Friday, August 31, 2012
Second Round - Ridding My House Of Toxic Chemicals
The next day I checked a few more products and found more things that needed to be removed.
I'm planning to re-use the shampoo bottles by filling them with home-made shampoo.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Ridding My Home Of Toxic Chemicals
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (examples: DDT, polychlorinated biphynls, BPA, polybrominated diphenly ethers, alkylphenols, perflurooctanoic acid) are absolutely everywhere and going looking for them to rid your life of them only makes it disturbingly apparently how surrounded we are.
I'm thesemi-proud owner of a somewhat large train case full of makeup. I filled the train case about six years ago when I was trying to make a greater effort to look nice at all times. My husband doesn't care for the "powdered", "fake", or "made up" look that a full face of makeup leaves it's unwitting victims.
Victims? Don't get me wrong. I love makeup, but because I don't leave the house very often, don't receive visitors, and my husband doesn't care for it - I very rarely wear it any more. Despite the way far too many of us treat it, cosmetic items have shelf lives and we tend to keep them longer than it is best for us to be still using them. In addition to this fact, there are a lot of toxic chemicals that can be found within the things we slather onto and into our faces and our bodies.
Phthalates are one of the EDC's people are becoming increasingly more aware of but it seems parabens are a bit less well-known culprits. Meant to extend shelf-life and increase absorption of the products you're using they're doing more harm than good.
Feeling that enough moons had passed since I last used much of my makeup that I could easily go into my bathroom, go under the sink, get out my train case, and start chucking out makeup containing health damaging chemicals - I headed into the bathroom to do just that. Filled with resolve I sat down on the edge of the toilet and unzipped the train case, but as I looked over all of the goodies I'd spent so much money on I was met with a lot more internal opposition than I'd ever expected. It just seemed so wrong to throw away barely used Clinique, MAC, NARS, Smashbox, Erno Laszlo, or any of my other goodies. I began looking at the backs of my products searching for ingredients that I knew were harmful and more often than not was unable to find the list.
Determined to not leave my seat without accomplishing something non-toilet related I decided to remove opened makeup that was over a year old. Even that proved difficult. Only four items found their way out of the box among these was a MAC spray foundation - this seemed like an easy choice to remove since it came in an aerosol can and all the instructions on it made it sound like you should never spray it on your face.
The next day I made another pass at my makeup and was able to force myself to get rid of a little more.
A few days later I decided our lotions and body washes for synthetic fragrances, parabens, sulfates, and PEG compounds - what I found doing just a quick pass was disturbing.
Better yet I can't tell you just how many of these toxic laden items boast no animal testing and recyclable containers. Some of these even say "organic" or "herbal" while others touted the fact that they contained "shea" or "olive oil."
Related Articles
Pthalate-and Paraben-free Cosmetics List
Pthalates in Cosmetics: "Not Too Pretty"
Breast Cancer Action: Pthalate-Free Cosmetics
Big Green Purse: Shopping List
Cosmetics Calculator
When To Toss Makeup/Cosmetics
When Your Cosmetics Expire
Has Your Makeup Expired?
What Is The Shelf Life of Makeup?
I'm the
Victims? Don't get me wrong. I love makeup, but because I don't leave the house very often, don't receive visitors, and my husband doesn't care for it - I very rarely wear it any more. Despite the way far too many of us treat it, cosmetic items have shelf lives and we tend to keep them longer than it is best for us to be still using them. In addition to this fact, there are a lot of toxic chemicals that can be found within the things we slather onto and into our faces and our bodies.
Phthalates are one of the EDC's people are becoming increasingly more aware of but it seems parabens are a bit less well-known culprits. Meant to extend shelf-life and increase absorption of the products you're using they're doing more harm than good.
Feeling that enough moons had passed since I last used much of my makeup that I could easily go into my bathroom, go under the sink, get out my train case, and start chucking out makeup containing health damaging chemicals - I headed into the bathroom to do just that. Filled with resolve I sat down on the edge of the toilet and unzipped the train case, but as I looked over all of the goodies I'd spent so much money on I was met with a lot more internal opposition than I'd ever expected. It just seemed so wrong to throw away barely used Clinique, MAC, NARS, Smashbox, Erno Laszlo, or any of my other goodies. I began looking at the backs of my products searching for ingredients that I knew were harmful and more often than not was unable to find the list.
Determined to not leave my seat without accomplishing something non-toilet related I decided to remove opened makeup that was over a year old. Even that proved difficult. Only four items found their way out of the box among these was a MAC spray foundation - this seemed like an easy choice to remove since it came in an aerosol can and all the instructions on it made it sound like you should never spray it on your face.
The next day I made another pass at my makeup and was able to force myself to get rid of a little more.
A few days later I decided our lotions and body washes for synthetic fragrances, parabens, sulfates, and PEG compounds - what I found doing just a quick pass was disturbing.
