Vitamin E is helpful in skin care formulas, but is it GMO?

Vitamin E is commonly known as a supplement for internal use, but it is also an important ingredient for herbal balms and body product formulations. What makes Vitamin E so important to skin care formulators is its antioxidant properties. Antioxidants help extend the shelf life of oils by scavenging free radicals from oil based formulations that might otherwise go rancid quickly. Vitamin E is found in plants like soybeans, safflower, wheat germ, avocado, sunflower, and spinach. The chemical makeup of Vitamin E is a mix of 10 fat soluble components called Tocopherols and Tocotrienols. Vitamin E is best stored in a refrigerator to maintain potency which can decrease over time.

Did you know that most Vitamin E, and many Vitamins are made from Genetically Modified Organisms?  This can be a challenge for Organic food manufacturers and formulators who are striving to support Organic growing methods. Vitamin E is most often extracted from soybeans and corn. Soy is now largely genetically modified, with approximately approximately 90% of North American soy crops grown from altered seed. Brian Baker, research director of the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI), has warned the National Organic Standards Board that more and more Vitamins are coming from genetically modified sources. National Organic Program rules state that an Organic product "must be produced and handled without the use of excluded methods," such as genetic engineering. This ambiguous wording has led to inconsistent interpretation by Organic certifiers who are assessing manufacturers who have not themselves used genetic engineering methods to produce the crop used to make the Vitamin E.  It can also be confusing to manufactures, because Vitamin suppliers may provide information indicating that genetically modified material is not detected in the finished Vitamin. Some Organic certifiers allow Vitamin E derived from GMO crops if it does not contain detectable genetically modified DNA in the finished product, while others may not. The Vitamin E used by Aquarian Bath is made from Spanish non-GMO soybeans. The soybean crop itself and the finished Vitamin E have both tested negative for GMOs. The Vitamin E is extracted from the soy beans by vacuum distillation. 

Aquarian Bath uses Vitamin E for its antioxidant properties in our Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil based herbal salves, herbal balms, deodorants and most lip balm formulas (all but Virgin Coconut). Oil based formulations which contain primarily Jojoba or Fractionated Coconut oil (95% or more) such as our massage oil, mosquito repellent and hair serum do not require Vitamin E, because these base oils do not go rancid. Vitamin E is also not required in well formulated soap recipes.  It helps that certain ingredients in our soaps and shampoos like Organic Cocoa Butter have a high concentration of Vitamin E.

New in Stock: Patchouli Deodorants

We have a new product to announce this week. Our new Patchouli Deodorants are now available in glass jars, 2 oz tins, or 0.25 oz sample containers. We have also added the option of including one of the Patchouli deodorants in glass jars in our Patchouli Lover’s Gift set.

Quick Guide to Sugar Content in Common Foods

I found this helpful infographic to share from Dr. Mercola's article about how much sugar you should have per day. Some of the numbers below are quite shocking. Hope you find it helpful for meal planning. For optimal health they recommend no more than 6 teaspoons or 24 grams of sugar per day, unless doing vigorous exercise.

Join the Global Radiation Monitoring Network

uRADMonitors are shipped globally to create a new Global Radiation Monitoring Network at http://www.uradmonitor.com/

Aquarian Bath and SolarNetOne are joining a new Global Radiation Monitoring Network, and you can too. This network was designed as an alert system for monitoring radiation level spikes. You can see that currently Europe, parts of the United States, Australia are represented. Each point on the map represents a special Geiger counter designed by Radu Motison. In the Orlando area radiation levels are low today, however we are interested particularly in monitoring our area since there was a recent spike in radiation levels in Miami.

Screen shot of map from September 6, 2014

Radu is trained as a software engineer, with a masters in Computer Science from West University of Timisoara.  Electronics started as a hobby during Radu's childhood. Radu started the Global Radiation Monitoring Network to give something useful to the community. The project began with a single monitoring station for his personal use Radu explains. "Then it became clear that having multiple stations across the Globe would provide interesting insight to background radiation fluctuations and possible causes. Also in case of nuclear incidents, the distributed units would be able to pickup any raising trends and sound an alarm for seeking additional information on the event." Radu designed, built and tested his new uRADMonitor with the testing help from beta-testers who are currently on the network map. 

uRadMonitors use the same detector tubes calibrated against a common reference.

