Simple Suggestion #159... Get to know the Queen(s) of Green

(I'm really tired of all the white stuff outside, with more to come this weekend. So I'm jumping the gun a bit and greening up this blog, to go with this Simple Suggestion... and to encourage Spring to show up already!)

If you know me at all, you know that I'm one who is always looking for healthier, more natural and less wasteful ways to live sustainably. As far as I'm concerned, there are way too many artificial products in our lives that, while they promise in their advertising to make life happier and healthier, are actually contaminating our planet's ecosystems and thereby ruining our well-being, whether we know it or not.

So today's Simple Suggestion leads me to share my latest foray into healthier personal care. I stumbled across a lovely simple way to wash and condition my hair on the Queen of Green blog that was started by Lindsay Coulter, currently on maternity leave, and Tovah Paglaro, who is fulling in for her. These gals really are green. They're not pushing 'greenwashed' commercial products -- they're about self-reliance, and about supporting small businesses that are doing things in a green way. Nothing makes me crazier than walking down the cleaning aisle at the store and seeing the fancy so-called-green products that cost two or three times as much as regular products, but contain the same toxins!

Queen of Green Tovah recently published an excellent hair and body care post that's all about keeping toxins out of our air, water, soil, and bodies. I was a bit skeptical, but I've tried the hair part of it, and it's amazing! I'm hooked. (I'll try the rest, too, once I get all the ingredients.)

So here's what you do, if you want a natural way to clean your hair that is free of the kinds of chemicals that are listed on an ordinary shampoo bottle: put 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of baking soda into a small dish (I use half of a 1/4 c (60 mL) measure), and pour 1 tbsp (15 mL) of cider vinegar into a 1 c (250 mL) measure.

Pour half of the soda into each hand, wet it into a paste, and rub it into wet hair. It will feel gritty, but it will lift out any dirt or grease with the use of a naturally occuring chemical (sodium bicarbonate originates around natural springs and has many good uses, but I hadn't heard of this one!)

Once the soda has been fingercombed through your hair, fill your vinegar container with water to the 250 mL (1 c) mark, and use the vinegar-water mix to rinse. I can't get over how soft my hair is since I've started cleaning it this way. The smell of the cider vinegar vanishes, and my hubby, with his fragrance allergies, is happy that I don't smell like a perfume counter. If there are any chemists out there reading this moddling, perhaps you can tell me how cider vinegar (with a pH of between 4 and 5) and baking soda (with a pH of 8) can leave my hair softer and less greasy feeling than the shampoos and conditioners I've used all my life.

Hats off to Tovah!

If you're one of 'my tribe' who believes that we need to live more lightly on the planet even as we look after ourselves, I invite you to click here to visit the Queen(s) of Green. Last year, Queen of Green Lindsay led a "Spring Breakup" campaign to make consumers more aware of the toxins in most commercial cleaning products, and offered some wonderful recipes for making more natural alternative cleaners that don't contain yucky-sounding things like the ethanolomine family (mono, di and tri), sodium laureth/lauryl sulfates, and triclosan, the great hormone disrupter. And now that Lindsay's taking a break to have her first child, Tovah is doing a great job of continuing to educate people about healthy ways to live that are better for us and the planet. I wish these ladies had been around when I was looking into environmentally friendly diapers, etc.

To be honest, living simply can seem like a lot of extra work if you're going to do it well. But that's usually just the initial outlay of time. Those who choose to live simply know that by making our own cleaning and personal products out of natural things, we're sparing our planet, our homes and our bodies a lot of complex chemical consumption conniptions (sorry, I couldn't resist all that alliteration). Mixing up batches of products made from basic ingredients feels better for my planet, my family, and me.

Now, if you come visit us, you won't have to wonder why I keep measuring cup, baking soda and cider vinegar in my bathroom cupboard!

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.

Simple Suggestion #118... Ditch your antiperspirant

"What?! You want me to ditch my antiperspirant? You've got to be kidding!! I don't want to smell like a locker room!"

Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's just a suggestion... and -- probably a wise one. Why? Because the stuff we put in our armpits so that we can smell... well, unsmelly, can have some pretty questionable ingredients, health-wise. I mean, rubbing something called aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex glycine into your sweat glands day after day seems a bit iffy when you do a little research into the toxins contained in its ingredients. Especially when there are other, simpler solutions to body odor.

