Do you know Dotty has a shop?

Did you know I have an handmade and vintage shop in Blackpool?, its called Penny Lane.

You can find it at 28b King street, just around the corner from the Syndicate nightclub, 2 doors away from Junes fabrics (for the locals).
Its an eclectic mix of old and new, handmade, upcycled, vintage, retro, mod, boho, hippy, indian, kitsch and much more.

I sell clothes, furniture, natural bath and beauty products, handmade toys and gifts, accessories, artisan foods, records, vintage electricals and lots of unusual one off pieces.

Everything in my shop is for sale except the rails, Im open to swaps, offers and showcasing talent. Just pop in and have a chat.

I run a stitch and bitch class on Wednesdays and Saturdays, 12-4, its free of charge and includes free tea and coffee.

I will be having a heritage collection coming soon in time for summer where the clothes will be all 'Made in Britain', I think this is important to support our countries makers and designers.

I also have a naturals range including soap, bath bombs, fluoride free toothpaste, natracare natural sanitary towels and soy candles. There will be many more products being added to the range over the next few weeks too.

I also am pleased to say I stock Old Fatty Jones chutneys, jams and preserves. In the coming weeks I will also be stocking fine herbal teas.

I also have a vintage tearoom serving tea and coffee, I have rice milk too for non dairy drinkers and clipper decaff tea and coffee.

I am open tues-sat 11.30 - 4.30. I would love it if you came and said hello, please share with your friends too, there is nothing else like my shop in Blackpool and I would love your support.

Photos by Edwin Firminger hair and make up by Hazel Tyler location and clothes Penny Lane

All about teeth

Today a friend said how she was suffering with toothache on facebook, I commented and told her about some natural things to do, my comment sparked a lot of interest so I have done a page on my shops blog (where I write about natural health) to send to people if they ask for info, I thought I would share my thoughts on here aswell in case my lovely readers don't know any of this stuff either, feel free to comment and ask questions x

Having suffered myself with tooth problems and researched about alternatives to the dentists chair, I have found some great sites with helpful info that actually works. I have tried remedies from these sites on natural healing and oil pulling and I will tell you - THEY WORK!. Hop over and have a look at them:http://www.healingteethnaturally.com/ and http://www.oilpulling.com/index.htm



Have you heard of the effects of fluoride on your health?, we are led to believe fluoride is good for our teeth, many famous toothpaste brands boast about how great it is, how it is essential for children's teeth, all those posters in the dentist about why you need it blah blah. I'm afraid it is not true at all, if you haven't heard be ready for a shock - fluoride is very bad, it can cause brain damage, affects your thyroid, kidney damage, leads to bone disease plus a lot more. Children are especially vulnerable as they are still developing and fluoride can lead to fluorosis.

I use Sarakan a natural toothpaste with no fluoride or and other chemicals in it. It may surprise you to know what is in your toothpaste and what you put into your mouth twice a day, everyday all your life.

Take one leading toothpaste brand and look at the ingredients, in no particular order of awfulness - sweeteners - are used to alter the taste of a product, sweeteners used in this toothpaste are sodium saccharin and sorbitol. Saccharin is 300 times sweeter than sugar - hang on are we not meant to be cleaning teeth?, sorbitol can cause irritable bowel syndrome and diarrhea. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate - one of the main effects of sodium lauryl sulfate is to mimic the activity of the hormone Oestrogen. This has many health implications and may be responsible for a variety of health problems from PMS and Menopausal symptoms to dropping male fertility and increasing female cancers such as breast cancer, where oestrogen levels are known to be involved. There also have thickeners, binders, colours and preservatives in them. All in all not something I would be happy or letting my children put into their bodies.

There are natural alternatives to toothpaste too like bicarb and peppermint oil or miswak sticks .

toothache and hot weather and oil pulling x

Hot weather
Its been hot, rather to hot for a red head like me, I burn so easily and get cranky when I'm too hot, my ridiculous big boobs get all sweaty underneath-gross I know- and this makes me cranky too, ohh Im a moaner hehe. But on the upside the tomatoes are growing so well and the lettuce leaves have been abundant, people smile in the sun, all the shorts come out and men think its OK to walk around topless, sometimes it is OK if they have lovely bodies hehe, and I have the yearly dilemma of what to wear to keep cool plus hide my wobbly bits without looking like a farmers lass- that's what my mother calls me!, Nothing wrong in looking like a farmers lass if that's what you are ( oh how I wish I was) but in the middle of Blackpool people are horrid and normally I don't care what others think but a small bit of me does feel sad when I hear nasty comments about me. This is a bit pathetic but the other day I popped to the shops and two teenagers behind me kept giggling and said "looks like she got dressed in the dark", I was immediately transported back to being 14 and feeling like a frump, I went home and told Tom and he cheered me up by saying "you should of said to them, well it looks like your dad f*!ked a wotsit", at the moment most teen girls round here are bright orange with fake tan so it was really funny.

