The Green Frugalista

Not frugal, but fabulous: Review: LaVanila The Healthy Deodorant Lavender Vanilla

2010-02-22T09:48:00.006-05:00

It's been a long time since I last posted. Too long. My excuse? Well, I don't have one. Busy-ness, I suppose, but I also lost the love for trying new products. And, I admit, I have been straying, both from my green principles AND from my frugal principles. However, my skin rewarded me for going back to traditional drugstore products by breaking out nastily, so I had to revamp my skincare routine, and am now back. I've got my skin back under control and I have discovered a few products that I really like. So, I should tell you about them.

As my last review was of a deodorant, it only seems fitting to do yet another deodorant review. Now, this one is NOT frugal. By any stretch of the imagination. It is $18. And yes, that image is from Sephora, as that is where it is easiest to find this product.

So, how does one justify an $18 deodorant? Well, I can't. If your definition of frugal is to only get cheap products, you'll have to move along. But if your definition includes getting good value for money, or splurging a bit more for the best products and scrimping when it doesn't matter, then continue reading.

In my last review, I was happy with the Tom's of Maine, but as time went by, I became less happy. I don't think that the product got any less effective, really, but I was tired of always stinking a bit in the evenings, and in the mornings before I showered. I became tired of always having to wash/shower if I wanted to change to go out in the evenings, or if I wanted to go out to exercise in the morning. I became tired of not always being fresh. I mean, when you've spent years using antiperspirants you get used to a certain level of non-stinkiness. Not to say the Tom's product isn't good. It's just not great.

I decided to just try the LaVanila. Just to see. It was getting good reviews on the Sephora website, so I gave it a shot. And this stuff rocked my world. You know how I wrote in the last review that my sweat and lavender don't mix? Well, this is a gentle, powdery vanilla-y lavender, and if it stops you from having BO, then there's no stinky mixing going on. So I really like the scent. When I use this product, I do not smell in the evening. Actually, I do smell - if I stick my nose in my armpit I can smell a faint gentle, powdery vanilla-y lavender. It still smells nice. And it continues to the next morning. And yes, in the interests of science, I've tried not showering and just re-applying some deodorant, and I didn't stink the second day either. This really works. And the skin under my arms is looking better - it is not red, flaky, irritated, inflamed, or any of the other things that it occasionally was in the old days. Of course, as it's a deodorant and not an anti-perspirant, you'll still get a bit moist under the arms from time to time, but at least with this, no-one need know.

I love it. I'd give it 5 stars if only it was cheaper, so I'll go with 4.9.

Review:Tom's of Maine Long Lasting Care Deodorant

2009-08-27T18:33:00.003-04:00

I previously reviewed the Tom's of Maine deodorants here. What I didn't quite appreciate at the time was that I was using the "original care" formula, and not the "long-lasting care" formula. And while I was quite faithful to the calendula scent I will own up that by the end of the day, I was often a bit...ripe. Skanky, as it were.

Well, I am pleased to say that I am skank no more! I went shopping a good while back (yes, I know it's been a long time since I did a review), in desperate need of some new deodorant, and the store only had the long-lasting varieties. I was, as I say, desperate, and while I'd normally prefer to smell like a flower than a fruit, I picked up the apricot scent, scowling slightly. But, um, it worked. It worked remarkably well, in fact, that often by the end of a long day in the heat and humidity, I am still quite fresh and delightful to be around. Not that I'd want you to stick your nose right in my armpit, you understand, but I no longer need to keep my arms glued to my sides in the vain hope that no noxious odors will waft out. But I didn't think too much of it, I admit, raised as I was on the not-so-green aluminum-containing anti-perspirants. You come to expect a certain level of competence out of your deodorant. So it was only when I finished that deodorant stick and went back to the calendula, that I realized my terrible mistake. All of a sudden I was stinky again, and not just at 10pm, but often at 10am and all points inbetween.

The "long-lasting" formula really IS that much better than the regular formula. Therefore, consider this as a revised review. Choose the "long-lasting" variety and your nose will be happier. And the apricot scent is growing on me too. It's quite a creamy apricot so it doesn't scream "fresh and fruity" or anything.

4.8 stars. I knocked it down from 5 stars because I'd love a floral scent that isn't lavender to be available. My sweat and lavender don't make for a good combination, sadly.

Review: Burt's Bees Chemical-Free Sunscreen SPF 30

2009-05-29T13:33:00.003-04:00

I promise that I wanted to love this, I really did. I've been trying to use a daily facial moisturizer with an SPF of 15 or preferably 30 for a long time. And none of them have really worked out. And then I saw some blurb for this product and it had those buzzwords that really got me going like...creamy, and moisturizing and smooth. So I thought I'd give it a go.

First of all, it is creamy and smooth. To a point. It has quite a nice texture if you're working on a small area of skin. It is a little hard to rub in, as are all chemical-free sunscreens, but it's not too bad. Except I would go to the mirror a little while later and see white fuzz around my hairline and on my eyebrows - not that that's an issue for this product alone, as again, it's a "feature" of using a physical sunscreen, but it bugs me to think that other people might be thinking that I have a dandruff problem on my eyebrows.

As for using it as a facial moisturizer, it is not quite emolient enough for me. I wouldn't hold that against it if it were the only problem, though, as it's not marketed as a facial moisturizer so I don't expect it to perform wonderfully on that score.

Oh but the smell. I can't deal with the smell. Maybe you'll love it. Maybe it's just me. And I'm assuming the smell comes from the hemp seed oil, as I don't know what that normally smells like, but I squeeze some out of the tube, and am immediately transported to my elementary school, and more to the point, to the disinfectant that they used in the bathrooms. Now, I didn't grow up in the States - maybe your elementary school disinfectant experience was different than mine, and this product won't create any such associations in your mind. But, I can't escape it, and I don't like the thought of putting toilet cleaner on my face.

