The Modern Hippy

     A few months ago I started a hunt on etsy to find someone whom provided safe cosmetics. I read through countless ingredients list, profile pages. I managed to narrow it down to what I was looking for specifically – mineral foundation and eyeshadow. Which really, only narrowed it down a little. I eventually decided to try a sample pack from a little shop called Orglamix. I liked what she said, her ingredients lists, and the pictures were just so fetching!
     I love her stuff! I’ve ordered from her several times in the last few months. My makeup case has been recreated without chemicals. Cheri is my makeup girl!
     In December I ran out of my foundation so I ordered the large size for winter color. And got it, along with a couple of sample eyeshadows. Lovely! (The other time I ordered from her she sent a sample as well. I love samples!)
     Then yesterday, Rick got the mail and brought me yet another package. I wasn’t expecting anything. I already had my handmade shoes delivered a week ago. (Yes, handmade! With vintage fabric! I’m in love with them and will eventually do a post on them in the future.) I opened the package to find two of my foundation color! With the order form from December. I was confused to say the least. Today, I sent her a message and asked what I should do. I offered to pay for them, ship them back, whatever she wanted me to do. She sent me a quick note that it was a mistake, but don’t worry, they were on her! I still feel strange about keeping them. But since I plan on ordering from her indefinitely, she will definitely get more money from me. (I wish there was a way to tip through paypal)
     I wanted to tell everyone whom reads my little blog that Cheri at Orglamix is super awesome! Thank you Cheri for your kindness, and great service!

     This year for Christmas we decided to cut down on the quantity of presents and go for quality instead. It’s not that we didn’t get good present before but there was definitely a lot of them. Since at the moment I am on a decluttering rampage the last thing I want to do is to add to someone else’s clutter. So this year, more thought, possible usefulness, and cost are always on my mind while wracking my brain for ideas.

     I’ve done some shopping on Etsy, at the craft store, at the thrift stores and our co-op. This year, so far things seem to be less stressful. The nice thing about doing things like this is it’s more eco-friendly. If you get something that is actually useful then it’s less likely to get thrown in the garbage after it’s sat amoungst clutter for several months or years. Of course shopping locally is important because it’s those local shops and companies that keep a local economy afloat, NOT Walmart. In fact, though I do still visit Jo-Ann Fabrics, it’s those huge chains that can hurt a local economy and the local people, perhaps even including you and me. On top of all that is the clutter consideration. I’ve been dealing with a lot of clutter because I’ve acquired many things I thought I needed in the last few years. Living in too much clutter isn’t good for anyone, so by getting something useful that will actually be appreciated and used you aren’t causing a challenge for anyone else.
     Some other ideas for Christmas(brought up by a friend of mine whom has done this herself), if you aren’t sure what to get someone or even what you want for a gift why not donate or have someone else donate to your favorite charity? In King County(think Seattle) most of the city run animal shelters are being shut down because of a lack of funds. This is going to be challenging for the remaining privately run shelters as they will be dealing with even more animals. Why not find a local shelter and find out what they need, buy it and bring it, or just right a check? Or if you can become a foster home for a dog or cat? There are also a lot of people whom may need help. Find a family in need or donate to a local homeless shelter or soup kitchen.
     There are so many things you can do to make your holiday special in a different way; to take it out of the mainstream crazy rush. It’s limited only by time and imagination. And of course, like myself, I’m sure there are many people out there willing to share their ideas. So ask away! Happy Holidays!