Here's mine: a potassium alum rock. It doesn't prevent sweating by plugging armpit pores with chemical goo. Instead, the salts in the rock kill the bacteria that thrive in human perspiration and create that locker room odor. Your skin keeps its ability to sweat and cool your body, but without the sweaty smell. Alum is easy to use -- just wet the crystal with water and apply it to the underarm daily. You won't be smelling like a rose -- you won't smell like anything, actually. After using mine for several years, I don't like applying tacky, gooey, perfumey stuff any more. Alum crystal doesn't tend to cause allergic reactions, and has yet to be linked to any serious health issues.

So if you want to avoid the "Dirty Dozen" chemicals found in personal care products including many antiperspirants, alum rocks can be purchased at most health food stores, and they last a long time. They don't create yellow stains on white t-shirts, and they're a simple way to eradicate a common problem -- with a lot fewer potential health risks.

So now, will you consider ditching your antiperspirant? Just a suggestion...

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.

An excellent place to shop

It's almost time to go into very rainy Banff (I may have to find an umbrella or just sit in a coffee shoppe), but first I want to tell you about Wednesday. I was fortunate enough to have it off, but as usual, many errands suddenly appeared, one of which was taking my daughter's forgotten lunch to school. That provided me with an opportunity to stop on my way home at a marvelous little store that sells a lot of excellent necessities. What's not to love about a place that helps consumers to reduce their ecological and social impact on the planet and its inhabitants? My mission, besides taking a few pictures for my moodlings, was to pick up some fair trade chocolate bars and chocolate chips.

Earth's General Store (EGS) has been in operation for twenty years, which is an excellent run for an environmental establishment in a province with a far-less-than-stellar environmental track record. The proprietor is so environmentally aware, he doesn't even spend energy to light up his signs -- they're simply painted. When I first discovered EGS several years ago, it was situated above a music store on Whyte Avenue, but it made a newsworthy, environmentally-conscious move in 2010, when many people-powered vehicles were employed to carry store merchandise 13 blocks to the new, disabled-accessible location. Some folks carried stuff via transit, too, if I recall correctly. The new location is bright, spacious and colourful.

The store's owner, Michael Kalmanovitch, has long been an advocate for sensible consumerism. He keeps a blog for EGS that provides information about the products he sells, and he's responsible for the Activist Agenda, a weekly newsletter that encourages activism for many different causes. His customers are encouraged to ride their bikes to get to the store, and to bring their own recycled bags and containers for purchasing product. Those who do are given special tokens that they can donate towards assisting charities like the Candora Society of Edmonton and others further afield. Michael's desire that we all consume less, consume wisely, consume locally, consume fairly, and love lots more is taken seriously by many of his patrons. I wonder -- does he keep a running tally of charity monies that EGS has donated through its token program? I'd bet it's a rather impressive sum already.

Just to give you an idea of some of the things you'll find in EGS:

Lovely, certified organic produce, some of it local this time of year...

(peaches from BC, not Chile).

"100 Mile" foods... (don't you love the fast food sticker?)...

an impressive bulk food section with many vegetarian and vegan options

(don't forget to bring your own recycled plastic bags)...

organic baked goods from local small business owners...

all sorts of organic personal care products

that even the David Suzuki Foundation would be proud of... 

environmentally-friendly cookware, underwear, 

diapers, menstrual products, towels...

everything you need to be a successful composter

(including red wiggler worms, if you so desire),

and plenty of knowledge -- books about

everything we can do to aid the enviroment, on loan.

If you've yet to discover Earth's General Store, I'd highly recommend a visit. To my mind, it's difficult to find businesses these days that aren't just pretending to be green. EGS is green in the truest sense! While some of its items might seem pricey, keep in mind that they cost what the larger chains would be charging if they were treating their suppliers and their employees fairly, or if they factored in the true costs associated with the production of the item (organic cotton and fair trade chocolate are not cheap if the labourers are being treated with dignity). We all need to support businesses like EGS for the sake of life on our planet. If you know of other environmentally-aware business people, I'd love to hear about them.