Better yet I can't tell you just how many of these toxic laden items boast no animal testing and recyclable containers. Some of these even say "organic" or "herbal" while others touted the fact that they contained "shea" or "olive oil."
Related Articles
Pthalate-and Paraben-free Cosmetics List
Pthalates in Cosmetics: "Not Too Pretty"
Breast Cancer Action: Pthalate-Free Cosmetics
Big Green Purse: Shopping List
Cosmetics Calculator
When To Toss Makeup/Cosmetics
When Your Cosmetics Expire
Has Your Makeup Expired?
What Is The Shelf Life of Makeup?
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Pintesting - Chemical-Free Cleaning - Pans
I'm involved in a constant struggle to keep scorch marks off of three of our pans.
One of these, I've just come to think of as my husbands own personal pan. I insisted he begin using that particular pan years ago when I couldn't stop him from using metal utensils in my expensive, Tupperware, non-stick pans. My desire to die from some sort of heavy metal poisoning as a result of his scraping at burning food isn't what perhaps he thought it was. Since then he's been content to cook using almost exclusively "his pan."
I've posted about this struggled once before on my most recent blog - but this war wages on. No longer feeling the scrubby pads that had been sitting in the sink for months, usually under dirty dishes were still good - I threw them out. My first plan of attack involved elbow grease, baking soda, and one of my UnPaper towels. I made a small amount of progress but nowhere near the amount I needed.
What are you to do these days in your time of need? I turned to Pintrest.
My "Green" board on Pintrest has been quickly been filling up. For this task I chose to use the info provided by this pin.
It wasn't until I'd already begun cleaning the pans that I realized I should make a post about this and have before and after pictures. However, if you follow the hypertext link to my first post about these pans you will see what his pan regularly looks like.
Here is what the pans looked like after one round of following the directions of that pin to the letter.
Each of the pans had 1 cup of water which was boiled with 1 cup of vinegar. It's at this point that the original poster notes that should already be seeing a positive difference in your pan. This was not the case for me. Perhaps having scorched her pan from leaving it on a hot plate too long left a mess easier to clean the burnt on food residue my husband so dutifully leaves on these pans.
Once the water boiled 2 tablespoons of baking soda was added. The massive fizzing that resulted was incredibly satisfying.
I didn't really like a second round of cleaning left me with anywhere near the result I expected from the first. Would I call this a fail? No, I did make some much needed headway. It's worth a try - everyone's scorched pan story will vary and I should think so would their results.
One of these, I've just come to think of as my husbands own personal pan. I insisted he begin using that particular pan years ago when I couldn't stop him from using metal utensils in my expensive, Tupperware, non-stick pans. My desire to die from some sort of heavy metal poisoning as a result of his scraping at burning food isn't what perhaps he thought it was. Since then he's been content to cook using almost exclusively "his pan."
I've posted about this struggled once before on my most recent blog - but this war wages on. No longer feeling the scrubby pads that had been sitting in the sink for months, usually under dirty dishes were still good - I threw them out. My first plan of attack involved elbow grease, baking soda, and one of my UnPaper towels. I made a small amount of progress but nowhere near the amount I needed.
What are you to do these days in your time of need? I turned to Pintrest.
My "Green" board on Pintrest has been quickly been filling up. For this task I chose to use the info provided by this pin.
It wasn't until I'd already begun cleaning the pans that I realized I should make a post about this and have before and after pictures. However, if you follow the hypertext link to my first post about these pans you will see what his pan regularly looks like.
Here is what the pans looked like after one round of following the directions of that pin to the letter.
Each of the pans had 1 cup of water which was boiled with 1 cup of vinegar. It's at this point that the original poster notes that should already be seeing a positive difference in your pan. This was not the case for me. Perhaps having scorched her pan from leaving it on a hot plate too long left a mess easier to clean the burnt on food residue my husband so dutifully leaves on these pans.
Once the water boiled 2 tablespoons of baking soda was added. The massive fizzing that resulted was incredibly satisfying.
I didn't really like a second round of cleaning left me with anywhere near the result I expected from the first. Would I call this a fail? No, I did make some much needed headway. It's worth a try - everyone's scorched pan story will vary and I should think so would their results.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Paper Towels Of My Un
Stan Smith: I'll give you $48 to assimilate.
Ma Ma: Shoes off in house.
Stan: What are you...? You don't have to wash paper towels. I'll buy more.
Ma Ma: Wasteful! You waste. Every penny counts.
- American Dad, "Big Trouble in Little Langley" husbands
UnPaper towels, or as my husbands grandma said (successfully taking some wind out of my sails) dish towels - another simple solution when it comes to needless waste.
I found out about UnPaper towels one day while wandering around on Pintrest and was pretty much immediately obsessed.
