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Get to know Evan - Of Evan's Garden

Evan of Evan's Garden We met Evan in our original Personality Spotlight at the All Natural Beauty Website several years ago. Today we've gone back into the archives to condense this article, introducing her to a whole new audience. Evan is an exceptional formulator and writer who has a huge following for her all-natural beauty and wellness products. We hope that after reading this interview you'll want to read the full article as well as visit her beautiful website (links below) This article was originally in a Q & A form, so all of the answers below are in Evan's own words. Enjoy!

On Formulating:
The entire activity of a product's research, formulation and handcrafting is defined and guided by an intention

It can happen that concerns for costs can knock at the backdoor of the formulator's mind, urging compromise with what he or she knows to be best. But compromising in the matter of quality or messing with goals undermines any high purpose activity. It reduces or blocks results so it has no just place in a formulator's decisions.

Another intention I have is to find synergies that work with the body rather than shock it into line. Response rather than resistance and submission, encouragement rather than force. This parallels life situations: I prefer someone to suggest to me lightly if I have gone off track and leave me to make the adjustments. Just so, in healing, I feel that the gentler approaches have in fact the most profound effects.

As to ingredients, well - there are a ton of ingredients that are supposedly 'okay' in the industry that are really horrible and are in fact not okay. You can read about such things all over the internet - things like sodium laurel sulfate - the foaming agent in many products like soaps, shampoos, toothpastes. This ingredient can cause canker sores when used in toothpastes, damage the corneal development of children, cause urinary tract infections when used in bubble baths, roughs up our skin, etc. Why follow an industry standard that is actually harmful?? Just because 98% of companies are doing something does not make it right.

We were so happy to send designer Isaac Mizrahi a very special birthday gift for him to enjoy on his (as he likes to say...) 30th birthday on October 14th. Seven ANB Mall Store Owners got together to supply this gorgeous Spa Gift Basket that contained 30 special products including one for his beloved pup, Harry.

Aromatherapy in the Kitchen: Cooking with Essential Oils for Culinary Pleasure

Written by Donya Fahmy of Dropwise Essentials
Essential oils with their therapeutic properties, have been used historically in rituals, for beautification, and as medicine for hundreds of years. While many people now consciously turn to aromatherapy as an alternative healing modality to help them manage their stress or just as a gentler, safer alternative to over-the-counter medicines, most people have unconsciously experienced essential oils and their beneficial properties in one form or another without even being aware of it. That’s because essential oils, the purest and most potent form of plant extracts available, have been widely used by the food and fragrance industries almost since their inception.
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Inspired Living: Extra Baggage

Gina Rafkind's Inspired Living Articles
Written by Gina Rafkind of VedaSun
Are you carrying around your past? I did - and still do sometimes - it's my work in progress. But it can be a bit destructive to the quality of your life if you are constantly thinking about, and therefore living in, your past. It becomes a heavy burden, carrying around some memories which still stir up emotions in the present moment. Such emotions can be guilt, resentment, fear, grief or anger. Of course the past has important experiences that we can visit briefly in our minds to learn from. But if we hang out there, unknowingly, we will relate to these feelings and they can take us over, becoming our identity. The key is to become aware of our thoughts. Our thoughts are what fuel our emotions. Many times an emotion will take us over, like a little monster. I can remember being in a great mood, then all of a sudden it switched, and I was feeling anxious in a matter of seconds. Now, due to the daily awareness practices I do, including meditation, I can catch myself once my mood changes and say to myself ‘what thought did I just have that caused such an emotion to swarm over me?’ I usually can think back to what ‘story’ was going on in my head and pin point the thought that caused the switch in my moods.
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Shannon talks about Anti-Aging

Written by Shannon Schroter of Grateful Body

I have a most excellent friend who lives near the bay in Rio. Once a day, like clockwork, the long shadow from a church steeple in Ipanema passes slowly over her house. It's the sort of timepiece I like, regular and soft-edged, like the wake-up birds singing in the trees at dawn or the break and roll, break and roll, of the ocean waves that coax my breathing to let go of the load it's been carrying. Because there is so much external pressure in the rapidly increasing swirl of daily events, my internal mechanisms constantly need these reminders that there is indeed a gentle, relaxed rhythm that I can sway back into.

As my grown children, eyes forward, embark on their own lives, I find myself looking more closely at the aging processes that effect me. Indeed, I see there is a natural aging process, where all form - sycamore and sparrow, my grandfather and my father, mountains and suns - conforming to veiled and enigmatic mandates, dance only briefly with the stuff of existence, first becoming, then forming and growing, followed all too soon by a diminishing ebb and finally, transformation. Me - or better - what I think is me, ceases to be. The wise ones among us have said that this process is a holy mystery, an ideal opportunity infused throughout with hidden love and guidance.