alaffia Archives - Compassionate Women

Before I get to the total awesomeness of Thrive Market, I have an exciting announcement to make. I’m now a contributor to a really cool food blog called Girls on Food. Yay! 🎉🎉 It’s completely run and written by women all over the country, sharing their views on food and contributing recipes, restaurant reviews, and personal stories. I’m doubly excited because I’m their first vegan blogger 🙌 so I think this will be a great opportunity to reach viewers that I wouldn’t normally cross paths with and show them how easy and delicious it is to eat plant-based foods. My very first post is up on their website. I chose my Berry & Herb Coconut Ice Cream Pops recipe to get the ball rolling because well, it’s so simple to make and who doesn’t like popsicles in the summer?

Okay, one more bit of exciting news before I get on to the real purpose of this post. Last month, I posted a recipe for Vegan S’mores Fudge Brownies. You can’t make s’mores brownies without marshmallows, right? I used Dandies Marshmallows because they’re vegan and yummy and awesome and yummy. I guess Dandies liked my recipe because they featured it all over their social media (not complaining) and I was excited to see that it was also featured in their most recent e-letter. Woo hoo! I have another recipe I’ll be posting in coming weeks that features these little puffs of heaven. You can buy Dandies at specialty grocery stores like Central Market and Whole Foods, and I’ve even seen them at some of my local HEB supermarkets.

Okay I lied. I have one more quick tidbit. And this is really important because I need your help. I’ve started working on my first E-Book that I want to make available for FREE to anyone that signs up for my weekly e-letter. But I need to know what you, the people are actually interested in seeing. So I have a question for you:

Which type of free e-book would you be more likely to read?

A cookbook that contains my top recipes and follows a theme (gluten-free, quick & easy, beets!)

-OR-

A realistic 7 day detox that I created that will give you oodles of energy, an instant mood lift, and beautiful nails?

If you have a moment to comment on this post (or hit the reply button if you’re reading this through my e-letter) and let me know what you think, I’d really appreciate your feedback. Or tell me if you have something else you’d like to see that wasn’t listed above.

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For nearly my entire life, I never put much thought into what beauty products I bought (cosmetics, facial & body products, perfumes, etc). That is, until I learned that reading the ingredients label isn’t just for food. Furthermore, I’d always known in the back of my head that many companies tested their products on lab animals, but I didn’t really know what that meant or what was actually going on. I’m sure some people feel relief when they know that a product is tested on animals first. But studies show that testing on animals is pretty much useless and most large companies today only test on animals because it saves their butt if they ever get sued. It may make their product seem safer, but there’s a much better way to tell if a beauty product is safe or not – look at what’s in it. If there’s a bunch of ingredients that you can barely pronounce, that means it ain’t natural and if it ain’t natural, it shouldn’t be slathered, dabbed, or rubbed into the largest organ on your body. Your skin absorbs everything you put on it. Putting chemical, unnatural, and man-made ingredients onto your skin is almost the same as eating them. The best rule of thumb is this: If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin.