Natural & Eco-friendly products

[Soup]

This is an obsession that began for me a decade ago & it never left. If anything, it's becoming stronger.

We (husband & I) have unearthed natural ways to perform almost every household cleaning task.

I have exquisitely sensitive skin & using sulphate free natural products (like bubble bath, shampoos etc. & an olive oil soap) has really made a huge difference! For toothpaste, I often use a little baking soda with a drop of pure spearmint essential oil.

Even any cosmetics are all natural.

We turned the backyard into a garden where we have a composting bin & water barrels. Tomatoes, cucumbers, 2 nectarine trees, raspberries, blueberries & mint & a few other herbs are growing.

I became disgusted at the way we humans have carelessly wrecked our planet (& our health in the bargain!) & I'm certain that, as we become more respectful of the planet & cautious about how we treat it, our health & well being will improve as well.

 

[Cerulean]

I am jealous of your garden! Someday I want to have a hydroponic setup inside so I can have herbs and some produce year round without having it imported from Chile.

I've been moving us towards being more eco-friendly as well, both from a moral shouldn't-wreck-the-earth standpoint and I also have the crazy sensitive skin. I think by this point I must be allergic to fabric dyes, because even the gentlest soap, water only wash, or not washing something all gives me reactions. When I was a kid my dad would have me brush my teeth with baking soda and I've been thinking of going back to it. For awhile in college I washed my hair with baking soda, it worked surprisingly well, and when I went back to shampoo it BURNED! I don't know what they put in that stuff but once you get used to not having it, using it is really unpleasant.

 

[Kelly]

Have either of you heard of / tried Lush cosmetics? They are eco friendly/against animal testing and source /use natural ingredients, here is their main website if you want to have a look....

https://www.lush.co.uk/

Here is the page on their values, campaigns and charity support etc....

https://www.lush.co.uk/our-values

 

[Bay]

I make my own cleaners and use dye-free, fragrence-free and sulphate-free personal care and laundry products, including a clothesline. I am in a new (to me) house and don't know when I'll be able to put in a vegetable garden but have planted mostly native plants in the flower beds in order to draw pollinators. Earthsteward here on AC is studying botany and specializes in natural remedies. I admire her work!

Kelly, I love Lush! It's wonderful stuff even though it's not fragrance free (the fragrances are AMAZING). It's a bit pricey, so it's usually only in the house after Christmas when I've been lucky enough to receive some as a gift.

 

[Cerulean]

Thanks Kelly, most days I forget about makeup since it feels so weird and unnatural on my face. I'd be up for trying that though, it might be another chemical sensitivity thing that natural ingredients might not have

 

[Kelly]

I also use a company called Enchanted -Enchanted - Bath & Bodyworks

But although her products are not tested on animals or anything I'm not sure about all of the ingredients, but she is a lovely woman and her scents are amazing(90% of my perfume are from her and I'm waiting on a huge order of scrubs, bodywash etc). Little tip for you Bay if you love Lush, Enchanted have most of their scents available to buy in whatever form you want, perfume, lotion, bath salts. She also sometimes has haircare available but she's still playing around with that sort of thing at the mo, she's just released some skincare that is getting some great reviews on the lush forum.

Other animal friendly companies are burts bees, l'occtaine, the body shop(but they are now owned by l'oreal who do test but the body shop don't) and fortune cookie

 

[Soup]

I try to avoid L'Oreal products on ethical grounds. Their peddling of skin bleaching products like 'White Perfect' featuring exceedingly fair-skinned Indian models/actresses (like Aishwarya Rai) are misleading, racist & unethical. The way they lightened Beyonce's skin in their ads is reprehensible. So-called 'perfection' & beauty come in all colours from the fairest Finnish ladies to the darkest Sudanese ones. Women in poor countries are shelling out a fortune to buy products they have been deceived into thinking will give them white skin & that this will somehow 'improve' them as human beings. L'Occitane used to be a good company as was Burt's Bees but with L'Oreal's greedy hands in them, I no longer buy. I won't buy anything from Unilever (like Dove products) for similar gross ethical violations they're committing in India, Malaysia & Pakistan (China & The Philippines too).

 

[Kelly]

I read something about that on the lush forum but nobody was sure what was going on whether they were testing, if it was just the products in china or what it wasn't very clear.

You can always rely on lush though they are against any animal testing and have initiated a worldwide campaign to stop testing by offering a cash prize to companies, researchers etc who make a major step towards stopping it...more info here

 

[Soup]

Thank you, Kelly!

Have you seen the ads by Unilever Hindustan (the same British owned company that makes Dove products)? While they're peddling the popular message of self-acceptance, empowering girls & female self-esteem in the West, they're playing highly coercive, racist offensive commercials for Fair & Lovely (an alleged skin bleach that, of course, doesn't even work!!!) to Asian women. The ads tell these women that ALL the problems in their life (& affecting their family) such as unemployment, poverty, inability to find a husband are ALL due to having 'dark' skin. It's beyond shocking.

This is the best-selling so-called 'beauty creme' in Asia (which makes it the world's best selling skin cream. WOW!). there are tons of these ads on YouTube. This one begins with a family that is poor & the father is unemployed. He complains to his wife that he wishes he had a SON. The sad daughter wants to help her poor old dad so she circles a BRITISH AIRWAYS want ad for air hostesses. Woe is she: she's waaay too dark for such a job (there are African origin women working for British Airways!) until Fair & Lovely rescues her by bleaching her to an acceptable colour. I'm not even kidding! Watch this: Fair & Lovely Classical Add AIR HOSTESS - YouTube

 

[Kelly]

I don't even know what to say soup, that ad was beyond disgusting... I just don't even know where to begin