EP 06: Marriage, Motherhood & Youtube with Ashlyn Carter

Welcome back to another episode of the Flourish Together Podcast, today I’m excited to share with you Ashlyn Carter! I first connect with her when I stumbled across her home tour on her Youtube channel, and I quickly became a subscriber and fell in love with her channel. I love that she shares a mix of home, cooking and faith and she encourages the women who watch her videos to pursue God.

Hello, there... I’m Ashlyn Carter. Jesus seeker, proud wife, happy & tired mom of three, friend & Lifestyle YouTuber. We live in a cozy little beach cottage in Southern CA. After spending the first few years of motherhood in the continuous “Groundhog Day” — I’ve slowly started to emerge and use my voice and YouTube platform to encourage other women, share my favorite recipes, home decor tips and updates. I find comfort when others share their struggles in this life journey, so I in turn, have learned to do the same. So nice to meet you! 

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Food Freedom Forever

• Cozy Minimalist Home

• Brave Enough

• Tidying Up with Marie Kondo

• The Next Right Thing Podcast

• Jamie Ivey Podcast (The Happy Hour)

• Rise Podcast with Rachel Hollis

To connect with Ashlyn visit her Youtube channel here, and follow her on Instagram here.

I love hearing your thoughts about the show, I’d love for you to leave a rating and review after listening to the episode. Take a screen shot while you listen to the episode and tag me (@andreamworley) so I can see what you’re doing while you’re listening.

Beautycounter Valentine's Gift Guide

Valentine’s Day is almost here! What better way to celebrate than to gift your best girls and even your husband something from Beautycounter! Safer beauty + skincare is something I’m super passionate about. I love educating and advocating for safer products!

Beautycounter makes it easy for me to spread that message and get safer into my own home, and I want to share that with you!

Here’s my top picks to gift during this fun holiday!

1. Lip Gloss- our signature glosses aren’t sticky at all and come in a wide variety of colors. Perfect for all the ladies on your list.

2. . Sugar Body Scrub in Lemongrass- this is great for pampering or everyday use. A great skin exfoliator.

3. . Satin Blusher- I love these blushes! They are triple milled, highly pigmented and my fave color is Nectar, but any shade is gorgeous.

4. . Iconic Shadow Palette- I love the mix of neutral and shimmer shades in this one. Perfect to create many different looks.

5. . No. 3 Charcoal Mask- Every girls night should end with a pampering mask, right?! The charcoal mask is one of my faves for detoxing the skin!

If you’d like to gift a set of a few of our products these gift sets are a great way to pamper yourself or a friend!

1. Best of Beautycounter- I gifted this to myself over Christmas, and it’s such a good gift. Four of our best sellers in travel size packages. This is a great way to introduce yourself to Beautycounter and try a few products at a great price!

2. Mini Lipgloss Vault- 10 lip glosses, try them all or break them up into smaller gifts for your best girls!

3. Travel Body Essentials- Give the gift of beautifully nourished skin with our Travel Body Essentials. Travel-size versions of our popular Citrus Mimosa body products tuck easily into a toiletry kit, gym bag or work tote for skin that’s clean, soft and cared-for—anywhere. 

For the men in your life, give them something special! This line has been in development for three years, and we’re excited to offer a collection for men to fit their specific needs.

1. Daily Cleanser

2. Counterman Oil free Lotion

3. Counterman Shave Regimen

Why I Made the Switch to Safer Products, and Why It Matters.

Years ago I realized the importance of ridding our home of toxins and harmful chemicals. I started out small and one by one as we ran out of things I replaced them with safer options. This has been a journey of realizing why we need safer in our homes; my children deserve safer, we deserve better for our over all wellness and health.

Even though I cleaned up “my act” as far as it came to my cleaning products and the foods we were eating- I was still consuming products with my personal care and cosmetic items that weren’t the safest. The only difference was I sat in the dark, un educated for the longest time.

Like most of you, I assumed the personal care items that were on the shelves were regulated by the FDA or someone. That they were safe. I always tell people “once you know, you can’t un-know.” That was me. I started doing more research and realized the personal care and cosmetic industry isn’t regulated at all. There hasn’t been a law on this since 1938! That’s crazy!

The European Union bans over 1500 harmful/questionable ingredients. The U.S. only bans 30. We need safer laws and more regulations in our country. There had to be a better way, and I was going to find it.