So, I tried using it for its intended purpose, as a body sunscreen. I had an outdoor event to go to, and decided to slather some on my arms, neck and shoulder areas. Except I have got used with sunscreen to squirting a lot out, smoothing it a little over the entire skin area I wish to cover (for example, my arms, neck and shoulders), and allowing it to soak in a bit while I am rubbing it in. This is not the way to use this sunscreen. If you don't use a small amount on a small area, rub it in well, and then move to another small area and reapply another small amount, and rub that in well, you are facing disaster. It dries out easily and becomes impossible to rub in if you leave it sitting on your skin too much. I ended up with flaking, balling, nasty dry sunscreen. I tried to go and wet my hands to see if I could improve it, but then ended up with flaking, balling dry sunscreen with a wet yellowy layer of milky stuff on top. Ugh. I rinsed it off and started again with a different product.

I am still using the product, as a daily sunscreen for my hands. And it's not so bad. After all, the backs of my hands are a pretty small area so it is hard to go wrong with that. It's moisturizing enough as a hand cream but I have switched to something else for my face.

I'm going to go with 2 and a half stars. It could work for some things, if you are careful with how you apply it.

Review: Feline Pine Scoop Clumping Cat Litter

2009-04-11T07:27:00.006-04:00

Do you know which review I consistently get the most comments on? It's not a moisturizer or any of the many soaps I have reviewed, it's the cat litter. Which tells me that there's a real need out there for natural cat litters - we're all still searching for the holy grail of perfection.

Currently kitty and I are using Feline Pine clumping litter. I'm not exactly sure what I expected when I picked this up, but the very lightweight box should have tipped me off. Feline Pine Original is pellets but the Scoop variety is...sawdust. OK, it's sawdust with some guar gum added but it looks, smells, and acts just like sawdust.

The smell of this is quite pleasant - if you like sawdust. And actually, it's got very good odor control abilities. It really does keep the litter box smell down. The clumping ability is fairly adequate. However, I find that clumps fall apart pretty easily when scooped, so I end up not shaking the scoop too vigorously and throw away quite a lot of good litter with the used. This means that I go through a lot of this product, and at $5 a box (or thereabouts) that can add up pretty quickly. The real problem with this litter is that kitty and I track it all over the house. All over. It's so lightweight and clings tenaciously to you that it gets everywhere. The rugs and kitty's favorite lounging spot now need de-sawdusting on a regular basis. And the floors? Sometimes I have visions of one of my shoes somehow getting involved in a criminal investigation and ending up puzzling the CSI as to the flecks of sawdust embedded in the insole: "it's as if this person was walking around barefoot in a lumber yard and then tracked the sawdust into her shoes. But then there's minute quantities of guar gum and cat urine mixed in...?"

I am putting up with the sawdust because I like the odor control, and because it doesn't kick up clouds of dust with that chemical nostril burn that regular litter has. In fact, we've been using it for months and have no current intention of switching. But it's not my holy grail.

Three stars.

Review: Ecover Lavender and Aloe Vera Hand Soap

2009-03-19T11:00:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I worry about reviewing things on this blog. After all, the whole point of the blog was to review green products that the average person could easily obtain and afford. It's all very well for Gwyneth Paltrow to go green (and I'm sure she does it much better than I), but she has a lot more spare cash than I do, so expensive organic items are not a stretch for her. Therefore, when I buy something that doesn't necessarily qualify as "frugal" I agonize over whether I should post it, or risk being found out as someone that if often not all that frugal at all. Case in point: $7 soaps. And then comes a posting gap while I wrestle with my inner demons. OK, so I exaggerate. But that brings me to....

Ecover hand soap. I'd tried to switch to just using bar soaps, because I figured that the plastic packaging for and extra chemicals in liquid hand soaps made them less environmentally friendly than bar soaps. But I was not enjoying them. I mean, actually, they're fine in the shower, but for washing my hands, I prefer the liquid soap. I am also a fan of all things Ecover - I think they are a very environmentally aware company and their products generally work well, although I do squirm a little about the extra carbon footprint involved in shipping the products from Europe to the States. But when I saw this soap on offer at Whole Foods for $4.49 for 250 ml (3.4 fl oz), I snapped it up. Hey, there's a refill that you can buy, so if I love it, I will switch to the refill at some point.

Oh, and I DO love it. It has this wonderful lavender aroma that hits you as soon as you pump out a dollop into your hand. It is very comforting, and at the same time, a clean scent that makes you feel like you are waging germ warfare because of the natural antiseptic properties of lavender. And it clears your head at the same time. And sometimes, let's face it, if we're washing our hands in the bathroom, it is nice to have a burst of a lovely fresh scent to take away any other....odors. Ahem. It lathers well, cleans well, and have I mentioned that I love the smell? It doesn't seem to dry out my hands, so in my view it is an all-around winner.

Four and a half stars - only a little less than five because of the price. I'd LOVE it to be cheaper!

Update: I've been finding this soap a little drying on my hands, so I'm knocking the review down to four stars because of that. I still love the smell, but I'd rather not have to use hand cream on top!

Adventures in homemade greenness

2009-02-27T12:35:00.006-05:00

I promised that this was going to be the year when I got better at homemade greenness. And I fully intend to follow through on that promise. There are so many areas where I waste money and resources buying premade stuff - cleaning products, facial care products and food.

The first thing I decided to tackle was food. Specifically, seitan. If you don't know, one of the easiest things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is to eat less meat. You don't have to go completely vegetarian - there are campaigns out there such as Meatless Monday which provide inspiration to go vegetarian one day a week. I am already a vegetarian, but I confess to being a bit of a processed-food vegetarian. So, on to seitan. Seitan is a protein made of wheat gluten (so, if you're gluten intolerant, obviously this isn't for you). It is also known as "wheat meat". It's low in calories and fat, and super high in protein (for something vegetarian). But alas, it is expensive if you buy it ready made - $3.99 for 2.5 servings at Whole Foods. If you've never tried it before, I suggest buying one of those packets and giving it a go in a stir fry. They are usually sold in chiller cabinets with the fresh tofus and meat substitutes. Don't be afraid to flavor it up with soy sauce, hot sauce, whatever, and even let it go slightly crisp with the cooking. Delicious.

As I have an awesome cookbook called Veganomicon, which promised me that homemade seitan was easy to make, I decided to try my hand at making it. You have to buy vital wheat gluten flour and nutritional yeast, but otherwise the remaining ingredients should be readily available and may be things you already have. I think I spent about $8-9 at Whole Foods for enough organic vital wheat gluten flour and nutritional yeast to make 8-10 batches of seitan. The recipe I used was similar to this one except I didn't put any flavorings in it other than 1/4 cup of soy sauce, and it only used 1 cup of flour, cooking up in 8 cups of broth/water. Instead of the flavorings, it has 1 tblspn olive oil. Each batch makes 3 servings.

