Less Is More Festival - Perth
Today I went to the Less Is More Festival, an event I only found out about a few days ago via Facebook. It was held at the library at Peppermint Grove, a building already based on sustainable concepts. I was very impressed with the toilets. Essentially, the cisterns have a sink built into the top of them. When you flush, water flows from the tap over the sink, so you can wash your hands, then keeps flowing into the cistern until it is full. Brilliant! The only issue with them is people shaking the water off their hands within the cubicle, resulting in a wet toilet seat, so you can either sit on a wet seat, or dry it with toilet paper - thus using more toilet paper. Of course, this can all be remedied with a simple behaviour change - close the lid before flushing.
First up I attended a session on making your own deoderant and toothpaste. I already use a crystal deoderant, but was interested in a cheaper alternative to the SLS and flouride free toothpaste I buy from the health food store. I ended up making both.
The deoderant is a simple paste made from bicarb soda, cornflour and coconut oil - all 3 are things I have used individually at different times on my underarms and elsewhere to try and combat my eczema. It smells good, and I get an occasional reaction to the crystal, so hopefully this plays well with my stupid skin.
The toothpaste consisted of bicarb soda, salt, glycerin/glycerol and peppermint oil. If I continue to use this I'll tweak the next batch with a bit more peppermint and less salt - and perhaps something like stevia or xylitol to sweeten it more. It's salty, but tolerable, and leaves my mouth all tingly. I hope it might help heal up my gums, which like to bleed whenever I brush my teeth (a symptom of my chronic mouth breathing, itself a symptom of my perpetual colds as a child).
Then I wandered over the cloth pad making workshop. I already have my own supply of cloth pads, but figured I'd go along to extol their virtues. I also got to see exactly what PUL (a fabric used to make waterproof pads) is. I also left some pamphlets and things about the Lunette menstrual cup about, I signed up to get a promotional pack sent to me at some stage and figured this was a good place to offload it.
Next up was a talk on conscious consumption. I guess I'm kinda lucky that I choose to live this way anyway, because being unemployed for a year and having to survive on about $600 a fortnight, I'm essentially forced into it. I had much more to contribute to this session than I had to learn from it.
Next session was green cleaning. Now of course I've heard of the greatness of carb soda, vinegar and lemon juice and attempted to use them at times, but everywhere seems to just say "use vinegar and carb soda" but doesn't really go into the detail of HOW. I went to this session to learn that vital bit. I also seemed to be the only person who bought something along that needed cleaning - the burnt on gunk on my beloved Scanpan frypan. The presenter didn't bat an eye at the challenge and immediately set to work, making a paste of vinegar and bicarb to sit on it for the rest of the session before being scrubbed off (with a mere microfibre cloth, no need for a scourer). The same ingredients were also demonstrated to be good for cleaning off oven gunk - thing is, the demo oven (like most ovens) had a door that opened downwards, leaving a handy horizontal surface to sprinkle your carb and vinegar onto and let it sit. Our oven here has a door that opens sideways - making the "let it sit" option impossible. At the end of the session I was surprised to find that the mix had done a bit of work on my pan, but certainly not all of it. But it would seem that egg white has amazing properties when it comes to removing burnt on gunk - so I currently have an egg white I had in the freezer thawing, that will be smeared over my pan tomorrow - we'll see how well it works.
Then there was a soap making demonstration. I wanted to see and learn exactly how this chemical reaction (between lye - a rather nasty substance, and oil) worked. A bit too much work and initial capital required to make this viable for me. I adore Hidden Valley so much that I'll continue being a loyal customer. It was interesting to learn that the poor quality, pomace olive oil is the best for soapmaking. This is good to know, as this stuff should never be marketed as a foodstuff, even though cheap olive oils can consist of pomace (which is the last pressing and all the dregs of the olive oil making process - usually it's the stuff that can only be extracted using heat and chemicals, whereas extra virgin is the first cold pressing - essentially "olive juice".)
I then ended up at the raw food demonstration. I'm neither raw foodie or veg*n, but I just appreciate food and this was certainly educational. Even the cauliflower sushi, which contained ingredients I "don't like" like raw carrot and cucumber was nice. I finally got to see one of these sprializer thingers in action - making zucchinni spaghetti and got to taste the results with a tasty sauce. Oh dear, another kitchen appliance I must have. It's good to have a few recipes on hand that are tasty and super easy and quick because they don't require any cooking, and they're healthy as all get out.
