Green toys: Natural cosmetic kits

Diana | May 15, 2012 | One comment

As the mother of four young girls, I am constantly battling dollar-store lip-gloss – hidden in party loot bags – and fluorescent bath products laden with chemical nasties.

As the girls get older, I have no doubt it will prove harder for the eco-warrior in me to maintain the upper hand. But I am doing OK thus far.

One of my big allies in this battle is an award-winning Canadian company, Kiss Naturals, that sells kid-friendly make-your-own cosmetics kits.

The kits save my children from following in their mother’s footsteps and learning the hard way that if you squeeze rose petals and place them in a jar with pretty much any other liquid or cream, the whole thing fairly quickly goes rotten, sludgy and stinky. No amount of pretty calligraphy on the homemade cosmetics label can counter this inevitability.

There are several kit options. So far, in our household, we have tried the lip-gloss, lip balm and bath fizzie kits. All have worked very well, though my connoisseur middle daughter tells me she likes the lip balm kit the best. The price range is $17-$25 depending on the kit.

Instructions are simple (six year olds might need help, but ten year olds don’t) and I like the fact that there is enough material in each package to make several items: this is a gift that keeps on giving (in the best sense).

All the ingredients are demonstrably natural (so lava lip-gloss consists of two types of base oil, glycerine and natural colours/flavours). Packaging for the kits themselves is minimal (and recyclable) but the folks at Kiss Naturals suggest you repurpose and make it into a memory box after.

The products that result look quite professional (so, for example, proper roll-on dispensers are provided for the lip-gloss). Even fashion-forward kids are satisfied. Last but not least, several bulk and refill items are available on the Kiss Naturals website (which also has an informative FAQ section).

This famiy-run company is based in Quebec and all the kits are assembled there. They are sold quite widely in Canada and the US and by Amazon.co.uk (prices are a bit higher in the UK). For a full list of stockists – including my favourite Ottawa option, Bloom Artisan – see here. You can also order on line direct from Kiss Naturals (prices are the same as in shops but shipping is extra).

I wholeheartedly recommend these kits as gifts. Unlike some of the craft sets that come into my household, everything we have tried has been actively used and appreciated.

And the good news is that some of you have an opportunity to try a kit for free. When I contacted Kiss Naturals to ask for some photos for this review, Marie kindly offered a giveaway for my readers.

(This will be the first time I have done such a giveaway, though they are relatively common on other blog sites.)

I have six kits to give away. If you are based in the US or Canada and would like to try one, email me your name, address and choice of kit (see the website). What do you have to do in return? Two things.

The first is to help me with my site. By that I mean encourage your friends to subscribe to my feed (tell me who you have signed up in your email) or send me some product review suggestions: which eco products do you find really work? The second is to like the Kiss Naturals Facebook page.

On May 31st, I will pick the top six most helpful people and Marie will send them a kit of their choice. Hooray!

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Category: Kids, Toys

Candle conundrums

Diana | April 25, 2012 | No comments

Along with yoga, candles seem to offer a ready solution to the pressures of modern life. They promise a quick mood change: workaday to romantic, harried to harmony.

But navigating the world of candles, and making sure that you aren’t creating more problems than you are solving, can be tricky.

In the good (?) old days, candles were made of paraffin wax (unless you happened to keep bees as a hobby). Indeed, as a kid I spent many hours creating various shaped and perfumed candles from paraffin wax for my poor, long-suffering mother.

But, as you all no doubt know, paraffin is a waste product from the oil industry and is really no good for us at all. It burns `dirty’, leaving black soot and possibly formaldehyde and benzene in your house and your air. Perfumed paraffin candles are the worst: more oily, more toxic and more sooty (not to mention the cloying chemical fragrance).

What is more, cheap candles often contain lead in their wicks. The lead is supposed to help them burn more evenly. Unsurprisingly, this is not at all good for you, especially if you are young or pregnant.

For reasons known only to itself, and its dwindling number of staff scientists, Health Canada has not banned lead in candles. It does, though, offer advice about how to spot the toxin. Just untwine that wick a bit (hope the candle is not shrink-wrapped), see if there is a metallic core and, if so, rub it against a piece of paper. A grey mark indicates lead. Simple!

[A concern-assuaging aside here: Ikea candles (who hasn't bought those big bags of tea lights?) do not contain lead, though most are made from paraffin wax.]

