Etsy!Love Palm Oil Free Soap

I’m surfing etsy, looking at the soaps that had caught my interest. Smiling at all the pretty colors and the beautiful smells when all of a sudden I stop, because I saw something. Palm oil. Listed inconspicuously in with the rest of the ingredients.
 
Palm oil’s in a lot of stuff, it’s cheap, has a lot of useful properties, it comes from palms. Not a problem right?
 
 

(from gliving.tv)

 
Compare the palm oil plantation to the rainforest at the top corner of the photograph. Think about the amount of rainforest in Asia and in Africa.
 
I think we’ve got a problem. Large cosmetic companies and the fast food industry do a lot to create demand for palm oil. It’s these larger corporations that make the soap that most of us buy, but what about those of us that buy handmade soap?
 
It’ll be an easy switch to make I figured. People tend to be conscientious of what they put in they’re soap, because the people that buy it are. At least that’s what I thought. I’ve got picky skin and I’m sensitive to strongly perfumed soaps. Even so I figured I’d go looking for a soap bar that I could use as shampoo. Turns out I was having a hard time finding anything, shampoo or not.
 
I found a couple of non-etsian shops in the UK, and while the soaps look absolutely beautiful I’m not sure shipping soap across the ocean would cut it in the environmental department, so I pressed on.
 
I came across The Chic and Green Blog and rejoiced. Sitting a top the list of posts was a review for AuntNancysSoap. Palm oil free and she has a selection of unscented soaps that I’m definitely going to be trying.
 

Rose Clay Soap from AuntNancysSoap

 

Fragrance Free Bar From AuntNancysSoap

 
I’m also currently staring at a sea salt soap from balsam, a shampoo bar from ShopRedLeaf. Although I’ll have to convo the sellers before buying, the bars look pretty good on the palm oil front.e palm oil front.
 
 

Buy Nothing New Take I

 
Last week I signed up for crunchy’s buy nothing new challenge. The premise of the whole thing is to shop in a more sustainable way, buying only what you need in the most sustainable way possible which means:
 
* No new clothes
* No new gadgets
* No new furniture or housewares
* No salon services (except haircuts)
* No new makeup
* No new tools
* No whatever else people buy
* No eating out
 
Most of this I knew going in won’t be a big problem for me. I don’t buy much in general. My only real vice is eating out. So where does this leave me one week later?
 
I bought cleaning supplies, my bad I know, but you can’t exactly borrow sponges or drawer liners. I did eat out once, on move in day I had no food so it was pretty much eat out or starve. I decided I liked eating.
 
I’d made it through the weekend and than Monday came and I bought a tv pass on Amazon to download this season’s episodes Stargate Atlantis. I didn’t even think when I did it. I considered canceling my order when I realized what I’d done, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. A girl’s got to have some fun once in awhile right?

 After that little transgression though I made it through the rest of the week squeaky clean. One week down three to go!

I should know better than to watch conservation videos before breakfast. I end up driving myself nuts trying to argue with the skeptics. Sustainable development isn’t about reverting back to the dark ages. It’s about finding a way to live in harmony with the Earth. It’s not about giving up the illusive search for the next bigger and better thing, because it’s not about material goods. It’s about finding peace and happiness and really living. It’s about having what you need to survive and being happy about it.

You can argue that having what you need to survive isn’t enough to be happy, but does having more than that make you happy? Is destroying the Earth so you can have your shampoo and fast food really going to matter when we run out of water or air?

Summer days

These little guys grow fast…the leaves are now bigger than my hand and we’ve got the start of some blooms. Originally I was worried about them getting over watered with the heavy rain we’d been getting, but it turns out the more water you give them the faster they grow.

Someone turn the oven off please

Trash Fashion by ~stasha-pistachio on deviantART
 
Another day of record breaking heat and I’m ready to call it quits. It’s just too hot to do much of anything. The weather service says it was 95 at the hottest point yesterday, but the temperature display across the street read 99 at about five last night. Thankfully it’s a bit cooler inside, but I’m wondering how miserable this summer’s going to be if this keeps up.
 
I haven’t gotten anything planted outside yet, I’m worried about the heat killing the seedlings off. It’s hard enough to keep them watered when they’re sitting inside on the window sill.
 
On the etsy front things are going better. I’ve been having a lot of fun browsing through all the new summer stuff and I’ve been pumping out the paper. Who knew cold paper pulp would feel so good. I’ve gotten quite a bit behind on all my blog reading though. I’ve been keeping up with crunchy chicken and burbanmom, but nothing on the etsy side of things. As soon as it cools off I’ll be powering up the laptop and totally binging. I miss all the funny stories and the crafty inspiration.

Jack and the Beanstalk and other Fairytales

A couple of the little guys that have been poking up on a regular basis.
 
