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Join R29's lifestyle host Lucie Fink on her 5-day natural remedies journey as she tries acupuncture for the first time, learns about herbal medicine and creates her very own essential oil clay mask!
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Try Living With Lucie follows our favorite R29 millennial, Lucie Fink, as she dives headfirst into social experiments — five days at a time. From a week without sugar to full-blown street performing; there is nothing she won't try!
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#athomewithme
ABOUT SERIES
Try Living With Lucie follows our favorite R29 millennial, Lucie Fink, as she dives headfirst into social experiments — five days at a time. From a week without sugar to full-blown street performing; there is nothing she won't try!
ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/
RELATED CONTENT
5 Days On An Adventure: http://bit.ly/2h661Nh/
SEE MORE REFINERY29 VIDEOS
http://refinery29.com/video/
SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29/
For the latest trends and videos, visit: http://refinery29.com/
Like Refinery29 on Facebook: https://facebook.com/refinery29/
Follow Refinery29 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/refinery29/
Heart Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
TALENT
Follow Lucie Fink on Instagram: https://instagram.com/luciebfink/
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm Lucie Fink and this is 5 Days of Natural Remedies.
00:07Hey guys!
00:08What's up?
00:08Welcome back to Try Living with Lucie.
00:11This week I'm really excited because we are going all natural.
00:15This topic is particularly interesting to me because this entire YouTube series
00:20has given me a new holistic approach to life that I did not have before.
00:24Before we start and before any of you start commenting,
00:27this is pseudoscience, this is a sad waste of money,
00:30why do people still do this stuff?
00:32Please wait.
00:33Hold up.
00:34Let me just say, I know that a lot of the things I'm about to try this week
00:38are widely considered to be pseudoscience and have no scientific evidence to support that they work.
00:43But I know so many people who do these treatments on the reg.
00:47And not only do they do them, but they really, really enjoy them
00:51and some people even swear by them.
00:53So because of that, I am committed to testing out these natural remedies this week
00:56and then sharing my feelings with you completely and 100% unbiased.
01:02I started out today with one of the most well-known forms of alternative medicine, acupuncture.
01:07Acupuncture is one of the oldest forms of traditional Chinese medicine
01:11and the idea is that we all have this life force or this energy running through us called a Qi.
01:16And that Qi is circulating along different lines in our bodies called meridians.
01:21But every so often these meridians get jammed up and we have energy blockages.
01:27So acupuncture says by tapping these thin metal needles into different acupuncture points around your body,
01:32it supposedly can improve your body's functioning by allowing that energy to flow more easily.
01:38I did a bit of research before I went into this and I did read that it is pseudoscience.
01:42I'm gonna say it up front, that's what I read.
01:45But I have seen acupuncture being done in hundreds of movies
01:48and it was something that I really have been wanting to try.
01:51So I did it anyway.
01:53Acupuncture regulates the body to keep it equilibrium, like homostasis.
01:59That's when the body is feeling well and healthy.
02:03She had me lie on the table.
02:05Won't hurt but you do feel sensations, different kind of sensations that you never felt before.
02:11The needles do not hurt, they're so, so thin.
02:14Is it in?
02:15Promote blood flow.
02:17She put needles in my feet, my legs, my hands and my arms, my stomach, my face and the crown
02:23of my head.
02:24Good for memories, good for concentration as well.
02:27At first there was no pain, no feeling at all.
02:31But then she tapped a needle into this one spot on my left shin.
02:35You might feel more in this one.
02:37That's the energy you're feeling that's traveling down the meridian.
02:42And I felt a jolt run through my leg.
02:45It went down from my shin all the way to my toes.
02:48Because that is a very strong energy regulator point.
02:52She took a really thin space blanket and she put it on top of me to trap all the heat
02:56in.
02:57And I was starting to feel a little numb and tingly and twitchy.
03:00My hand actually feels kind of weird.
03:03My right hand.
03:05I sort of started to feel like I was gonna pass out.
03:07So I asked her, has anyone ever passed out during this?
03:10And she said, yeah.
03:11So acupuncture is very activating.
03:14So if someone is very deficient and tired, that can create some fainting spell.
03:21And the moment she said yeah, I started to see spots and I asked her if she would please remove
03:26the needles immediately.
03:26Oh, you know why you had coffee, right?
03:29Isn't that why?
03:30Right beforehand, right?
03:31Yeah.
03:32This might be a problem for you right now.
03:35My heart's back to normal.
03:37Okay.
03:38Do you want to do the back treatment there?
03:41Yeah, sure.
03:41When she was putting the needles in my back, something really weird happened.
