Tough Love met with HIGH Dislike

I am five pages into Chapter Two, which is about beauty, and I'm having a crisis.  All but one of my: shampoos, conditioners, lotions, toothpaste, scar treatment, mouthwash, body washes, have at least one item that Sophie classifies as The Red list items in them.  (I’ve given the link to the full list of chemicals to avoid in beauty products on the right.)  The Red list items are supposed to be thrown away immediately.  I’m copping out and at least finish the products with the excuse of “I’m a poor college student.”

My organic shampoo and conditioner, which I’m already dissatisfied with, has the umbrella term fragrance.  Fragrance is a ubiquitous term that masks hundreds of ingredients, including phthalates, which disrupt the endocrine system and could cause reproductive and developmental harm. (Uliano, 2008)  My organic lotion really only claims, in fine print, to contain organic vanilla extract.  My contact solution has two types of PEG and methylparaben.  What am I suppose to clean my contact lenses with now? 

The countless Burt’s Bees products that I own also have fragrance written within the ingredient list. Burt’s Bees, whose website home page claims, “Earth Friendly Natural Personal Care for The Greater Good.” is failing me.  I went to email them to ask what they meant by fragrance on their ingredient lists, but apparently it’s a common question.  Their reply was:

“The term "fragrance" on our labels may indicate the use of natural fragrance (essential oils), synthetic fragrance or a combination of both. Burt's Bees makes every attempt to exclusively use blends of natural oils in formulating our fragrances, which sometimes results in us using over fifteen different essential oils. However, on certain occasions, it may be necessary to use synthetic ingredients in our fragrances in order to sufficiently mix the fragrance with the product formula base and to keep the product stable.”

I was curious to why they would add synthetic ingredients and it also was answered.

“At Burt's Bees, we believe that synthetic ingredients should not be used in natural personal care products. The only instance when a synthetic material is acceptable is when there is no viable natural alternative.  We also list a percentage natural for every product we make. We stand behind our ingredients and our products.”

My roommate suggested that they may also add the synthetic ingredients to keep the product from decomposing.  I’m hoping on this to be the case and as soon as I can compose a polite inquisitive email, it will be off to the company, hopefully.

The only product that passed the chemical inspection was the Burt’s Bees Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Crème.  It’s 100% natural.  At least my hands won’t be cracked and bleeding due to dryness this winter.

Achievement of Week 1

Gorgeously Green is an eight week program.  Week one is all about becoming aware.  With a few exercises to evaluate what you can about and why they matter to you.  This chapter seemed somewhat redundant to me.  Obviously I’m fairly aware or else I wouldn’t have picked up this book to start off with.

I’m trying (before I begin the next step) to think of all the things that I do that I consider green.  Like using a BPA free reusable water bottle, bringing my sandwiches in Tupperware for lunch instead of plastic baggies (which I’ll just throw away later), attempting to use a handkerchief instead of the paper towels in the bathroom, etc.  I’m really looking forward to seeing if these are considered green or just popularly accepted as green but not really proven.

Sophie gave some background about how she got into the green movement and some of the stories are rather hilarious.  My favorite example was when she bought a suit made out of burlap.  She convinced herself that it would be all the rage if Kate Moss was wearing it (a small possibility).  It was the look of astonishment on her husband’s face when he saw her ready to go out in said suit that made her realize that she’d gone way beyond her level of green/sanity.

An exercise within this chapter was to answer these questions using a full one-sided sheet of paper:     Envision yourself as at the end of your life, sitting on your porch swing contemplating your life. 

•  How well did I love? 
• In what ways did I help to make this planet more habitable for future generations? 
•   In what ways did my life have meaning?

This exercise is supposed to take no more than 15 minutes.  One of those: get into your stream of consciousness and don’t think too much things.  I also believe myself to have epically failed this exercise; I do have all intentions of doing it all over again though (thinking positive thoughts, of course).

Another exercise suggested was Savasana, or corpse pose in yoga.  This pose is great for meditation.  Focus on how your body feels, make sure it’s completely relaxed.  Letting your mind wander, not focusing on any one thing in particular.  During this exercise I always remembered the strangest occurrences.  For example a hike up to Avalanche Lake, Glacier Park Montana, and the water was just as cold as Lake Superior and reflected the rivers flowing down the mountains from the glacier.

Why this project exists...and a few hopes for the project.

As a student studying environmental science, many classes within this major focus on the negatives.  Climate change, ocean acidification, habitat disturbance, over-fishing, are issues that grace the pages of numerous resources and are preached throughout many my classes.  The class almost always ends with if we don't change our habits now the world and all it's natural wonders will be gone in my lifetime.  However, the professors rarely say how to make the change, or worse that one person cannot be enough to help.

I'm not writing this blog to preach about environmental issues and how nobody seems to be listening, or how you are living your life is wrong and you should change it to my idea of living.  No one likes to feel guilty about how they are living their life. I like taking my showers every morning, eating dried pineapple and driving my car when the weather outside resembles that of a snow globe. To be honest, I'm writing the blog for a class this semester.  I have had this book, Gorgeously Green by Sophie Uliano for about four years now and  this blog project is killing two birds with one stone (as in I finally get to read it for homework).

I'm hoping that this project will be beneficial to me and anyone who stumbles across this blog.  Hoping that this project it will teach me that one person's changes can make a difference beneficial towards Earth; that being eco-friendly doesn't mean I have to go without life's luxuries.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."  I believe one person can make a change, despite some of the professors' lectures. Optimism is the only way I think that I can survive this project. The book says that the program would be easier to create a "club" because these projects are better done in numbers.  The reader(s) of this blog will serve as my club.  So all comments are welcome, especially constructive criticism.