Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "natural"

Locally owned: Monica Hall Spa Collection

2012-08-21T13:51:09Z

"Locally Owned” is a regular column highlighting local business owners — the backbone of our community and economy. The column explores the personal stories of the owners and the businesses they built.

With feet rooted in contrasting cultures, Monica Hall’s life pattern has been to tread different paths and seek to find a balance between them. In her newest endeavor, the Monica Hall Spa Collection of organic skin care products, Monica has found the perfect synthesis.

Born in Canada, and half-Native American Cree, Monica was uprooted from her family in the “scoop” of the 1950s and ‘60s, when Native American children were taken from their homes and placed with non-Native American families to ostensibly improve the children’s impoverished lives. The “Indian Adoption Project,” administered by the Child Welfare League, was eventually renounced because of a multitude of detrimental effects on the children, their families and tribal culture.

Monica was adopted by a family in Alaska who later moved to California, where Monica embraced the California lifestyle. She became enamored with the beauty industry, worked as a makeup artist and skin care expert for Chanel and launched brands for luxury retailers Neiman Marcus and I. Magnin.

She also taught in cosmetology schools, mentoring students about skin care and job search skills.

Monica always had a yearning to connect to her biological family, and at age 22 began an arduous search for them. She located them in Canada and was thrilled to find that she had a huge family.

“It felt like I had known them forever,” says Monica.

With her newfound family, she also discovered her Native American heritage. Her great-auntie Terry came to Monica’s Carmichael home and taught her about Cree healing traditions and herbology. Monica soaked up her auntie’s teachings and expanded her knowledge to include essential oils and the mood-changing properties of aromatherapy.

Simultaneously, Monica was becoming established in a new career path in corporate advertising. She enjoyed success in the industry working for Fortune 500 companies.

Monica took time off from her job to raise her son and daughter. During this time, she realized that both her children had skin allergies and other health issues, but weren’t able to take antibiotics or use commercial skin care products for relief. Monica redoubled her natural healing studies and added homeopathy to her arsenal to help them heal. Monica found the tools very powerful, “like magic.”

With her newly acquired knowledge, Monica started making natural products for Christmas gifts. She experimented in her kitchen, making a lip balm that would give true relief. Her husband designed labels for the balm tubes. In the 1990s she ventured into soaps, including Cassia Clove, an all-natural aromatherapy herbal soap of cinnamon and clove.

As both her expertise and customer interest grew, Monica created her own company Plantlife Inc. to be a pioneer in the natural products industry. She served as its CEO and eventually sold the company in 1999.

In 2007 Monica returned to the personal care industry. Drawing on her lifetime of experience, she began creating a line of anti-aging skin products.

While developing her new products, she consulted the Environmental Working Group reports, which analyze cosmetics ingredients, and learned that many personal care products in the U.S. contain carcinogens and other toxins. To ensure that her products were natural and safe, she sought out a eco-friendly chemist, and together they developed all-natural, plant-based products.

Monica says that her anti-aging products address seven signs of skin aging and do so in a formulation that uses only healthy and safe ingredients. Her products are Certified Vegan, organic and sustainable, aromatherapeutic, 100 percent pure and leave a minimal carbon footprint from their production.

Natural products are gaining in popularity. Kline & Company, a consulting and research firm, reports that the market for natural personal care products experienced global double-digit growth during 2005-2010. Between 2009 and 2010, the U.S. market grew by 12 percent.

Monica notes that many “natural” products contain synthetic and petroleum ingredients that “work against the body’s natural rhythms and can actually accelerate aging.” She designed her line to be all-natural, healthy and highly effective.

She feels strongly about educating the public about product safety, and provides extensive background information about all her products. Her blog contains longevity, wellness, beauty and cosmetic safety information.

Her collection includes toners, cleansers, masque, and moisturizers and a TheraDermic delivery system that reaches the basal cell level. Monica says that her bestselling item is “The Organic Face Lift,” a phyto firming masque. The product description says that the masque tightens and firms facial muscles and minimizes fine lines and wrinkles.

The Monica Hall Spa Collection was launched in 2012 and is already drawing international attention. Monica says that she has been contacted by Ed Begley Jr. of the “Living With Ed” TV show, and by the producers of Lifetime’s “Balancing Act” to discuss showcasing her products.

In addition, a new web shopping platform has just launched, backed by the world’s second largest Internet company Rakuten. The platform, called VAULT, describes itself as “the world’s first boutique marketplace” that eliminates the middleman and allows shoppers to interact directly “with the most exclusive, sought-after designers and brands.”