The idea of using shop towels, wash cloths, or other similar items reoccurred to me while I was reading Green Mama: the guilt free guide to helping you and your kids save the planet. Realizing the possible savings I told my husband that from then on, before he reached for a paper towel to think if this was a job that really needed a paper towel or if it could be just as easily taken care of by using a regular towel. Although he's not against using a towel to clean a mess rather than a paper towel, the walk down the hallway to the linen closet trumped ditching paper towels.
This was just the excuse I needed to begin making my own UnPaper towels. Having them in the kitchen and by the sink should be the incentive he needs to help us save pennies. Maybe having the last of the commercial paper towels under the sink will result in the same reaction of doing what's easiest.
Right now they aren't ready to go on a roll yet so I'll just have to make a space next to the sink for now. Hopefully I'll have these finished up very soon.
Lessons learned from this experience:
1) If you're not sure why your rotary cutter isn't getting anywhere - check to make sure the blade is out
2) Terry cloth isn't as easy to cut as you'd think
3) Using a cutting mat that is only 35 x 35 to cut yards and yards of fabric is kind of the suck
Ma Ma: Shoes off in house.
Stan: What are you...? You don't have to wash paper towels. I'll buy more.
Ma Ma: Wasteful! You waste. Every penny counts.
- American Dad, "Big Trouble in Little Langley" husbands
UnPaper towels, or as my husbands grandma said (successfully taking some wind out of my sails) dish towels - another simple solution when it comes to needless waste.
I found out about UnPaper towels one day while wandering around on Pintrest and was pretty much immediately obsessed.
The idea of using shop towels, wash cloths, or other similar items reoccurred to me while I was reading Green Mama: the guilt free guide to helping you and your kids save the planet. Realizing the possible savings I told my husband that from then on, before he reached for a paper towel to think if this was a job that really needed a paper towel or if it could be just as easily taken care of by using a regular towel. Although he's not against using a towel to clean a mess rather than a paper towel, the walk down the hallway to the linen closet trumped ditching paper towels.
This was just the excuse I needed to begin making my own UnPaper towels. Having them in the kitchen and by the sink should be the incentive he needs to help us save pennies. Maybe having the last of the commercial paper towels under the sink will result in the same reaction of doing what's easiest.
Right now they aren't ready to go on a roll yet so I'll just have to make a space next to the sink for now. Hopefully I'll have these finished up very soon.
Lessons learned from this experience:
1) If you're not sure why your rotary cutter isn't getting anywhere - check to make sure the blade is out
2) Terry cloth isn't as easy to cut as you'd think
3) Using a cutting mat that is only 35 x 35 to cut yards and yards of fabric is kind of the suck
Friday, August 24, 2012
Trash Day
In making the choice to increase our greener actions within our household while decreasing our carbon footprint we have managed with little effort to drastically decrease the amount of waste our household produces each week.
Here is an example:
Right now our garbage goes out every Friday (there's an odd rotating schedule of when the garbage is collected here) and a couple of weeks ago I missed trash pick-up. There have been many times where if we missed trash collection we found ourselves drowning in our own garbage by the next week. Well maybe not drowning, but the can would usually be overflowing.
This time, a week's worth of waste only filled the can about a quarter of the way. At that rate we could miss it a few times without having to worry about having missed it.
Next up on the chopping block is excess plastics. Slow and steady wins the race and making too many life-changing alterations could just leave us backsliding into our old wasteful ways.
Here is an example:
Right now our garbage goes out every Friday (there's an odd rotating schedule of when the garbage is collected here) and a couple of weeks ago I missed trash pick-up. There have been many times where if we missed trash collection we found ourselves drowning in our own garbage by the next week. Well maybe not drowning, but the can would usually be overflowing.
This time, a week's worth of waste only filled the can about a quarter of the way. At that rate we could miss it a few times without having to worry about having missed it.
Next up on the chopping block is excess plastics. Slow and steady wins the race and making too many life-changing alterations could just leave us backsliding into our old wasteful ways.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Pintested Pasta Salad
The other day I had a nice picnic with my husbands grandmother. I brought over a little fried chicken, some pulled pork, some Jewish rye (yeah yeah I can just hear the jokes now about pulled pork with Jewish rye), and a pasta salad I saw at the last minute. I only bought 1/4 pound and really wish I'd bought more because now I'm pretty obsessed with repeating the tastiness.
A few days later I saw this pin on Pintrest and couldn't wait to try it.
I made mine sans Feta, not because I have a problem with Feta but because I was just tired of being at the grocery store by the time I would have had to have gotten it. I also added olives because frankly olives are delicious.
The resulting pasta salad wasn't bad and looked similar to the picture.
A few days later I saw this pin on Pintrest and couldn't wait to try it.
I made mine sans Feta, not because I have a problem with Feta but because I was just tired of being at the grocery store by the time I would have had to have gotten it. I also added olives because frankly olives are delicious.
The resulting pasta salad wasn't bad and looked similar to the picture.
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