The book authors were right - it was super easy. And yummy. I even made the vegetable broth myself, from all the wilting vegetables that were cluttering up the fridge and making me feel guilty. Using homemade broth did make it a two-day process, but now I also have 8 individually frozen cups of broth, that I can use in other recipes, and it keeps the sodium content down.

I think I count this as a success! The pic is today's lunch, which was a seitan stir fry.

Review: Tom's of Maine Natural Moisturizing Body Bar

2009-02-24T13:28:00.003-05:00

I am back after a long hiatus! Woot!

First things first, soap. I promised you a review of the soap that made me itch. This isn't it. I am having a mental block about writing that review because I still don't know if it was really the soap or if it was something else. So I have decided to move on, put it behind me and just say never again! But I will say that it was one of the $7 soaps, and I am done with $7 soaps for the time being anyway. $7 is too spendy for soap these days, what with the crushing recession and all.

So here we are, Tom's of Maine, which retails for about $3.99 but for which I am constantly finding $1 off coupons. Even on the front of the shelf where it is being sold. I wanted to like it so much, I really did. I use the Tom's calendula deodorant, which I reviewed here. It's still working pretty well for me, even after many months, and I really like the smell which is a nice spicy floral. I thought the matching soap would therefore make me smell delicious, not to mention like I had actually planned a combination of fragrances that matched. I had visions of feeling sophisticated.

The soap lathers very well, I have no complaints there. It doesn't contain animal ingredients, which is a prerequisite for me, and we know that Tom's has a good track record with natural products. It seems to be lasting well, and has a nice creamy feel. It even leaves my skin feeling nicely moisturized just as it is. It's just the smell that bothers me. You know when you have a dried flower arrangement and they sit out for about, ooh, a year, and get covered in dust? That's what this smells like. Dusty dried flowers, with a tinge of marigold somewhere underneath the dust. And it lingers on the skin for a while as well so I am going to work feeling like I'm wearing some old clothes of grandma's that I pulled out of the back of the closet. OK, that last sentence is a slight exaggeration - you actually have to inhale fairly deeply to smell it after 10-15 minutes.

Having said that, I do think the smell is more unisex than the deodorant. I can imagine it smelling quite pleasant on a man (provided he were brave enough to try a floral soap to begin with), and if you're sharing soap with your partner it could be a good choice. But, alas, it is not the soap holy grail that I wanted.

Three and a half stars.

Shame on You: Winn Dixie

2009-01-20T10:47:00.002-05:00

Winn Dixie is not traditionally a "green" store, but I shop there fairly regularly, mostly because it's the closest supermarket to my home. My local store has recently set up a new "organic and natural" section which actually has a fairly good selection. However, the prices are not fair at all.

Case in point: Kashi Black Bean Mango frozen entree. For some reason that I can't work out, not only does Winn Dixie charge an outrageous price for the Kashi frozen entrees (most are $4.29 in my local store), they single out the Black Bean Mango, which is the only vegan variety they sell, for special treatment. They charge a truly outrageous $5.49 for this product. I can buy the exact same thing for $3.79 at Whole Foods, and we all know that Whole Foods isn't the cheapest store in town. Last time I was in Walmart, they had them for $3.59.

Shame on you, Winn Dixie! And buyer beware - don't get suckered in to thinking that you're getting stuff cheap there. Even if you're using one of their regular $10 off $50 coupons that they give out all the time, this still doesn't bring the price down to anywhere near the price it should be.

Shopping Tips: Whole Foods

2009-01-20T10:39:00.002-05:00

Whole Foods has been trying to sell itself lately as being a supplier of low cost healthy foods, in contrast to their whole paycheck image. Sometimes it is working, sometimes not so much. Here's what I have noticed:

They now provide a free magazine at the entrance with a bunch of coupons in which are good for 3 months. And it includes things you might actually buy, rather than the usual coupon selection which always seems to be snack food only. So pick up a magazine every time you go, as you can just keep getting the coupons for stuff that you buy regularly. But read the coupons carefully - there's one for $5 a brand of vitamins, for example, but it is only valid for the 180-tablet size.

When WF advertises on their shelves "2 for $6" deals, they really mean 2 for $6, not like some stores which will give you one item for $3. However, I've noticed (and it's not just in one store) that the offers don't always ring up when you check out. Also, they have a lot of specially marked "Sale" products that again don't always ring up. I was kicking myself when I got home this weekend to find out that I'd missed out on a couple of sales. Keep an eagle eye on the sale and buy-two-for offers as they come up on screen at the checkout - in fact, next time, I'm going to write them all down so I don't forget to raise the issue with the cashier. They have to give you the item at the advertised price so they have to honor whatever they put on the shelf. Perhaps this is a regional thing that my local stores are disorganized, but it has surprised me that it has happened to me so frequently, and like I said, not just in one store. So, pay attention, shoppers!

Ooops!

2009-01-14T12:57:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting. It's not strictly due to laziness, I promise. I broke out in a nasty, itchy rash and it's taken me forever to switch around all the products I use one-by-one in order to figure out what it was that was causing me to itch. You almost got posts saying how I loved some new soap I was trying, that my favorite deodorant formulation must have been changed, and that a particular brand of toilet tissue was clearly impregnated with some evil itch-inducing chemicals when I finally figured out it was the soap that was causing all the problems in the first place.

Once I am entirely back to normal and reintroducing products again, I will start to review things. Including the itch-making soap.

Shopping Report: Gap women's jeans

2009-01-01T10:07:00.003-05:00

Gap has women's organic boot cut jeans on sale for $34.99 here. And they seem to have all sizes available at the moment.

