Table Tonic "clean" beauty buys: PART I

I've had such an overwhelmingly positive response since announcing I'd be looking for "more natural" skincare options in this post. Thank you to all of you who took the time to pass on your amazing suggestions. I read each and every one of them and have made some awesome discoveries. Who can we rely on if not our "friends" for a crazy-good "word of mouth" (word of blog?) recommendations, so thank you thank you thank you. Naturally, I'm going to enlighten you all right back over the course of the next few weeks/months and heck, possibly years(!). The natural skin and haircare industry is changing and growing so fast - and I now know why. Chemicals and "nasties" simply aren't needed to get the job done. On the contrary, I've had some surprisingly fantastic results from completely natural products. I'm a convert! So I really hope you all enjoy this series, and these - my first two recommendations.

Brand: Vanessa Megan www.vanessamegan.com
Skincare or haircare? Skincare 
I tried: (above) Petigrain Cream Cleanser, N.E.O Oil, Jasmine Face Cream, Rose Petal Body Oil, Lemon & Eucalyptus Pumice Hand Wash, Peruvian Flower Hand & Body Cream, Lip Balm, Men's Sandalwood Face Cream 
Clean creds: 100% Chemical Free, Made in Australia. Natural & Organic skin care products. Products contain absolutely no Petrochemicals, Mineral Oils, Lauryl Sulphates, Artificial Colours or Fragrances. Not tested on animals. (Note: Vanessa Megan is in the process of conversion for an ACO (Australian Certified Organic) rating on all products. 
Best bit: Anything that comes in (good old fashioned brown) glass bottles gets my vote!

Standout product: So hard to choose, but a toss up between the Petigrain Cream Cleanser and the N.E.O Oil. Both are beautifully moisturizing and they smell out of this world good. I loved that they recommend I simply wash my face with water each morning. It's actually all it needs!
Bonus points: They also have a pregnancy range and a men's range (Mr Tonic loved his Sandalwood moisturizer - not too greasy/heavy either!)
Where to buy: Click for stockists

Buy online at: Vanessa Megan

Brand: Original & Mineral www.originalmineral.com 
Skincare or haircare? Haircare 

I tried: (above) Hydrate & Conquer Shampoo, Hydrate & Conquer Conditioner, Seven Day Miracle Moisture Masque, No Knott Conditioning Detangler, Frizzy Logic Shine Serum. 

Clean creds: Naturally active, low chemical products in recyclable packaging. No sulphates, parabens, propylene, glycol, phthalates, triclosan, carcinogens or "cheap synthetic chemicals".

Best bit: The smell, oh my giddy aunt, the smell. Think coconuts marrying berries.

Standout product: A few weeks on, I'm amazed at the fact that when I'm rinsing out the (Hydate & Conquer) shampoo, it actually feels like I'm rinsing out conditioner. It's that soft (this actually didn't happen for the first week or so, but my tortured hair and I are now officially hooked!). Oh, and how could I not mention the No Knott Conditioning Detangler. It's now all I use once I hop out the shower, and is arguably the most conditioning leave-in-conditioner type product I've ever used.
Bonus points: Truly beautiful, clean packaging that really does look "hot" in your bathroom! Oh, and they do a range of ammonia-free hair colour as well!
Where to buy: Click for stockists

Buy online at: Adore Beauty or Fountain Cosmetics

Design Sponge at Home by Grace Bonney

New Yorker Grace Bonney created her beautiful decor website Design*Sponge "as an antidote to the fussy shelter magazines of her mother's generation" and now she is set to release her first book Design*Sponge at Home. One of the very first blogs I EVER bookmarked was Design*Sponge (click on over and you'll see why), so it gives me great pleasure to have a copy of Design*Sponge at Home in my hot little hands, ready to share with you all! Packed with over 600 "pretty pictures" (Grace's words), this design compendium contains peeks of 75 real-life interiors (including the homes of three Aussies!), as well as more than 100 projects (with detailed instructions). And it's no wonder I loved it as much as I did - Bonney has worked as a contributing editor at publications like Domino and House & Garden.

(above) Grace explains that "judging a book (especially a design book) by its cover is sometimes inevitable. So trying to come up with a cover that was beautiful, eye-catching, current-yet-timeless and still managed to encompass all of the content (home tours, DIYs, before & afters and flowers) felt like a Herculean task." And I think she succeeded - It's a beautiful looking cover. Which is why I found it so insightful to see the covers that didn't make the cut! Click to read "Design*Sponge at Home: The Evolution of a Book Cover". The gold leaf cover illustration is by Julia Rothman. Book design by ALSO.

