Fairhaven Health DreamBelly Butter - Review and Giveaway!

I have worked several times in the past with Fairhaven Health and jumped at the chance to test out and review the new DreamBelly Stretch Mark Butter.

You may recall that while I was pregnant, I used DreamBelly Stretch Mark Cream daily on my ginormous belly. I managed to pack on about 50 lbs while I was pregnant - yowza! Yet I made it through without a single stretch mark from pregnancy. You can read my previous review of DreamBelly Stretch Mark Cream if you want the full story.

Just for fun, here's my enormo belly on one of the last days of pregnancy, while I was in labour. You will have to excuse the nasty pyjama pants, I was scraping the bottom of the dresser for anything I could get on at that point:

Not one stretch mark! Hooray! I'm not posting a belly shot now - oh, how I miss the days of flat pre-preg belly that was not squishy in the least - but I assure you, it's still stretch mark free.

So, I can personally attest to the awesomeness of that product, and although I am not pregnant (no, this review is not an announcement!) DreamBelly Butter was something I needed to try. With our recent move to Calgary from Ontario, I have realized just how much the humidity (or lack thereof) affects my skin. Calgary is dry as a desert bone and I'm headed that way, too. I was in desperate need of moisture.

DreamBelly Butter has natural ingredients, safe for pregnancy - and honestly, why would you want to use anything that is not safe for pregnancy, even when you're not pregnant? DreamBelly Butter:

Combines the healing power of rosehip oil, aloe vera, honeysuckle and grapefruit, to protect and regenerate skin, and provide soothing relief from itchiness

Provides deep moisturizing from natural butters and oils with no greasy, slippery feeling

Has the mild, pleasant fragrance of milk and honey

Contains no petroleum products, parabens, artificial colors or artificial preservatives

I love the very light scent - to me it smells sweet like candy, but not in a sticky, fake way, like so many lotions.  It's just really nice. Feminine without being girly, flowery or powdery.

The best thing about it is the feel. It is thick and absorbs well without leaving a greasy feeling on your skin. You can really feel it moisturizing, but you don't feel slippery or oily at all. I can't stand applying lotion and then feeling like it's going to get all over my sheets or clothing. DreamBelly Butter goes on and soaks right in. Lovely. I just checked out the reviews on their site, and it looks like other women love it just as much as I do - all 5 star reviews.

One of the things I respect about Fairhaven Health - and this goes for all their products - is that they provide a complete ingredient list on their website for each product. Everything I have tried from them has been fantastic quality. Although I write a lot of reviews, I don't always gush - but this company has me gushing. It's good stuff. 

And now I have some excellent news: Fairhaven Health has generously offered to send out DreamBelly Stretch Mark Butter to FIVE of my lucky readers! Get in on this one, you will love this product!

Click "read more" if you don't see the Rafflecopter form to enter!

Quick click to make me feel loved

Anyone feel like voting for a picture? I have no hope of winning (one blogger has her pic as an entry into contests on her blog, so she's in top spot) but I would feel better with a few votes :) http://bit.ly/HXLAti

Thanks! :)

A Supreme Green Mess #FinishRevolution

This week I have been trying out a few new recipes from my stash of cookbooks. One of the ones I tried was Supreme Green Spaghetti, from my Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook. Usually I love the recipes from Vegetarian Times - they can generally be relied upon to transform simple ingredients into delicious dishes. I was eager to test out the Supreme Green Spaghetti, because it looked so healthy and simple.

Well, it was simple and fairly healthy alright, but seriously devoid of flavour and had a disappointingly grainy texture! I usually happily modify recipes after the first by-the-book test - but this one is just not worth it. So I won't bother sharing it (it's not even on the VT site). Suffice to say, it involved blending cooked broccoli and spinach with milk, butter, salt and garlic to create a sauce for whole grain spaghetti. And even though I love all those ingredients, it was a mess. Not particularly tasty, the raw garlic had too much bite (although I'm a garlic lover), the texture was icky.

The only one of us who enjoyed it was my 14 month old. Bland pureed vegetables are okay with her.  My husband barely ate five bites - he said he wasn't that hungry, but I know he was sparing my feelings. And I managed half a bowl before giving up. The next day I added some organic tomato sauce to the dish and tried again, it was still not worth eating.

It's not too often that I create an absolute unsalvageable failure in the kitchen, but it does happen!

At any rate, the mess of a dinner came with a mess of a blender as well.  The blended bits of broccoli and spinach are exactly the kind of thing that tend to dry on and stick like glue to dishes. The dishwasher in our grotty rental house (we're moving by the end of the month to the new house, hooray!) is an old beast and does not do a great job by any means. So this was a big test for the Finish Quantum dishwasher tabs that I've been trying out. Here's the blender as it went in to the dishwasher:

 ...and that is how it sat in the dishwasher for four days. We're a small family of three and weekdays, as my husband only eats one meal a day at home, we take a while to fill up the dishwasher. So there it sat until we finally had a full load.

Oh, the suspense. Would I be washing that blender by hand afterwards? I HATE hand washing dishes, so I really was hoping for the best.

Well, you can stop biting your nails with anticipation - here's the result, fresh out of the dishwasher. Sparkling clean!

I am positive the tabs I was using before (store brand green tabs) would have left not only dried-on bits of green goo but also detergent residue on the glass. So I am quite happy with this result. If only we'd gotten a tasty dinner out of it!

Disclosure: I am part of the Finish Blogger Program by Mom Central. I received compensation as part of my affiliation with this group.  The opinions on this blog are my own.