Green Options

Looking for Style in All the Green Places
Lately I’m a bit obsessed by home decorating with reclaimed goods like old doorknobs, ornate metal heating grates, and odd hanging crystals from a long-gone chandelier. Sure, it would make more sense if I actually had a house — at the moment, my new husband and I are squeezing into our 600 square feet, one-bedroom apartment — but one day soon we will own a home, and when that day comes, I’ll be able to spread out and complete all the projects I have going in my head.

Meanwhile, I’ve found that trolling architectural salvage yards and house-part recycling centers is a fascinating diversion. You can find some amazing ways to decorate your home in completely unique (and green) ways, but you can also find perfectly good double-hung windows, newel posts, kitchen cabinets, big pieces of wood flooring, and bathroom vanities (from this century, even!).

“Beauty With a Cause” Sets a New Standard
An online oasis for natural face and body products, B-cause (or beautywithacause.com) provides healthy and affordable cosmetics for a woman’s beauty regimen while doing its part for beauty in society as well, with 10% of all proceeds going towards breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and scleroderma research. You’ll find mineral makeup, facial cleansers, toners, and moisturizers, as well as hair care, fluoride-free toothpaste, and a few products for men, too. Every product offered on the site meets the self-imposed standards of Beauty With a Cause for safe, natural ingredients, affordability, operating ethics, and animal kindness.

In her own search for truly natural beauty products, owner Julie Ann Price found a way to not just effect change in the world of cosmetics, but to do it with style. “Beauty is a measure of how much women love themselves,” says Price. “B-cause wants to be a trusted resource for women where they can shop for effective skin care and vibrant cosmetics knowing that the owner is as concerned as they are that the products are both beautiful and safe. I use what I sell and I believe in my products.”

Currently the FDA lacks stringent guidelines for natural beauty products. If only 1% of the ingredients used in a product are organic, the product can have an “organic” label. B-cause has an “Ingredients to Avoid” list and it’s a little frightening to see how many of these ingredients appear in products that are probably on most bathroom shelves.

Finally, A One-Stop Shop That “Gets It”
You eat organically and locally and sustainably. You clean your home with vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda. So why are you still using makeup, moisturizer, and shampoo that contains known carcinogenic chemicals?

Your skin is your body’s largest organ, and its critical jobs include keeping moisture in, excreting waste, regulating body temperature, compensating for the harsh UV sun rays, and creating vitamin D. And think of its powerful connection with the mind and body — you blush when shy, perspire when nervous, and inexplicably, those little hairs on the back of your neck stand straight up when you realize you’re not alone in a dark room.

Especially during these harsh summer months, you owe it to your skin to read every label and understand every ingredient of every product you use on it. And now, going organic and natural has never been easier — or more luxurious.

Futurenatural.com is the place for “responsible hedonism.” A new Sephora for the savvy organic and natural consumer, Futurenatural offers the best organic skin and hair care, makeup, fragrances, and body-loving basics. Owner/”natural beauty junkie”/writer (and former Australian farmer girl) Emma Pezzack has searched the world for organic/natural cosmetics and goodies that are as effective as they are lush. They are also fair-trade and environmentally conscious.

“You can get something that works as well as Estee Lauder, for example, but is 100% organic,” states Pezzack. “All the products we sell are sustainably harvested, consider the environment, and contribute not only to the health of the consumer but the health of the planet.” What’s not to love?!

Futurenatural.com has chosen the brands they sell very carefully, and will soon include some exciting new brand additions such as L’Occitane, ThisWorks, Alaska Glacial Mud Co., Bamford, Stella McCartney, Patyka, Shobha, Jurlique and more. They list full ingredients for each of the products they sell. Don’t recognize what a certain ingredient is?

Eco-Friendly, Biodegradable Tableware from Let’s Go Green
Picnic in green style this summer with eco-friendly biodegradable plates & bowls, and compostable utensils and cups from Let’s Go Green. Made from sugarcane fibers, these bowls and plates are 100% biodegradable, but sturdy enough for your sloppiest Joes. Their 16- and 20-oz. plastic cups are made from corn, and their PSM (plastic starch material), compost-certified utensils will naturally decompose back to organic elements. Let’s Go Green also offers 100% recycled lunch and dinner napkins, recycled without chlorine bleaching.

Save big when you buy their Picnic Sampler, which includes 50 each of knives, forks, spoons, and 9″ plates — all for only $19.99.

Let’s Go Green has dozens of wonderful products for every room in your home. In fact, a great housewarming gift is one of their Green Home Starter Kits….

Cornstarch-Based Resin Never Looked So Hip
EverybodyGreen.com expands their celebrity-favorite “go! Green” line of eco-chic accessories with the addition of the highly anticipated new summer style: the SeedBead Necklace.

