I was dreaming of a GREEEEEENNNN Christmas!

Hello

My name is bwings and I had a delightfully green Christmas this year.

Some things not shown in the video would be the hot air popcorn popper and a natural loofah as well as a loofah made using recycled plastic. I am not sure if it is common knowledge, but a loofah is in actuality a plant. Just as the marshmallow was originally a plant, a mallow that grew in the marsh. Now it is a sugar creation of pig tendons and flavoring, but it was once a native american favorite sticky delicacy from the marsh.

A loofah, luffa, or lufah is a tropical/subtropical plant of the cucumber family that is harvested before maturity in Asia and Africa and eaten. A loofah that is harvested after it's ripened is dried and used as a plant sponge for bath or kitchen, as a natural remedy for jaundice,  or to make the soles of beach sandals.
I am positively in love with my new loofah, ever since moving into this new place I found my feet got cracked and dry quickly. Scratching against my blankets at night and sending shivers down my spine. With the natural loofah it is more coarse and helps scrub off the dead foot skin *yummy*. I can use it and know that it's from a natural self-sustaining source rather than plastic/pvc created with harmful chemicals and sitting in a waste pile for years.


My hot air popper I have used almost everyday since I opened it. Not good for my diet as popcorn might be fat free but calories WOOOO but that's a discussion for my bridal blog. I have childhood memories of standing the correct distance from our popcorn popper and waiting anxiously to watch the popcorn fly out. I would be mesmerized by this and now so is my daughter. It's a delightful way to make popcorn, easy and PFOA free.

Shown in the video was a gift of Natures Gate shampoo & body wash. Their products have:

• No Phthalates or Parabens
• No Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfates
• No Animal Derived Ingredients
• No Animal Testing
• No Synthetic Fragrance
• No EDTA (at least in the products I received) 

and in addition they, as a company, support Water Aid America which helps communities in Asia and Africa gain access to sustainable supplies of safe, clean water.

Lastly but most adorably the video shows how Asmerus, when wrapping my present, tenderly reused wrapping paper as part of his gift to me. Every year I salvage what I can of the paper to be reused the next year. I'm not anal when unwrapping, I don't carefully pull tape away from the paper so as not to make a tear. But after everything is done I will fold up the less tattered paper and put it in a box to use the next year. I save every bag and have reused some bags in this house since 2007. It would date back further but before 2007 I was between houses for 3 years. Having been nomadic for so long I couldn't sacrifice storage space on a moving trip to bags and paper. Selfish yes, but it was just not realistic at the time. Since 2007 we've been in the same basic location and so I have built up quite the collection of bags and tissue paper. I know Asmerus wouldn't likely reuse paper or bags were it not for my organized storage of such things. Alas I love him that much more for having done it just to make me smile.

The end of the video shows the aftermath and what remains. I am proud to say that of all that paper I removed all tape and recycled what I wasn't going to reuse. I was rather amazed with just how much reusable paper I got out of this years paper. I thought that a lot would have to be recycled based on how small our daughter was shredding them. But I ended up with a full box of reusable paper and not even an eighth of a standard recycling bag full of recycling paper. 3 full bags of cardboard though!!!

All-in-all it was a pretty green Christmas (lack of snow and all)

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That is all from your friendly neighborhood hippie mom for now. 

Rapunzel throw down your EDTA free hair!

Hi,

My name is "Bwings" and my luscious locks are EDTA free!

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I'd discovered some of our shampoos had EDTA in them. Among MANY other products. I had vowed that upon replacing the shampoo I would ensure it's EDTA free quality. Last night was that night and, as I suspected, an EDTA free product was not easily found. Let's do a refresher on what EDTA is in case you forgot. This most concerns my fish eating friends I suspect.

When it comes to EDTA you must take the god with the bad I'm afraid. EDTA has the unusual ability to bond with complex metals. This can be good if you have suffered lead poisoning. In such cases a doctor may choose to inject you with Na₂CaEDTA over 6 hours for 5 days. Another good use is to bind Ca⁺² ion as an anticoagulant in stored blood at blood banks. Great uses that help instead of hinder. 


Now the over used aspect would be it's common use in soap, hand cream, body wash, shampoo, detergents and bubble bath. In detergents it is used as a replacement for phosphates which suffocate fish by mass producing algae. However, is unable to bio-degrade in the environment. EDDS has started making cycles as a biodegradable replacement to EDTA. But you'd be amazed with just how much EDTA is still used. So why does this most effect my fish eating friends? EDTA goes into our water and bonds with metals. Fish then live in this water and ingest higher amounts of mercury. My friends then eat these fish and thus ingest even higher amounts of mercury. Similar story to my beef eating friends. We spray the fields with pesticides, the cow then eats the grain and becomes filled with pesticides, one then eats the beef with a side of grain and acquires twice as much pesticides. But I won't go into that right now.


Last night I went on a mission to replace my EDTA shampoo and discovered just how hard this was! I found 4 shampoos that were EDTA free, 1 of those had a paraben and went back on the shelf. 2 others were incredibly expensive and I'll stock up on ONLY when they are on sale. The last one, the one I purchased, was a brand called "Live Clean". The humor in this being my having read the back of each bottle before the front. Upon making my selection I flipped the bottle back to the front and discovered it to state it was pure vegan, sulfate and paraben free. My friend, who had accompanied me by phone, stated I'd have checked the back regardless of the front as one can never trust such statements. 


Absolute fact, true, some shampoos will claim 99.9% natural ingredients. What they don't state is that those natural ingredients were simply soaked in water and then that water was used as the basis for the chemical cocktail. Shampoo can soak rose petals in water and then use the water and claim to be using natural extract from roses. Tricky tricky.

As usual I encourage one to take what I find and form their own opinion. But for now, this is my report from the field, from your friendly neighborhood hippie mom.