 

 
 

And the planting begins

 
Time flies when you’re having fun, that’s for sure. I started an entry on Saturday, but I never got around to finishing. The nice weather was calling to me.
 
I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning. I packed up and shipped out a lot of stuff to local charities and finally got around to recycling all the paper little old packrat me had saved. It’s nice to have the space to store the stuff I’ve started collecting, especially the glass jars, wicker baskets, and ceramic bowls.
 
I also helped clean out a couple of the flower beds outside, although we’ve still got a bunch of work to do. Hopefully we’ll get most of it done by the time I’ve managed to coax my seedlings into plantable size. Which as of now is still quite plausible as nothing has actually sprouted yet. I keep hoping I’ll wake up to little green shoots, but that might be a while off.

Cooking up a Storm

matted 4X12 orange creamsicle triptych by phoebec
 
 
Well I’m long overdue for a post. I’d love to say I’ve been off crafting up a storm, but things have been pretty quite on that front. I did do up a couple of scarves, and a few more of the mini-notebooks, but other than that it’s been a lot of cooking.
 

 
I made up a bunch of crepes last week Monday and was pleasantly surprised with the results. The recipe was easy; flour, eggs, and water, and they went perfectly with the strawberries I had on hand. What was most exciting for me though is the fact that it’s another recipe I can add to my local foods list. Now all I’ve got to do is wait for strawberries to come into season. Which is going to be hard. I’m all for local food and fully support the 100 mile diet but it’s so hard to resist when you walk into the supermarket and see a whole display of California strawberries and prepackaged shortcake. The farmers’ markets should be opening soon and then it’ll get easier, until then I’m trying to make little concessions; strawberries from California instead of blackberries from Chile or Mexico.

Living might mean taking chances… Part II

 
Now we’ve heard of what a big problem peak oil is, and we know all about global warming, but what do we do? Is going green going to be enough? How many false starts are we going to have before we find something that works? I’m not sure that any of us know. I’m not sure it really matters.
 
This isn’t about changing the world. It’s about changing your life and those around you. It’s about people putting down roots and knowing that they care enough about that place they’ve chosen to stay, that they’re willing to do everything they can to save it.
 
People ignore the issue, plug in and tune out. No one wants to admit that most of us don’t know the first thing about really providing for ourselves. We live in an industrial nation with cars and grocery stores, people don’t need to grow their own food. Energy’s limitless so why conserve it? Only that’s not the whole picture, but now that you know what do you do?
 
At the talk that I went to, the presentation started out with a painting of two boats falling off the edge of the world, Columbus’s story. In a way, this is the same thing. We can’t see it so it must not be there. It doesn’t exist because it challenges out preconceived notions of what the world around us is.
 
That’s perhaps the biggest issue, no one wants to hear bad news, especially something they can’t do anything about. One person can’t fix it, so nobody tries. We’re so caught up in the consumer culture that most of us aren’t aware of how much it controls our lives. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s nice to have what you need when you need it, but it can be an issue. When consumerism turns into apathy we’ve got a problem.
 
It’s gotten to a point where we’ve got to stop living through someone or something else and start being citizens instead of consumers. We’ve got to reconnect with the earth and see where it takes us. It’s not a pretty picture, but we can change it.
 
Start small, community gardens, timber frame raisings on main street. Take something fun and turn it into an educational experience. Children building birdhouses teaches them valuable skills and the pride that comes with making something for themselves. Try having a clothing swap at the local community center, start up a monthly potluck.
 
This isn’t about saving the world it’s about building communities. It’s about caring about the people around you, learning from them and letting them teach you. When you’ve got a friend to tell you a story or a garden to tend with your neighbor you don’t need that movie that was on sale last week at the local supermarket, or that new pair of shoes that you bough to wear out to dinner.
 
As things change, and distances suddenly grow to size, it won’t be the end of the world, but a new beginning. Life won’t be about keeping up with the Jones’s it’ll be about community and caring. Now that’s not such a bleak picture after all.

Unplugged… at least for now

 
Shut Down Day is this Saturday May 3. There’s still time to join in if you’re interested.
 
I know for me it doesn’t seem like a big deal until I try and do it. What’s a day without a computer? It’s something about voluntarily giving it up that makes it so hard for me. Sure if I’m too busy or if I’ve got something better to do it’s not an issue. Staying off the computer on an unplugged night isn’t usually much of an issue either, but staying off for a whole day?
 
It’s going to be interesting. Especially since it’s on a weekend this year. It’ll be me, my camera, and my ipod for most of the time. Maybe I’ll even get around to finishing Kitchen Literacy.
 
And while we’re on the subject of unplugging, there’s a great article over at electrolicious (the home of 52 nights unplugged) on etsy, the alchemy feature, and a jacket.