New Year's Resolutions for 2009

2008-12-31T10:51:00.002-05:00

Another year is nearly upon us. And I'm often still saddened at how often organic and/or natural products are inaccessible or too expensive for most of us. I read various "green" websites and always get that sinking feeling in my stomach when they are recommending a $90 face cream, or $45 underwear. Having said that, buying an expensive item is not necessarily going to be off the radar. One thing I am going to try to do this year is to really think about what I am buying, and perhaps spend a bit more. Especially on clothing. So here are my green New Year's Resolutions:

1. Only buy ethical clothing. This may be organic, fair trade, US-made, vintage and/or recycled. I am definitely caught too often by the allure of low priced non-organic clothing that is produced in the far east. Is this doing anyone much good? Even if the jobs are good for the workers, they are paid minimal wages, and have to deal with all the chemicals that the fabrics are processed with. This will involve spending more per item, but hopefully it will be a frugal choice over all because I will buy fewer items. That's the plan anyway.

2. Cut out some of my non eco-friendly hold-out habits, provided I can find good alternatives. Swiffer sweeper, I'm looking at you. And little plastic disposable flossers. And not always having a reusable bag in my purse for those impromptu purchases. And I'm sure there are many others.

3. Stop frivolous purchases of "stuff" that I just don't need. Just because something is cute, and on sale, does not make it good for the planet. I resolve to go home, research it on the interweb, look in the house to see if I already own something similar, and then buy it only if I still want it after that.

4. Keep up with the reviews. Sorry I have been slacking a bit of late - I will try to do a minimum of one per week, if not more.

5. Learn how to make at least one "green" thing from scratch, and then make and use it regularly. This might be exfoliator, or a cleaning product, or even bread.

What are you going to do to go more green this year? Any tips or hints that I should adopt too?

Review: Kiss My Face Whitening Toothpaste

2008-12-15T13:16:00.007-05:00

I've resisted reviewing toothpastes up to now. I just couldn't get inspired by them. I mean, JASON makes one that tastes really great (Powersmile) but it doesn't contain fluoride and my teeth always start hurting after a while of using a non-fluoride toothpaste. And then Tom's of Maine makes lots of toothpastes that are often fairly reasonably priced. So I would usually whatever variety of Tom's was cheapest, and would use both a non-fluoride and a fluoride containing toothpaste at the same time, alternating them randomly. But I found that the bacteria in my mouth must have got used to Tom's of Maine (or something) because it wasn't doing me much good on the breath-freshening front.

I saw the Kiss My Face toothpaste on special offer at Whole Foods, in a "buy one, get one free" deal. So I snapped up a couple of tubes to try them out, even though I would normally never pay $5.99 for a toothpaste.

First of all, the color. This stuff is bright green. And although it foams up to a white color fairly quickly, as it starts out, it is...green. I have to say, it's a bit weird at first to be brushing green stuff on your teeth. Then the taste. When I first tasted it, I thought it was far too sweet. It didn't taste like toothpaste at all, but rather that you're applying candy. Or perhaps dessert. But then the minty-ness hits, and it's a very pleasant herbal minty taste, so I got over my thoughts on it being too sweet fairly quickly. More importantly, it's a long lasting mint taste, so your breath feels like it stays sweeter for longer. And, after a few uses, the sweetness was no longer odd, but refreshing, and tasty too!

Surprisingly, I haven't had any tooth sensitivity issues since using this toothpaste, and I've been using it exclusively to see if I'd get that familiar "ouch, I need some fluoride" feeling. Many people think that fluoride in our water and our toothpastes is contributing to thyroid issues, so I do try to limit my intake as much as I can. However, I don't want to be without teeth as an older person, and I do have some enamel quality problems with a few soft spots that can get sensitive, so I flip flop on this issue. I must say though, if I can get good results without extra chemicals, then I think that's the way to go. The pain just hasn't come, though, and I've finished one whole tube now, so it's clearly doing something different from the other non-fluoride toothpastes I have tried.

And finally, efficacy. It's a bit hard to say how effective a toothpaste really is, apart from on fresh breath issues. I don't know if it's actually helped keep my teeth whiter or not. But I'm pleased to say that my dentist told me this morning that I've been doing an awesome job with brushing lately. I also cringed less when he was using the long pointy torture device to check for cavities, so I think some of my sensitivity issues have really lessened quite considerably.

I checked the price of this on the internet, and it seems to be in a broad range from $3-something up to $6-something. One comparison site showed a general price drop this month, so it could be that the price is coming down but not all retailers have caught up.

I'm going to surprise myself here and give it the full 5 stars. I really like this!

Review: Physician's Formula Organic wear Concealer

2008-12-06T10:14:00.006-05:00

I'm so glad that I didn't review this concealer quickly. I bought it and used it without too many problems for a while. It didn't sink in to my skin much, so required a lot of rubbing so as not to look obvious. But it seemed to do its job adequately. I was, if not pleased, at least not displeased.

And then the stick broke off. I mean, the actual concealer, not the holder part of the stick. I wasn't even doing anything - just trying to smudge the darn thing into my face. It obviously wasn't a solid enough formula to put up with everyday usage. I pushed the stick back into the holder and decided I would continue using it anyway, although of course it became a bit more difficult to use, so I used it less and less.

And then I dropped it, and the stick dislodged again. Again I pushed it back in to the holder. Again I tried to keep using it but it got annoying, so I put it aside for a month.

Today I went to use it again, and as soon as I took the top off, the smell of rancid grease hit me. It's gone off!! I've had this less than six months. Now, OK, I accept that organic items have either no preservatives or fewer preservatives than their chemically-laden counterparts. So I try not to horde them, and try to pay attention to "best before" dates. But to have something give up the ghost on me in less than six months is really quite annoying. Not to mention, nasty.

So, I'm sorry, Physician's Formula, this one is a dud. I still like your tinted moisturizer and wear it every day, along with your powder foundation. But the concealer? No stars for you.

Feeling content

2008-12-01T11:24:00.003-05:00

It's Cyber Monday, the time of year when online shopping is supposed to be crazy, and I have been getting plenty of emails with discounts that I have been checking out. The emails included $15 from my formerly favorite cosmetics/skin care specialty store - you know the one - it's sometimes referred to as "Disneyland for girls." Anyway, I went off to scour the natural and organic skin care and makeup lines, thinking that I might splurge on something. And I have to tell you, nothing appealed. I did not want to buy anything.

The reason? I'm pretty darn happy with my current skin care routine. Which is a complete first for me, I must admit. After jumping from product to product for decades, always trying to find the next latest and greatest product, usually a moisturizer, I have no desire to change. Not even for a more expensive product line. I'm shocked at myself.

