Safe Cosmetics ~ Healthy Faces by Eve Organics

How to Switch to Organic Produce, Without Going Broke

I know I mentioned before that I subscribe to Dr. Weil's email newsletter.  He is highly regarded in the field of alternative medicine and natural health; I believe his insight on a wide range of topics, from breathing correctly to natural pet care, is endless.  I love to absorb everything I can from his posts.

This video about organic produce was part of a recent newsletter. I think it's totally worthwhile to watch.   

Do you want to eat organic, but feel it's too hard to find organic products readily available or that it's too expensive to completely switch over?  Dr. Weil has a concise little video with tips on doing just that.  It explains the "Dirty Dozen" produce and the "Clean 15" so that you can integrate organic and conventional produce, while still feeling comfortable that you're purchasing the healthiest fruits and veggies out there . . .  and, just a hint, they don't all have to be organic!

 

What do you think?  Any comments on Dr. Weil's suggestions?

De-Mystifying Lip Balm and Lotion Ingredients

I received an article written by Melissa Cooper Sargent of LocalMotionGreen.org.  It gets down to the nitty gritty on ingredients.  I am totally reproducing it here.  It's a good read:

Lip Balms and Lotions

To beat the dry days of winter choose lotions, lip balms and other moisturizing products made from plant oils (such as sweet almond, apricot kernel, jojoba, sunflower and olive) or plant butters (such as shea or cocoa), rather than petroleum based products containing mineral oil, petrolatum or paraffin.

Debra Lynn Dadd, author of Home Safe Home, writes "Mineral oil, in fact, dries the skin, so youhave to keep applying the cream...skin absorbs the natural oil more easily, an dit is more healing than mineral oil."  The "protective" layer petroleum products form on the skin and lips actually prevents moisture absorption.  Mineral oil has also been linked to arthritis in animal studies.

Toxic Clothes? The Organic Trade Association Rates Your Laundry Detergent

I just received an article from The Organic Trade Association rating the safety of laundry detergents.  1,4 Dioxane, which is a synthetic cancer causer made from petrochemicals seems to be very prevalent in laundry detergents.  An independent party tested the most popular brands and rates them from worst to best.

In a nutshell, here are their findings:

Conventional brands:
1. Tide (P&G) – 55 parts per million (ppm)
2. Ivory Snow Gentle (P&G) – 31 ppm
3. Tide Free (P&G) – 29 ppm
4. Purex (Dial Corp.) – 25 ppm
5. Gain 2X Ultra (P&G) – 21 ppm
6. Cheer BrightClean Detergent (P&G) – 20 ppm
7. Era 2X Ultra (P&G) – 14 ppm
8. Arm & Hammer (Church & Dwight Co.) – 5.0 ppm
9. Wisk 2X Ultra (Sun Products Corp.) – 3.9 ppm
10. Woolite Complete Detergent (Reckitt Benckiser) – 1.3 ppm
11. All laundry detergent (Unilever) – 0.6 ppm
12. Dreft powdered detergent (P&G) – non-detectable (ND)
13. Sun Burst (Sun Products Corp.) – ND

"Natural" brands:
1. Planet Ultra Liquid laundry detergent – 6.1 ppm
2. Mrs. Meyers laundry detergent – 1.5 ppm
3. Clorox Green Works Natural laundry detergent – ND
4. Ecos laundry detergent (Earth Friendly Products) – ND
5. Life Tree Laundry Liquid – ND
6. Method Squeaky Green laundry detergent – ND
7. Seventh Generation Free & Clear laundry detergent – ND

Read the full article here.

Green Festival Chicago - Here We Are!

It's been a whirlwind the last few weeks. . . we've been planning for some really fun events and campaigns we'll be rolling out in the next few months.  Check in and follow us. . .

Today begins the Green Festival weekend here on Navy Pier in Chicago.  We'll update you soon on the fun and events we've experienced!

We Need Your Input!

This may not be the type of post you'd expect on our blog, but we need input and help!  In our quest to continuously become more sustainable and keep our products safe for our customers, we have been searching for almost 3 years now for more sustainable packaging for our skin care products.  Right now, we use the best choice in plastic.  We chose not to use glass because most people don't like the idea of glass in the bathroom.  Also, glass is heavier and shipping is therefore more expensive and less earth-friendly.

We have been looking for jars, bottles and tubes or any other type of eco-friendly packaging ~ post-consumer recycled plastic, corn-based plastic, recycled cardboard, bamboo, etc.

I know you are primarily customers and not vendors, but I know our customers care and have great ideas and contacts.  You never know.  If any of you have ideas on packaging, contacts who deal with this type of packaging or even articles or other companies that you think may help with this, please let us know!

My email is info@eveorganics.net

I would appreciate any insight on the subject. . . I know you'll come through!  Thank you in advance.

Sharron

5 Tips to "Greening" Your Home

I have been reading a lot of tips lately on how to green your home, little by little.  Becoming more environmentally conscious does not have to be an all or nothing thing.  Pick what you feel is tugging at your heart the most and start there.

I will be periodically adding tips I pick up to pass on.  All it takes is a little spark to get ya' going.

1.  Cut Back on Paper Towels -  Try to use cotton washcloths, hand towels or washable viscose cloths (more absorbent than paper towel) in the kitchen.

2.  Avoid BPA - Blisphenol A (a cancer-causing chemical found in many plastic containers, known to leach into food and drinks) is found in many food or drink containers.  Try to only use safer plastic containers, labeled #2, #4 or #5 on the bottom.

3.  Use Reusable Shopping Bags - Using recycled or reusable shopping bags saves a ton of plastic waste.

4.  Keep a Full Freezer - Empty freezers use more energy to stay cold that full ones.  If you don't have a ton of food in there, fill bags of ice to fill in the open spaces.

