain on everyone. Along with it, depression and anxiety disorders have caused a lack of motivation. Many have discovered that without people able to visit, clutter creep has set in. You might discover your home has slowly become less than presentable. So how can you stop being embarrassed about how your home looks?

Remove Clutter

Americans often own too much stuff. Every square foot of space you inhabit, whether rented or owned, is at a premium! Using it to store things you don’t use, love, or need is not just wasting space, though. It also wastes your time moving clutter around. Your home becomes easier to clean and maintain when you get rid of extraneous things. When in doubt, begin in one room with a small plastic shopping bag. Glance around quickly and see what trash and unused items you are sick of seeing. There will always be something!

Get Rid of Bad Smells

Often, you can’t smell your own home, because you’re so accustomed to the way it smells. If you have animals and children who have been constantly home, you should consider finding a good cleaning service for odor control. Odors hide deep in fabrics, carpets, upholstered furniture, and other soft things like curtains. If you have a lot of pets, you might need more regular odor removal services.

Let Go of Shame

The easiest way to begin to address messes is to realize that you’re not the only one who has them, and not the only one trying to get rid of them. Try to see your world with kindness and compassion. Sometimes, taking pictures of an area can help an individual to see what things need to be changed, as viewing the image can point out what is out of place or not useful anymore. Pretty soon, you can take “after” photos!

You can get your home back to “visitor” condition, but always remember that you are the one for whom your home should be a peaceful space. When your home is fresh and odor-free, and clutter is removed, it’s easier to have a peaceful existence in your own spaces. You’ll be ready to progress into 2021!

Having a clean home is a great way to not be embarrassed about it. Make it sparkle with our all-natural household cleaning products!

Stress is a normal part of life, but by developing tools to manage stress as best as possible, you can channel your stress into productivity. Build daily habits now to help you deal with the stress you face as you live your life.

Do Light Exercises

Doing a little bit of exercise every day can help you to manage your stress and get rid of excess energy. Taking a walk around your neighborhood or doing a short yoga practice are great ways to use light exercise as a means of coping with stress. Using short bursts of low intensity exercise can help you to feel calmer and get rid of any anxiety you are feeling without the risk of injury that can come with some more intense exercises. Find exercise that you enjoy and find calming to make the most of the endorphins you gain from being active.

Get Enough Sleep

Sleeping is one of the most essential parts of stress management. Without enough sleep (or good quality sleep) you tend to be more easily frustrated and less able to take on everything life throws your way. Some relaxation techniques can help you sleep better at night. Getting away from screens before bed is a great first step towards better sleep. A warm bath or shower can also help you get in the mode for sleeping along with calming tea. Once you are in bed, try lying still and doing a relaxation technique like focusing on your breathing for a few minutes. This simple step can help you feel calm and prepare you for a great night’s sleep.

Eat Well

It may be surprising but having a balanced diet can often help you to get rid of stress and have the energy to manage the stress you do feel. In addition to eating healthily, eating food that is warm and hardy can also provide comfort and calm in times of stress. It can be tempting to reach for processed foods or candy when you are feeling stressed out, but sometimes those foods can actually increase your stress levels instead of helping. By choosing to eat in a balanced way, you can decrease your stress and feel better. 

Making healthy choices every day can help you to make your life less stressful and to find calm in the busyness. Put your mental health first by making smart decisions every day to reduce your stress levels.

Looking for our products? Find them in a store near you!

There has been a greater push recently in the direction of being more environmentally conscious. Those trends have extended to the home construction industry. Environmentally-sensitive homeowners want their homes to be built using greener production methods and materials. Fortunately, there are multiple options available when it comes to green materials you can use when building a home.

Reclaimed Wood

Reclaimed wood is wood that has already been used for various purposes and has since been removed and discarded. This can be wood from structures like factories, barns, warehouses, winecasts, and more. It is often highly desirable thanks to its unique appearance and the history it contains. Using reclaimed wood when building a home is a quintessential form of recycling, repurposing and upcycling old, discarded wood material for use in a home. Reclaimed wood is durable, strong, and stable, making it ideal for home construction. It is especially useful for flooring and furniture, thanks to the time it’s already spent weathering and aging.

Recycled Steel

Wood isn’t the only material that is often recycled for use in home construction. Steel is 98% recyclable, and can retain its properties throughout repeated use. Because steel in home construction is produced with a specific purpose in mind, the amount of waste generated is minimal, and there is little to no on-site steel waste generated. It’s incredibly strong and resists decay and deterioration. It can be used in steel beams and other internal supports. The recyclability doesn’t end with its use in your home either. If the home is demolished and the steel removed, it can once again be recycled and repurposed for further use.

