375: 10 Simple Life Hacks for Clean(er) Living, Better Skin & a Healthier Body

Artwork for podcast ON AIR WITH ELLA | women's wellness, mindset, motivation

Episode 375 • 9th October 2024 • ON AIR WITH ELLA | women's wellness, mindset, motivation • Ella Lucas-Averett

ELLA: 00:00

Welcome! You're on air with Ella, where we share simple strategies and tips for living a little better every day. If you're interested in mindset and wellness, or healthy habits and relationships, or hormone health, aging well, and eating well, honestly, if you're into just living better and with more energy, then you're in the right place. Welcome to real, honest, no-fluff conversations about creating a better you. We're not here for perfect. We're here for a little better every day. Let's go. Hey, you're on air with Ella and today it's a solo show. It's just me, Ella. I'm so glad you're here. One of the reasons I started this show so many moons ago is because I wanted to share really simple ways we could achieve health and wellness and the life that we wanted. And I just thought that the interwebs and marketing and all the people who make a buck off of the wellness industry, I thought that they made things complicated sometimes because it was profitable. And one of the things that I love to do is share really simple tactics to increase our health meter, our wellness meter, our happiness meter. And so today we're getting back to basics. I am sharing 10 super simple, almost entirely free life hacks with you. And I hope that you can implement one of these to make your life better. So most of these are centered around things that I do. Most of them are 100% free and most of them you can start immediately. We are going to be talking about clean living, cleaning, literally, some things we might be doing that add toxicity in our lives and how to reduce it. Without further ado, here are 10 life hacks that you can implement immediately. Number one, contact lenses. Don't wear them in water. Did you know that? People that wear contact lenses are at a risk of keratitis anyway. That is a condition where your cornea becomes inflamed. And if keratitis isn't treated promptly, it can create vision loss and other stuff. It's yuck. You don't want it. But microbial keratitis is a specific type of keratitis where germs enter the cornea and cause an eye infection and the germs that cause those infections are found in water sources. That includes tap water, lake water, pool water, the water you shower in. So exposing your contacts to water can cause them not only to warp or stick to your eye, which potentially can lead to scratches on your cornea, but it also increases the likelihood of infection. I don't think people know this. I don't think anybody's talking about it. So I just wanted you to know if you've ever gotten out of the shower, you may have felt some of that anyway. You may have felt if you wear contacts and you take a shower, that it doesn't feel intuitively like you should be taking them out right then, that is because they are stuck to your eye a bit more than they were before you took that shower. If that happens to you, because we obviously can't always take out our contacts, even though we're out here living intentionally, doing our best, sometimes we swim or bathe and leave our contacts in. When that happens, this part's not medical advice, this is simply what Ella does. I always have saline solution. So whenever I buy contact lens solution, I also buy big bottles of saline solution, which are just sterile salt water. That's all they are. And if I shower with my contacts in, I will always rinse my eyes with saline solution when I get out. And I do not take my contacts out right away. It's just not a good idea. If you don't wear contacts, saline solution is a great idea anyway. I was reading about this for other reasons that I won't bore you with right now. But daily eye rinsing with saline can help remove irritants that build up or that are in the environment. Dust, pollen, other allergens. It may provide a little bit of relief for tired or irritated eyes, especially after long periods of screen use. It actually soothes and moisturizes dry eyes. So I always have saline on hand. I cannot wear contacts without using saline once a day. But whether you wear contacts or not, a little Eye rinse in the morning is a safe, simple, super cheap thing to do. So FYI. And if you can help it, don't wear those contacts in the water. Okay, maybe you're one of those people, one of those households, who does not allow shoes to be worn inside. Tip number two, however, is a hybrid solution for the rest of us out here who understand why that's beneficial, but we don't live in that world. Like, I live with other people. I myself am probably not kicking off my shoes every time I walk in the house. Now if I walk into yours and that's your household rule, I will happily respect it, but I'm probably not asking guests to remove their shoes when they come over and whatnot. So if you are a shoeless household, I salute you. I want to be you. If you live in a different world like I do, my