(above) Creating chapter openers for the book (all of which were photographed by William Brinson) involved "buying every darn ribbon M&J Trimming had in stock. I’m convinced the store thought we were punking them by buying that much ribbon!" says Grace. So what's inside?

• 400 pages of inspiration + practical skills to help craft your dream home


• 65+ home tours (with history + decorating tip sidebars)


• 50 DIY projects (organized by difficulty, price and time)


• An illustrated DIY workshop to teach you all the basics, from upholstery to rewiring


• 50 Before & After projects (with tips for identifying valuable furniture)


• A floral workshop to teach you the basics of arranging + 20 example arrangements


• A huge resource section full of our favorite places to shop, order and salvage

(above) I really enjoyed seeing the homes of some of my favourite bloggers in the book, including Morgan of The Brick House.

(above) Davy Newkirk worked with (interior-designer-to-the-stars) Kishani Perera to achieve a well-traveled aesthetic in his LA home.

(above) Super stylist Marcus Hay (I worked with him in magazine land!) is now New York-based and his gorgeous pad made the cut! Visit his blog Fluff 'n' Stuff.

(above) The Lady of the moment - Grace shows us around her Brooklyn, NY apartment which she shares with her husband Aaron and their two cats, Turk and Ms. Jackson. She's shown sitting on her infamous bed, self-upholstered with a stunning red Mexican Suzani!

(above) If you haven't familiarized yourself with Dooce yet, hop to it - the brilliant Dooce creator/writer/mum Heather Armstrong's Salt Lake City, Utah home is also featured.

(above) The Resources Guide on pages 372-379 is so brilliant it's got me thinking about relocating to the USA (just kidding Mum!)...

(above and below) Grace recently revealed that "one of the things that drives me nuts about fancy coffee table books is that they seem to give you all these gorgeous images and no way to interpret them on your own time and budget. So we decided to pull great ideas from the homes in the book, along with other great projects from our editors and readers, to create the second chapter- which is comprised of 50 DIY projects. All of the projects are arranged by difficulty (starting from easy to hard) and list price, time required and variation ideas." 

(below) I just adore this image, taken from Design Editor/Consultant Moniker Biegler Eyers's London home.

Grace will soon embark on a whirlwind book signing tour of the US and Canada (click here for dates), and we'll even see her here in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) in 2012! After "two long years of writing, shooting, editing and planning", Design*Sponge at Home (rrp$49.95) hits stores here in Australia tomorrow! PS The delightful trailer below will give you a quick tour through all 400 pages of Design*Sponge at Home. Happy reading, Tonic-ettes!

FREE SHIPPING at the Table Tonic online store!

Father's Day is this Sunday, 4th September and to help you out, the Table Tonic online store is offering FREE SHIPPING on all orders (placed by midnight Sunday) delivered to an Australian address! Happy shopping!

Bits and bobs and mags and books!

Sunday morning looked like this: Oct/Nov 2011 Belle mag, the Sunday papers and a box of Planet Organic Chai Spice tea bags (I tip it out of the tea bag and brew it in Oat milk in a pot on the stove and add honey). 

Architectural Digest + Will and Jada Pinkett Smith's Malibu home = Yikes! Looks like some kind of heavily themed stage set!? Not my style at all. But on a positive note, what a goooood lookin' family!!

Ikea's 2012 catalogue is officially on driveways/in mail boxes everywhere! I've yet to peruse mine, but look! I see a sheepskin! Very excited.

While this isn't a magazine or a book, it's a cheese platter that demands a mention, based on the lip shmackin' memories it  created (YUM!) and the besties who I shared it with, shortly before we all had a sleepover at our place (Mr Tonic took the Mini-Tonics to his parents place for their own sleepover!). Soft cheese will always have a place in my heart. Ditto sleepovers with besties.

I subscribe to a bunch of mags, almost half of which are from the US (if you missed my "Cheap mag subscriptions 101" blog post a while back, click for the lowdown). The September issues of  Lucky and House Beautiful (such a pretty cover) just landed, as well as my new favourite, Wellbeing! A brilliant health mag published here in Sydney ($12 an issue), Wellbeing is one publication I literally read cover to cover. It's awesome.

PS Tomorrow, I'll be reviewing Grace Bonney's first book Design Sponge at Home - it's (not surprisingly) an absolute beauty! Stay tuned.

Megan Morton's Stylish Home: FOR SALE!

If, like many Sydney-siders, you read the Sun Herald yesterday, you may have noticed that super-stylist (and Home Love author) Megan Morton's Sydney home is for sale:

And it's not surprisingly oozing with that "loved-and-lived-in" look which Morton is renowned for (and get ready to swoon - that Loom rug is edible. Oh, and the pool! The pool is nice too...).

I imagine it's been toned-down and tidied within an inch of its life, but it's still very charming (and did you spot the Juju Hat?). Are you with me? Do you love it? Could you live there? Click to view the listing.

10 bookmark-worthy sites I (only) discovered last week

undecorate

undecorate decor

spoon fork bacon food

loving eco beauty/fashion

design scouting misc

concrete honey craft/misc

the nourished life health

weddings babies everything misc

the modern woman's survival guide misc

healthy happy life food/health

eco nest eco living

A day in the life: 25.08.11

This was how today panned out - A positively glorious winter day here in Sydney prompted me to fling open all the doors and windows (bonus points: it's good feng shui apparently). It was the first time we've had the bifold windows open since last summer, hence the motivation to photograph it as evidence (below). Mr Tonic has finished painting all the trim in the dining room in Dulux Vivid White (high gloss) and its looking fresh-as. In other renovation news, we have ordered the new ballustrade for the deck (something a little more sympathetic to the modernist era). Stay tuned.

I'm having such a love affair with Kale right now. I shred it and usually toss it for 30 seconds in a very hot pan with half a tablespoon of organic coconut oil and celtic sea salt. Ditto mushrooms (toss frequently for 5 mins). Add a boiled egg and half an avo with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice (and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper), and you've got a cracker of a breakfast! Very, very good.

As I took my last blissful mouthful, the following text message conversation took place:

Mel is one of my dearest friends (she was one of my bridesmaids), so having her in Sydney and all to myself was way too good to pass up, despite the Table Tonic-ness that was quietly demanding my attention. So off to The Armchair it was! They make a killer (milky) Chai tea, served in a beautiful cast iron tea pot with a dish of honey and a dish of cinnamon. It comes to the table on a wooden board. We sat out front in the sun and laughed at our matching Oroton Cubic Zirconia earrings as we soaked up the Vitamin D. Gorgeous!

I once read Bill Granger describing how he gets his kids to eat veggies - He serves them up at the start of the meal. Separately. When the kids are hungry! Genius. So recently, I've begun thrusting a colourful cup or bowl of carrot/capsicum sticks or green beans into the kids hands as they watch a bit of telly just before dinner. And wow. It works a treat.

My current reading - Thoroughly enjoying Breakthrough "Life-Altering Secrets From Today's Cutting Edge Doctors" by Suzanne Somers. Buy it here.

Packing TT Ikat cushion orders a couple of days ago...

And to finish it off, Mr Tonic has the man flu. There is much moaning and groaning. And coughing. Lucky for dogs - A man-flu's best friend. Onya Audrey.

Spring = colour at tabletonic.com.au!

For all of you who have been patiently waiting (thank you!), a bunch of beautiful Vintage Suzanis are now in stock and ready to ship at tabletonic.com.au! And Kiki (below) might just be my favourite (isn't she spectacular?). UPDATE: KIKI IS SOLD!

Click here to check out the magnificent new range!

Suzani? What the %@*! is a Suzani?!

I get asked this rather a lot, so let me Wikipedia explain: Suzani is a type of embroidered and decorative tribal textile made in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries. Suzani is from the Persian "Suzan" which means needle. The art of making such textiles in Iran is called "Suzankāri" (needlework). Suzanis usually have a cottonsilk) fabric base, which is embroidered in silk or cotton thread (chain, satin, and buttonhole stitches are the primary stitches used). There is also extensive use of couching, in which decorative thread laid on the fabric as a raised line is stitched in place with a second thread. Suzanis are often made in two or more pieces, that are then stitched together Popular design motifs include sun and moon disks, flowers (especially tulips, carnations, and irises), leaves and vines, fruits (especially pomegranates), and occasional fish and birds.

And I spent the better part of yesterday photographing some gorgeous Suzani bedspreads/throws which will be up on the Table Tonic online store in the next couple of days (ooooh!). But remember, every Suzani is a unique, genuinely vintage piece, so there will only ever be one of each available! Think of them as an instant bed(room) updater. And just in time for Spring!

(above) Yes, I was a little bit excited after photographing 15-odd suzanis! It's a wrap! PS Watch this space.

