Episode 131 S4-7
Personal and Household Hygiene
Featuring:
Battle for the South Ch 7
Special Guest:
Jane Austin
Keeping yourself and your home clean is essential! Many diseases are spread through improper sanitation. Maintaining a proper level of cleanliness is easier than you may think.
There are many recipes for making soap but on a day to day basis water and a washcloth are all you need. Using these two simple items you can stay clean and get the dead skin off of yourself. Body odor is caused by bacteria that feeds on protein on your skin. The biggest source of this protein is your dead skin. Use a bowl half a gallon of water in it and wash with a washcloth. When you wash, start with the cleanest areas and move onto the dirtier ones. After you are done allow your body to air dry. You can use a little olive oil to keep your skin soft. Occasionally a bar of soap will come in handy. There tons of recipes available both on the net and in Jane's book, Emergency Survival Hygiene.
There is no excuse for being dirty! Get creative. Jane uses a tool she calls a "hiney hydrant" when there is no toilet paper available. It's basically an altered garden sprayer that she attached to a bottle that she and her husband use as a survival bidet. Great ideas like this can be a game changer when supplies run low.
When it comes to keeping clothing clean, Jane suggests using The Wonderwash. It resembles a 2ft egg. You fill it with water, put the lid on with your clothes inside and spin it. The pressure cleans your clothes. It requires about a Tablespoon of detergent. You pour out the water and repeat the process. It works great. Then when your clothes are all wet you can purchase a commercial mop ringer to squish out the water prior to hanging them on a line to dry. For laundry soap you can find an online recipe or use Borax, washing soda, or graded soap. Alternately you can stock up on laundry chips at the grocery store. They will store for a very long time.
When it comes to the cleanliness of your home, microfiber wash clothes are wonderful dusters. You can put them over your dust mop to increase the dust mop's performance. The microfiber washcloths are reusable and are ready for action after a good washing. When you need to disinfect an area vinegar should be your go to item. It is possible to make your own vinegar but you need to research what will grow good in your area to produce vinegar and start growing it now. You do not want to use your precious first aid supplies for cleaning. Stock up on distilled vinegar. It is useful for multiple application including: cleaning, canning, etc.
You should also stock up on a healthy supply of chlorine and olive oil. Make sure you check out the shelf life information. Chlorine can be bought in tablet form and lasts much longer than liquid.
Hygiene should not be overlooked. Infectious disease is the number one cause of death world wide.
Products that you can easily produce:
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Shampoo: Use 1 Tbs baking soda in 1 cup warm water
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Conditioner: Use 1 Tbs vinegar in 1 cup water
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Makeup bronzer: use coco powder and mix with corn starch.
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Makeup rouge: use raspberry mixed with cornstarch
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Makeup mascara: Use Vaseline and charcoal (burn and almond)
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Lip gloss: Use coconut oil mixed with raspberry
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Pimple treatment: use olive oil
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Night time eye lash and brow restorer: Use olive oil in an old mascara bottle and treat lashes and brows with it before bed.
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Hair restorer: castor oil on scalp before bed.
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Tooth paste: use washed, dried and finely crushed duck egg with baking soda and coconut oil
Featured Quote From Today's Chapter:
"After the fighting, Austin was annihilated."
Featured Survival Product:
Road Warrior Deluxe -10° Below (78 Piece) Road Warrior Deluxe -10° Below (78 Piece)
This Deluxe Kit comes equipped with everything you need for a Roadside Emergency in the freezing cold.
The Changing Earth Series
The Federal Republic of America
Character Origins
Jane Austin
Like so many women, Jane was a self-professed "oblivious-to-what-was-going-on-around-me" city girl. She was clueless about politics, the economy and the ever changing weather patterns around her.
It wasn't until she personally experienced a life-threatening assault at gun-point, live through several violent hurricanes, and watched as her 401k dwindled down next to nothing that her eyes began to open to what was going on around her.
In 2008 she took a huge leap of faith - quit her corporate job, sold her home for next to nothing, cash-in my 401k which was even more next to nothing - and moved to Western North Carolina to learn to live a more self-sustaining and self-reliant lifestyle.
Giving up the life of eating at different restaurants each night and having her nails and hair done every two weeks - she began to research how to prepare for uncertain times and still retain her "girlie-ness". While searching preparedness web sites she noticed that most were "male-oriented". Frustrated at the need to research a word, phrase or term that she didn't understand each time she went on one of these sites, it began to dawn on her that the reason she didn't understand these sites was because a lot of them were written by men, and as we all know, men and women speak a different language and therefore process information differently.
Jane decided then and there to make it her mission to educate others; with an emphasis on women, on how to better prepare themselves by creating the website SurvivorJane.com - writing on a multitude of topics dealing with disaster survival and preparedness; while interjecting bits and pieces of humor on personal experiences, discoveries and her journey along the way.
SurvivorJane.com also reaches preparedness-minded men who may have just begun their preparedness journey, or have sent the women in their lives, albeit, girl-friend, wife, daughters, mother, aunts or grandmothers to the site and in the process was also helped to better understand preparedness from a women's perspective.
As an additional outreach, Jane uses social media networks. She is the creator of the internationally recognized hashtag #PrepperTalk on Twitter that brings preparedness-minded people from all over the world together to discuss preparedness ideas, suggestions and information with one another. It is currently the Largest Prepper Community on Twitter.
Jane has been featured on National Geographic Channel's Doomsday Preppers (Season Four) and in Newsweek Special Edition Off-Grid, Prepper and Shooter Magazine, Prepared Magazine. She is a contributing writer to National Geographic Channel's Doomsday Preppers BlogTV.
"Where There Is No Cosmetic Counter" and it's 1st Revision: "Emergency/Survival Hygiene" were written out of a need to bring more awareness to one of the most overlooked areas in Preparedness: "Personal Hygiene" by showing easy ways to make survival personal hygiene products. After all, infectious diseases are the number one cause of death worldwide.
In her book "What Could Possibly Go Wrong: How To Go From Completely Clueless to Totally Prepared" she "talks to the reader" in easy to understand language about her personal experiences and what she has learned could go wrong around us and how we can better prepare ourselves and family for these uncertain times.
