The Naturally Clean Home by Karyn Siegel-Maier

This all-encompassing cleaning book guides cleaners through home, yard, and vehicle cleaning how-to’s, recipes and tips! Ways to rid your space of pesky insects are also included. A truly essential cleaning guide, 5 stars!

Girls’ Home Spa Lab by Maya Pagan

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DIY destressing!
Thanks to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for the opportunity to read and review Girls’ Home Spa Lab by Maya Pagan! A wonderful collection of self-care advice, tips and recipes for pre-teen girls, teenagers and women of all ages. Simple directions make this guide helpful and the projects doable, from sleep masks to foot cream! A must have book for teens everywhere, 5 stars!

Skinny Me by Charlene Carr

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Skinny Me by Charlene Carr involves a young woman who has battled her weight her entire life and is dealing with the feeling of hitting rock bottom. She feels that her weight is out of control, she’s unemployed and her mother has passed away. She picks herself up and focuses on what she can do to improve her life and relationships. Little by little, Jenny makes changes starting with a new menu and beginner exercises and a job acceptance. She tries to socialize more and also pushes herself to run. Jenny meets with a personal trainer and sets a possible goal and continues to work on her relationships. She realizes that losing weight isn’t going to stop her insecurities and internal struggles; she has to work on her self esteem also. 4 stars for a realistic story geared toward adult readers. Per author request, I voluntarily read and reviewed this book.

Salad in a Jar by Anna Helm Baxter

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Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.
Thanks to NetGalley and Ten Speed Press for the opportunity to read and review Salad in a Jar by Anna Helm Baxter. Simple and helpful, this book contains everything needed to make portable salads, except the ingredients. Recipes for salad dressings and many types of salads with common to unique ingredients and even ideas to help you create your own recipes are included. Clean and clear photos of each beautifully layered salad and detailed recipes made me hungry and show how easy it is to make a salad in a jar – 5 stars for this healthy read!

Body Kindness by Rebecca Scritchfield, RDN

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Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.
Thanks to NetGalley and Workman Publishing for the opportunity to read and review Body Kindness: Transform Your Health from the Inside Out – and Never Say Diet Again by Rebecca Scritchfield. This book focuses on body kindness with the following four parts: what you do, how you feel, who you are, where you belong. The journal suggestion is genius and by writing The Body Kindness Manifesto as the first entry, it gives the reader/writer empowerment. The book contains amazing and simple visual ideas to reinforce positive choices and mindset, such as draw a spiral tornado: write one body kindness that makes you feel good and write down what you do and how you usually feel. Keep adding body kindness choices until the tornado is filled, building one positive choice feeling on top of the other. Reflect as you do this! The most helpful comment – “Choose to put yourself first.” Diet, exercise, sleep, emotions, fun, resilience, values, peace, self compassion, connections, inspiration and spirituality make this an invaluable book – 5 stars for the easy to read and follow format and also extreme helpfulness!

 

Botanical Beauty by Aubre Andrus

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Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.
Thanks to NetGalley and Capstone for the opportunity to read and review Botanical Beauty: 80 Essential Recipes for Natural Spa Products by Aubre Andrus! This book contains abundant information categorized into different sections of the body: hands and feet, full body, face and hair. Each section contains recipes to pamper and beautify. The recipes go beyond commonly seen to ingenious creations and ideas. The lotion bar is the first recipe I want to make once I get my own copy of this book because, yes, I pre-ordered it! The helpful, natural and easy to follow recipes and instructions are accompanied by detailed photographs and this book includes descriptions of ingredients, container ideas and where to purchase them, thorough directions and it even has diy nail art and nail wraps, which I wasn’t expecting. The do-it-yourself ideas include the chemical (nail serum to toothpaste) and also material (creaseless hair ties to spa wraps)! Botanical Beauty earns a 5 star review from me while I patiently wait for publication and my copy to arrive!