Monica says that her Monica Hall Spa Collection will participate in VAULT. She notes that she is in the process of creating her HD video and storefront for the site. Monica is excited about the venture because the site will have great exposure and will only feature “unbelievable niche brands and cool products that have a story.”

Monica sees her company as becoming a “pre-eminent provider of luxury personal care, longevity and wellness-related products.” As her brand takes off, she will ramp up production and increase her outreach, including appearances on TV networks and at red carpet events at the Grammys and Emmys. She welcomes inquiries from investors.

The many paths that Monica has taken in her life seem to have led her to this unique place of balance, where her interests and expertise in beauty, natural ways, education, business and advertising all converge into the brand that is Monica herself.

Monica Hall Spa Collection products can be purchased at her website or at select spas. Plantlife Inc. body care products are sold at Whole Foods and the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. In addition, her Facebook page (Monica Hall Spa) contains beauty tips and tricks and information about cosmetic safety.

Kombucha bar eyes Hina's Tea space

2012-04-11T02:03:40Z

Two Sacramentans are looking to bring a kombucha bar to the Midtown space that formerly housed Hina’s Tea by the end of July, if they can raise $50,000 via the Internet to launch.

The drink, which is carbonated through a fermentation process, contains probiotics and a living culture, co-owner Joseph Melrose said, adding that the probiotics are good bacteria that typically are absent in the average American diet.

“It really works to helping with everything from irritable bowel syndrome to bad hair and bad skin,” he said. “People have been drinking it for 2,000 years for its health benefits.”

Kombucha Kulture will not brew its own kombucha – a fermented tea drink – but stock about 10 flavors from at least four suppliers in or around the Bay Area, co-owner Brianne Giatras, 26, said.

Flavors range from gingerberry and elderberry to a milder vanilla and honey concoction Giatras said has the best mass-market appeal.

The 16-ounce glasses of kombucha will run about $3 or $4 on average, with some possibly being around $5, Giatras said. No food will be made in-house, but she said she wants to have premade sandwiches and baked goods on offer.

Melrose, 32, said kombucha can be an acquired taste – similar to starting with a light beer before acquiring a taste for a heavy stout – and people coming into the future business will be able to sample different flavors.

Kombucha on tap isn’t a unique idea, but Melrose said the only place he knows of to get it locally is Whole Foods in Folsom, and he and Giatras want to bring it to the central city.

“It’s much fresher tasting on tap,” Giatras said.

During this week’s Second Saturday Art Walk, Kombucha Kulture will set up at Denim Spot, 1050 20th St., to serve samples.

The problem Melrose and Giatras had when looking to start the business was finding a bank to front them approximately $50,000 needed to turn the former Hina’s Tea space at 2319 K St. into a kombucha bar.

Giatras said that is when they turned to Kickstarter, an online funding mechanism that allows anyone to put up financial backing to businesses they support.

“What we’re doing with the Kickstarter campaign is trying to raise the funds to get a lease going on the building on K Street,” Giatras said. “There’s some construction that has to be done, but it’s pretty much built out for what we need.”

Half of the $50,000 will go to equipment such as a tap system, refrigeration and an espresso machine. Another $8,000 is designated to go to construction costs, $7,500 will go toward the lease and deposit, $5,000 goes to Amazon and Kickstarter as part of the fundraising policy, and $4,500 will go to purchasing the products.

The deadline to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter is May 17, and so far the couple has raised more than $2,300, but Giatras said the campaigns tend to pick up as the deadline nears.

Another local business recently received funding via Kickstarter to produce unique bicycle racks. Click here to read more.

If the campaign is successful, Giatras said, she hopes to have the space open for business in late July. If the money isn’t raised, she said she and Melrose aren’t planning on giving up, but will continue saving money to eventually move forward with the business.

For more information on Kombucha Kulture, visit the company’s website. To view the Kickstarter page, click here.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

A SuperMan works at Sunrise Natural Food's

2009-12-11T20:44:58Z

Occasionally in life you meet someone who has developed such an incredible gift it makes you want to tell everyone else about that person. That is what happened when I ventured into the Sunrise Natural Foods store in Roseville with my girlfriend and she introduced me to a friend of hers that works there. His name is Alden Okie and he is the epitome of the kind of person people need to see and ask advice of when they enter a natural food health store.