Then I headed to Lake Joondalup with a friend and managed to spot the vagrant Hudsonian Godwit that has been hanging around for the last week. All in all a very decent day. I was exhausted, but then I took a shower and my brain started churning things and I had to just write this post before actually sleeping.
First up I attended a session on making your own deoderant and toothpaste. I already use a crystal deoderant, but was interested in a cheaper alternative to the SLS and flouride free toothpaste I buy from the health food store. I ended up making both.
The deoderant is a simple paste made from bicarb soda, cornflour and coconut oil - all 3 are things I have used individually at different times on my underarms and elsewhere to try and combat my eczema. It smells good, and I get an occasional reaction to the crystal, so hopefully this plays well with my stupid skin.
The toothpaste consisted of bicarb soda, salt, glycerin/glycerol and peppermint oil. If I continue to use this I'll tweak the next batch with a bit more peppermint and less salt - and perhaps something like stevia or xylitol to sweeten it more. It's salty, but tolerable, and leaves my mouth all tingly. I hope it might help heal up my gums, which like to bleed whenever I brush my teeth (a symptom of my chronic mouth breathing, itself a symptom of my perpetual colds as a child).
Then I wandered over the cloth pad making workshop. I already have my own supply of cloth pads, but figured I'd go along to extol their virtues. I also got to see exactly what PUL (a fabric used to make waterproof pads) is. I also left some pamphlets and things about the Lunette menstrual cup about, I signed up to get a promotional pack sent to me at some stage and figured this was a good place to offload it.
Next up was a talk on conscious consumption. I guess I'm kinda lucky that I choose to live this way anyway, because being unemployed for a year and having to survive on about $600 a fortnight, I'm essentially forced into it. I had much more to contribute to this session than I had to learn from it.
Next session was green cleaning. Now of course I've heard of the greatness of carb soda, vinegar and lemon juice and attempted to use them at times, but everywhere seems to just say "use vinegar and carb soda" but doesn't really go into the detail of HOW. I went to this session to learn that vital bit. I also seemed to be the only person who bought something along that needed cleaning - the burnt on gunk on my beloved Scanpan frypan. The presenter didn't bat an eye at the challenge and immediately set to work, making a paste of vinegar and bicarb to sit on it for the rest of the session before being scrubbed off (with a mere microfibre cloth, no need for a scourer). The same ingredients were also demonstrated to be good for cleaning off oven gunk - thing is, the demo oven (like most ovens) had a door that opened downwards, leaving a handy horizontal surface to sprinkle your carb and vinegar onto and let it sit. Our oven here has a door that opens sideways - making the "let it sit" option impossible. At the end of the session I was surprised to find that the mix had done a bit of work on my pan, but certainly not all of it. But it would seem that egg white has amazing properties when it comes to removing burnt on gunk - so I currently have an egg white I had in the freezer thawing, that will be smeared over my pan tomorrow - we'll see how well it works.
Then there was a soap making demonstration. I wanted to see and learn exactly how this chemical reaction (between lye - a rather nasty substance, and oil) worked. A bit too much work and initial capital required to make this viable for me. I adore Hidden Valley so much that I'll continue being a loyal customer. It was interesting to learn that the poor quality, pomace olive oil is the best for soapmaking. This is good to know, as this stuff should never be marketed as a foodstuff, even though cheap olive oils can consist of pomace (which is the last pressing and all the dregs of the olive oil making process - usually it's the stuff that can only be extracted using heat and chemicals, whereas extra virgin is the first cold pressing - essentially "olive juice".)
I then ended up at the raw food demonstration. I'm neither raw foodie or veg*n, but I just appreciate food and this was certainly educational. Even the cauliflower sushi, which contained ingredients I "don't like" like raw carrot and cucumber was nice. I finally got to see one of these sprializer thingers in action - making zucchinni spaghetti and got to taste the results with a tasty sauce. Oh dear, another kitchen appliance I must have. It's good to have a few recipes on hand that are tasty and super easy and quick because they don't require any cooking, and they're healthy as all get out.
Then I headed to Lake Joondalup with a friend and managed to spot the vagrant Hudsonian Godwit that has been hanging around for the last week. All in all a very decent day. I was exhausted, but then I took a shower and my brain started churning things and I had to just write this post before actually sleeping.