Grace Quantock's Wellness Provocateur Vlog No. 5: Your Guide to Beauty Rituals.

13 May 2013 Last Updated on 13 May 2013 Grace

WellnessProvocateurVlogBadge I know most people love a long, hot bath. And believe me when I say I used to - when Sylvia Plath described having the water so hot that when you first get in your body mistakes it for cold - I did that. My joy was to be in a bath as hot as I could stand with bubbles up to the brim.

But when I became ill I couldn't tolerate the heat anymore, nor get in and out safely.

Washing, bathing, showering all became tiresome chores. I wanted to reclaim them, so we invented the Sunday Night Beauty Rituals - watch the video to find out more.

If you like this video, I'd super-duper love it if you'd share it.

Just tweet or update your facebook with one of these messages:

I am on for Sunday Night Beauty Rituals - how about you? http://bit.ly/17lLS9r

I am whipping up bliss in the bathroom (and the kitchen) http://bit.ly/17lLS9r

Showers turn super with beauty rituals - find out more here. http://bit.ly/17lLS9r

Accessible beauty with rituals http://bit.ly/17lLS9r

Grace's Beauty Ritual Recipes:

Easy Deep Conditioner

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Need: a bottle of your favourite conditioner (I use an organic natural one), and a can of coconut milk.

How to: Open the can and scoop out the coconut cream that's on the top. Stir it in a bowl with a little of the water from the can until it is smooth and creamy. Mix about half a cup of conditioner into the bowl (depending on the length of your hair) and stir everything until it is combined. Scoop some up in your hands, and beginning at the ends of your hair, massage it in. Keep going until you reach the roots and add any extra mixture where you think you need it. Tie your hair up and give everything a good massage, imagine you are trying to squeeze the mixture into your hair. Rest for 20 minutes or so - make sure you lie on a towel!

Scrubbly Face Masque

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Need: ground flax, sundried green clay, water, avocado, a fresh aloe vera leaf.

How to: Open the aloe vera leaf and (have checked you aren't sensitive to it) rub it over your face. Rub in gentle upward motions gently smoothing. Mix a tablespoon of dried flax, one of clay into a cup. Cut and mash half the avocado. Add water to your clay/flax mixture, enough to make a paste. Stir this into the avocado. Either put it on your face as it is, or add a little more water if you'd like a thinner masque. Leave on for 15 mins or so. When you remove it, wet it with water and use the flax as an exfoliator, then wipe off with a damp muslin cloth.

Kissed By Angels Face Cream

This is such a delightful moisturiser and it's so easy to make.

Get the glass jar you are going to store it in and wash and dry it well. Put it in the oven on the lowest heat with the door open a little until it's bone dry.

Need: coconut butter, sweet almond oil, vanilla bean, geranium essential oil.

How To: Fill the jar up with coconut oil - don't push it down, just scoop it in roughly. Put it in a bowl/cup of warm water - it's a basic and easy bain marie. When the coconut is melted you can pour in almond oil until the jar is full. Add a drop of geranium (optional) or a little bruised vanilla bean. Let it cool. Once it has cooled enough to be whiteish but still liquid you can whip it with a fork or a mini whisk. This creates a gorgeous texture. Just keep stirring until it's thickened and you can't stir anymore. Or let it cool and use it as it is. Apply in your beauty rituals straight after the face masque.

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Beautiful Things To Do Because... I want you to smile.

10 May 2013 Last Updated on 10 May 2013 Grace

beautifulthings Beautiful Things to Do, Because…. is my way to catalogue all the lovely things happening in the world and to share ideas for having a delightful weekend. Enjoy and hop on Twitter to share your beautiful things with me...

* Paint your toe nails red.

* Organise your cupboard, keep looking at the order you created.

* Set a goal and achieve it.

* Put 'summer time music' into YouTube and listen to what comes up

* Tweet support to 3 of your friends

* Share something you admire

* Think Like a Stripper

* Put flowers on your table

* Plant seeds

* Imagine if you could have breakfast anywhere, where would it be?