Alden, a very distinguished looking man in his 50's, is also a very humble and gentle man who probably never sees himself as a superman. But to the people who have come to know and trust his advice, he is a super man to them.

I remember the first time I heard my girlfriend ask Alden a specific question about some vitamins she was taking and what his advice was on them. His answer captivated me to the point that I thought to myself that Alden isn't just another sales clerk in a natural foods store, but rather he is a man answering his higher calling and helping people with specific questions who have chosen the natural healing path.

I also heard him talking with another woman(not pictured) who had been diagnosed with an extreme bi-polar condition. I quickly became very interested in this matter because I knew someone else who was suffering from the same dis-order. Afterwards I talked privately with this woman and she openly shared with me her condition and stated that if it wasn't for the information that Alden shared with her years ago, of things she could do to alleviate symptoms, she might have had to constantly live under the influence of prescription medicines because her condition was worsening. Instead she was able to make incredible improvements over her condition through the use of natural remedies.

I noticed it was a common thing for the stores customers to chat among themselves about the herbs and vitamins they were taking and the help they were getting from them. Every aisle seemed to appear as little chat rooms at times. Strangers talking to strangers and helping each other.

I asked Alden how did he come into his present passion for peoples health and the knowledge that he had? He told me he met up with a friend five years out of high school who use to be in great shape as most young men were back in those days, but when he saw him he noticed that his friend was now frail and very sickly looking. He discovered his friend had been stricken with cancer and had been given 6 months to live by a doctor. Back in the 70's and early 80's, cancer was not as understood as it is today, so Alden being heartbroken over the condition of his once strong and healthy friend, began looking into information about cancer and treatments and the possibility of reversing the cancers effect on his friend. He did just that and with two friends working together on slowing down the path and process of cancer, his friend actually lived for two years longer. Though the efforts were not a complete cure to cancer, they enabled his friend to enjoy life a little longer and inspired Alden to want to add quality and quantity of life to others as well through a natural approach to healing.

Of course traditional medicine in those days gave little hope for a cure let alone a reversible position. Alden's investigation into cancer started him onto a path of studies and research information that could help the body to restore, revive, replenish and re-live through dramatic yet simple lifestyle changes. With the use of herbs, vitamins, healthier eating, moderate exercise and a measure of hope that exercises faith, changes can be made. Of course dramatic life changes would also include the elimination of negative influences on ones body which include drugs, alchohol, unhealthy foods and unhealthy lifestyles, relationships and environments. Those are the ingredients aggravating many of today's ailments and illnesses.

Being a man of faith, Alden has spent many years studying and watching the effects of his non traditional and natural remedies on peoples lives. He not only has faith in the Great Physician who he has not seen, but also has continued faith in the things he has seen, that has happened through the use of herbs, vitamins and natural foods.

When I talked with Eric the store manager, he said that Alden has become a celebrity in his field and that people travel from great distances just to chat with Alden and glean some nuggets of information that could possibly change their lives. He mentioned that there are regulars who come from as far away as Nevada and Redding just for that purpose and to stock up on items from the store.

In my hour and a half of observing Alden and the store, I watched him advise families, mothers and daughters such as Brandy, Stephanie and Sherry(seen in the picture), people who were old and people who were young, and people from different ethnicities. That day a number of customers got the quick and easy "iodine cotton swab dab". I coined that phrase to describe the test that checks the condition of your thyroid. I asked Alden about it and he said that it is a simple test that anyone could do at home if they wanted to.

I asked him what if someone comes in with a question he didn't have an answer to? He quickly showed me his computer and internet connections that he has to get those new and unlikely questions answered. He was also quick to point out to customers that they could find many health tips themselves by going online as well. Even though Alden is comfortable with talking with people of both sexes about any health issue they might have, I asked him "supposing a woman feels more comfortable talking with another woman about a personal health issue?", He told me that Sunrise Natural Foods also has a woman named Laura Ryan working there who can answer their personal female questions and help them with the ingredients they need for a healthier life.

Over the years, the awareness to help oneself with the use natural remedies has opened the doors to information on natural healing as an alternative when traditional medicines are not desired, needed or useful. Sunrise Natural Foods not only has courteous and helpful employees and a natural food superman, it also has books, magazines and pamphlets to help anyone get the answers they might be needing that could lead themselves to a natural healing and a longer life.