Diary of a Lucky You "juice cleanse"

I recently embarked on a 5 day juice "cleanse" (It's not a fast... It's not a fast...) which I ordered online through Sydney-based Lucky You. With my recent health kick lifestyle change in full swing (no turning back!) and Spring around the corner, I figured now was as good a time as any. So Wednesday August 17th was locked in as my start date, and I was chomping at the bit. My first care package (below) arrived in all it's "green-ness" and we were good to go.

 To give you a better idea of what the 5 days involved, mine looked exactly like this (I left out one of the 500ml waters each day at a time that suited):
7.15am Warm water with lemon
7.30am Aloe Vera "Elixir"
8am Green Smoothie
9am 500ml Alkalanized water
10am Green Juice A
11am 500ml Alkalanized water 
Midday Spicy Lemonade
1pm 500ml Alkalanized water 
2pm Red Juice
3pm 500ml Alkalanized water 
4pm Green Juice B
5pm 500ml Alkalanized water    
6pm Cashew Nut "Mylk"

(above) Enjoying my "Red Juice" on the good lounge (Day 4).

Day 1 Day one was pretty good (but then I did give up tea, coffee, refined sugar and processed food weeks ago). I pee a LOT. Almost every half an hour. But I get through it and finish the day with a lovely Epsom salt bath, by the light of my Cristina Re candle, and I'm in bed at 8.30pm. Mmmmm......

Day 2 The Lucky You people send hugely motivating/supportive emails through each day, and the daily email for Day 2 reads: "Day 2 is a wonderful glimpse into the state of your physical being. If you are feeling "all systems go" then you know what to do...POWER ON! Get up and get out - get it? This means get yourself out of bed and hit the streets for a powerwalk or down to a pool for some laps. Lack of solid food means the body requires less work to digest so energy is a beautiful side effect of this cleanse." Indeed. I'm up at 6.30 for a walk on the beach! Day 2 is also okay. Apart from the the constant pee-ing and (very) mild hunger, I'm cruising through it nicely.

Day 3 I'm up at 6.30 again (unheard of for me), and Audrey and I (gently) pound the pavement. By now, things are feeling mildy monotonous, but I'm half way through and all those things we often hear associated with cleanse and detoxes are happening - lightness, energy, clear, bright skin! And you will live for the nightly Cashew Nut "Mylk". It is out of this world delicious and really filling! One of the things that is a little tedious though, is preparing dinner for Mr Tonic and the Mini Tonics each night. Not so fun when you can't eat.

Day 4 It's Saturday and suddenly, I've had enough. I want it to be over now. But it's not and I struggle through the day. I seem to be getting more and more hungry with each day that passes, and being at home with the Mini Tonics, preparing cheesy tomato Vegemite melts is sheer torture. One more day... One more day...

 

Day 5 Woohoo! Yes I'm feeling brilliant, but being constantly hungry is making me actually quite cross with the world. I won't lie. It's hard. But it's the final day so I get through until 4pm, when I bust out a bag of frozen Edamame beans and boil and salt them and Mmmmm....!!!!! (Oops.)

(above) Bassike top, Michael Kors watch

My top 5 tips for a stress-free cleanse:

1. Wear a watch: Hey, they're hot right now! No seriously. Given the amount of liquid you have to get through each day, you're going to want to stick to your "schedule" like mud. 

2. Forgo the belt: You're going to be peeing a lot during the cleanse. Making wardrobe choices which facilitate easy toilet "access". Give anything tucked in/belts/stockings a rest.

3. Rethink your work/social arrangements: See #2.
4. Line 'em up: As soon as you receive your juices, put them in the fridge in the order in which they need to be drunk - if possible. There's 6 juices (and one elixir) to get through each day, and they're all different. Make it easy.
5. Night moves: If you find yourself milling around the kitchen in the evening, consider a night time stroll.

So, what did I take away from the Lucky You juice cleanse experience? Mainly one very important fact: WE DON'T CHEW OUR FOOD ENOUGH. We talk while we eat, gulping down food too quickly, making hard work for our (already overburdened) digestive systems. There's no point spending money on lovely food if we aren't going to get the most out of it nutritionally. So I'm taking it on board, and am hugely thankful for my newfound awareness (read more about the importance of it here).

You will learn SO much from a Lucky You juice cleanse. I'm really glad I chose them, because boy oh boy, you get so much more than just a bunch of jars of juice to drink. You get support, education. motivation and a new lease on life. I really got the sense that they were on call each day, waiting to answer any questions. Lucky You founder Heidy (that's her above) is an absolute champion and ought to be congratulated on a fabulous business/service. I'll definitely be back. Just maybe for a 3 day cleanse next time!