     (August)
     In the last few months I’ve noticed my hair getting more brittle and looking less healthy. I’ve had very little spendable money in the last few months so I put off doing anything. Then I had a chat with a friend whom brought something back to my attention. She says that washing your hair daily is hard on it. I’ve heard this but never worried until recently. She washes her hair only a couple of times in a week. To clarify, she only uses shampoo a couple of times in a week. She still gets it wet and runs her fingers through it to spread out the oils. Her hair always looks fabulous. So, while we were camping I tried it out. The first shower I didn’t wash my hair with shampoo. I had washed it the night before we left so there was no product in it. It didn’t seem too gross – though I could still feel the oil. The next day I did wash my hair and could tell not all the oil had washed away. My hair was super soft and shiny. About a week after we got back from our trip, while I was twiddling my thumbs – work hours were cut back to nothing – I decided to give it a good try.
     My friend said that after awhile of washing every other day, her head produced less oil. Then she let it go 2 days before washing and it gradually adjusted the oil production again. At first it was gross and super oily, but her body regulated itself. I had heard of this relating to body oil, such as on the face. I have super oily skin, no problem with dry skin here! When I was going through puberty I washed my face too much and it got grossly oily. After I stopped washing it so much it decreased a little, to something more tolerable – though still pubescent oily.
     My friend also mentioned that her hair doesn’t tangle anymore. The natural oils seem to keep her hair silky and knot free. I want that! Sometimes I have dreads on the bottom layer of my hair at the end of the day! I don’t want dreads, they aren’t for me. Some people can pull them off. I am not one of them – nor do I want to try. So letting my hair oil up a bit may be worth the constant breaking from untangling “knotty” hair.

     I’m about 6 days into my experiment. It’s easy to comb through my hair now! I love that! I’m on an every other day regime. The no wash days have been interesting. I’ve felt gross, but perhaps it’s just my obsessiveness, not actually being gross. The days I don’t wash I rinse and massage my scalp. Rinsing my hair helps to distribute the oil through my hair. I do use some conditioner as an extra guarantee that tangles will come out. Yesterday was my first glimpse into what sort of hair I may get at the end of this. It was so healthy looking that Rick noticed it. My hair isn’t tangling at all now. It’s so exciting!
Aside from not using shampoo every day I’ve tried not to use any hair spray. I did one day, a no wash day – that was the disaster day that I used too much conditioner. The fly-aways are tolerable. I’m rediscovering things to do with my hair that don’t require spray or that won’t show how greasy I feel my hair can get. Braids, pigtails and little messy buns help to control my long hair now.
Stay tuned for an update on my hair experiment. I want to try to give it thorough cleaning using oil! Haha, sounds crazy huh? Well, we’ll find out!

     Current:
     It’s in November, I’ve been doing my hair experiment so long that is it no longer an experiment but habit. I’m washing my hair every two days now. I feel pretty good about it. My scalp is producing less oil. Sometimes the second day I don’t wash I feel a little funky but if I remember to work my natural oils through the whole length of my hair it’s fine. (I have super long hair, so when I’m lazy, it’s challenging to make sure I got my whole head massaged and natural oils distributed.)
     I recently did the “oil cleaning oil” experiment. Several placed mentioned that using something like jojoba or coconut oil can help to further clean the scalp in a safe, non-drying way. Since jojoba isn’t actually an oil but a liquid wax resembling our own natural sebum (oil) I thought it might be the better choice. So I took a really long shower. First, I applied the oil to wet hair and worked it all over my scalp, taking care to make sure everything was even and massaging it in. (Massage helps with desquamation of the skin. Got to get those dead skin cells off so new healthy stuff can surface. It also increases circulation which is paramount for healthy tissue and thus scalp and hair.)
     Then I just went along with my shower normally. At the end, I massage my scalp, worked it all through my hair and then used shampoo to remove. After a few shampoos, perhaps four, all of it was out and I applied conditioner to the ends of my hair just in case.
     The result: If there was any build up from product, it felt gone. In fact, my head felt naked. All the washing got rid of the jojoba and my oil, which may my hair feel very strange, almost dry. As far as I remember there was no problem with over production of oil the next day due to the washing or jojoba. In about a month I think another oil treatment might be a good idea, this time with essential oils.