I think most of the accolades have to go to Burt's Bees Radiance Night Creme. I started off hating it, and gradually revised my opinion upwards as I kept using the jar and started seeing results. Now I'm half way through my second jar, and I feel that my skin is all sorts of glowy, and yes, radiant. It's smooth and moisturized and just feels very soft and dewey. And all for $15 a jar! So I have revised its star rating upwards to five stars. Now, sure, I don't look 20 again, but then again, I don't need to look 20 again. I just need to look as good as I can.

The other things I am using are:

Juice Organics Brightening Cleanser - a good all-around cleanser that does a nice job for me.

Lavera anti-age sunscreen and Physician's Formula Tinted Moisturizer. I found both of these products to be adequate when I used them separately, but nothing to get excited about. However, now I am putting a squirt of each onto my fingertips in the morning so that they mix together as I apply them, and I am really liking the mixture. The Lavera is a bit thick for my liking, and the Physician's Formula a bit thin, so together they do a really nice job. The scent of the Lavera, which is slightly minty, is also nicely uplifting.

Review: Nature's Gate Tea Tree Calming Conditioner

2008-11-23T13:15:00.004-05:00

I have issues with my locks. In addition to my frizz-prone moisture-sucking hair, I admit that I have scalp issues. I should have known that I would, seeing as my father has been sporting a collar-full of flakes for as long as I can remember. He has always used an anti-dandruff shampoo with absolutely no effect whatsoever, so he just lives with it.

I had some flakeage, but it wasn't too bad, and wasn't bothering me much. But then lately it seemed to be increasing and started making me feel self-conscious. I don't want to be the woman with the dandruff, but I didn't have any faith in anti-dandruff shampoos either. So I wasn't quite sure what to do to improve the situation.

And then I needed some more conditioner, and looked at the Nature's Gate shelf in the store for their Hemp Moisturizing Conditioner, which would be my holy grail product if only it was organic. The store was out, unfortunately, but I saw the Tea Tree Calming Conditioner for irritated, flaky scalp, and thought "what the heck, I'll give it a go."

The conditioner is a great texture - not too thick, not too thin, and has a really invigorating mint smell. As soon as you put it on, you can feel the mint + menthol seeping into your scalp, so it really feels like it is doing something good. It moisturized my hair well, leaving it soft and not frizzy, which was a surprise, as usually that's a tall order for a lot of hair products. But the most amazing thing? It calmed my scalp right down. You see, I didn't even realize that I had an irritated scalp until the irritation went away. I didn't realize how often my scalp bugged me, or itched, during the day - I must have been scratching away unconsciously all the time.

And of course, I can't really say how much flakeage actually makes it to my shoulders, and how much this has reduced it by, as I've never really measured. But it seems to be causing less snow to fall on me, so I think it is working. It hasn't gone away 100%, but it's enough to cut down on the self consciousness a lot.

So now you'll have to count me in as a Nature's Gate fan. Not only are the conditioners paraben-free and full of lots of herbal goodness, not only are they reasonably priced ($4.89 for 18 fl oz) but they work. Two winners out of two that I have tried. If only they were organic!

Four and a half stars. It would be five, nay in fact it would be six stars, if only it was the same price, the same quality AND organic.

Review: Alba Botanica Pineapple Quench Lip Balm

2008-11-20T16:53:00.004-05:00

If you were to dredge through my various handbags, work bags, cosmetic baskets, and cabinets, you would get the distinct impression that I am a lip balm fiend. I have many, many of the little buggers. But the actual truth is that I am often tempted by a cheap, shiny, new little stick of potential heaven, and then I am often sadly disappointed when I go to use it. Sometimes they are too greasy, sometimes sticky, sometimes the stick breaks when I go to apply it. Sometimes they are OK but just don't live up to the hype. Sometimes they start out well but then the texture breaks down over time.

But there is one lip balm that I reach for again and again, and has a fairly permanent place in my most-used bag. And that is Alba's Pineapple Quench lip balm. It's not colored, it's nothing fancy, it doesn't taste (or smell) too pineapple-y. It has nothing really to mark it out as being a winner. And yet, it works for me, and somehow I find myself reaching for it in preference to most other balms in my collection. It goes on smoothly, it is not too greasy, and it keeps my lips moisturized for a long time when the weather turns cooler.

It's about $3.49 and lasts a good long time. I think I might stick my neck out and give it 5 stars.

Review: Pacifica Spanish Amber Soap and Perfume

2008-11-12T21:57:00.003-05:00

I've mentioned before that I'm a big fan of Pacifica's French Lilac soap. I am pretty much working my way through their entire range in search of another one that I love as much!

While I love the Tibetan Mountain Temple perfume that Pacifica makes, the matching soap did not wow me as much, mostly because it is a hard glycerin bar that doesn't lather very well.

Sadly, the Spanish Amber fragrance (I have tried both the soap and the spray perfume) is both not wowing me on the smell factor or the soapiness factor. I know fragrance is such a personal thing, and what I dislike you may very well love - and vice versa. But the Spanish Amber really is a huge blast of sandalwood and not much else to my nose. Sure, there's a hint of amber in the top notes of the perfume, but it is very fleeting. The soap, when the packet was first opened, was also a big burst of sandalwood and not much else, but after having been next to the sink for a few weeks it has mellowed into more of a straight, yet disappointingly feeble, amber smell. It barely lathers, however, and is not endearing itself to me, given that sandalwood just makes me think of hippies. And while I am often proud to be called a hippy, I don't necessarily want to smell like one.

Sigh. 1 and a half stars. Maybe. I think I am being generous here. But then again, like I said, fragrance is a personal choice so you may love it, and it might work better on a man.

Review: Lavera Anti-Age Sunscreen SPF 20

2008-11-11T17:30:00.007-05:00

I may have very strong cheap tendencies, but that doesn't stop me wishing that I could slather my face with the likes of Creme de la Mer on a regular basis. There's a part of me that secretly thinks that using a $100 face cream will have me looking 20 again. Even when nobody ever thinks I look as old as I really am, and my $15 face cream is working just fine, thankyouverymuch.

But still, seductive catalogs can still draw me in. There I was, perusing a natural beauty type catalog, sighing longingly over all the Lavera organic vegan anti-aging goodness, which had an average retail price of about $65 when the anti-aging sunscreen caught my eye. At a price of $28 or thereabouts, I wondered if it might be worth spending a little more than I usually do in order to get some anti-aging benefits at less than half the price of their night creams.

Once the product arrived, I was a little taken aback at how little it was, although I knew I was getting 50ml but somehow the size of the tube brought home the idiocy of trying to go cheap on high end products.

The sunscreen is a titanium dioxide physical sunscreen, which means that you have to rub it in or you'll end up looking like a 16th century lady who has painted her face in white lead powder. This product seems to require more rubbing in than others of the same type. I have regularly gone out of the house with a big unnoticed smudge, or a white eyebrow, or what appear to be white hair roots around my forehead. In fact, sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and carefully check for no white smudges, only to find some a few hours later. I guess I rub my forehead and some of the sunscreen forms into new smudges. Otherwise, it has a pleasant texture. It is designed for sensitive skin, and as I don't have sensitive skin I can't comment on that, but I am not careful with it around my eyes and haven't noticed any stinging or other problems.

As for the anti-aging benefits, if you concentrate really hard after putting it on, you can feel some slight skin tightening. The dark shadows under my eyes appear to have lessened, but that could be due to the time change and getting more sleep. Overall, I can't really ascribe too much difference to this product, not that that's a really fair test, as nothing is really going to give a dramatic effect.

I'm undecided on whether to buy another tube of this. I like it well enough, and am willing to hope for more anti-aging benefits with continued use (after all, that slight tightening might be doing something). But it's not wowing me, I have to say. If this was a $12 product, I'd probably be gaga over it, though, so perhaps I was expecting too much.

3 stars.

Review: Giovanni Organics Frizz Be Gone Hair Serum

2008-11-10T07:37:00.003-05:00

I can't say that this hair serum is particularly frugal. In my ongoing quest for frugality and greenness, I have tried to do away with unnecessary products as well as unnecessary chemicals. So, eye cream, toner, shower gel and a few others have all disappeared from chez Frugalista. I have also tried to buy the cheapest green version of products I can find - while I'm not quite at the point of making my own green products yet, I figure the cheaper and simpler something is, the better.

Except where things don't work, that is.

See, I keep trying to do away with the Giovanni Organics hair serum. I keep trying cheaper products. But either I end up with a head full of fluff, looking like I've gone back to 80's-style backcombing, or looking like I haven't washed my hair for several weeks. And then I give up and go back to the Giovanni, my hair thanks me profusely by looking cute and curly rather than like I just stuck my fingers in an electrical socket, and all is right with the world. A little really does go a long way, it doesn't feel too oily or greasy, and has a barely detectable herbal smell. Except my wallet isn't necessarily thrilled with me, but hey, when you're trying to be all organic, at least $7.95 or thereabouts for a teeny 2.75 fl oz bottle is better than $35 for a different teeny bottle of a similar product. So I console myself that sometimes frugality is a relative concept, and sometimes you just gotta hang on to what works. This does. In spades.

3 and a half stars, only marked down because I'm cheap and don't like the price.

Review: Ultra Dishmate Natural Grapefruit dishwashing cleaner

2008-11-09T10:12:00.005-05:00

I've been having dishwasher issues lately, so I've been doing all my dishes by hand. It's been strangely calming and I have (don't tell anyone) enjoyed doing it, which is in stark contrast to other times when the dishwasher has had mechanical problems and I have rushed to have it fixed before doing anything else.

Dishmate is made by Earth Friendly Products, and it's about $3.99 online for 25 oz, though I can't remember what I paid for it - I bought it when it was on special offer. I like that the cleaner itself is more or less transparent - it has a very slight yellowy/peachy tinge to it. I much prefer when manufacturers don't waste chemicals just coloring up something to make it look "prettier." The scent is a nice mild grapefruit - it is quite true to life, and is mildly uplifting and not at all overpowering.

However, despite the label's claims that the cleaner is very concentrated and that a little goes a long way, I have found myself using quite a lot of it. It seems to lose steam quite quickly and gives up the ghost with pretty much any sautee pan with a small amount of grease on it. So I end up using more and more in order to try to get the pan clean. It seems fine for dishes at the beginning of the wash, but the bubbles don't last a terribly long time. Call me a bubble freak if you will, but having done a dishwashing job in the dim and distant past while at school, I know that once the bubbles have gone, the grease fighting ability goes fairly quickly afterwards.

One nice thing is that it doesn't seem to leave a residue on the dishes, and even glasses can be done without rinsing them afterwards but just letting them drip dry - they still seem to sparkle. As it's a saving on water if you don't rinse, that's a good thing in my book.

Comparing it to my last dishwashing detergent, which was Mrs. Meyers - green but definitely not budget, I'd say that the Mrs. Meyers has Dishmate beat very slightly on effectiveness. I used slightly less Mrs. Meyers to do the same job. But all-in-all, this is a good product, and what with the dark color of the Mrs. Meyers and the increased price, I think I'll stick with the Dishmate. I expect that using a tad more of Dishmate which doesn't contain color chemicals vs. a tad less of the Mrs. Meyers which does, it's probably a wash (pun, geddit?) as to how many chemicals in total go down the drain.

3 stars.

A review a day

2008-11-09T10:09:00.002-05:00

When I first started this blog, reviewing was so easy. I had a lot of things to say, and a lot of products to say them about. Now...not so much. There are many products that I haven't been inspired to write about because they are....adequate. They do what they are supposed to, more or less. And I have been waiting for inspiration, or telling myself that I should just keep testing for another week in case something comes to mind.

But, I could be waiting for ever. So I have decided that for the next week, I will commit myself to writing a review a day, to see if I can get back into the shoot from the hip groove.

Shopping Report: Walmart

2008-11-01T16:15:00.006-04:00

It's been a while since I was in Walmart but I was there today and my eye was drawn by a large display area with colorful t-shirts and other basics at pretty great prices. So I picked one up, thinking I might allow myself a non-organic purchase but when I looked at the back of the packet I was stunned that they were all organic cotton.

Be still my beating heart!

