Lately, I’ve been making an effort to use more environmentally-friendly personal and cleaning products. Pictured above:
Method toilet bowl cleaner, Method fresh shower spray, Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap (almond), Burt’s Bees facial cleansing cream, raspberry and brazil nut conditioner, milk and honey body lotion, peppermint lip balm, and Nature’s Gate chardonnay moisturizer.
I’ve used the castile soap to make facial cleanser, hand soap, and body wash, all of which I’ve been very happy with. I have a recipe around here somewhere for the facial cleanser (it has honey and vegetable glycerine in it), and the hand soap and body wash are just castile soap diluted with water with a smidge of vegetable glycerine and a wee bit of essential oil (I used ginger).
I just made the switch to “natural” dishwashing liquid and dishwasher detergent. I have not yet managed it with laundry detergent…so expensive…but I plan to when I start working again.
Rand and I have also been making more of an effort to buy organic and/or local foods whenever possible. Luckily for us, Wegmans makes this very easy. (I love the local farmer’s markets, but we don’t make it to one every week.)
I recently saw a delivery truck for Akron Poultry Farms, and I intend to call and get on their delivery route soon. I was checking out the website, and they have lots of great stuff!
Anybody want to recommend any great products?
I think it was Dr. Bronner’s stuff I bought a while back and, when reading the label, was turned off by the bible verses. We have Seventh Generation dish soap and I buy Kiss My Face shower gel. I also like Kiss My Face olive bar soap for my face. I use Dryer Balls instead of fabric softener. I like Burt’s Bees products, too, but I wish they would make mascara.
Do you have a bread machine? I make over half our bread from scratch. I use the bread machine to make the dough and then I bake the bread in the regular oven, as I’m not a fan of the shape of the loaf the bread machine makes. I make hamburger and hot dog rolls, pizza dough, regular bread, Italian bread, etc. It’s great! And there’s nothing like using homemade bread for French toast.
That’s all I can think of for now.
I like the Method stuff too. I also use stuff from Melaluca which use tea tree oil as a cleaner. It works really well. But it’s kind of like Mary Kay or Pampered Chef. You can buy their stuff from ebay though if you wanted to try it.
I tried Simple Green and I will never go back to anything else. It cleans EVERYTHING. They have a bathroom cleaner too. The only cleaning stuff I kept was Clorox spray w/ bleach, some of that preachy soap you have up there and Invisible Glass.
I have to get it at Lowe’s but it’s worth looking for. There are a lot of copycat products so watch out 😉
I’ll look for that!
Yeah, the label is kind of annoying, but I ignore it.
I don’t have a bread machine, but I do enjoy making my own bread. I need to do that more.
Thanks!
Don’t have any fabulous ideas but did want to share that I’m jealous that you get to shop at Wegmans! I love Wegmans and shopped there all the time when I live in Princeton, New Jersey years ago. It was a beautiful store, packing with wonderful fresh foods. I get excited just thinking about it. 🙂
I think Wegmans would be the thing I missed the most if I ever moved away from here! 😉
Lush Lush Lush! 😀
I haven’t been to the store yet, but is there some type of non animal tested/organic hair spray?
The last two bottles I had were Paul Mitchell and they were free from that hair store in the mall.
Ah, I forgot about Simple Green. We have a gallon jug of it in the basement that we use to refill the spray bottle. I have to try to find something like Bronner’s without the Jesus, blah, blah, blah on it, because it just annoys the crap out of me.
Vinegar. Mix it 50/50 with water in a spray bottle; it works wonderfully for anything metal (taps, sinks) or glass (mirrors, shower doors), and floors, and it costs So Much less than “green” products, though it doesn’t smell as pretty.
Pretty much everything that I don’t clean with vinegar, I clean with baking soda. It scrubs really well on bathtubs and sinks.
Natural is not a protected word and there are are so many fake natural ‘soaps’, cleansers and washes.
I have been selling real authentic products to the health food industry for years. However, many people still buy chemical based products for a lot of money because they believe in all the deceptive marketing.
I read the Omnivore’s Dilemma and started to look at how pervasive corn and other oleo-chemicals are in our ‘natural’ bath and body products.
My company makes castile soap and I have created a video called ” Are You Washing With Corn”- view http://mountainskysoap.com/video.php
People have to make choices as to what they buy, as that will drive the market, their health and the planet’s overall sustainability.
Terrific article! I 100 % consent with you.