If you want to eschew paraffin, there are three options: palm wax, soy wax and beeswax. All are marketed as eco alternatives, which is a tad misleading, to say the least.

Palm plantations in south east Asia are notorious for causing deforestation and habitat loss (see my posting on lipstick). And bringing the raw materials for candles half way across the world is not a green solution.

Soy, by contrast, can be grown domestically. But this is not always the case. If soy wax is imported from Latin America, the problems of deforestation can be just as acute as with palm oil.

Soy candles are cleaner and longer burning than paraffin wax, drips can be cleaned up with soap and water and works well with perfumes. But, on the negative side, much soy is genetically modified (doesn’t bother me hugely: others feel strongly about this) and its cultivation tends to involve lots of pesticides and insecticides as well as causing soil degradation.

Soy candles are also very soft and have a low melting point. They may go rancid and cannot be made into tapers or pillars (unless adulterated, and the suspicion is that much soy wax is, indeed, adulterated). Lastly, the wax yield of soy is low, around 10 times lower than that of palm, so you need much more land to grow the soy, to make the wax, to pour the candle, to make you relax. Not ideal.

If you do want to go the soy route, be sure to choose a local maker – In Canada there are several options including Pine Creek Hollow (Ontario) Willow Tree (Saskatchewan) or Natura (Alberta) – and ask where their soy comes from.

Last, but by no means least, there is beeswax, the longest burning and most natural wax. Fans claim it smells of honey. As an apiarist’s daughter (yes, bees as well as pigs), I think beeswax candles smell of beeswax. That is a lovely, heady smell, richer than honey, by far. The wax is usually yellow, varying with the residual impurities from honey extraction, but can become almost white when fine-filtered.

The main concern about beeswax is the price (typically high…see this post on why there is no such thing as cheap beeswax).

Bees don’t seem to mind having their wax taken away, despite the effort they put into making it. (For a fascinating description of how this miracle happens, see here.) But it does take approximately 6-8 lbs of honey to sustain a bee to make a pound of wax. This is is why beekeepers often leave the wax cells (having sliced off the top and extracted the honey) so the bees can reuse, rather than rebuild their honeycomb from year to year. This maximizes honey yield. Breeding cells are now melted down more often than they used to be due to high levels of disease amongst bees and a desire to keep everything clean, according to my father (thanks, Dad!).

Anyway, as you can see, I could go on about bees and wax, as well as pesticide use and the nightmare of bee colony collapse, forever. But I will stop.

For a good summary of the merits of different types of wax, see this site, which also sells nice beeswax candles. And if you are addicted to tea lights, remember that the aluminum holders are readily recyclable. Or if you choose the plastic ones, you can reuse them with cup-less tea light refills.

 

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Category: At home, Lighting

krazy for my kigos

Diana | April 13, 2012 | 5 comments


I have a new favourite pair of shoes.

They are vegan. They are recyclable. They are comfortable. And, before you get too worried, they are snappy looking.

They are made by a US company called kigo (NB. this is a fashionably lowercase company).

The company’s commitment to ecological accountability runs deep. Shoe uppers are made from a stretchy fabric derived from post consumer plastic jugs. Adhesives are water-based, dyes are non-toxic. Packaging is at a bare minimum (they come wrapped in a thin piece of paper) and unwanted shoes can be mailed in to or dropped off at Souls4Soles depots (in the US) for on-distribution to those in need.

Two of the shoe lines (drive and flit) can also be sent back to be ground up at the end of their useful life. Sadly my edge shoes are not eligible for this program, as they are made of different materials, but maybe that will come.

If you return the shoes for reuse or recycling, you are eligible for a voucher for 25% off your next purchase. A significant incentive.

For more technical details on the shoes, I do recommend that you go direct to their website. It is very informative.

I chose the edge shoe which is a basic slip on. It is tight fitting, yet comfortable and flatters my very large feet (I would have no qualms about wearing these shoes with shorts, for example).

Overall, I really like the way my shoes both look and feel. In fact they exceeded my expectations on both these dimensions. They have little cushioning, but this does not seem to matter. I look forward to taking them on my next trip. They would be super-easy to pack and great for walking around town, light hiking, maybe even the odd game of tennis.

kigo shoes are, at heart, barefoot running shoes. I do intend to try a short run in them as I am curious about the whole barefoot trend. For now, though, I am nursing a sore achilles tendon and don’t want to take chances (I am running a 10km race next weekend). If barefoot running interests you, though, there are numerous on-line reviews of these shoes from the barefoot brigade: you can get to them through the review page of the kigo site.