happy hybrid solution for you is Don't wear shoes on carpet. Even if you don't check your shoes at the door, even if you wear them in and you might walk on the hardwoods and on the tile and on the rugs, do not allow shoes on the carpet. So typically in bedrooms. Why? Well, shoes, as you know, can carry various microorganisms. That's going to include bacteria, viruses, fungi, but they also pick up pollen and dust and dirt. And think about this. If you walked through the yard, for example, if you walk through grass, Pesticides and herbicides from lawns and gardens can be picked up on the bottom of your shoe. Then there's gas and oil and antifreeze if you're anywhere near cars. And when you walk on a floor, they say, scientists have found, that microbes on the shoe soles transfer to floors 90% of the time. 90% of the time. But on carpet, that increases to 99% of the time. Your carpet is like a filter, not in a good way. It traps all of those things that I just mentioned. 99% of the time there is transfer to your carpets. Now, yes, this is true on floors. Yes, this is true on rugs. But those are much easier to clean and clean frequently, at least in my household. We have a ton of hardwoods and I don't mind cleaning them and dealing with the rugs, but carpets are out of the question for me. I want them to be pristine. I do not want allergens and a bunch of toxic stuff in my house. And so that is where I've chosen to draw the line. So if you need a hybrid solution before you work toward a shoeless household, if you ever do, then maybe you can try tip number two on for size and that is no outdoor shoes on carpet. By the way, fun fact, sometimes I have shoes on and they're a pain to take off and I'm ready to go out or whatever and I left something in my closet or in the bathroom that I need to run up and get and I will crawl across the floor so my husband has many a tiny short video of me, like fully dressed, ready to go out and do my thing, like crawling across the floor so as not to have to take off my shoes to grab the thing. But yeah, it's the price we pay. Okay, number three is just several quick kitchen tips that I'm lumping all under the kitchen category. At least for me, that's where these things occur. And they're all very tiny, but I wanted to share them with you. First of all, when you're fetching trash bags, always fetch two and leave one in the bottom of your waste bin. That way, when you pull it out, you always have one ready and waiting for you. Tiny tip. Also, if you have one of those dual cans where you have one for trash and one for recycling, use a paper bag for your recycling. We still get paper grocery bags here and we reuse them for grocery shopping, but we also use them for our recycling trash because the idea of putting recycling into a plastic bag makes my head hurt like I don't get it and I'm pretty sure that most of the recycling in the U.S. anyway is an urban legend like I'm pretty sure it's not happening but I want to live in this plausible deniability world where we are recycling and I'm putting that all in a paper bag because yeah I'm here to help. Also this is a mini tip for four of you four of you will really benefit from this. We have a dog and our dog's food is not set up on any kind of like stand because she's not big so it's not like raised up from the ground. She's not dining at a buffet every night. That's not what we're doing. So we have a bowl of water and a bowl of food and they live on the floor. Well, there's a problem with that. They live on the floor by French doors to the outside world. And that can create a bug situation. So let me tell you what we did. We thought we were so clever, and I want to share it with you. We have this very cute tray. It's like this mid-century modern tray. It was actually my grandmother's. You can use any tray. It does not need to be my grandmother's. And it has a lip on it. And we put a tiny amount of water in that tray, just enough, just enough to cover the surface. So now, Zara has her food and water. on the tray and the tray has a bit of water in it. That keeps all ants and insects and anything else that would like to crawl over and munch on her food away. But let's stay in the kitchen for tip number four. Anytime I use a lemon in a recipe, usually if I need to squeeze fresh lemon juice into something, I keep the lemon half. And there's a reason I do that. It's because I either use it to clean my cutting board immediately after. You just scrub the cutting board with the lemon, no matter what you used it for, and then you rinse that off. Great antibacterial. or I microwave that lemon for three minutes in a bowl of water. So any bowl other than plastic, fill it with water, drop that lemon half in there, microwave it for three minutes, and now you can take a single cloth and wipe the microwave clean super, super easily. Lemons are magic, so don't throw them away. But while we're on disinfectant, can we please talk about commercial air fresheners? Oh, Lord. Okay, I know that the commercials will have you believe that these air fresheners that you plug into the wall and