03:45I felt a sharp pain in one spot and I was convinced that one of the needles was digging in
03:50a little too deeply.
03:51So I guided her hand to that one spot.
03:54And when she got there, I said, yeah, yeah, that's the spot.
03:56And she said, there's no needle there.
03:59So she took another needle and she actually tapped it into that exact spot where I was feeling pain.
04:03And just like that, the tension was released.
04:07See where I didn't have the needles where the energy traveled to and then that's where you feel like something
04:12blocking there.
04:13I went in thinking it was fake, but then I actually felt physical results from it.
04:17And the moment the acupuncture was over, I felt like I was energized and ready for the day.
04:22I'm feeling incredible.
04:23Honestly, I did not think that I was going to feel that way.
04:27And I actually really, really liked the way that I felt.
04:32I'm a fan of everything that happened yesterday, but I really felt like I couldn't go another day into this
04:38episode without first sitting down with a health expert.
04:41So I know that you're doing this five day experiment.
04:43And as the senior health writer here at Refinery29, I just want you to know a couple of things.
04:47First off, it doesn't sound like anything you're doing is really going to hurt you.
04:50But at the same time, I don't want you to expect some sort of miraculous benefit from these things.
04:55There's just not a lot of research that proves conclusively that they're doing that much for you and definitely not
05:00proving that they're better than other treatments we already have.
05:03And even though I knew that at the end of yesterday, I'm still really curious to try out a lot
05:08of these natural remedies and see how they make me feel.
05:10I started out today with a lot of natural, organic skincare products at home.
05:15I used Crude Personal Care's Oil Cleansing Starter Kit.
05:19Basically, you take their everything oil, which is a mixture of plant and essential oils, and you drop it on
05:24your face to cleanse your skin.
05:25And then you use their pull cloth to pull all of that makeup and debris off your skin.
05:30And I even followed up their oil cleansing kit with a detox mask made of French green clay and green
05:35tea.
05:36It's totally dry and it's ready to wash off now.
05:38The camera operator.
05:40What the?
05:41Not too dry yet.
05:42Smells good.
05:44Feels good.
05:44It's my first mask.
05:47It's pretty nice, Lucy.
05:49I made a lemon and honey rub.
05:51I took half a lemon, I spread manuka honey on it, and then I rubbed it all over my face
05:55and let it sit for five minutes.
05:57Whoa.
05:58Right?
05:59It's soft.
05:59It's soft.
06:00For healthier and moisturized skin, I made a coconut oil and turmeric blend.
06:05A quarter teaspoon of turmeric and a tablespoon of coconut oil.
06:08Mix it all together.
06:09It's very drippy and messy.
06:11Really a mess.
06:13But my skin felt really nice.
06:15Ooh.
06:16What do you think?
06:17Soft as silk.
06:19Soft as a baby's bottom.
06:21Then I made an acne fighting scrub using half a cup of sugar, a quarter cup of olive oil,
06:26a tablespoon of honey, and about ten drops of tea tree oil.
06:32If I thought my face was soft after the honey and lemon, I didn't know anything.
06:37Highly recommend DIY natural skincare, because I'm telling you, my skin has never felt as soft as it feels right
06:44now.
06:44Ooh.
06:48Way back when, at the beginning of this year, when I was doing five days of rejuvenation, I went to
06:53Naturopathica to get a bioenergy lift facial.
06:56Today, I went back there to sit with Barbara, their founder, to learn all about essential oils.
07:01Essential oils come from leaves, seeds, roots, barks, a lot of different, yeah, it can be the pine needles.
07:10We sat at the remedy bar and she talked me through each of their cold press oils that they have
07:14on tap.
07:15Meaning that they're just made from the grinding of the seed.
07:18So arnica, as you know, is an herb for trauma, right?
07:21Good for bruising, any kind of muscle soreness.
07:24Then we made a body oil together using their custom base blend.
07:27A blend of rosemary, peppermint, marjoram, and lemon.
07:32Then I took my newfound knowledge of essential oils and I made something really, really fun.
07:37I made a DIY Play-Doh for stress release, but to make it super relaxing, I added in essential oils
07:43to make a DIY therapeutic aromatherapy Play-Doh.
07:48Once I had the mixture going, I split it into four pieces and I added different colored food colorings to
07:53each
07:53so that I had four different color Play-Dohs.
07:55And then I assigned an essential oil to each color.
07:58I used frankincense for focus, peppermint for energy, citronella and lemon for creativity,
08:04and lavender for comfort.
08:06It smells so good.
08:10Oh my gosh.
08:11Odds are you have most of the ingredients that you need for the DIY Play-Doh at home already.