Now I have persuaded you that you want a pair of kigos what else do you need to know?

They come in four styles, two of which are unisex and two more for us ladies. The drive line has a bungee closure (because these remind me of climbing shoes I reflexively feel they would be uncomfortable, unfounded prejudice, of course). flit (remember, no caps) and curve have a mary-jane type strap cross the top (for the girls). All models come in various colour-ways. Grey dominates but orange and green accents make me very happy (I have grey with green stitching, which provides interest without drawing attention to my feet).

The three final things you should know about kigo shoes are that:

  • They run small (oddly, sizing varies with the style). I am happily sporting a woman’s 12 in the edge style, which is perfect. But I never normally go above a 10 (a pretty consistent euro size 41). They make no bones about this on the site but I still made a mistake first time round.
  • Sales are on-line or through a small group of retailers both domestically and internationally. On line, there are two parallel universes: the regular sales area and the outlet sales area. Prices are about 30% lower through the outlet. So my edge shoes cost $50 through the outlet and $69 through the main site. I suspect people were finding the prices just a little too high….
  • They ship to Canada ($10 a pair), and you know how happy that makes me.

 

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Category: Clothes and shoes | Tags: , ,

Organic chicken broth

Diana | March 30, 2012 | 5 comments

Last night I hijacked my local eco-group meeting to run a blind tasting of organic chicken broth. In the line-up were 9 store-bought varieties and one home-made broth.

  • Shoppers’ Drug Mart Nativa Organic (700mg/47%)
  • Shoppers’ Drug Mart Nativa Reduced Sodium Organic (520mg/35%)
  • Pacific Organic (590mg/39%)
  • Pacific Low Sodium Organic (80mg/5%)
  • Swansons organic: Costco (570mg/38%)
  • President’s Choice (PC) organic (800mg/53%)
  • GoBio Organic (from cubes) (952mg/63%)
  • Harvest Sun Organic (from powder/cubes) (470mg/31%)
  • Better than Bouillon Chicken Base (from paste) (700mg/47%)
  • Homemade (no salt added)

This turned out to be an interesting experiment for two main reasons.

The first is that we did not agree at all on which was the most tasty chicken broth option. I had thought there would be one outright winner.

The second is the issue of sodium content. In the list above, the milligram figure in brackets is the sodium content per cup (250ml) from the product label. The percentage figure I calculated myself.

I know labels display this percentage, but I found a discrepancy in percentages between the different brands. So I went to the Health Canada site and found the recommended daily sodium intake at source. This varies from <500mg/day for children under the age of one, to a maximum of 1,500mg for a regular adult (older adults should have less).

I am not quite sure wherein the disconnect lies. Based on the percentages they offer, most of the nutrition labels seem to be using a much higher figure (between 2,350 and 2,600mg) for recommended daily intake. Am I missing something? I can’t figure out this systematic error, but it is significant enough to be pretty worrying. And this is on top of existing doubts about the actual measuring of nutritional value.

The bottom line is that store-bought chicken broth is salty, very salty. Some varieties certainly taste saltier than others, but all (with the exception of the Pacific low sodium) are big offenders. The two stand outs on the list are the PC product (claims 33% but 53% by my calculations) and GoBio (claims 40%, 63% according to me). Shoppers sells a reduced sodium version of its organic chicken broth, but don’t be taken in: this is not low sodium (still at 35%).

The only genuinely low sodium offering I found was the Pacific brand at 5% (and, of course, my own broth).

So what of taste? I imagined my homemade version (just boiled bones, no veg added this time) would win hands down. Instead, it elicited comments such as `not enough body’ and ‘innocuous’. I wondered whether that might be partly to do with how much salt people are accustomed to (I seldom add salt to my cooking) but, given the results below, maybe not.

Perhaps I am just used to my own stock and like it. Generally I found the store broths to be very single dimensional…little depth or body to the flavour (a common comment). But now to the results.

First the losers. Nobody had much good to say about the Pacific regular, Shoppers regular or Swansons. I, personally, hated the Loblaws/PC brand but others found it OK.