like magic blue stars come out of it, or you put them in your car, or God forbid, you go into Billy's room because it smells like socks and you spray it in the air, those are really bad for you. I will link, if you're skeptical, to one study per thing I say is harmful today. Those will be in the show notes. But many of those commercial air fresheners of all sorts contain VOCs, and that's an acronym for volatile organic compounds. In short, they're bad for you. They can irritate your eyes, your nose, your throat. Many of these ingredients may act, according to science, as hormonal disruptors. Do we need that? And some are known carcinogens. So Billy's room might smell like socks, but I don't think the answer is to spray carcinogens into the air. That just doesn't, that doesn't sit right with me. Those products, those commercials make me crazy. And I wanted to share with you just a few very simple things that you can do that have the same net result and won't trigger asthma or allergies or create toxins in your blood and your lungs. By the way, if you are prone to migraines, this stuff needs to come out of your house immediately, okay? chemicals in air fresheners and in dryer sheets and a few other other detergents basically detergent shampoos soaps you get the idea they can trigger headaches and dizziness in people who are already sensitive if the carcinogen piece didn't land with you hopefully uh hopefully that'll be useful So there are lots and lots of things you can do that are natural and easy and some are basically free. One not free one is an essential oil diffuser. You just use pure essential oils in a diffuser. That's great. I probably have three. I don't use them. If you're like me, you got one. Someone gave you one as a gift and it's lovely and it's awesome. It's sitting in a closet somewhere, okay? But they work. You could also just take a spray bottle, like get an empty spray bottle that you've already used or get one from the dollar store. We don't care. We're not picky. Get a spray bottle and mix it with water and a few drops of essential oils in that spray bottle. And if you want it to last forever and not go rancid, you just add a tiny bit of witch hazel to it as a preservative. You know what else you can use as a preservative? Vodka. Now, I don't think that's the highest and best use of vodka, all right, if we're being honest, but just a smidge will keep that essential oil in your spray bottle from going rancid. You can spray that around in Billy's room, his smelly sock room. Here are two almost free things that you can do. Simmer pots. Boil water with the aforementioned lemon. Just boil that with citrus peels of any kind really or cinnamon sticks or herbs if that's all you have. That creates an aroma throughout the house that will mask a smell if you've got one. And finally, We cooked fish the other night and curiously my kitchen smelled fishy about an hour later after the food was gone. It's not fun anymore and so I just took some baking soda and put it in a small open bowl and just set it right next to the stove and the smell went away because baking soda is an odor eater. You can put these little containers, little open containers of baking soda wherever you have a problem and it works like a charm. Finally, quick shout out to plants. Plants naturally purify air and absorb odors. Did you know that? So if you can keep them alive, try peace lilies, spider plants, and snake plants. Those are some of the top three to help absorb odors and increase oxygen and even humidity in your home. So just generally a good idea. Okay, I think we're already on tip number six, I want to say. I don't know. I hope you're not feeling picky about the number. I don't know where we are. Somewhere in the middle. But let's talk about air fryers. Now I was so bummed because I did an episode on Teflon and non-stick surfaces in cooking supplies and shared with you how very toxic those are. And by the way, the word toxic, it's overused. I'm using it scientifically in this episode. We are talking about toxic chemicals being released into the air, into your food, into your home, etc. So when I say toxic today, I mean it, and I'll back it up with a link to studies where science agrees, okay? But remember we did an episode on Teflon and non-stick, and I recently reclipped that for a mini-sode on a Friday. In short, not good for you. And they are widely understood to be releasing chemicals into your food if they're cooked at high heat. And air fryers, as my friend Corrine pointed out to me after releasing that episode, Air fryers are lined with non-stick surfaces almost all of the time, including mine. And I had never even thought about it. So that's a bummer. I found one in Amazon that is super cute. Happens to be on sale as I record this. I can link to it. And it does not have non-stick surfaces inside. And it's very adorable. But here's my tip. My number six tip is that air fryers are just convection ovens. So if you have a convection oven option already, you do not need an air fryer. Did you know that? They are the same thing with one tiny