Sustainable Insulation Options

There are a variety of sustainable insulation options that you can use to maintain ideal temperatures within your home. Wool is one example of a highly sustainable insulation option. Sourced from sheep, this option has a sustainable source, is safe to handle, and is relatively easy to install. There are plenty of pros and cons of using wool as a source of insulation, but it’s hard to deny that it’s an excellent option for the environmentally-conscientious homeowner. Wool insulation can be installed using staples or cut to be friction fit, relying on the force of friction to remain in place. It is biodegradable, yet has the potential to be incredibly long lasting. It’s also highly effective, thanks to its natural structure that forms pockets. These pockets allow it to capture air, moisture, and other harmful particles, removing them from the air and maintaining temperate conditions.

Green Paint

The color green is irrevocably attached to the concept of going green. Going green in terms of building a home doesn’t have to mean literally mean having a green home though, unless you want it to. Green paint, as in environmentally friendly paint, is the expected standard now. Residential home building materials must meet IBC standards, including paint, which must have low VOC levels or none at all. These paints are safer for you and your household in addition to being more friendly to the environment. You can use such paints on surfaces both inside and outside of your home. There are even green-colored paint options if you really want to hammer it home.

Sustainable Lumber

When choosing a home builder, ask them to see if they use sustainable lumber. Sustainable lumber comes from forests that meet certain criteria. These forests are meant to be kept healthy, with clean water and a protected wildlife habitat. They are monitored so that there are trees being continuously planted to ensure that what is harvested is replaced. This makes sure that the forests are protected and preserved, protecting the source of lumber for years to come. When you consider the threats forests face, it becomes clear how important it is to preserve them and to support businesses who source their lumber from sustainable forests.

Bamboo

You could easily mistake bamboo for a tree and think that you’re using a sustainable form of lumber, but you wouldn’t be entirely correct. Bamboo is technically a grass, and an incredibly fast growing one at that. Because of its rapid growth and tenacious nature, bamboo is a highly sustainable material that can be used when building a home. In Asia, it isn’t uncommon to see houses built from bamboo. It can be found in the floors, walls, and roofs. It’s used to make furniture, scaffolding, bridges, and a variety of other things.

Recycled Glass

Going green doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your individuality. If you want something that is truly unique to your home, look into installing recycled glass countertops in your kitchen. The crushed pieces of glass are embedded in either acrylic or concrete. The positions of the glass pieces in conjunction with the colors ensure that your countertop will be a true one of a kind. Repurposing the glass makes this countertop option an environmentally friendly one. Make sure you take good care of it to keep it looking beautiful throughout its life.

Linoleum

Bamboo and reclaimed wood aren’t the only green flooring options. Despite being often thought of as an outdated flooring option, linoleum is a great material to use if you want to build a green home.True linoleum is made from entirely natural materials. It can be recycled to create new pieces of linoleum. With proper maintenance, it will last for decades. Relatively inexpensive and easy to install, linoleum can be a great, green flooring option that is readily available to virtually any homeowner who wants to use it.

Green materials can be great options to use when building a home. There are a variety to choose from, so it’s possible to have a greener home on a variety of budgets and for a variety of tastes. When choosing your materials, remember to think of both the sustainability of the material and the manner in which it is produced. That will help you choose the most environmentally friendly options that best fit your needs.

Using green cleaning products is a great way to be environmentally conscious in your own home. See what we’ve got to offer here!

When you hear about air pollution you think about the air outside. However, indoor air pollution is just as common and it’s important to be aware of the sources. Addressing these sources can include the air quality in your home and reduce any health issues.

Gas Stoves

Using gas stoves can lead to indoor air pollution. It’s possible they may release carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, or formaldehyde. The volume of these gases can increase during the winter due to less ventilation. Being exposed to these gases can irritate existing health conditions such as asthma. There is also an increased risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and there are some connections to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Changing to an electric stove can be an excellent alternative.

Your Fireplace

Whether you have a wood burning fireplace or a gas fireplace, there will be emissions being released into the air. However, it will be worse with wood burning fireplaces due to the smoke. The smoke releases very fine particles that can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat as well as cause other serious risks. It may be helpful to replace your current fireplace with an electric fireplace. These fireplaces keep your home nice and warm without the risks. An electric fireplace doesn’t emit fire or smoke, so it’s a better option for those with asthma. These fireplaces also require less maintenance and are more efficient.

Central Air System

If you don’t regularly maintain your central air system, then you can begin to see issues with your air quality. For example, air filters need to be changed. Air filters do work to keep dust and dirt out of your home, but the buildup over time can make it harder for them to do this. The air coming through may begin to pick up pollutants and circulate through your house. A clean air filter can also prevent build up in your air ducts. Having a clean air system has many other benefits. Your air will smell better, you’ll have to dust less, your system will last longer, and energy will be used more efficiently in your home.

Keeping the air in your home clean is essential to your health and it is even more important with the increased time people are spending at home. Make sure you are aware of sources of unhealthy air so you can address them quickly. Do whatever is necessary to improve the air quality in your home.