     Other things: I’ve almost completely stopped using product. Perhaps, I may replenish my stock with more healthy alternatives, but I don’t need them now. As weird as this sounds, the natural oils in my hair seem to act as “gel” allowing my part to stay where it should. But I have to make sure that I spread the oils all throughout my hair and not forget, or my scalp will look oily.
     For the last two days I’ve been using an essential oil blend I made awhile ago. Though it is a little old, there should be some benefits. Once it’s gone I’ll make new, probably in a spritzer. The blend contains rosemary, ylang ylang, cedarwood or cypress( I can’t remember which), maybe some rose? It’s supposed to be good for oily skin, and hair growth. Not that I am actually loosing my hair but so much of it falls out that it can’t hurt to try.
     I also recently read a “blog post” from a friend of a friend whom mentioned that she uses apple cider vinegar on her hair. Doing my own research, I’ve found it fairly common. Apple cider vinegar is supposed to balance the pH in one’s scalp. Tomorrow, I’ll give it a try. The blog post I read said not to use it more than say once a week because it can dry it out a little. Also dilute because straight vinegar can be irritating. Also, making an herbal infusion/apple cider vinegar rinse is on the agenda. Being the herbal junky I am, my shelves are packed with home grown herbs, though adding a few more to my arsenal would be fun and beneficial.
     This journey on a more healthful road has been exciting and frustrating. Overall, my body is healthier and happier than it’s been since I was a child. All of my failed or forgotten experiments have been worth it. I’m cultivating my independence from – dare I reference the over-used term – “the Man”. I don’t need to run to a doc every time I sneeze (I’m sick at the moment, but getting better really fast). I don’t need to spend $100 on skin care products that contain ingredients that probably would show up stored in my fat and may or may not cause cancer. It’s exciting to be “rediscovering” things that maybe were common knowledge 50 or 100 years ago, that we forgot about, because we stopped trusting our instincts and started trusting narrow minded science or medicine. Don’t think I’m crazy enough to not believe science (I love science), but it’s a fact that it’s always evolving to include “new” things that we didn’t know about before, or forgot about. Until the next post about more modern hippy adventures.

Gluten-Free Zucchini Bread Loaf

     This summer my parents have a zucchini plant. It was so cute when I planted it. And now, all that “hard” work paid off! It has produces so many zucchinis I’ve lost count. Not wanting to waste them and having fond memories of zucchini bread, I decided to make gluten-free zucchini bread. Four or more tries later, it is still the best zucchini bread ever! It just gets better with each loaf! Even people whom are not gluten-free nuts say it’s good!

     After searching for a few minutes online, I found one recipe that seemed to be the easiest to modify. This is the end result.

     Gluten-Free Zucchini Bread Recipe:

     Set oven to 350 degrees.
o 2 eggs
o 1 cup sugar, unbleached
o .5 cup of oil, safflower
o 2 tsp. of vanilla, fair trade
o .5 tsp. of baking soda
o .5 tsp. of cinnamon
o .5 tsp of salt
o 1.5 cups of gluten-free flour (I use Red Mills Gluten-Free All-purpose Baking Flour.)
o Pinch of Xanthan Gum, optional
o 1.5 cups of shredded zucchini, organic if you can
o 1 cup of chopped walnuts

     Mix the first four ingredients, then add the baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Carefully, (slowly if you can) add the gluten-free baking flour and xanthan gum. Then mix in the zucchini and walnuts.
     Grease and flour a loaf pan. Pour, taste if you want and bake for up to 75 minutes, or until a knife comes clean. (I’d say tooth pick but that would be promoting disposable items which I would like to avoid.)

     Notes: Xanthan gum is optional because we don’t like the way it tastes. I’ve tried it with .5 a tsp, 2 pinches, 1 pinch, and a dusting that was so small it couldn’t be considered a pinch. People will tell you that it doesn’t have a taste. However, it does have a specific texture that it adds to whatever it mixes with – slippery, almost greasy. We don’t like it. The eggs in this recipe hold the bread loaf together well enough. It only becomes slightly more crumbly without it. So in my opinion, xanthan gum is only to be used if you don’t want to use eggs.
     Other notes: I have also substituted walnuts with almonds. It’s still good, but I prefer the walnuts. Oh and please excuse the odd bulletting, I don’t know what’s wrong with my word, it’s temperamental.

