I was chatting with two of my housemates the other day about beauty products and they were surprised to hear that I did not use specialized beauty care products like face wash or facial moisturizer. Rather, I rinse my face with warm water (or soap if I put on sunscreen) and then moisturize with pure argan oil. Our conversation reminded me that my minimal beauty routine was not always so minimal. Like most women, I’ve tried hundreds of personal care products over my teenage and adult years. When I was younger, I constantly switched which shampoo and conditioner that I used based upon what was cheapest at the grocery store. I owned multiple bags full of cosmetics, constantly searching for a lipstick that didn’t dry out my lips, mascara that wouldn’t run but would easily wash off or eye make up that wouldn’t crease. I spent way too much time and money trying new products, always looking for something that worked better or was cheaper.Read More »

Ladies, it is time to reconsider how you manage your period for the good of your wallets and our planet. According to this article, women in the United States spend from $150 to $300 per year on menstrual products. Over her lifetime, the average woman will use 11,000 tampons and the manufacturing process is resource-intensive, full of chemicals and all tampons end up wrapped in one or more kinds of plastic, depending on if you use an applicator or not. That’s a lot of hard earned cash being spent each year on your period and a lot of waste being generated per person. What if we could easily solve those problems with one small change?Read More »

Last night, my husband and I sat down to watch a documentary called The True Cost, which looks at the true cost of the fast fashion industry that has developed over the past few decades. By the end, tears were streaming down my face and I was overwhelmed with anger at the clothing companies who are getting rich at a very high cost to us. I was familiar with the concepts in the documentary from reading a book called Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, but seeing video footage of the problem always makes it hit home harder than words in a book. Clear your evening and watch the documentary (it’s on Netflix); it’ll take 90 minutes of your life and is guaranteed to move you, but to paraphrase a bit of what it covers:

• Fast fashion is a relatively new trend; we went from owning fewer clothes of better quality to more clothes of cheaper quality that wear out quickly and are disposed of quickly. This is causing an environmental crisis because the cost of producing clothing is high to both our environment and people who work in the garment industry.Read More »