There is an old saying that goes something like this: "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything". Isn't that so true? If you are still looking for the perfect and appropiate gift for someone who has everything but doesn't have their health where they want it, I think the gift of good health or the path that leads to it is a great gift from the heart. Take the time to visit the Sunrise Natural Foods store. From Hwy 80 go east to 1950 Douglas Blvd in Roseville. Their phone number is 916 789-8591. There is a second location in Auburn as well.

You can check out their website at www.sunrisenaturalfoods.net Just going to their website and reviewing information there could be better than a trip to the doctor.

My thanks to the Sunrise Natural Foods store, Alden Okie, the store staff and customers who allowed me to ask questions and take these photos while they worked and shopped.

"Merry Christmas and a Healthier New Year"

Free SMUD trees support the 5 million tree campaign

2009-10-28T17:33:28Z

Tree clean our air and water, store carbon in their trunks, create habitat for wildlife, reduce air pollution, increase property values, and provide countless other benefits. The Sacramento Tree Foundation works to leverage all of the benefits that trees provide to create healthy and sustainable communities through building the best urban forest in the Sacramento region. A major keystone in building the best urban forest is the Greenprint initiative, a multi-decade regional framework created to meet Sacramento's sustainability and livability goals by expanding urban forests and optimizing the benefits of tree canopies. Greenprint partners, comprised of 22 cities and 6 counties, have agreed to double their tree canopy over the next 40 years. In order to achieve this goal, we need to plant 5 million new trees by the year 2025.

SMUD customers can join the 5 million tree campaign by planting free energy saving SMUD trees. Through the Shade Tree Program, the Sacramento Tree Foundation, in partnership with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, has planted over 450,000 trees in Sacramento County since the program’s inception in 1990. If you wish to receive free shade trees, a Community Forester from the Sacramento Tree Foundation will visit your property and help you select the best trees, determine the strategic locations for maximum energy savings, and provide you with information on planting and care. When you are ready to plant, your trees will be delivered to your home, along with stakes and ties – all at absolutely no cost to you. To sign up for a free appointment or to learn more about trees and the 5 million tree campaign, please contact the Sacramento Tree Foundation at (916) 924-8733 Ext. 121 or visit Sactree.com.

Put 'yer Hoes Down!

2009-09-28T22:21:13Z

Come join us in celebrating 22 years of the Hoes Down Harvest Celebration in the Capay Valley (Yolo County). This celebration will promote agricultural arts and sustainable rural living through two fun-filled days of workshops and events. Located within two hours of San Francisco and Sacramento’s busy metropolitan areas, the rural Capay Valley region is home to many small farms that supply Northern California’s families, restaurants, and neighborhood grocery stores with fresh organic produce. The Celebration will offer the public a special chance to enjoy rural life and deepen their understanding and connection to the local food system.

On Saturday, October 3rd, the Harvest Festival at Full Belly Farm will feature educational farm tours, a magical children’s area, games, live music, local farm products and an abundance of fresh, organic food! Hay rides, pulled by a team of draft horses, will continuously tour the farm. Workshops will be offered on an array of agricultural topics such as tree pruning, herb gardening, solar energy, compost-making and more! A craft marketplace will showcase farm-made products and an all-organic farmers’ market boasts the bounty of the season: fresh picked almonds and walnuts, a huge variety of melons, apples and, of course, pumpkins! The children’s area has been described as the “Best in the State” with arts and crafts, storytelling and music, farm animals to visit and lots of games and contests -- all with an agricultural theme. Kids will have a chance to watch a cow being milked, make felt out of wool and grind their own corn. Adults also have a chance to join in games and contests; be sure not to miss the Manure Pitch-Off, which really lets you get your hands dirty! Over 4,000 people from across the state attended our last Harvest Festival, California’s premier sustainable agriculture festival. There is an admission charge: Adults $20.00 per person, Children 2-12 years $5.00, children under 2 years of age free. Camping on Saturday night: $20 per car. Full Belly Farm is off of State Highway 16, just past Guinda in the Capay Valley.

On Sunday, October 4th, a variety of in-depth on farm seminars will be offered on various farms throughout the Capay Valley, highlighting the agricultural diversity of the region. On farm seminars will include topics such as olive oil making, alternative energy, sausage making, butchering, and plant propagation. Admission for individual workshops: $10-35. Pre-registration is required. Space is limited so register early!

The Hoes Down Harvest Celebration is a program of the Ecological Farming Association a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. All proceeds from the event will go to benefit sustainable agriculture, local organizations and worthy projects benefiting the environment and rural communities.

For more information on both these events, please visit www.hoesdown.org or email info@hoesdown.org or call (800) 791-2110.