I started switching things out in small ways; natural deodorant, safer body wash choices and toothpaste.

I had two events in my life that really were the catalyst to change. One, my Grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of 2017. And In early 2018 I had my very first skin screening, which resulted in a biopsy. This was a HUGE wake-up call for me. Our skin is our largest organ and it only takes 30 seconds for our skin to absorb what we put on it.

A friend of mine told me about Beautycounter. I didn’t make the switch right away, but started researching this company and soon realized they had a high standard of ingredients, safer options, and the transparency in a company that I was looking for.

Beautycounter’s ‘Never List’ was a great jumping off point for me. It’s their list of harmful ingredients that will never be in any of their products. I appreciate that Beautycounter marries high quality makeup with safety standards.

I soon was converting everything and Beautycounter has made it so easy for me to switch to safer and not look back. Even if you can’t switch everything all at once, I suggest making the switch slowly as you run out of items switch and replace it with something safer.

I decided to partner with Beautycounter and become a consultant. I fell in love with their mission to get safer products into the hands of everyone. If you are looking to make the switch to safer I’d love for you to take a look at what Beautycounter has to offer; start with the Never List and educate yourself. Take a look under your sink, in your shower and in your medicine cabinet and see if any of that harmful list is in your products. It’s eye opening.

Educate yourself.

Advocate for safer.

And switch to products that work and are safe.

Shop Beautycounter here. Learn more about partnering with Beautycounter here.

EP 05: Being Bold & Brave

Welcome back friends to another episode of Flourish Together! Today’s episode is all about my word for 2019, which is BOLD. I wrote a blog post all about it, you can read it here.

Even if this isn’t your word- I think there’s a message we can take from this episode and apply it to our own lives.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Wild and Free

• To see previous Word of the Years go here

Don’t forget to give the podcast a rating and review! This helps spread the message of the podcast and reach more people!

Follow along with me on social media on Instagram + Faceboook. I also have an exclusive community building focused Facebook group that you can join here.

My Healthy Hair Routine

They say everyone’s hair tells a story. If that’s true, here’s mine; over processed, serious case of dandruff, and itchy all the time. A year ago I visited my dermatologist and she confirmed my bad dandruff. She educated me about some of the stuff I was using on my hair, and helped me understand the root cause. Did you know that dandruff is more than just an itchy scalp and dry flakes? Dandruff is when your hair over produces yeast, causing it to itchy and eventually dry out.

She suggested my switching over to Head and Shoulders to take care of it. For me personally, I’d be trying to ‘clean up my act’ as it came to my products I was using, I knew I wasn’t going to try Head and Shoulders that was full of harmful ingredients.

I decided I was going to do an experiment with my hair, I completely stopped using all the hair styling products I was currently using in hopes that would help with my itchy scalp and clear up some of the dandruff. I stopped using Dry Shampoo, hair spray and texturizing sprays. When I ran out, I didn’t re purchase and I wanted to see how it would change my hair. Right away my routine changed, because I wasn’t relying on dry shampoo. My dermatologist mentioned these products coat your hair and clog you scalp.

I can tell you with a few weeks my scalp felt much better and most the itchiness was gone. Now, it was time for me to change my shampoo. About this time I started using Beautycounter. They have a hair care line as well in addition to their makeup and skincare lines. First I tried the Volume & Shape line for obvious reasons with my fine hair.

And next I tried their Daily Shampoo & Conditioner. I really loved it! I saw noticeable results, my dandruff if almost completely gone after 7 months of use, my hair no longer is itching like crazy. My hair is HEALTHY! I saw my stylist a couple weeks ago and she showed me all these baby hairs around the crown of my head that are new growth! Who knew?!!

I am so pleased with this line and I'm a lifer now. Traditional shampoo and hair care products can contain any or all of the following;

• parabens (cancer causing)

• coal/tar

• artificial fragrance

• phylahataes

Not anything I want on my hair or getting into my blood stream. I know that Beautycounter is a better choice for me. Beautycounter sources their ingredients, and uses their Never List, which is a list of ingredients that are banned from their products. The U.S. only bans 30 harmful ingredients from their products, the E.U. bans over 1500! We’ve got to do better here. I’m so glad there’s education out there and products that are safer so you can make a better choice.

If you’re interested in Beautycounter you can check it out here.