difference. And that tiny difference does matter in one regard, and I'll tell you what it is. Air fryer food will be crispier, typically. And the reason why is both of them cook food by circulating hot air around the food. But air fryers have a top heating element, and convection ovens typically have a bottom heating element. And for whatever reason, I'm not a scientist, The air fryers result in slightly crispier food fast, right? But that's a trade-off you want. Absolutely fine. Try to find one without a nonstick surface. If it's not, you can use that convection oven and you're going to get a very similar result. And it doesn't take up any room on the counter or in the cabinet. Tip number seven is a tiny tip. And it relates to those clothes, those clothes that live in laundry purgatory. They are neither dirty nor clean. They do not belong with their clean brethren in your closet. That feels gross for some reason. And they do not belong in the laundry, which we are not seeking to make more of unnecessarily. Am I right? They are in laundry, purgatory? The answer is not your bedroom floor. It is not the chair that you have in your bedroom. It is not the cute bench that you have in your bed. It's none of those things that may or may not currently be holding a bunch of purgatory clothes for you. And I do not judge, okay? I have been there. But let me tell you my tiny, tiny tip for number whatever we're on. Seven. Hooks. Hooks change lives. Hooks on the back of your bathroom door. Hooks on the back of your closet door. Hooks where people can't see them. You can just hang your purgatory clothes without putting the back in the closet, hung up with the rest of the clothes, and without creating unnecessary laundry for yourself. and give those purgatory clothes a chance to air out briefly because they were simply gently used and you want to wear them again. I have hidden hooks all over the place, including in the garage, which is extremely helpful when I pick up my dry cleaning. Why, you say? I'll tell you. Because tip number eight is to air out your dry cleaning. Dry cleaning uses solvents. The one that they talk about the most is PERC. And I can't say PERC's long name. It's something like perchlorethylene, something like that. you may have heard people refer to the chemicals called PERC which is used in dry cleaning and it will leave a residue so I gotta be honest with you I take my clothes to a non eco-friendly non green dry cleaner Why? Why, you say? Because when we moved to where we live now, just outside of Washington, D.C., I took my clothes. I took my first bundle to the Eco Dry Cleaners, which is just a few blocks away from me. It's right there. It's very green. They love Mother Earth and they're not going to kill me with their chemicals. And guess what? It was a mortgage payment to get my clothes out of dry cleaning jail. When I picked them up and they told me how much it was, I was like, I could just buy new clothes. Like, why would I pay you? It was so unbelievably expensive that I'm back to my lovely, very sweet, toxic dry cleaner. I don't know if they're toxic. I don't know what they use. I just close my eyes and hope for the best. But here's what I do do, and this is my tip for you. When we pick up our dry cleaning, we remove that plastic, which we always take back to the dry cleaner, because again, in my head in my mental state everybody's recycling so yeah we keep those plastic bags and we always return them to the dry cleaner and we're like here hope you can use these again just let me have this okay we unseal the clothing from the dryer the dry cleaning bag and the plastic bags and we hang them up we have a garage so we hang them up on the hooks and we let them air out in there or we hang them in a room that has a lot of circulation maybe we hang them next to a cracked window maybe we hang them on the the sun porch, whatever, we hang them out where they can off-gas, I'm not kidding, off-gas some of the toxic chemicals before we put them in our closed-up closets. Highly recommend that you consider that. You put them in your closet, the air is trapped, there is no circulation, and they're rubbing off other clothes, etc. I'm out here doing my best, so I am not going to the green clean, but I am airing out the clothes before they go into anyone's closet. hey we're just we live in the real world okay so i'm doing my best and she does not wear hemp and linen all day like it's just it's not me so i'm keeping it real and i'm speaking only to the people who live in the same world that i do So if that's you, stick around, because I'm about to take away your dryer sheets. All right? Stick with me. Hear me out. Tip number nine, those dryer sheets that you think you need in your laundry because static cling is just so unbearable, they're terrible for you. They are terrible for you. uh yeah you want a link i'll get you one carcinogens hormone disruptors not worth a little static cling not in my book so here's my magic tip for you water kills static cling instantly so instead of adding chemicals to your dryer get your hands wet when you're pulling the laundry out just get them wet just go get them damp both hands soak them under the sink and then go get your laundry out water kills static cling on contact and you just take everything and it's absolutely fine and you did not have to expose yourself to those nasty, nasty chemicals. Okay, bonus tip. I don't want to count this one because 11 tips isn't fun. It doesn't sound as cute, but make your bed in the morning, right? Like, make your bed. Have you ever found a spider in your home or like a little tiny creepy crawly? I mean, they don't even have to be scary. Just have you ever found any kind of wildlife in your home? Insects, bugs, what have you. Well, I don't want them in my bed. And if I don't make my bed, it's just an invitation for whatever wants to live there. I'm not here for it. Plus, I like the idea of starting the day with order and loveliness so that when you come home, you come home to your lovely sanctuary, not some unmade tussle of sheets that may or may not be housing dust mites and spiders. We don't know. But here's my tip for you. Don't make your bed immediately. So when you get up, brush your teeth, do your coffee thing, do what you need to do, then go back and make your bed. It's just a tiny tip to let your bed air out before making it to reduce moisture buildup and just keep your bedding fresh and lovely. And that's it. Super simple. So we're not going to count that one because I would like number 10 to be, I think we're on like 14, but whatever, 10. is a little bit of a cheat because I'm actually talking about more than just clean living here. I went in a little bit more depth than this and this is about skin health and the reason I want to talk about this and I'll wrap some tips in here for sure but currently women particularly are spending hundreds of hundreds upon hundreds of dollars a year hundreds on skincare I mean when you look at like you hear in the news they're like oil is $80 a barrel or whatever I'm talking about petroleum not facial stuff oil is $80 a barrel or now it's $88 a barrel I don't know what the price of oil is right now We're paying $100 for an ounce. Like, I just want you to think about that. $100 for an ounce of skin cream. Maybe three ounces, right? That would be a large container. Three ounces. Five is like biggie size. So for a few ounces and for hundreds of dollars, we are being sold youth. We are being sold brightness. We are being sold vitality. We are being sold a different face. And it drives me also crazy. Several of these things drive me crazy. This is one of them because they are preying on our desire to look a certain way and they are making an absolute mint. And by the way, I'm no stranger to this. Okay, I'm certainly no stranger to this but I certainly am not throwing my money down the drain in this arena to the extent that I probably would have ten years ago and here's why. Here is the big tip. Skin health is deeply connected to our internal health and our diet so much more than what we apply topically. So much more. Does this mean that there's not room in our life for topical, you know, concoctions? Absolutely not. Of course, of course there is. I have a chemical-laden skin cream that I use once or twice a week. It has estradiol in it. When I say chemical, I don't mean toxic. I just mean it's man-made of a bunch of chemicals. Everything's chemical, but just come on, humor me. You know what I'm trying to say here. So I have an expensive prescription cream with estradiol in it that I put on once or twice a week. On the other nights, I'm rotating in natural serums, which I talk about all the time on here. If you need any recs, let me know. And then a concoction that I make myself, which is castor oil, rosehip oil, and black seed oil mixed together. And that is super viscous and super moisturizing and keeps my skin from looking inflamed after I use that prescription stuff. So anyway, my point to you is I am not above using chemical soup that I have researched and that I want to rotate in. Absolutely not. But what I really want to drive home today is that as our largest organ, your skin is reflecting your overall internal well-being so much more than what you put on top of it. I mean, it comes down to like four or five primary things that you're ingesting, and then we'll talk about some of the things you might be seeing on your skin that can be changed. So number one, antioxidants. When you focus on colorful foods, fruits and vegetables, you are consuming compounds that fight free radicals that can damage skin cells and accelerate aging. Protein. Protein is essential for producing collagen and elastin, which maintains skin structure and elasticity, just like it sounds. Healthy fats, please do not be afraid of them, particularly omega-3 fatty acids. They keep your skin hydrated and plump and smooth, so you eat those avocados and the salmon and the healthy, healthy oils, and do not be afraid of them. Vitamin C and E specifically support skin repair, protect against UV damage, and boost collagen production. Vitamin C and E. And then zinc, by the way, is essential for