Overall the top scorers, interestingly enough, were the Shoppers reduced sodium and the Pacific low sodium. One taster liked the über-salty GoBio, noting that it was `delicious but a little too salty’ (another taster thought it  `chemically’).

So there you have it. An unscientific test but an interesting one, for sure.

Ideally I would always make my own broth, but I know that is not always going to happen. So, my choice from now would be the Pacific low sodium variety. The ingredient list is a bit worrying (containing, as it does, cane juice – i.e. sugar – and something called `organic chicken flavour’: what is this if not the whole product?).

The price tends to be a little higher than the store-brand varieties (round here it ranges from about $2.99 to $3.49 for a litre while other brands can be had for closer to $1.99 if you catch the sales or buy in bulk), but the absent sodium and robust flavour make it worth it, in my view.

My last observation is that that I struggle with buying any heavy liquid product that contains largely water (wine is exempt here!). It is a terrible waste of energy and packaging. The tetrapaks that house most broths are recyclable in most places but are one of the hardest and most energy-demanding products to recycle.

For that reason, and because I am originally from the UK where these are the norm, I have always favoured broth cubes. I was therefore disappointed that the 2 powder/cube products in the test did not score more highly. I found them both very salty. I’ll continue to keep the Harvest Sun product as a stand-by, but the GoBio ones have to go before my blood pressure goes through the roof.

Better than Bouillon products, which have recently appeared on many supermarket shelves around here, are also interesting. They are made in the US and come in multiple flavours from lobster to mushroom (not all organic). They are hands-down the cheapest option. A glass jar of paste costs around $7 but makes around 10 litres of broth, by my calculation. The paste will last for several months in the fridge, once opened. Salt content is at the high end and the broth itself is a little soapy. But for those days when you just have to make a soup but do not have anything else at hand, its another reasonable option.

 

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Category: Food and drink

No Sweat Sports Wash

Diana | March 18, 2012 | One comment

Sports stuff can get stinky, really stinky. Especially if you have a horde of hockey-playing boys in your family, or are an adherent of hot yoga. In the battle against stink, it is tempting to reach for a heavily perfumed or aggressively chemical detergent. But there are alternatives.

In a previous post, my running friend Cindy noted that her homemade (very green) detergent worked wonders on her sports clothes. But I recognize that not everyone is up for cooking up their own detergent.

So, together with a few odour-challenged friends, I tried No Sweat, an eco sports wash made right here in Canada. It comes in two `flavours’: Citrus Rush and fragrance free, both of which are certified for front loading (HE) machines. I tried the Citrus Rush and found the perfume mild and natural, not overpowering at all.

Does it work? I thought No Sweat did a fine job, though I don’t really have stink problems (if you know me personally and disagree, do let me know…).

Two out of three of my friends who tried it were very impressed. The third was less convinced. Perhaps some odours are more stubborn than others.

How green is it? No Sweat claims to be the only sports wash (as opposed to general detergent) with eco logo certification in Canada. Its ingredients are proprietary and there is no listing on the bottle (which always makes me suspicious).

However, the company did share some details with me (I should say that they also sent me a sample bottle of No Sweat for free). The power of the formulation comes from ingredients which `oxygenate’ (using hydrogen peroxide). There is no chlorine involved. The makers tell me they are looking to develop an enzyme based formula too.

I doubt if the formulation is as benign as some of the mainstream green detergents, but it looks OK. The product is marked as an irritant on the label, but this is often the case with concentrated formulations.

Where is it sold? The list of stockists is well-hidden on the No Sweat website, but I have searched it down for you. You can find No Sweat mostly at yoga studios and sports stores throughout Canada and in some states in the US. In Canada it is also available at Mountain Equipment Coop. Otherwise you can buy it direct from the website.

How much does it cost? The thing that puts me off having a bottle of No Sweat at the ready for smelly loads is the up front cost. But maybe if I had serious odour issues my price threshold would be higher.

At MEC the price is $8.75 for a small bottle (16 loads). On the website you have to buy 4 x 500ml bottles at once at a cost of $36.99 (shipping to anywhere in the US or Canada included). In either case, that works out at close to 60c per wash, all in (compare that with about 23c/wash for my favourite Canadian-made green detergent, Biovert).

If you really love the stuff (and have a big laundry room), you can splurge and spend $85.99 for 4 very large bottles which will give you 375 washes at a per wash cost almost exactly equal to Biovert.