I couldn't snap things up quick enough. In fact, I may have to go back to get more. They're all made out of thin t-shirt fabric, some with an interesting knit, some a standard jersey knit. I don't think the dyes used are eco-friendly but I just think it's such a game changer to be able to get organic cotton at reasonable prices so I think it's a great, great first step.

They do have a chemical/plastic odor when first removed from their bags (which are ziploc-type bags so they can be reused). I can't tell if that is from the plastic bag, or from the item itself. If you're very chemically sensitive, you might want to skip these, but for the rest of us hopefully one wash will take care of that issue. Be careful if it looks like something has been replaced in the bag - I just opened one of them to find it was the wrong size - typical Walmart. The tops seem roomy, the pants seem snug, but that could be due to the enormous size of my backside.

Bags and scarves are $5, tanks are $6, t-shirts are $7 or $8, and the pants are $9. They are labeled Seed Supply Co. and have various countries of origin.

Get some before they run out! Get some to tell the big suppliers that organic cotton is the way of the future! Get some because they are amazing prices!

Can you tell I'm excited?

Review: Arm & Hammer Essentials Natural Clumping Litter

2008-10-24T15:35:00.004-04:00

This kitty litter promises to be "so effective, you won’t believe it is natural! It harnesses the power of nature to deliver outstanding odor elimination." I am not quite sure if the writers of this ad copy were using quite the same kitty litter as me, or whether they even know the meaning of the term "odor elimination."

This stuff is awful, in my view. First, it doesn't eliminate odor at all. In fact, my house now stinks of cat pee. Which is not a very welcoming smell to come home to, I've got to say. Second, it doesn't clump well. Wait, I should rephrase that - it clumps fine enough when the cat pees on it, but when you go to actually scoop up the clump, it falls instantly apart, breaking back into a powdery mess without any hint of clumpage remaining. Except now the powdery mess stinks, which doesn't please me OR the cat, and as I can't manage to scoop all of it up, it just adds to the ammoniacal whiff that is constantly coming off the box.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I admit that I am not the type to completely empty the kitty litter constantly so that I can refresh with all new litter - I know I do not do this as often as I should because I usually try to get to the end of a bag or box before emptying the old stuff and scrubbing the litter box clean. So perhaps my testing is not in accordance with manufacturer's instructions. I've read a few other reviews on this, which seem to either be completely glowing, or completely awful, making me wonder if the people that love this are reviewing it for the money or somehow completely emptying and scrubbing/bleaching their litter boxes every night.

Put me in the "awful" camp. I really didn't like this, and can't muster up any stars for it, I'm afraid.

$5 off coupon at Whole Foods

2008-10-17T09:34:00.003-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. I have been being very green, and not buying much stuff. But never fear, I am brewing reviews in my head. Plus, I've just done some internet shopping, so I will have a couple of things to talk about.

But, I wanted to post with a $5 off coupon at Whole Foods that a friend sent me. It is at
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/pdfs/coupon_5off.pdf and is valid until October 22, 2008.

Happy Shopping!

Review: Burt's Bees Radiance Night Creme

2008-09-24T09:58:00.008-04:00

Stephanie persuaded me to buy this moisturizer on the basis that she'd review the day cream and I could review the night cream. So hopefully she'll come through with that review soon!

It costs $14.99 or thereabouts for 2oz, so it definitely fits within my budget. However, at first I hated it. It seemed too thin, I didn't think it moisturized enough, and I wasn't happy at all. I was ready to write a review of how me and Burt's Bees just don't get along (apart from their lip balm) and that I'd never waste my money on their stuff again.

But I kept using it, just to give it a fair trial. And something strange started happening...I started liking it. I still would like it to be a bit thicker. I still probably use a bit too much because I want a bit of extra moisturization around my eyes, but it has definitely grown on me. It is slightly sticky when first applied, but sinks in well. It has a very pleasant apple scent (at least, to my nose - it doesn't list apple on the ingredient list, so perhaps it's supposed to smell of something else). It leaves my skin feeling soft and nourished, and, yes, plump and not too lined and wrinkly. It must be the royal jelly or something in there that my skin is enjoying, but I definitely feel like something is working.

Three and a half stars.

Update: I'm revising my opinion of this cream upwards. I've just bought my second jar because my skin has been feeling silky smooth, and well, moistened. So I'm going to go for four stars.

Update #2: I'm revising this upward again, to 5 stars. See also this post. This is really working well for me. I've also got very used to the consistency so I don't mind that it's a bit thinner than the moisturizers I previously liked. I am hooked!

Review: Kashi Garden Vegetable Pasta

2008-09-19T12:49:00.003-04:00

I've reviewed a Kashi frozen meal before so I thought I may as well do another one. But I'll just reiterate my reasons for liking them - although these food items are not organic, which is a shame, they are not chock-full of chemicals and preservatives, are easily available and are relatively cheap for a prepared meal. They are retailing at $3.59 at most places that I shop at.

I've had the Kashi pesto primavera pasta (or whatever it's called), and despite my general love for all things pasta-related, and especially pesto, there's something about it that just isn't quite right. No such problems with the garden vegetable pasta, which I really like. First of all, it's vegan, getting its protein from the mixed whole-grain pasta, and beans. So many prepared pasta dishes rely on cheese to do the job, that this makes for a very welcome change. I'm always on the lookout for easy vegan meals, and this fits the bill nicely.

The sauce is a rich tomato-based sauce with just the faintest hint of a spicy kick. And by "faintest hint" I really mean it is super mild, but I think with beans, tomato and pasta you need a bit of a kick otherwise it is all too bland, and this is just enough to give a nice little boost to the flavor. There aren't quite as many veggies as the picture on the box would imply, but those that are there are well chosen and survive the freezing and nuking process well.

This seems to be a great addition to the Kashi line. I think I'll be buying it regularly!

Four stars.

Review: Nature's Gate Hemp Nourishing Conditioner

2008-09-17T09:47:00.003-04:00

I think I've mentioned before that I have dry, frizzy hair, so every time I see a product that claims to be able to help, I always seem to end up trying it. I've been looking for that holy grail product for a very long time.