* Cross things off your list as you do them (with a red pen)

* Dream a dream and keep it going

* Have a shower and use your favourite soap

* Style your hair a different way

* Fresh ironed bedlinen

* Put different cushions on your sofa or bed

* Buy Alexandra's new book

* Take your vitamins

* Call a friend. Go visiting.

* Get moving. Dance until you are tired, sticky and smiling.

* Serve breakfast on a huge plate, or dinner in ice cream sundae bowls

* Choose a food you've never tried before and be surprised

* Finish the languishing craft project

* Wait for this feeling to pass.

* Learn how your body works with the anatomy colouring book

* Read 'The Darling Buds of May'

* Stretch

* Become a Life Starter.

* Find the time to see other people face to face

* Drink a glass of water

* Curl up

* Jump up

* Imagine

* Decorate your home. Decorate yourself

* Do something nice for someone else

* Share this blog post.

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What is a Sick Chick? How to Turn Trail Blazer.

08 May 2013 Last Updated on 08 May 2013 Grace

Who is a Sick Chick?

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A Sick Chick is one of the thousands upon thousands of young women living with chronic illness today.

One of the hundreds of thousands newly diagnosed every year.

A Sick Chick is a woman who has been suffering for a long time, and who is looking for a new way to live.

A Sick Chick is a young woman sitting in the doctor's office being told that no, it's not just that she is tired, or that it's just some muscle pain. Actually, he's very sorry to say but it's a lot more serious than that. And there isn't a cure.

A Sick Chick is a woman who 50 years ago would have died, but she didn't and she has to figure out what it means to live.

A Sick Chick is the girl who is tired of people referring to her by her illness, or defining her by it.

Who wants to be, "oh, Jen - she has lupus"?

Maybe Jen wants to be, "oh, Jen, she's amazing, she does judo and runs a charity helping inner- city children find support and direction through non-confrontational martial arts".

(In case you are wondering, you can do judo even if you can't sit up. I know; I learned.)

Sick Chicks are frustrated by people staring at their impairments, and are even more frustrated that the attention is affecting their self- esteem.

Sick Chicks are angry that people dismiss their invisible disabilities.

The woman in the hospital gown, who was supposed to have been at a great gig right now, but is instead stuck in bed, feeling patronised and lonely, swallowed by a hospital system which, in it's efficiency, leaves little space for individuality. She wonders where her life went, and if she can ever get it back? She is a Sick Chick, and she's not alone.

I was so fed up with being known as the Sick Chick. It was the first thing people said about me, the thing they always asked about: "Are you better yet?". As though I was just being a slow coach and if I worked harder somehow (come on nerves, come on kidneys, chop chop, heal) it would all be OK. I would become normal again.

I am not normal, but I was fed up with being 'other'. Of feeling that the only way I was allowed self- esteem and to belong was to try and pass as non- disabled. It's a bit hard to do, actually (the wheelchair tends to be a big clue).

We flipped our thinking to empowerment. I stopped thinking of myself as being other, being odd and different, being the crazy one going to the very edges of healing to survive.

If I'm always forging a new path, then maybe I'm not a healing freak, a weird Sick Chick, I'm a Trail Blazer!

Who is a Trail Blazer?

A Trail Blazer… is a woman who is empowered. She is taking charge of her healing. She is in charge of her life, making decisions, informed choices and taking action.

A Trail Blazer is creating the best possible environment to heal in.

She isn't other; she's breaking boundaries.

She isn't weird; she is a pioneer.

She isn't typecast; she is a living, breathing, shining adventure story.

She isn't redundant; she has so much to offer the world through her presence and her living.

A Trail Blazer can speak to her doctors about her conditions, ask the right questions, and understand the answers.

A Trail Blazer is following in the foot steps of all those angels who have trod this path, and is making it possible for women coming after her to live well with illness.

A Trail Blazer is asking what the alternatives are, who has managed this before and how can she find them.

A Trail Blazer is an exceptional patient.

A Trail Blazer is educating the hospital that milk is not the only source of calcium.

(Some Trail Blazers cure the incurable.)

A Trail Blazer is giving lie to the invalid stereotype.

