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I love spring cleaning. 

Nothing feels better than feeling so fresh and so clean, clean! 

I believe that spring cleaning isn’t just physical, but mental and spiritual as well. I believe that in order to tackle the mental load of doing physical cleaning, we need to feel good and confident in ourselves so that we can make those micro-decisions of: what to keep, what to donate, what to sell, what to throw away. My method isn’t just spring cleaning but I like to call it a spring refresh. 

Before starting the physical part of spring cleaning, I like to start with the self care portion:

1. Try a detox

Recently, I joined a nutrition program that had us start with a 14 day sugar detox and my body now feels like a fine tuned machine! This really helped with my cravings and some of the eating habits that I was frustrated with. It also helped with emotional eating, which was something I did a lot. 

I recommend starting with detoxing your kitchen by setting aside a few hours to detox  your pantry, drawers and fridge. 

Throw away items in the following categories:

• Anything that’s not real food (processed, made in a factory, that comes in a can, box or package) unless it’s a canned whole food like artichokes or with only 1-2 ingredients 

•  Any food or drink that contains sugar in any form (including honey, maple syrup, molasses, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, etc) especially sugar sweetened beverages and fruit juices. 

•  Anything containing hydrogenated oils or refined vegetable oils (like corn or soybean oil)

• Any foods with artificial sweeteners, preservatives, additives, coloring or dyes.

2. Treat yourself to baths 

I really love taking epsom salt baths as a form of detox. I take a weekly epsom salt bath and do a face mask at the same time. 

• Epsom salts (2 cups per night) 

• Baking soda (½ cup per night) 

• Pure lavender essential oil (1 a few drops)

My favorite face mask is from Tatcha, I love their Violet-C Radiance Face Mask. 

3. Budget Permitting: Treat yourself to a facial, manicure, pedicure, and hair cut

I’m not a big manicure and pedicure person but I do see the value in cleaning up your cuticles and dead skin on your feet. I’ve always been a huge fan of facials and see them as an investment in your long-term skincare! My favorite part of facials are the extractions. Our face gets a lot of build up in our pores so it’s fantastic to get it deep cleaned once in a while. A lot of people also don’t get haircuts regularly. A spring refresh is a great reminder in getting a quick trim to maintain your healthy locks! It also feels great to support small businesses when booking these appointments in your town!

Now that you took the steps to look and feel your best and you’re beaming with confidence, this is the best time to tackle the physical aspect of decluttering.

Here are my tips for physical decluttering:

1. Start with writing a list of which rooms in your house you want to declutter

Remember that decluttering takes time and patience, so you might have to knock out your to do list over the course of a few weeks! 

1. Go room by room, and separate things into categories:

   1. Keep

   2. Donate

   3. Sell

   4. Trash

A tip for selling high value items, Chapes-JPL, established in 1980 as an alternative to banks and traditional pawnbrokers, they provide low interest loans on gold, diamonds, jewelry, watches and other valuable assets. They do all sorts of loans on high value items, and you can get a rolex loans online!

One of my favorite books for decluttering in a both spiritual and physical way is Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. One of my favorite quotes from the book is: "The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life." I read this book back in 2016 and it truly was life-changing! 

Once you’ve gone through the decluttering process, you will be so fresh both physically and mentally for the summer time!