5. Forget the Garbage Disposal - Either compost to reuse food scraps as fertilizer or throw away (yes, I said throw away) food scraps.  It takes much more energy to run the garbage disposal, and the food ends up in the landfill after taking a trip through the sewage treatment plant.  Besides energy savings, you'll save 2,000 gallons of water a year too.

Sometimes just hearing simple tips helps us get started.  Again, it's not an all or nothing, but starting to take simple steps means everything.

Realearning the Lesson: Not Everything Organic is Truly Green

I ran across this post on The Green Beauty Guide blog.  I just wanted to bring to your attention that everything organic is NOT truly green, as Julie says in her post. And it just reiterates that reading ingredients is the most important part of deciphering between truly safe and unsafe products. The label is not always clear, or true for that matter.

 
Nutriganics by The Body Shop: Not Everything Organic is Truly Green

October 10th, 2009 · No Comments

I was very excited to learn about the new Nutriganics line by The Body Shop. Touted as the first certified organic (at least in the UK) line of cleanser, toner, day and night moisturizers, serum, and eye cream, the line looks quite green, and the ingredients are quite decent.

Read More of this Post . . .

via thegreenbeautyguide.com

My Green Week 2 Cents

In honor of Green Week, my suggestion for the holiday season is to bring your own bags with you while shopping for presents. Consumer waste (including shopping bags) goes up 25% during the holidays. Do your part by bringing your own reusable bag. Besides helping out the environment, reusable bags are sturdier and more comfortable to carry!

Home Grown Roasted Tomato Soup Recipe

If you garden, I'm sure you're trying to figure out what to do with the overabundance of tomatoes. I was contemplating just that when I remembered an episode of Tyler's Ultimate I watched a couple of months ago, featuring Roasted Tomato Soup.

I found the recipe on-line and improvised with what I had in the house.  My version (which, by the way, was sooooo deep in flavor . . . it was awesome!) ended up like this:

3 lbs of various tomatoes

(I had orange cherry, yellow heirloom and red big boys(?). . . I don't know . . .some kind of red.  The idea is to have a couple of different kinds if you have them)

2 yellow onions, sliced thick

6 cloves garlic, smashed

1/4 c. olive oil

salt and pepper

1 quart + 1 cup chicken stock

2 bay leaves

2 Tablespoons butter

3/4 c. organic half-and-half, optional

Basil to Garnish

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Core and cut tomatoes in half, or quarters if large.  No need to cut the cherry tomatoes.  Place tomatoes in a roasting pan with onions and garlic.  Add olive oil, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly into vegetables by hand.  Roast in oven for about 30 minutes, or until carmelized.  Remove from oven.

In a large saucepan add roasted vegetables, chicken stock, bay leaves, and butter.  Bring to a boil; then reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes to reduce liquid.  Use an immersion blender to puree soup until smooth.  Reduce heat and add half-and-half.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Garnish bowls with sprigs of basil.

I then bought a little round loaf of whole grain bread, sliced it, drizzled it with olive oil and fresh grated parmesan.  I threw them under the broiler until the parmesan melted and browned.  OMG! 

Easy, filling and yummy.

What are your favorite recipes for excess garden vegetables?  Let us know.  Leave a comment.

5 Reasons to Buy (and Eat) Organic Food

I just read the feature article in TIME Magazine (August 31, 2009) titled "The Real Cost of Cheap Food".  The jist of the article is that, even though organic food is more expensive at the store, when the impact on our health and the earth is considered, the price difference doesn't seem so bad.  What I liked about the article is that it was very fact driven and thorough without being preachy. 

I won't go on for three pages.  Nor will I preach about what you should or shouldn't do.  I just want to throw some stuff out there to ponder about conventional vs. organic food:

1.  HEALTH.  Pigs, cows and chickens fed the conventional way are so overcrowded in small pens (feedlots) that they even cut off the pig's tails so that they won't bite each other.  The livestock are fed corn (fattener, which was grown with chemical fertilizers), and antibiotics to "prevent" them from getting sick.  They are slaughtered at a very young age, so they can be sold as "cheap" meat. The antibiotics get passed into the meat, and on to us. 

2.  EARTH PRESERVATION.  There are over 400 "dead zones" in the oceans due to runoff of billions of tons of chemical fertilizers and manure from overcrowded pens, such as the 6,000 sq. mile dead zone where the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  This area has almost no oxygen, and consequently is void of all marine life.  Pesticides and fertilizers are robbing our fertile farms of nutrient rich soil.  Contrastly, grass fed and free range animals' manure composts into the ground, free of chemicals and keep the soil rich in nutrients.  Taken directly from the article, the farmers say, "If you don't take care of your land, it can't take care of you". 

3.  OUR WAISTLINES.  The skewed goverment subsidies for corn, in part, have created a push for cheap food products made from corn and corn by-products (e.g. high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, etc.).  America has made it cheap to eat badly and it is showing in our waistlines.  Another contributing factor is the quick fattening methods used for livestock to "get it to market", resulting in fatty, hormone and antibiotic laden meat.  It just isn't as healthy or lean as organic meat or poultry.

4.  JOBS.  Organic farming requires more hired hands.  Especially here in Michigan, where we have the highest unemployment rate in the country AND many farms, switching to more sustainable growing practices should be a no brainer. 

5.  TASTE.  Organic farming rotates crops in nutrient rich soil and  allows produce (and meat for that matter) to grow in a natural time span, giving it time to develop flavor.  Organic food tastes better!

Check out the entire article by purchasing the 8/31/09 issue of TIME Magazine.