     Guys beware; this is another menstrual cycle post!

     Last post, Aunt Flow Part 1, last period I wrote about going off birth control, letting my body regulate itself and how our uncomfortable symptoms shouldn’t be the norm.
     I was super tired for about a week before this time. Dragging my feet up the flight of stairs to our lovely apartment after work every day, even after a four hour day, was tiring. For some reason I didn’t notice that it could be my body’s cycle making me so tired. Since I no longer have my daily pill to take I don’t notice where in the month I am most of the time. Because of that, I don’t always think about the preventative ways to help me feel better.
Preventative ways to easy your crampy, maybe grumpy week are fairly simple.
• Get more iron. Gross as it sounds you will be loosing blood, you need iron or you will feel tired. So if you eat meat, choose red a couple of times. If you don’t, then choose fruits and veggies with higher iron like dark leafy greens such spinach, chard, kale, or raisins. Listen to your body, if you are craving something there might be something you need in it – unless you are craving fast food.
• Go to bed earlier. Sounds simple but your body is tired from hormonal changes, let it do it’s job. Get out of the way.
• Drink raspberry leaf tea. I have a huge post coming about this lovely drink. It’s great, actually recommended for pregnant women to strengthen the uterus. Beneficial for us non-pregos too!
• Stay warm. Pull out your rice pack and heat it up. If you don’t have one, make your own. Rick made me mine, though I have misplaced them in the last two moves. Must find or make new ones.
• Since the cramping is muscular, you need proper nutrition beyond iron. Think calcium, magnesium, and potassium.
• Lastly choose your feminine products well. You want to make sure that what you are using down there won’t hurt you.

Feminine Products

     I know you are all dying to know what I use. Haha. Right. Well, I only recently started using something better. About four periods ago I realized that maybe my tampons and mini pads weren’t the best idea. I had developed a sensitivity to bleach. I knew that the cotton in the tampons was treated with bleach to make it uniform and clean looking. Oh my goodness! Duh! Of course I should not use them. So what do I use now? Are there organic tampons? Should I even use tampons anymore? After some research, I used up all the remaining tampons and switched to organic cotton.
     Since coming off birth control things got a little heavier. I had to have more coverage at night and didn’t want to sleep in a tampon. I picked up Seventh Generation Chlorine-Free Ultra Thin Pads with Wings for the nights. I’m not a huge fan. They aren’t cotton – I didn’t realize this when I bought them. I have one left and will try something else soon. I want cotton, that won’t cause any problems for sure. Some of the other things may or may not be irritating.
     The Seventh Generation pads weren’t thin enough for me to use as a back up thinner pad for the days when I wore tampons. (They aren’t thin really.) This time I read slower and picked organic – Natracare cotton panty liners untra thin and tampons regular and super. The day I started using them my lovely lady parts acted with much more grace. Oh yeah, and they are more comfortable. The panty liners don’t use plastic, so there is no poking. No artificial scents to mix with mine to create something evil. The tampons are short and fit much better than even some of the more popular brands.

     On a side note: one thing I find irritating about feminine products is all the waste. The applicator, the wrapping for the applicator, the box that is too big, most of it is unneeded. The “Natracare” products have less waste. The pantiliners are not wrapped individually; they only have the strip to cover the sticky line. They are compostable under the right conditions; however, I’m not going to try that on my porch. That’s a little too hardcore for me now. The tampons do not have an applicator and they are very tightly wrapped in a tiny amount of plastic. Both boxes have very little extra space, so there is very little waste!

     There are some other possibilities for feminine products that I have not used yet. One possibility is the cloth pads. I like the reusability idea. However, that’s more specialty laundry. Of course I’d worry about leaks.
     There are also cups, such as the Moon Cup, that you empty once or twice a day. The Moon Cup does offer non-latex, so that’s cool. They only have to be replaced every couple of years or so – little waste. However, I’d be worried about holding all that stuff inside for several more hours than one is supposed to wear a tampon. Because of money now, I won’t be trying either of these other options for now. If you have any thoughts on them, have tried them or done research, please feel free to share!