So there you have it.

If you try No Sweat, please do let me know how you fare. My sample size of 4 testers could certainly do with expanding.

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Category: Laundry | Tags: ,

Natural deodorant

Diana | March 3, 2012 | 5 comments

Deodorant is a tough subject. Many people I have spoken to have said that they want to use a natural deodorant, free from nasty chemicals, but that they just can’t find one that does the job adequately. And, let’s face it, nobody wants to compromise in this area.

The problem with regular deodorants is the they tend to contain things you don’t really want on your very absorbent skin (e.g. parabens, propylene glycol and articifical fragrances). Anti-perspirants are even worse. They work on the principle of disabling your sweat glands (as opposed to just covering up the odour), so less sweat actually reaches the surface. Usually this is achieved using aluminum zirconium compounds.

If you feel more comfortable having aluminum in your garage than on your skin, you are right. It has been associated with all sorts of nasty effects. And, in any case, disabling sweat, when we do actually sweat for a purpose, seems like a bad idea.

So let’s assume we can live with sweat….but do not want to become malodorous. What then?

Your natural deodorant team (that is me and my friend Laurie Thomson whom I have consulted at length on this topic) are right on it, though we acknowledge that deodorant is a very personal choice (try a small version first, if you can).

Laurie is a serial deodorant experimenter. She lives in Toronto and shops at the Big Carrot, which, fittingly, has a big selection.

Her hands-down favourite is Alba Botanica Clear Enzyme deodorant stick, in lavender. It also comes in tea tree and aloe unscented. She tells me (and I quote) “It keeps me dry all day, even those days when I’m particularly nervous about having to give a presentation and I inadvertently wear a shirt containing synthetic fibres.” Yes, this happens.

The Skin Deep database gives this deodorant a 1, which is excellent. Alba Botanica is part of a large eco products holding company that brings you brands such as Earth’s Best, Imagine and Jason. Alba is based in Colorado, but the packaging claims that the deodorant itself is made in Canada. Perhaps a new area of comparative advantage for our economy??

Laurie also recommends Honeybee Gardens deodorant powder. She applies this deodorant when she has finished a yoga class and is in too much of a hurry to shower. It is also good when you want to mop up a bit of that summer sweat. It is phenomenally absorbent and smells nice too. The EWG rating is 0.

The powder is made from baking soda, corn starch, arrowroot and essential oils. Nothing more. So simple, you could make it yourself. But why bother, since it only costs $6.99 for 4 oz, which seems to last forever. As an added bonus, a portion of sales goes to breast cancer research. The company is also unusual in that it ships to Canada from its Pennsylvania base at the same prices as to the US (and they do mini samples of their lipstick and eyeshadow colours for only 50c each: what a great idea).

As for me, for the last several years I have been using a deodorant that sells at our local farmers’ market, under the Morrison Manor mark. It is lovely and fresh-smelling and works for me (though I have to say that I do not sweat much). But this is not much of a recommendation unless you live in Ottawa. And I do regret the non-refillable roll-on containers.

More recently I have been using a crystal deodorant. I have always been deeply sceptical of these, but I was sent one by Green Virgin Products (a small Florida-based company that sells soap nuts and other non-toxic items…and ships to Canada). I thought I should try it since it is the off-season for the farmers’ market.

To my surprise, it has worked really well. I did a very strenuous 2.5 hour cross country ski yesterday and, really, my shirt was rosebud-fresh at the end of it. Perhaps I should also experiment with using this to combat foot odor, as one reviewer suggests on the informative Green Virgin website.

From an eco and also a cost-saving perspective these crystal deodorants are certainly the best bet as they appear to last forever (thereby limiting packaging, etc.). I have been using mine for 2 months and see no dent in it. And they are cheap to start with at $5.99.

I don’t like the application (wetting it, drips down my armpit and no fragrance boost to kick-start my morning), but that is the only bad thing I have to say about it right now (I AM AFRAID THAT THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE. SEE MY COMMENT BELOW: MOST CRYSTAL DEODORANTS ARE MADE FROM AN ALUMINIUM COMPOUND). Some crystal deodorants also come in roll-on or spray-on form, though that seems to be missing the point a bit.

Last word, though, to Laurie, the natural deodorant queen: she tells me that both she and her sister used crystal deodorant in the past and that they worked well for a while but that after about 6 months they ceased to do so.