I asked Radu how is his network better than existing crowd sourced radiation monitoring networks or government networks. 

It's open, so everyone can see real time, unaltered data. It's using the same detectors, calibrated against a common reference. Thus, the numbers displayed on the portal are easily comparable. It's easy to use, and it only takes one look to see where the "hot" spots are. See for example the unit in the Ceska Cermna: http://www.uradmonitor.com/?open=1200000F that is almost the double of the average readings of the entire network. This is due to naturally occurring thorium and uranium under the soil where this unit is located. And uRADMonitor was able to detect this phenomenon right away. It is probably the first global network of this kind. The data collection is safe as it resides on the server side. The data transmission is protected to a certain degree using a security code.

How easy is it to set up?  Can anyone do it?

It's the simple to set up your uRADMonitor Geiger counter. uRADMonitor must be mounted outside, but not directly in the sunlight. Ideally uRADMonitor should be mounted 1 meter above the ground level. The units are rainproof if mounted with the cables facing down.You will need to connect it to power, using the power adapter included with the unit, and to the home internet router using the included network cable. The device does everything by itself: gets an IP address in the local network, and starts transmitting real time measurements. On the server side the location is approximated and the new unit appears on the map, showing the radiation readings in real time.

uRAD monitors are shipping from Romania at this time, and are available either on Ebay or by emailing Radu.  

The Best Shampoo Bars to use with Hard Water

Our Key Lime Eucalyptus shampoo bar worked well in hard water conditions.

Thanks so one of our awesome Aquarian Bath customers, I am happy to share our top shampoo bars to use with hard water. Kimberly had initially used one of our shampoo bars (Rose hemp) while on vacation in Florida with great results. Her hair type is long with natural henna-dyed hair. When she returned home and used the same bar, she experienced a build up in her hair. Apparently her city water was exceptionally hard, so much so that the water had a dirty smell. Even some laundry wasn't coming 100% clean, and had the same dirty smell. Hard water is water that has a high mineral content, and some minerals can give an off smell. Kimberly ordered different sample shampoo bars to try out, and I also threw in a 2 or 3 additional sample bars for her to try. I'm thrilled she tested all of the ones she received and provided great feedback for me to share with everyone.

Here are is Kimberly's detailed feedback and special tips for shampooing with hard water:

With hard water you have to use more soap then you would have to with soft or normal water. So two things I started doing are using more shampoo. This seemed to really help and also I started combing my hair as I rinse the shampoo out, in hope that no minerals would get stuck in the tangles. I tried each bar at least once with combing when I rinse and once without combing, and I found the combing did make some difference. What I think worked best for my hair would be Aloe Lavender Rosemary Mint and the Key Lime Eucalyptus. They made my hair very shiny and lay very smooth. The Neem and Vanilla Lavender both worked on my hair but gave me more volume and less shine.

Lavender Rosemary Mint Aloe shampoo bar was the other top pick.

Best results with Hard water:

Key Lime Eucalyptus Shampoo Bar

Lavender Rosemary Mint Aloe shampoo bar  (also available in Lemon Vanilla)

Lavender Vanilla Shampoo Bar

Neem Oil shampoo bar

update 11/7/14 reformulated Tea Tree Eucalytpus shampoo has same formula as Key Lime/Euc

Update 3/15 Carrot Top Shampoo formula now same as Key Lime/Euc

Worst results with Hard Water:

Rose Hemp Shampoo Bars

Orange Lavender Shampoo Bar

update 11/7/14 other hemp shampoo bars

I think that these results may have something to do with the concentration of Jojoba oil which is used in our formulas, though not all of our bars were tested. The bars that had the best results had no Jojoba, with the exception of Neem, which has only 1 percent Jojoba. The two other bars that gave poor results have a higher concentration of this liquid wax. This was a bit of surprise, because Jojoba is generally considered a luxury oil for hair care. The Rose Hemp bars also are scented with a Bulgarian rose wax, which leaves no residue in normal water.

Do you have experience with hard water and using any of our shampoo bar formulas? We would love to hear your feedback, because as you may have noticed not every bar was tested.  I will post any more relevant feedback about hard water and our other shampoo bar formulas to this blog post.