Herb thyme

Well, so our days here in Everett are numbered. Soon we will be in Bellingham, the hippy capital of Washington. I’ve felt a horrible writers block for several months now. It’s lifting, possibly. The move should help, new area, new jobs, whatever; will bring about new posts.
It’s about time to update to the latest version of wordpress. When it changed I decided to wait until it had been out for a little while because the last time I updated it had a new version out within 2 weeks. Sorry, not updating every two weeks. After we move and things get settled, and I get more pictures I’ll upgrade. I’ve been getting a lot of spam in the last month. It’s driving me crazy! I mean seriously, it’s dumb if you don’t even make a sentence and have 20 lines and 20 links and use words like “Viagra”. This is a “hippy”, “al natural” site, not a man parts site!
If you don’t contribute something to the posts, I’m not going to approve your comments. Sorry.

Also, another reason I haven’t been updating is because I don’t have a fast enough laptop right now. I overloaded the one I bought last year. Having unloaded it to discover that didn’t work, I’m frustrated. Rick will try to make it something, perhaps like a word processor. Or he may find his other one that I can use, despite a broken hinge. Either way, I rarely get enough time on his computer for more than a quick picture upload.

So, what green things are we going to do to make our move better? We are borrowing my dad’s truck. It’s okay on the gas mileage, much better than a mover. Cleaning to move: of course I’m using mostly eco-friendly stuff. Vinegar! (and baking soda) Good ol’ manual labor!

I’ll leave you will a picture or two of garden related things.

Baby blueberries

Biokleen detergent

     Since I do a lot of laundry, I go through detergent quickly. When I ran out this time I headed to our local co-op – Sno-Isle Foods Co-op to pick from their selection. I bought the Biokleen’s Cold Water detergent. I’ve used it once before and decided to try it again. So far, I like it. The clothes smell fresh – like clean, cold water and cotton. The pros of this product are that are: highly concentrated ( don’t need to use as much), it’s local for me (from Vancouver, WA), no animal products or testing, free of chlorine, artificial colors, fragrances, or preservatives, biodegradable, and other nasties. Cons: comes in a plastic bottle, an ingredient is corn (mildly controversial veggie), grape fruit extract (have heard that some people can have sensitivity to this). Not bad. Pros out weigh the cons for me. I have not had a problem with it so far.
     They carry other products that I have not tried yet such as other laundry aides, produce wash, dish detergent, general cleaners, and a line of soy cleaners (soy may or may not be good depending on what you read and with whom you speak). Let me know if you use one of them and like it or don’t. I’m always curious.

     I was given a Tully’s gift card a couple of weeks ago. Out of the city of Seattle it isn’t as popular as Starbucks, but if you pay attention there is probably one near you. I went into the Bothell store on Thursday, which is a few minutes from my office to get my drink, a tall vanilla soy latte. Waiting patiently by the counter I marveled at how much it looked like Starbucks and yet how different it was. But that is not why I post. My coffee came in a more squat cup than Starbucks uses and it said, “ Tully’s Green Cup is 100% Compostable”. Really? Well that’s cool, only wish I had a composter to use.
     This morning I hopped online to see what I could learn about this thing. I have read the press release from Tully’s
, a Seattle P.I.
article and a quicky post on the The Resposible Marketing Blog.
     It seems that the cup is compostable because of it’s bio-plastic lining that replaces the petrol based lining to prevent leaky cups. Great! Tully’s has also implemented a recycling option for customers. Bring in your cup and they will send it out to be composted for you at one of two locations in either Everett or Maple Valley. That means that it is up to us to bring back our cups to be properly, eco-friendly disposed of. Also great! Right? Well, the liner is made out of corn. I don’t want to criticize a company that is trying, whether for the good of the world or the good of their bank accounts, to better themselves. But corn isn’t the best thing in the world. It is the first completely genetically altered “food”. Corn came from maize, and through hundreds or thousands of years, farmers altered it to produce more to feed more. Problem with that is we do not digest it, so it is only a filler food. Do we really want fillers composted into our soil? In turn it will end up in our food as it is used for fertilizer. As many of us know, compost is very nutrient rich and many times is used in place of synthetic fertilizers.
     I think in this case, it is the lesser of two evils – for now. It is much better than our beloved coffee cups ending up in landfills, though to be fair, many of these “green” cups will end up in landfills anyway. It is a start, and hopefully more companies will follow suit. Hopefully, also a new option will be discovered and thoroughly researched that isn’t corn based.