I guess I’ll be back to you in 6 months.

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Category: Beauty and Personal Care, Skincare

Organic mattresses

Diana | February 11, 2012 | 3 comments

I spend a good deal less time than I would like reclining in comfort on my bed. But I still rack up at least 45 hours a week. These, to me, are critical, replenishing hours. I like them to be unadulterated by both stress and toxic chemicals.

Sadly, the former cannot always be banished. The latter, on the other hand, I can control.

bed-box1

My kids all sleep on natural latex, organic mattresses, made right here in Ottawa. I have not yet bitten the bullet and sprung for such a mattress for myself, partly because my present mattress is not that old (its purchase directly preceded my more intense eco-conversion) and partly because it is very comfortable.

A word on replacing mattresses: please look to recycle rather than sending your old mattress to the dump. Mattress recycling is not mandatory in Ontario, though it is in parts of Canada (e.g. in the Vancouver area) and elsewhere. But it is certainly the right thing to do. Ninety five percent of a mattress can be recovered and reused.
See here for a list of recyclers in the US and Canada. Similar services operate in the UK and other countries: I suggest you use the powers of Google to find them.

If you end up replacing your mattress with a conventional one (i.e. if you ignore my advice!), and the company you buy from offers to take your old mattress away, do enquire where that mattress will end up. As far as I know, Sleep Country is the only big retailer in Canada that has made a public commitment to recycle or refurbish every mattress they collect.

obasan logo

But I digress. My kids’ mattresses come from a company called Obasan. It is Ottawa-based but has branches in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. The showroom here in Ottawa (on Colonnade Road) is lovely: blonde wood and fresh white bedding with no nasty off-gassing. It makes you want to buy everything.

The company website is very informative about where they source their materials (natural rubber from Malaysia, organic wool from Argentina, organic cotton from Peru and wood from Canada) and tells you about the customization option that is available for all their mattresses (so you can have an altogether different bed experience than your partner).

Obasan mattresses (and, indeed, other latex mattresses) should last 20-30 years. And when they do reach the end of their lives, they can, I am told, be composted (though I’d be interested to find out how long that would take and whether you could jam one into your home organic waste bin…..).

sheep

All Obasan products (they sell sheets, pillows and crib mattresses too) are guaranteed free from nasty chemicals. Felted wool is used in the mattresses, instead of chemicals, to ensure that they meet north American flame retardant standards. Conventional mattress makers typically use a class of chemicals called PBDEs to do this. However, these are soon to be phased out (as of 2013), here in Canada, due to recognition of their harmful effects.

This new ban serves to confirm what most us us probably suspected: sleeping on chemical-soaked mattresses night after night is not a great idea. Yet manufacturers continue to use them, not just as fire retardants, but also in the adhesives that they use. So, consider the Obasan option.

organic cotton

The company is great: small and personal. When I ordered the wrong length of mattress, they could not have been nicer about replacing it.

The downside, as usual, is price. Mattresses range between $1,599 (for the thinest twin) and $4,299 (for the thickest king size). This is one of those cases where, if you think of this as a 30-year investment, the price looks pretty good: just over $1 a week for the twin, assuming it lasts 30 years. Otherwise it can be daunting, though it is in line with other organic mattresses.

If you baulk, try Ikea instead. Ikea made a commitment way back in 1998 to phase out the use of PDBEs. Its Sultan mattress line, discussed here, is a lot easier on the pocket. The Ikea natural latex mattress is $499 for a twin and $999 for a king. It is, though, a compromise: made in Asia with a mixture of natural (85%) and synthetic latex (15%) it has polylactide fibre wadding instead of natural wool. (However, despite their scary-sounding name, these fibres are plant derived and don’t seem to be too evil.)

Last thing: Obasan has regular and quite generous sales, so, if you are on the fence, make sure you get on their mailing list to find out when the next event takes place. And, if you are wondering, within their delivery (as opposed to mail order) area, they do take old mattresses away for recycling.

Category: Bedroom | Tags: ,

Laundry soaps for the adventurous

Diana | February 1, 2012 | 3 comments

This contribution to your eco-journey is based on input by Cindy Scott, my chief laundry adviser (she wrote the guest post on dryer sheets).

washer

Cindy has been experimenting with homemade laundry soap…..and she assures me that it really works, even beating out commercial soaps when it comes to stinky running gear, which is certainly impressive. It is also very cheap to make.

