Cosmetics with a concept

You know I'm a Lush lady, not only because their products are natural and are not tested on animals, but also because I won't put on my skin anything I wouldn't put in to my mouth.

If you're not really sure what all the fuss is about, maybe it's time to reconsider the largest breathing organ of your body. And if you're thinking lungs then your biology teacher probably needs a new job.

It's freaking hard to find a good cosmetic shop that satisfies all the criteria. But I did, even if it was by pure coincidence.

OrCa is the place where you can shop cruelty free (well, except the fact they still endorse the plastic bags). Their products are organic, not tested on animals and in most of the cases also vegan.

Not a breaking news, I know, but what really makes them different is that they donate a part of their monthly profit to animal asylum Horjul.

They also have a special box for extra donations with some material on taking care of your pets. Now that's what I call putting the money where your mouth is. Very neat, very sweat.

Also the shop is quite cute and I got my eye on few more things so I'm definitely coming back.

P.S There is also a downside - the coconut body milk I bought smells soooo nice I keep on sniffing my hand and putting off the weirdo detector. Sigh.

Consumerism with a face

Consumerism is almost unavoidable, unless you have a self sufficient farm/house and depend only upon yourself. Being able to buy things doesn't necessarily mean being irresponsible individual who only cares about his/her needs. Rather than"I spend there for I am" I'd like to live upon "I act the way I think" principle.

I decided to become more responsible type of a consumer, being careful about who I give my money to. Now I might not be rich enough to be able to afford fair trade products only but I did make few decisions on what to change when I buy things (or as we Slovenians say: "Start by tidying your own doorstep." ).

So what is really that I can do about it? Well, for start I decide to:

1. Ban buying things made in countries that use "cheap" labor force. Sure it costs lest, but I will not give my money to people who support exploitation. I'm willing to pay fair price for fair amount of work. It doesn't mean I will spend more money for shopping, it means I will think whether I really need new pair of sneakers only because existing ones are out of fashion.
   
   
2. Buy my fruits/vegetables on organic market. I prefer to give my money directly to farmers than to supermarket, who usually sells frozen stuff of low quality, rich with pesticides. Buying cheaper fruits doesn't mean saving money - it means eating crap quality food for low costs, resulting in crap quality "vitamins" that don't make you feel any better.
   
   
3. Pay more attention to the content than design: I prefer to buy a big bottle of yogurt rather than taking lots of small cute cups. For the things I use more often I prefer to "produce" as little garbage as possible. Remember, design doesn't reflect quality - usually it's the other way around: attractive design covers for poor content (especially evident in cosmetic industry).
   
   
4. Make my own gifts. I've tried to do it as often as possible - not only they are unique but they also show your care for person. Since I don't always have enough time to make my own gift, I'd sometimes buy a nice book instead. It is the though that counts.
   
   
5. Favor natural medicine before official one. I don't need to take a pill for every little inch I feel in my body. In fact, I'd like to give AS LITTLE MONEY AS POSSIBLE to the pharmaceutic industry. They don't want me to get well, they want me to stay ill and spebd more money. Let's be honest, healthy people don't spend money as easily as sick people do. So I'll put special effort to stay as healthy as I can (and quit my bad smoking habit asap).
   
   
6. Stop buying things "just in case". I have my closet full of "just in case" clothes I wore maybe one time but it most cases not even that. Not to mention some of "just in case" food, I never used. "Just in case" stuff usually ends either forgotten somewhere or as a gift to your friend.
   
   
7. Say no to plastic bags. They are everywhere and it's hard to escape massive collection of them as you get them for free even without asking. The truth is plastic bags are usually blown away from garbage disposals and end up on trees, in the sea or in some animals' mouth/throat. What's the alternative? Cotton/paper bags you can reuse for a longer period of time.
   
   
8. Reuse and rearrange old furniture. Luckily I have that creative inch to play around with old stuff and make something attractive out of it. I have to admit I love Ikea, but I will not go there for shopping anymore. Not only because they use cheap labor force to make their stuff, but also because it is low quality. Let's be honest, nothing is cheap when you have to buy it twice.
   
   
9. Save some money for cultural events. I think cultural activity is perhaps one of the most important things for one nations' identity and I'll be glad to put my money where my mouth is. Few Euro's is small price to say: I love and support your work.
   
   
10. Support the Polluter pays principle. We should get more aware of our responsibility towards environment. Until educational system manages to spread knowledge about it let the cash speak. Sometimes it's the only way to understand.

All of this might not change the world in a day but it's a start. Thinking global and acting local is far more successful than you can imagine. So what is your own personal consumer manifesto?