     I have a confession to make. Whilest changing many of our every day things to more eco-friendly options I have one big thing that I have refused to change, due in part to a little old lady I met a few years ago.
     I formally used dish clothes to do dishes and cleaning around the kitchen. I tried hard not to think about how gross it was that the dish clothes progressively got stiffer and almost crunchy the more I used them. If it got bad, I would throw them away.
     Then on a day at work – doing in-home care – I met a lovely little old lady. She was funny, tiny, short and hump backed. It was almost unnecessary for me to be there as can be the case with in-home care. She was reasonably self-sufficient and stubborn. She wanted help on her terms.
     I went to do what I could, get the mail, sweep, offer to make her food, which she refused because according to her she does not need me to tear off the plastic top for a microwave dinner. I cleaned for her. I looked around the little trailer for a dishcloth or sponge. Finding none, I asked. She explained that she had few fears, but one of them was germs. She does not use dish clothes, don’t I know how many germs those spread around? She used paper towels. After one cleaning, she threw them away.
     At the time, I considered this wasteful, but one part of me, the clean freak, thought about the crunchy dish clothes at home and shuddered. Thus started my affair with paper towels.

     Now, three years later, I still use paper towels. While deciding to become greener I “forgot” about my paper towels. The crunchy dishtowels dance little gross jigs in my imagination, taunting me: “You think you are cleaning, but you are just spreading germs, that will make you sick later, which you will blame on someone else!” I was not ready to give up the disposable towel.
     Now several months into my change I am being pulled in a different direction. I know that it is bad to throw away so many paper towels. I did not see an out, a good fix for me. Now however, I have an idea. While packing I came across knitted wash clothes from my grandmother-in-law. They are adorable. I have never used them because they are too pretty. What if I made my own, on which I will have not emotional attachment? I have extra yarn from projects. I could use it up, which will allow me to declutter and upcycle at the same time. I’ll use them until I deem they need to go to the garbage pail. And once they are gone I will replace them with 100% cotton or bamboo or wool cloths that I will crochet or knit (once I learn how). It seems a good idea, what do you think? By switching to cloth, I will be throwing less away. I can also choose to clean them more sufficiently, by boiling in vinegar and then washing.
     I am nervous about the dancing germ cloths, but realize that I must compromise to achieve my goals and be a better Earth-steward.

I love this company! As my other posts have said I’m having quite a lot of trouble with my skin. Deciding to switch away from my former skin care line was long time coming. A couple of the products were okay but most of them seemed to clog my pores and make me break out horribly. I have also become more concerned with the origins of my skin care products. I don’t like synthetics and definitely don’t want to use something that has animal products in it or may have been tested on animals.
This company’s name is straight to the point, “No cruelty”. Within a week my poor skin was clearing up! I still get a couple now and again due to hormonal changes. Nothing like I had all summer long.
Check out their website! It is fairly extensive site listing various products their ingredients and their story/philosophy. Support a company that has values and treat your skin to real ingredients that will often be organic. Oh and of course they are vegetarian.Beauty Without Cruelty
They have a cosmetics I have yet to try and I’ll let you all know how they feel. If you use them leave some love and suggestions for other good lines.