Teeth and Root canals
Another thing this past couple of weeks is I have had 2 fillings in the same tooth, the first one had to be replaced as it had a hole in and was giving me some pain, then this second one is even worse, so bad I had to take pain killers which I hate taking every 3-4 hours just to make it bearable, I went back for an emergency appointment and the dentist took x rays of the tooth and she said I need to have a root canal done and had infection and loosening of the gum around the tooth, she gave me antibiotics and I have to go back at the end of July - the first available appointment to have the work done.
I hate injections and normally have fillings etc without them but with having a nerve pulled out I was going to have to have one, eek, scary. I felt like shit, my mouth throbbed and every time I moved I could feel the blood pumping through the sore tooth, my jaw ached and I felt sleepy all the time because of the meds, it got to the point yesterday where I was sat at the computer crying with pain and I couldn't stand it anymore, I search for some alternative help for tooth ache and found this site so I tried the salt mouth wash with much skepticism but I couldn't believe it after three mouthfuls the pain was bearable, it just ached like I was bruised, no searing throbbing like before, it was a miracle, I could smile again. I carried on at various time throughout yesterday rinsing my mouth and no pain all day, just a bit tender. Its amazing. I want to shout and tell everyone because its so good.

Oil Pulling
Whilst looking for info I came across lots of bad press for root canals, like breast cancer links and other nasty stuff, I have not research this enough yet to give an opinion but it did worry me quite a lot so I started to look for alternatives and found out about oil pulling, a very curious ayurveda process, this is what your meant to do:

In the morning before breakfast on an empty stomach you take one tablespoon in the mouth but do not swallow it. Move Oil Slowly in the mouth as rinsing or swishing and Dr Karach puts it as ' sip, suck and pull through the teeth' for fifteen to twenty minutes. This process makes oil thoroughly mixed with saliva. Swishing activates the enzymes and the enzymes draw toxins out of the blood. The oil must not be swallowed, for it has become toxic. As the process continues, the oil gets thinner and white. If the oil is still yellow, it has not been pulled long enough. It is then spit from the mouth , the oral cavity must be thoroughly rinsed and mouth must be washed thoroughly. Just use normal tap water and good old fingers to clean.

Clean the sink properly, you can use some antibacterial soap to clean the sink. Because the spittle contains harmful bacteria and toxic bodily waste. If one were to see one drop of this liquid magnified 600 times under a microscope, one would see microbes in their first stage of development.

It is important to understand that during the oil pulling / oil swishing process one's metabolism is intensified. This leads to improved health. One of the most striking results of this process is the fastening of loose teeth, the elimination of bleeding gums and the visible whitening of the teeth.

The last paragraph really spoke to me, maybe there is an alternative to more dental treatment after all. You can get more info on oil pulling at this site.

Day one of oil pulling:

I got up and blew my nose, had a small glass of water as my throat was so dry and had a tablespoon of organic olive oil, I couldn't get any organic sunflower oil from near where I live and didn't really want to use non organic although on the site they say it doesn't matter, I will hopefully get some later. At first the oil tastes quite strong and my immediate response was to spit it out, but as soon as I started swishing it around my mouth the taste went away, it was just a warm thickish liquid feeling, I set the timer and began washing up, by the ninth minute all phlegm had gathered in my throat and it felt gross, after 10 minutes I had to spit it out and cough up all the mucus, it was weird how much came up as I don't have a cold, I then measured out another spoonful and resumed the swishing, again by 10 minutes mucus had formed in my throat and I was glad I could spit it out. My nose needed blowing again and I spat up more gunk.

Pros: its not THAT bad after the initial taste, 20 mins goes faster than I expected, it excited me how much gunk came out because its the start of becoming more healthy. Hopefully this will save me a trip to the dentist!

Cons: the mucus/phlegm at the back of my throat was really annoying and it made me feel like I could choke if I didn't spit it out, I guess it will become more bearable as time goes on.

The boys thought it was horrid hearing me coughing up gunk!

I hope to post on my oil pulling experiment and give you a clear and honest view of it, so sorry if it gets gross sometimes!!