healing and preventing infection. So if you're finding that you have wounds that won't heal, or if you're having anything that could be described as an infection, just know that having adequate levels of zinc is really, really important so that you can heal. When it comes to conditions like acne or eczema and psoriasis even, your diet is the first place to start and this goes for your kids too. Diets high in those super refined sugars that you're finding in processed foods and even in dairy, they can trigger acne flare-ups. The lack of those essential fatty acids that I talked about can worsen eczema. So can not getting enough of those antioxidants that we talked about. they can aggravate eczema and psoriasis. When it comes to like crepiness and wrinkles and just what we call premature aging, that is often reflective of a diet that is low in antioxidants, high in processed foods, or high in alcohol. or any combination thereof. When someone gives up alcohol or greatly reduces their alcohol intake, what are the two things they always say? Invariably, they talk about how much better their sleep is and that their skin looks so different. I think those are the two biggest and fastest feedbacks that one gets when one reduces their refined sugar and or alcohol intake. So that's a nice reward. I won't go on about hydration. I think that if you live in the world today, you probably know that proper hydration is essential for not just flushing out toxins, but just maintaining that glow and your skin's radiance, if you will, and if you're not properly hydrated. then you're going to feel and look a bit creepier than is entirely necessary. But let's talk about some of the specific things that I see people get sold products for. Dark circles under your eyes. Dark circles under your eyes is best treated through dietary changes rather than topical treatments. Yep. It's often tied to your liver, or to insulin resistance, or a myriad of other factors relating to your gut health. If that's something you're struggling with, please look into that. If you want me to look into it for you, let me know and we can do more on this. When it comes to diets high in processed food, I've already told you that they exacerbate acne symptoms, And the gut-skin axis is something that we've talked about before, especially when I shared the probiotics. I rotate to probiotics right now. And one of them I bought specifically after interviewing Dr. William Davis, and he was talking to me about L-reuteri, that is a bacteria that we tend to be low in and our ancestors weren't. Anyway, blah, blah, blah. I can link to that gut health episode, but he ties gut health to skin appearance. And the probiotic that I ended up buying after that show that I still take, and I absolutely have a coupon code for you, which is good because it's expensive, that is specifically marketed as a skin enhancing probiotic. So I'm obsessed. It ain't cheap, but I will share it if you want to see it. But in short, your microbiome has just everything to do, a healthy gut microbiome has everything to do with your overall skin condition. The last thing I'll say about this is elevated blood sugar levels can damage collagen in the skin. So if you're out here trying to add collagen peptides to your smoothies or your coffee, and then you're putting collagen creams on your face and you're walking around with elevated blood sugar levels, you are poking holes in the boat that you're bailing water out of, right? I don't say that as a criticism. I say it as an awareness point. So when I talk to you about going for a walk after your meal, even if it's only 12 minutes, and lowering the blood sugar impact of that meal, it has so many benefits that I just wanted you to know that glowy skin that has less decline in elasticity is a happy byproduct of maintaining normal, healthy blood sugar levels. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, right? That was new information to me too. So my final tip, somewhere around 10 to 14, life hack, is if you are trying to see improvements in your skin, the call is coming from inside the house. Start internally and then work your way out before you're buying the $140 skin cream. OK? And if you want any of the recipes for the natural skin care stuff that I mentioned, you just say the word. All right, that's it. I hope you found something useful in this, but here's what I really want to know. I want to know which of these life hacks you think is absolutely bonkers. I want to know what you do that is not on my list, because I love this. I want to compile yours and do a follow-up episode where I share your life tips. I love these little things that cost almost nothing, that we can implement immediately, and that make our lives just a tiny bit better. DM me life hacks. I want to hear from you. See you next time. P.S. All the links you need for us to connect are right here in your podcast app, in the description for today's episode. Check them out. Thanks for listening, and thanks for inspiring me. You are, quite simply, awesome.

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