08:16And the essential oils can be found anywhere, sometimes for as low as $5.
08:20So this is an extremely affordable way to make DIY aromatherapy Play-Doh.
08:28Today I tried cupping.
08:31Not this kind of cup.
08:32Cupping, like acupuncture, is an ancient form of alternative medicine that involves putting suction cups
08:38on different areas of your body to pull blood to the surface, stimulate blood flow, and loosen up tight muscles.
08:44Like many other people, I was first introduced to cupping when Michael Phelps came out at the Olympics with these
08:49bruises all over his back.
08:51I had a lot of people from work tell me that it was going to hurt a lot, so I
08:54was very scared going into it.
08:56And I'm not sure where those people got cupped, but mine did not hurt at all.
09:00I couldn't really see because I was face down, but my therapist soaked something in alcohol and lit it on
09:05fire.
09:06And then he put the fire inside each cup quickly before removing it and sticking it on my back.
09:10Oh wow, is there a huge fire in here?
09:13No.
09:13Okay, relax.
09:16That's it.
09:17You give it, like, let that hang for like a good minute.
09:20So as my skin was sucked into these cups, the blood vessels on my back were expanding, and my skin
09:26was getting really red.
09:28Kind of like a hickey.
09:29I'm not saying it was comfortable.
09:31There was definitely a lot of pressure on my back, and if I moved around a little or breathed in
09:35too deeply, it felt really tight.
09:37But it did not hurt at all.
09:39And it's great for blood circulation, great for muscle detox.
09:43Just keeping the blood flowing.
09:46I can see, though, how major athletes that are constantly straining and tearing their muscles would find that that treatment
09:52feels a little bit like a reverse deep tissue massage.
09:56Mmm.
09:57I know.
09:59Sweet relief.
10:02Certainly, I'm going to have marks for a long time.
10:20I did not feel like I could do an entire week of natural remedies without at least exploring and skimming
10:26the surface of herbal medicine.
10:28This practice involves the ingestion or the external application of plants or plant extracts.
10:33And what I learned today is that even though it's called herbal medicine, it's not always used for the purposes
10:38of curing something or for quote unquote medicating.
10:42Much of the time, people just use the term herbal medicine to refer to the fact that they're including these
10:47natural herbs in their diet as a supplement to maintain a healthy life and to give themselves an immunity boost.
10:52Today, I went to Remedy's Herb Shop in Brooklyn and I got a quick crash course in herbal medicine from
10:57Cheryl, the owner.
10:58You know, we're not doctors, we don't prescribe, we don't diagnose or anything like that.
11:03For my philosophy, this is a great way to improve on your diet, your lifestyle by adding herbs into your
11:08life.
11:09First, she spoke to me about nourishing herbal infusions, which is really one of the most basic ways to include
11:14herbal medicine in your everyday life.
11:16And together, we made a hibiscus and a peppermint iced tea with a little pinch of organic, unprocessed stevia.
11:23We'll add a nice bit of sweetness and now we're gonna make a delicious pot of tea. Beautiful.
11:31The way I was taught is to use mason jars, something that can be fully sealed up.
11:39Oh my gosh. It's so good, right? It is so good. It's sweet, but not too sweet.
11:45Cheryl is part of an herbal CSA, which is a community supported agriculture program.
11:50And her shop is used as the drop-off point for all of these fresh herbs.
11:54Culinary herbs coming and medicinal herbs coming. All fresh. You get a choice of five. So you get a selection
12:01each week.
12:01So when her share arrived today, we went through the box together and we pulled out some fresh lavender and
12:07lemon balm.
12:08And we mixed them together to make an infused honey.
12:10We pulled the lavender flowers off of the stems and we ripped up the lemon balm leaves.
12:15And then poured in organic, raw honey straight from the hive.
12:19Very important when you're making herbal medicine. Labels.
12:23I labeled the mixture so that I would remember not only what was in it, but also what date we
12:27made it on.
12:28Because now I need to give it six weeks to let it fully infused with those essential oils.
12:33And then afterwards, I'm gonna have this beautiful floral spread that I can put on toast, in my tea, and
12:38so much more.
12:39There's something about including natural herbs in your diet and playing around with essential oils that makes you feel really
12:46wholesome and fresh and connected to the earth.
12:50So I absolutely plan on diving even deeper into this topic on my own once this video is over.
12:56Now I want to know what your favorite natural remedies are, so comment below letting me know.
13:00And as always, let me know what you want to see next time on Try Living with Lucy.
13:05Hey YouTube, thanks for watching. Click here to watch another video on our channel, here to subscribe to R29, and
13:12here to subscribe to my personal YouTube channel. Bye!
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