Happy B-day

To our little planet. And if you feel like doing something beyond recycling, I recommend watching this video and reconsidering the brand of cosmetic products you buy:

Earthhour

As you probably know tomorrow between 8 - 9 p.m. you can join Earthour campaign by turning your lights off for 1 hour. Sounds easy, doesn't it? But an hour without lights on ...Wonder what to do in the meantime?

Here are just a few suggestions:

• make spin-off to "Blairwitch project" movie,
  
• make customs out of old bet sheets, wear them and surprise your neighbors/flat mates,
• have an evening of telling horror stories by the candle,
  
• have a walk around the city to see how many people turned off their lights,
• have a romantic candle light dinner,
• make love.

Hope you'll make the best of it, I know I will.

Pet artwork

My hamster appears to have a good taste in clothes.
Hm....maybe he's trying to tell me something...

Love or lust?

Probably both. I've found few new products to spend my money on - the only problem now is to decide what will come first.

The "Fusion"TM Messenger Bag









Ecostrip power strip








or SolarRoll















Can't help it - I'm such a green gadget slut!

See more of cool green gadgets - via Digg

Exaggerating?

I don't know, you tell me:

Natural cosmetics, not tested on animals.








I've tried lots of different brands until now but only Lush feels different.

So what's your excuse?

The one and only

Or should I say the one and lonely. Today I read an article about The 10 Rarest Animals in the World. We all know some animals are being extinct so it's not shocking big news and some might even call it the natural cycle of life. However there is something very touching about the whole story. Curious?

Lonesome George, the only existing Pinta Island tortoise. When he dies, his species will extinct. The Charles Darwin Research Station offered an award of $10,000 for a Pinta female. No luck so far. George has never seen any tortoise of his kind or ever mated. He's been living an involuntarily celibacy his whole life.

Now I don't know how George feels (if he feels anything at all) having no company of his own species, but only thinking about it makes me really sad. Even though I hate crowds and would prefer to move someplace less populated (possibly not populated at all) I know I couldn't be completely by myself for the rest of my life. Luckily I have a choice.

This song is for George, the lonesome turtle in the Galapagos.

Beth Gibbons: Mysteries

Environmental blogging

Up-2-date Proverbs

After a week of internetless vacation (report coming up soon), partying, relaxing and being plain silly, I came back to my more or less wired reality. Unread emails, posts and tags - all hungry for fresh clicks. Among them I got this cheerful spam of Silicon proverbs:

1. Home is where you hang your @
2. The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail
3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click
4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks
5. Great groups from little icons grow
6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone
7. C:\ is the root of all directories
8. Don't put all your hypes in one home page
9. Pentium wise; pen and paper foolish
10. The modem is the message
11. Too many clicks spoil the browse
12. The geek shall inherit the earth
13. A chat has nine lives.
14. Don't byte off more than you can view.
15. Fax is stranger than fiction
16. What boots up must come down
17. Windows will never cease
18. In Gates we trust
19. Virtual reality is its own reward
20. Modulation in all things
21. A user and his leisure time are soon parted
22. There's no place like home.com!
23. Know what to expect before you connect
24. Oh, what a tangled Web site we weave when first we practice
25. Speed thrills
26. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks

Glad to see recycling goes all the way ;)

Love, life and ecology

Yesterday I saw I heart Huckabees. Even though the movie is typical American production, the story itself is quite amazing and partly insane. I loved the characters, the actors and the whole plot. Besides the obvious there are some additional reasons why I liked it so much:

• it has some really good dialogues,
• it tackles some existential questions,
• it is about sustainable development.

In the past few years, environmental stuff has somehow grown close to me - maybe because I'm getting old. I never suspected this would evolve from hugging trees while being drunk, but well...I'll start worrying when I find myself chained to an oil tanker.

So far I just had another inspiration for my turbo ecological hobby. I decided to recycle toilet paper carton roll. There is so many of them, maybe I could do the whole series. But this time I needed an extra pencil cup.

Secret ingredients: toilet paper carton roll, black paper, silk white lace, strong string, glue, wooden corals or jewelry leftovers, some imagination and voilà!

Before:















After:

Lavender bags

One of very useful things my mother has taught never to waste potentially usable materials. And before you ask - no, I am not one of those manic plastic bottles or garbage collectors. Her philosophy on economizing is mostly about re usage of things like old shirts, mops, buttons, cups, pots etc.

So for this occasion we had some domestic lavender fun with old piece of fabric. I guess I was inspired after reading Arto Passilinna's famous "rabbit" book. So this is what I started with

Before:













And wrapped it up like this...

After:














I think I'm gonna give them away this x-mas :)