Welcome back! If you haven’t already, please drop me a note at calie at broccolicupcake dot com. You can also subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Lately, I’ve been kind of obsessed with lemons.  I love the way they look piled high in a glass bowl, the fresh, citrus scent that lingers in the [...]

Last year, I went through all of my make-up and found the health and safety ratings for each item in the Cosmetics Database.  This is such a useful tool and I encourage everyone to check it out.  Personally, I was surprised at the ratings and chemicals that were in products I put on my eyes, [...]

With all the rain and standing water left in Nashville many of us are preparing for a busier and itchier mosquito season.  In the past, I’ve tried to stick to simple tricks like staying indoors at dusk, the most active time for many mosquitoes, wearing light weight, long-sleeve clothing and avoiding scented lotions.  It’s worked [...]

Every summer we lather on sprays and lotions to protect ourselves from the sun’s harmful rays unaware that the ingredients in our sunscreens can be just as harmful.  I first researched and blogged about this last May, but thought it was worth revisiting as we prepare for summer (even though it doesn’ t feel like it [...]

If you joined us for the coconut oil challenge the 30 days are coming to a close.  I can’t wait to hear/see all of your results.  I didn’t take a before and after photo of myself because I’ve been using coconut oil as my moisturizer for months.  But I recently had a college student mistake [...]

After a long “snow” day, working on the Women’s Wellness Weekend and cleaning the house for my baby’s second birthday I’m exhausted. But I’ve had some things floating around in my head that I wanted to share with all of you so instead of going to bed without writing at all I thought I’d give [...]

I hate winter hands! Right now I have the hands of someone working hard labor outside in extreme temperatures all day. In case you’re wondering, I don’t do anything that comes close to that unless you count carrying kids and groceries inside from the cold garage. Yet, my hands are still dry from my fingertips [...]

I love the Blissfully Domestic site.  There are so many great articles from insightful, real women.  I’m not sure how insightful I am, but I try to be real.  The real me is very proud to have posted my first contribution to the Blissfully Domestic Health page.   I think the germ-a-phoebes out there will find this especially [...]

The verdict it still out on whether searching for a new, more natural and healthy version of my old beauty products is fun or frustrating.  I don’t want to waste money so I’ve been trying to buy sample sizes and when I do purchase something I feel like I have to use all of it before [...]

Over the weekend I was flipping through a magazine and came across an ad for cosmeticsinfo.org, a site that provides safety information and reviews on popular cosmetics.  At first, I was excited to find another resource for researching and reviewing my options, but as I began clicking through something struck me as odd.  The first [...]