A Trail Blazer makes magic out of what she has.

A Trail Blazer writes poetry in her last days.

A Trail Blazer knows that she is not just amazing, she is real and living.

A Trail Blazer let's her condition be a wake- up call to live.

A Trail Blazer finds a way to create diamonds in the terrible pressure she is put through.

What if I'm both?

Trail Blazers are not exclusionary and Trail Blazer doesn't mean cured. You can be a Trail Blazer even when you feel like a Sick Chick - the difference is, as a Trail Blazer we are no longer allowing our illnesses and disabilities to define us.

Of course they affect us, but then so does the climate and culture we live in. The difference here is, can we make ourselves in the important bit and the illness the background noise?

Even when I was bed bound, I was still me, I was still the important bit - not the diagnosises I was being labelled with.

How to Turn Trail Blazer?

It's possible, easy and you can begin today. But it's a little longer than I can cover here. But that's why I've created…

How to Blaze a Trail Mini Course - begin today and create wellness actions that transform your world. When you sign up you get a quick but powerful lesson that will land in your inbox every day for the next 5 days. Want to turn Trail Blazer? Feeling excited?

Just sign up here.

(It's free.)

What do you think? When do you feel like a Sick Chick and like a Trail Blazer? Share your thoughts over on our Facebook page...

Photo Credit: Ten Bandits via Compfight cc because Oracle is an ultimate Trail Blazer!

Wellness Provocateur Vlog No 4. What is Sparkle Reiki?

06 May 2013 Last Updated on 06 May 2013 Grace

WellnessProvocateurVlogBadge

Have you heard about Sparkle Reiki?

Here's the cliff notes version:

Sparkle Reiki Darlings — is an exhilarating community experience that will rapidly inject you & nine other vibrant women with a renewed zest for life.

The deets

Start & end each week with vim & vigour. A Sparkle Reiki will be sent to you every Monday & every Friday. You can also send in a Reiki request for something specific to you every Wednesday.

Each treatment lasts for several days.

SparkleReikiDarlings I'm a registered Master Teacher & hold the highest certification offered by the UK Reiki Federation in Britain . . I've been practicing Reiki for 13 years.

You don't have to add your name to a practitioner's waiting list, reserve an appointment, or disrupt your day by attending a treatment. Instead, you'll have direct access to super-charged blessings for your business & your life.

It's your lucky day

I am offering Sparkle Reiki Freebies - a totally free 15 minute Sparkle Reiki Session just for you. Book yours now.

If you like this video please share it! Copy and paste these onto Facebook, Twitter or Google+ or share with friends who need some sparkle support too.

I'm getting sparkly with #SparkleReiki join me here for free! http://bit.ly/17HjMmM

Want some sparkle in your week? Sign up for you Sparkle Reiki Freebie now. http://bit.ly/17HjMmM

Always wanted to try some #Reiki? Now's your chance. http://bit.ly/17HjMmM

What is #SparkleReiki ? Find out here. http://bit.ly/17HjMmM

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Beautiful Things To Do… Because, It's My Birthday!

02 May 2013 Last Updated on 02 May 2013 Grace

Beautiful Things to Do, Because….is my way to catalogue all the lovely things happening in the world and to share ideas for having a delightful weekend. Enjoy and hop on Twitter to share your beautiful things with me.

Linus and I will be greeting the sunrise of my new year by sea, with elderflower presse, champagne flutes and fairy cakes topped with golden candles. If you want to raise a breakfast glass along with us, please do.

Raise a toast when you wake - whatever time zone you are in.

Add a birthday candle to your breakfast.

Pick your own magic, make a wish and away we go.

Make a crown:

How to make a lace crown:option 1 and option 2

How to make a cardboard crown

How to make your own flower crown: option 1, option 2,option 3

How to make a foil tiara

Make a crown and do something that feels magical - that's how you can join in celebrating my birthday, and you'll be connecting to people making magic on this day across the world!

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Sign up here for the hot news(letter), early bird offers, luscious wisdom and such. Get my free guided meditation MP3 "Your Meditation Break" when you sign up. If you want to begin your day with loveliness, start here!