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Back in February, when I mentioned to a friend of mine that I was trying to clean up our diet by reducing the amount of processed foods we eat, she said she was attempting to do the same thing with her beauty products. At the time, I was so consumed with de-chemicaling what we were putting in our bodies, that it never occurred to me to think about what we were putting on them. Megan specifically mentioned shampoo, which often contains sodium laureth sulfate and sodium lauryl sulfate, both of which are surfactants and while not carcinogenic in small amounts, such as what are found in shampoos, they are known to be irritants. I started to think that while each individual product I use is not necessarily harmful, the compounded amounts and possible side-effects of what my body is absorbing while using all of them at once was probably not the best. I did a little research online and found a large number of people were forgoing shampoo altogether in favor of baking soda and apple cider vinegar rinses. So that's what I started to do.

Initially, I was dissolving one tablespoon of baking soda in one cup of water, and rinsing my hair with it. I would then follow up with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar diluted in 3/4 cup of water, which is supposed to smooth out your hair's cuticles, thus making it shiny. It also makes your hair smell like salad, but only until it dries. (Or gets wet again. I was caught in a rain shower once and noticed my hair smelled again when it got wet.) Over the past three months, I've fine-tuned the process to something that works for me. I wash my hair with a small amount of regular shampoo (so small it doesn't even foam) just to get the excess oil off of the length of my hair. I don't wash it the next day. The third day I put a couple of tablespoons of baking soda in my hand, add enough water from the shower to make a paste, then I rub that onto my roots. I rinse it and follow up with a little bit of hair conditioner. The fourth day I don't wash it. The fifth day I do the baking soda paste/conditioner again, then on the sixth or seventh day, I use a small amount of shampoo, and start the cycle all over. Back in February when I first started using baking soda, I had about 1/4 of a bottle of shampoo. A month and a half later, I still had about 1/4 of a bottle of shampoo. Around that time I added water to it to stretch it out, and even now I have a lot of it left. If I had carried on with my usual shampoo habits, by now I would have already used up two or three bottles. It's definitely saving money and plastic, as well as all of the resources that go into making the shampoo and the bottles, but it's also not putting a lot of unnecessary chemicals into my system or into the environment.

Speaking to my vanity, I actually like my hair more the further into the cycle I am because it's easier to manage and actually has body. As my scalp's natural oil production continues to regulate itself, I'm hoping I'll be able to longer and longer between shampoos.

Posted by Jenn at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Before Holly was born, I knew that I wanted to go down a different diapering road than the Pampers one I had travelled with Henry. Don't get me wrong: I loves me some Pampers! Disposable diapers are so convenient. However, for a while now I've been experiencing post-disposable guilt over the hundreds of diapers that are sitting in a landfill somewhere filled with, well, you know, and there they will sit for another 500 years. After doing some research (read: asking my friend Megan what she does and deciding to do that, too) I decided to go the gDiaper route. She and another friend lent me their small gDiapers and Megan got me a medium size starter kit plus a few extra gPants as a baby gift. I used the flushable/compostable inserts when Holly was little, but it became very clear after she graduated to the medium/large size insert that our toilet wasn't particularly happy: it started clogging with increasing frequency. Since we don't have a composter, we ended up tossing them into the trash. Not a terrible thing, but not quite what I was hoping for either.

Twice Megan told me she has been using cloth inserts in the gDiapers for her second kid and that they work great, but I was only ready to really register and digest that fact the second time she mentioned it. After doing a bit of online research (for real this time), I decided to make the switch. I picked up a couple of packs of Gerber trifold cloth diapers to use as inserts, and ordered flushable liners to help with poop disposal. So far, I've been very happy with how it's been going.

The breakdown is: After I wash (great washing instructions here) the cloth inserts and liners (which you can usually wash and reuse at least once), I assemble a days worth of diapers so I don't have to worry about it during diaper changes. At first I was a bit of a dope in the way I was folding the cloth inserts. They're a bit longer than the gPants, so I was folding them under a little bit on each end, until I read somewhere that you should fold them under where the "wet zone" is for extra absorption. Totally obvious solution, however, my brain didn't go there for whatever reason. Per Megan's suggestion I use an old pillowcase, which I put in the Diaper Dekor
we used for Henry, to hold the soiled diapers. When it's time to wash the diapers, which I do approximately every three days, I throw the pillowcase in as well. So far we haven't had any issues with smells because the poop goes right into the toilet, but I have read in a number of places that a few drops of tea tree oil, which has natural disinfectant qualities, in the diaper pail would help. I've ordered some just in case.

At night we still use disposable diapers, either Earth's Best (which I prefer for the fit), 7th Generation, or Full Circle diapers, depending on where I happen to be shopping. We generally only use one disposable at night so one bag lasts us a long time.

All in all it was surprisingly easy to make the switch to cloth.

Posted by Jenn at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have been making an effort to make small changes in our life that reflect our somewhat slow-to-come realization that not only is our family not the sole one living on the face of the Earth, but that we are surrounded by a community and world full of great kids who would probably like to inherit a planet that's in somewhat good shape in terms of sustainability. It's taken us a bit too long to get to this point, but with dawning realization comes the strong desire and commitment to actually research and put changes into action.

Now, I can't plead total ignorance about water conservation. As a child of the '80's, I was taught in school that if things kept going the way they were, there'd be a water shortage, and that it would happen very soon. I even remember a Cosby episode that mentioned water conservation, and how all the Huxtable kids had to turn off the water faucet while they were brushing their teeth, which I also got into the habit of doing (behold the power of television). I also tried very hard to take shorter showers, but that one was really tough.

My best friend in high school lived in an older house. I don't recall if she had a dishwasher, but I do remember hanging out in her kitchen and talking, talking, eating Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and talkingtalkingtalking while she washed dishes in her sink. She had a flow regulator on her faucet that allowed her to stop the water with the flip of a lever instead of having to turn the water all the way off and on. Every once in a while, since moving in with Dave, I would get on a humbug and search high and low for one, never having any success, until finally, last month I found some. I'm not sure if they've been around the whole time and I've been looking in the wrong places, or if they're seeing a resurgence in popularity in light of the green movement. I ordered one for the kitchen and one for bathroom. After years of searching, you have no idea how excited I was when they arrived in the mail. They were immediately put to use, and I absolutely love them. The habit of flipping the lever while you're washing your hands or doing dishes forms quickly, and every time I stop the flow of water, I'm conscious of the water we're not using. That's a pretty good feeling.

Posted by Jenn at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)