Happy Earth Day!
In honour of the day I've hand washed a couple of my sweaters in the sink and ordered some Lush soaps.
Okay I'm a big liar, I'd already done those things when I realized what day it was. But I can still feel good about it.
I've been thinking about how I really hate when people assume things about me based on appearances, but I've realized that if I have to subscribe to a stereotype I prefer to be a granola-munching hippie (who happens to not like granola very much) than anything else.
Some things sort of happened by itself when I got dreadlocks. I had to be conscious of what I put into my hair so the knots wouldn't come apart, I had to check lists of ingredients and learn what polyethylene glycol and so on was. Then I learned how wonderful it is to wash with solid soap bars instead of liquid shampoo - and the environmental benefits of solid soaps (which I always thought were yucky) - liquid soap with its plastic containers, ingredients separating and the soap itself with a sell-by date. Not good.
I'm active in wildlife preservation, which of course ties to environmental awareness. I began reading about the palm oil industry and its part in cutting down the rain forest. Ah, a snag; Most soap bars contain palm oil as a binding agent. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, I thought. But then I discovered Lush, which I had previously been led to believe was something girls who, you know, were actually up on cosmetics used. Lush doesn't use palm oil in most of its soaps.
I ordered one. It arrived in a box padded with shredded newspaper, and the bar itself was in a little paper bag, no plastic. The girl who had packed it had even done a little drawing on the invoice. So I've become a fan of Lush. There are plenty of the soaps I don't like - why all the design elements? Why the use of so much food (oatmeal, berries, nuts) in the soaps? Why so much perfume? But the fact of the matter is they conciously use their environmentally-friendly profile and by supporting them I hope other producers will get the hint.
Well, that devolved into a Lush sales pitch. They don't pay me anything by the way. In fact I think their shipping rates in Norway are ludicrous, but at least their soaps last a long time.
My new project is trying to find a toothpaste that can be bought locally that isn't tested on animals. Colgate; You and me, we're done professionally.
Okay I'm a big liar, I'd already done those things when I realized what day it was. But I can still feel good about it.
I've been thinking about how I really hate when people assume things about me based on appearances, but I've realized that if I have to subscribe to a stereotype I prefer to be a granola-munching hippie (who happens to not like granola very much) than anything else.
Some things sort of happened by itself when I got dreadlocks. I had to be conscious of what I put into my hair so the knots wouldn't come apart, I had to check lists of ingredients and learn what polyethylene glycol and so on was. Then I learned how wonderful it is to wash with solid soap bars instead of liquid shampoo - and the environmental benefits of solid soaps (which I always thought were yucky) - liquid soap with its plastic containers, ingredients separating and the soap itself with a sell-by date. Not good.
I'm active in wildlife preservation, which of course ties to environmental awareness. I began reading about the palm oil industry and its part in cutting down the rain forest. Ah, a snag; Most soap bars contain palm oil as a binding agent. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, I thought. But then I discovered Lush, which I had previously been led to believe was something girls who, you know, were actually up on cosmetics used. Lush doesn't use palm oil in most of its soaps.
I ordered one. It arrived in a box padded with shredded newspaper, and the bar itself was in a little paper bag, no plastic. The girl who had packed it had even done a little drawing on the invoice. So I've become a fan of Lush. There are plenty of the soaps I don't like - why all the design elements? Why the use of so much food (oatmeal, berries, nuts) in the soaps? Why so much perfume? But the fact of the matter is they conciously use their environmentally-friendly profile and by supporting them I hope other producers will get the hint.
Well, that devolved into a Lush sales pitch. They don't pay me anything by the way. In fact I think their shipping rates in Norway are ludicrous, but at least their soaps last a long time.
My new project is trying to find a toothpaste that can be bought locally that isn't tested on animals. Colgate; You and me, we're done professionally.