Cindy used the laundry soap recipe from the Suzuki site. As long as you put in pure soap granules, you can pretty much guarantee that this is an eco-friendly concoction (see here for a discussion of the green credentials of soap).

By contrast, even some of the greener commercially available laundry soaps (including my favourite, Biovert) contain surfactants which are likely derived from petrochemicals and are certainly not naturally occurring (i.e. even if plant-derived, they require a grand amount of processing). So, for purists, making your own is a good bet. Once you have established your sources for borax and soda you are in business…you can even supply your friends.

Being a keen laundress, Cindy experimented with different ways to keep her whites sparkling. She found the best solution was to add 1 tablespoon of Nellie’s all-natural oxygen brightener to the water first and let it soak for 30 minutes.

laundry_oxygenbleach_MED

Nellie’s All Natural is a Vancouver-based soap company. I use the washing soda (which is really washing detergent) from time to time, though it is hard to find in the east (I actually got mine at HomeSense). I am not 100% convinced by the company’s eco-credentials (their dryer balls are made out of the über-evil PVC which they proudly announce is `widely used in the healthcare sector, children’s toys and food packaging’….), but their products generally seem pretty good and the packaging is attractive if you go for the retro laundry-room look.

The oxygen brightener is made from sodium carbonate, sodium percarbonate, primary linear alcohol ethoxylate (those surfactants again) and sodium sulphate. Pretty benign, in the scheme of things, and with no fragrances or dyes.

I did a bit of research to see how the Nellie’s product stacks up compared to OxiClean, a more readily-available oxygen stain remover. It turns out that the active ingredients are the same (sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate), but that OxiClean contains undisclosed fragrances and other ingredients (see here for a discussion of the pros and cons of OxiClean).

The purest product in this class seems to be Oxo Brite, made by the Earth Friendly Products company in the US. This contains nothing but the two active ingredients. I wonder whether it would work as well on Cindy’s whites: do the surfactants make a difference?

Anyway, back to the point. The soaking step is fine if you have a top-loading washing machine (and a good memory) but not so good for folks like me with precision-engineered German front-loaders. I guess I could use a bucket to pre-soak, add some dilute solution to the drum before hand, or use the pre-wash function. I suspect, though, that I will just let my whites gently yellow so I look all natural and non-bleached….

Not to be outdone, I have been doing my own laundry experimentation, using soap nuts (literally seeds from the Chinese Soap Berry Tree) in my wash.

soap nuts

The Green Virgin products website (from where I was kindly sent my nuts) tells you all about what these are and how to use them.

So far they have done a pretty good job for me. I use them mostly on bed-linen and other fairly benign stuff. I recently conducted one of my scientific stain tests, pitting them against `my regular detergent’ on red wine, tomato, olive oil and banana. They didn’t do too badly, but they were definitely worse than Biovert. They are, however, self-evidently natural (usually you only find seed pods in your laundry when you have inquisitive kids who don’t empty their pockets) and a very cheap option too (around 12 cents per wash).

So that’s that on laundry adventures for now.

Finally, let me apologize both for this too-long post and the errant emails subscribers have received from time to time with old postings. I am doing my best to get to the bottom of that problem.

Category: Cleaning, Laundry

Safe (and pretty) food covers

Diana | January 16, 2012 | 4 comments

I admit it. I have a thing about food storage.

I am endlessly writing about containers (glass, stainless, silicone, thermos) for left-overs or lunchtime delicacies. I fear food that is inappropriately dried up/soggy/plastic-tasting and am scarred by childhood experiences of malodorous tupperware tumbling out of badly organized cupboards.

My friends seem to have cottoned onto this and so, for my birthday last year, I was given a Lily Pad.

lilypad

Not a real lily pad, but a delightful silicone lid in the shape of a lily pad that can be used in the fridge, freezer, microwave (though I am not a microwaver so can’t vouch for that) and even the oven (up to 500 degrees). It can be washed in the dishwasher (without even a `top-rack-caution’).
(NB. See this previous review for more details on silicone).

Being of French origin, the Lily Pad is well-designed and nice enough to hang on your wall from the built-in loop.
It creates a great seal on ceramic, glass or metal bowls, making it a good replacement for plastic wrap (for those of you who are still using this).