The necklaces are each three strands of beads made from cornstarch-based resin, and feature two 41 inch rows and one 36 inch row of 4mm “GreenBeads.” Each necklace sells for $18.00, and comes in a choice of five rich color combinations.

“We trust that our go! Green collection will demonstrate to consumers that it is fun and fashionable to choose green. It is imperative that people start to see every choice as an opportunity to help the environment, by choosing eco-friendly, fair trade, and sustainable,” comments Keith Berman, Director. “We are thankful that our green accessories have been so successful in raising awareness of eco-friendly alternatives and green practices.”

FCHV-adv Hybrid Boasts Twice the Range of the Previous Model
There are lots of reason to want to live in Japan, but being able to lease the new Toyota Fuel-Cell Hybrid sometime this year is now high on my list. Later in 2008, Toyota will release their new FCHV-adv model, which reportedly has a maximum cruising range is 516 miles (compared with 205 miles for Toyota’s previous fuel cell vehicle). This [...]

Where else would you find Jessica Alba’s baby, Angelina Jolie’s movie, Emeril Lagasse’s TV show, and Ed Begley Jr.’s book in one blog post?! Read on after the jump for more on the latest “HollyGreen, CA” news:
“Hellboy II” Gets a TerraPass
The 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival announced that it is implementing numerous changes to produce an eco-friendly, “green” Festival this year, as part of a company-wide greening initiative by Film Independent – the non-profit filmmakers organization that produces the Los Angeles Film Festival, as well as the Spirit Awards.

The Festival has partnered with NBC-Universal, which is a green company, on both Opening Night (Thursday, June 19) and Closing Night (Sunday, June 29) of the Festival. The Opening Night premiere of Universal Pictures’ “Wanted” (starring Angelina Jolie), as well as the Closing Night premiere of Universal Pictures’ “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” will be produced in an eco-friendly fashion.

Green Design and Feng Shui on a Budget, and What’s Coming Next
Recently I had a chance to ask a few questions of Kim Nadel, NCIDQ certified interior designer, LEED Accredited Professional, and co-founder of the Brooklyn-based NICHE environmentally smart design group. Kim is currently on the MFA faculty of the New York School of Interior Design teaching Green Design, and co-authored The Green Pages: The Contract Designer’s Guide to Environmentally Responsible Materials and Products.

Kim was chosen by Hospitality Design magazine as one of the top 20 leaders in the industry to influence design in a positive direction. She has enjoyed lecturing throughout the country to designers and architects on green living since 1995 and her work has been published in a variety of publications including Interiors and Natural Home and Garden. Kim’s broad knowledge allows her to work within a diverse range of creative projects that promote green living and inspire others to create in a sustainable way. Presently Kim is incorporating the principles of Vastu into her work, and her designs are featured in Kathleen Cox’s Vastu book Space Matters.

What is the single most important thing individuals can do (in terms of interior decorating) to improve the feng shui or vastu of their home, if budget is a primary concern?

A Healthy Taste Straight From the Amazon Rainforest
By now, most of us have heard about the high-octane health benefits of acai berries, cultivated exclusively and naturally (without pesticides or chemicals) from the Amazon rainforest. Called by some* to be the “most nutritionally dense” berries, these little jewels apparently have more antioxidants than blueberries and more heart-healthy anthocyanins than red wine. They’re also rich with protein, dietary fiber, with high levels of Omega-3, Omega-6, and Omega-9 fatty acids. Plus, they’ll reduce the prices at the gas pump. (Okay, I’m not certain about that last part….)

But the trick is getting the acai berry pulp as close to the source as possible, and without being over-processed (which depletes the nutritional value considerably). Raw acai is the only sure way to get all the benefits of the berry, and unless you’re planning a trip to Brazil anytime soon, that can be tricky. Even though I’m very mindful of “food miles” and eat locally grown foods almost exclusively, I was eager and curious to try raw acai pulp that is processed as little as is safely possible. Enter Amazonfrutas….

Easy Projects for Giving Your Outdoor Area a Fresh Look
Give some character to your outdoor area this summer, in an affordable and eco-friendly way. Here are some tips:

* An old, scratched up bundt pan makes a fun planter that fits around the center of your picnic table umbrella. With a hammer and nail, punch a couple of drainage holes on the bottom. Decorate the outside of the pan with metal paints, markers, or old scraps of wallpaper. Plant a few colorful blooming annuals and drop your umbrella down the center of the planter (and the table), and you’ve got an inexpensive centerpiece that doesn’t take up any room on the table.

* Old, bent, mismatched silverware and some fishing line comes together to make a unique wind chime. If you have a drill, you can drill holes in the handles of each piece of silverware and hang them at different lengths (but close enough to knock together) from a branch or awning rail. If you don’t have a drill, use pliers to bend the spoons and forks so that you can tie them up with the fishing line. Try adding an old silver ladle, twisted pickle fork, and a holloware butter knife for a variety of chimes!