Green Options

If you’re looking for an eco-friendly place for Valentine’s Day gifts, check out Organica Deluxe.

The online eco-boutique offers eco-conscious minded consumers gift options for every occasion: Baby, Wedding & Anniversary, Birthday, Thinking of You, Get-Away, Thank You, House Warming, Holiday and more.

“We created Organica Deluxe because we wanted a beautiful place to buy eco-friendly and organic for ourselves and our friends,” say owners Wendy James and Jane Hunter.

“We recognized that organic companies often miss the gorgeous and ever miss the green when creating packaging.”

One sweet eco-friendly gift from Organica Deluxe is their BABY LOVE gift set.  “This delightful assortment of organic goodies is filled with softness and love for baby’s sensitive skin,” says Organica Deluxe.

Among all the huba-lo, we received some fabulous eco friendly gifts for Christmas. Hubs is learning well and spent a great deal of time searching for natural lotion, eco friendly packaging, and soy candles.

Here’s our favorites:

Kiss My Face Ultra Moisturizer in peaches & creme. Can I just say, “Yum!”. I’ve been on the search for a natural lotion that actually works. Husband did the work for me and brought this bottle home. It retailed just under $9.00 for 16 ounces. I’m slathering the kids with it post bath and my hands after every washing (I wash a lot, because its the best way to fight germs y’know?). This yummy lotion is paraben free, light and smells luscious.

EcoBags: Classic String Bag. This bag rocks! It stretches out so much I was able to haul our gifts around to family and friends. The kids can toss all their toys in for a day outing. It’s a lifesaver in the produce aisle. It also fits inside my purse so I will never again be without a bag!

With Christmas quickly sneaking up on us, the time is now to get to that holiday shopping. This weekend, the Eco Gift Festival returns to Santa Monica for its second year, offering more than just endless booths of sustainable, eco-friendly finds (though those are great, too).

This year, organizers have added a multitude of speakers and musicians, making this event more than just a gift-buying frenzy. Their big “get”? Arianna Huffington, nationally-syndicated columnist, author, radio host, and founder of The Huffington Post, one of the most-read news and blog sites on the internet. Huffington takes the stage at 2pm on Saturday the 13th. Other speakers include fashion designer Linda Loudermilk and John Marshall Roberts, author of “Igniting Inspiration: A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries”.

Terri Bly announces their exclusive, eco-friendly makeup bag filled with samples. Proceeds benefit women in Gambia.

My editor asked me to post a few more ideas on what an Ecopreneurist or any business interested in giving green gifts this year, might give customers for the holidays.

I wanted to approach the idea from two points. First, I am in the promotional items business. For our industry the main purpose of gift giving is to say thank you to the clients you have done business with in the past year, and to keep your name in front of those clients so that they do business with you next year.

Second, as an Econpreneurist gift giving gives my business a chance to show off our green credentials but also - maybe - influence our clients, not all of whom are green, about becoming more green in their own businesses.

So I decided to start off with something very basic. Mugs.

A basic mug cost little and can normally be printed on both the front and back, so there is a lot of room for both your logo and a message.

Perhaps “Thank you for your business in 2008. Think of XYZ company in 2009 for all your ABC needs” on the front and maybe an eco message like “Americans throw away an estimated 25 billion Styrofoam cups every year. The same Styrofoam cups will be sitting in a landfill 500 years from now. Please re-use this mug each day to lessen your impact on the planet.”  Yes that will all fit on a mug.  And trust me a case of mugs showing up at your client’s office goes a lot farther than a fruit basket.