A quick word about plastic wrap: there is nothing good about it. Originally plastic wrap was made from PVC, `the most toxic plastic‘. PVC off-gases terribly, plasticizers in it are probably carcinogenic (just ask those lab rats), poisonous dioxins are produced in its manufacture and it is not recyclable. In belated recognition of these hazards, wrap is now increasingly made from low density polyethylene (LDPE). This makes it less clingy and arguably a less effective food wrap, but it is somewhat safer. It still can’t be recycled.

Anyway, let’s assume that you want to avoid plastic wrap and that you don’t always have to hand a lid of the perfect size to fit the salad bowl/mug/casserole that you wish to place in the fridge or oven.

lilypadset

Just reach for the Lily Pad. The Pads come in 3 diameters: 4″ (10cm), nearly 10″ (25cm) and just over 11″ (about 29cm). They are designed by a French company, Charles Viancin, though made, of course, in China.

The drawback? I have not found a source in Canada. All sizes (plus other neat Charles Viancin cookware) are available on Amazon (prices are between $5 and $14). However, they are sold by third party vendors who do not ship to Canada.

So, for the moment we are Lily Pad-less, as a nation. Is there anyone out there who can solve this problem for me? My food cries out to be covered.

Category: Storage

Greening your cat

Diana | January 1, 2012 | 2 comments

Happy New Year! I hope you are not too overwhelmed by the excesses of the holiday season….lots of room now for (eco)-resolutions. We are going veggie at home for January, to kick things off. I’ll let you know how that goes.

But on to more serious matters.

cat3

If you have read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, you will be aware of the carnage wreaked by domestic cats on the American songbird population. One solution is to keep your cat indoors. I am afraid mine roams free most of the time, but when it is cold, cold, cold (as it is now) we keep him in at night. This raises the thorny problem of cat litter.

There is no perfect solution here.

Clay-based litters still dominate the north american market. Indeed, about 85% of all the clay mined in the US is used for cat litter. A majority of clay-based litter is now of the clumping type: this means that it is made from, or contains, a substance named sodium bentonite.

The advantage of this type of litter is that it sticks together and reduces the amount of material that needs to be discarded. The disadvantage is that sodium bentonite is mined in a scraping operation, close to the surface, resulting in significant landscape destruction. There are also concerns about cats ingesting litter or litter dust and clumping taking place in their digestive tracts.

A better solution is a plant-based litter. I use The World’s Best Cat Litter(with a name like that, need I say more?).

cat litter

This is made from whole-kernel maize. It clumps (just like the clay litter), is dust-free and easy to manage and is available in most pet stores. (It costs between $8-13 for a 7lb bag and $24-$30 for a 17lb bag….the higher prices are to be found in Canada, of course).

I have used the regular `flavour’ for a while and been very satisfied with it. I was sent a sample bag of the scented, odour-control formula, which contains natural lavender oil. The scent is pleasant enough, not over-whelming….but odours are not a big problem for me with one largely outdoor-living cat, so I cannot judge whether this extra twist is worth it (or would annoy me if my litter tray were not in the furnace room).

The bag claims that the litter is flushable and I do, indeed, flush small amounts of mine with no problems. But I am not sure I would flush on a regular basis as I appreciate the cost of a blocked toilet.

If you live in California, you will know that flushing is prohibited, because of problems with sea-otter deaths (strange, but true). A parasite in cat feces, toxoplasma gondii, appears to be responsible for killing sea otters (it is not eliminated in the wastewater treatment process). The parasite can also end up in storm drains after al fresco cat poop is washed away.

If you don’t flush, what do you do with your waste? In most place, including sunny Ottawa, pet feces is banned from the city’s green bin/compost collection. So that leaves the regular garbage. That is fine, except it challenges the claim of biodegradability. The dirty secret of many items that are sold as biodegradable is that they only decompose adequately in the presence of oxygen….and there is not much of that in land-fill. In an anaerobic environment, things break down only very slowly and not enough to meet the scientific requirements of biodegradability.

Scented_Bag_Transparent copy

So, there you have it. Plant-based litters win, from an eco perspective. But they are not perfect. Maize monoculture does nothing for our landscapes and carting heavy cat litter around the continent for our cats to poop on is not exactly green. But ….pets are good for us in many other ways and we all love them, so, for now, let’s all learn to love corn too.

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Category: Pets
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