Nature's Gate Hemp Nourishing Conditioner comes awfully close to the holy grail. I really like it. It doesn't seem to have much of a scent at all, and if it didn't list fragrance in the ingredients I'd be prepared to believe that it was unscented. It mostly smells wholesome if that's even a smell - like a generic, but not unpleasant, natural product. Perhaps a very faint floral - or is it citrus - smell. It's hard to identify. It has a great, thick consistency - just as I like a conditioner to be. More importantly, it has left my hair very soft and nourished. I mean, OK, I could get slightly better results to start with if I used Pantene, but as that leaves a deposit on your hair eventually I would have to stop using it anyway. I am more than satisfied with the results I am getting from the Nature's Gate.

It's quite reasonably priced - I think I paid around $4.99 for this, for 18 ounces, which compares very favorably with the usual organic conditioners which are about $8 for 8 ounces. However, therein lies the rub - this isn't organic. It's mostly natural, doesn't have any parabens or other nasty chemicals that I can see, and contains lots of oils and herbs. But not an organic one among them, it seems, which presumably explains the price. I think I will keep buying it, though, and use it in rotation with some of the organic products, just to try to keep costs down.

Four stars. It would have been higher if only it was organic.

Review: Ecover Automatic Dishwashing Tablets

2008-09-15T09:53:00.001-04:00

Have you looked lately for a green automatic dishwasher detergent? They are hard to find. I don't know if we're all supposed to be handwashing dishes in a mountain stream or something, but I'm sorry, I don't do that.

I had been using the Mrs. Meyer's dishwashing powder, which I loved - it worked well, it was a loose powder so I could choose how much to use, and it had a nice smell. The only problem was that it came in a plain cardboard box, so the humidity had turned it into a solid brick. I had to rip the box apart, put the brick into some large ziploc bags and hammer it apart. Oh, and the other problem was that I was concerned that it wasn't especially frugal.

I decided to try the Ecover tablets, even though I think tablets are a bit wasteful. After all, they come individually wrapped in plastic which surely adds to the waste stream. And you might end up using more detergent than you need, especially if you have a small dishwasher like I do, or you are washing things that aren't heavily soiled.

These are available for about $6.99, so they're not especially frugal either, but I'd got to the point where the Mrs. Meyers had run out and I was getting desperate!

I really don't like them. I have had to run everything through the dishwasher at least twice, and even then had to carefully pick out the dishes that were clean enough to put away (though not as clean as I'd like), in order to try to start washing some other things. I even had to (gasp!) do some hand washing to keep up.

I'm going back to the Mrs. Meyers for now. One star for Ecover.

Review: Kitchen cleaner comparison

2008-09-07T08:42:00.004-04:00

I have a bad habit of forgetting that I have plenty of kitchen surface cleaner, and buying more. Or something new and sparkly catches my eye in the store and it goes into the shopping cart before I've even really thought if I need it. I vow to be better at this, and actually organize my cleaning supplies to prevent overbuying in the future, I promise! However, my poor shopping habits meant that I have ended up with several different cleaning products at home, so in the interests of science I decided to conduct a cleaning experiment. Yesterday, therefore, I carefully spread a greasy concoction of salad dressings, mustard and marinade over my granite kitchen countertops and left it to dry, then set to it to see which cleaners worked better. I also ended up trying them all out on my stainless steel stove hood/extractor fan thingie, to see how well they performed on metal.

The contenders were:

1. Ecover Glass & Surface Cleaner. This is not a very frugal choice. It retails for about $4.50 for 16 ounces, and I haven't come across a refill for it, though I hope one exists - there's a lot of plastic in those spray heads that we don't need to be using up every time. I have seen a refill of their all-purpose cleaner, but I'm not sure if there is one to the glass & surface cleaner. It has a light, fresh and vaguely citrusy scent that is hard to place but is pleasant enough. I'd originally bought this one just to use as a glass cleaner, and hadn't previously tried it on kitchen grease.

2. Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Countertop Spray in geranium scent. Again, not a frugal choice as it retails for about $4.99 for 16 ounces. A large refill bottle is available of the general purpose cleaner, but not the countertop spray - the bottle says the countertop spray contains an additional vegetable protein extract to remove odors from kitchen and bath. I bought this one for the scent, which is a lovely lemony-floral, rosy-minty geranium. I have several products from the Mrs. Meyer's range, and they do make the kitchen and bathroom smell lovely, so it definitely helps me get on with the cleaning chores that I might otherwise be reluctant to tackle. The bottle includes a "common sense caution" to avoid eye contact.

3. Clorox GreenWorks Natural All-Purpose Cleaner. I decided to try this one as I felt guilty about the amount of money I was spending on products. I worry about how green it is, as it is first of all made by Clorox, and secondly has "CAUTION: EYE IRRITANT" on it although it is endorsed by the Sierra Club. The bottle is about $3.29 for 32 ounces, though I have spotted it in Walmart and Target, so I am sure it is cheaper there. I have also seen a large refill bottle available. The scent of this cleaner is quite lemony, and it has a light green color.

4. Arm & Hammer Essentials Multi-Surface cleaner. This caught my eye as it is sold as an empty 32 oz spray bottle, with a mini bottle of concentrate attached to it. You fill the bottle up with water when you get home, add the concentrate and voila. This is a pretty darn good idea for transport purposes, as it costs less to transport lighter weight products. The "starter kit" was $2.99, and refills are available as a package of the two mini bottles for $3.99. It is a shockingly deep green color, so they went completely overboard on the colorant. I also tried to find the ingredients of this online yesterday but failed miserably, so I don't know how environmentally friendly it really is. This bottle has several cautions in large letters - the front says "CAUTION: EYE IRRITANT, MAY BE HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED" and the back says "CAUTION: CONCENTRATE IS COMBUSTIBLE". The cautions do not give me the warm fuzzies on this one, I have to say. This one smells the most ammoniacal - I can't place the scent as it mostly just smells of cleaning fluid to me. This is clearly the least "green" of the cleaners I tried.

I also initially tried a Seventh Generation bathroom cleaner, but quickly took it out of contention because bathroom cleaners don't typically have degreasers, and as I'd created a big ole greasy mess that it was struggling with, I didn't think it was a fair comparison.

First test - grease fighting. All four cleaners were surprisingly close in how well they performed on my greasy, dried up lake o' salad dressings. The Clorox cleaner got more sudsy than the others, so required an extra wipe or two to clean up the suds. But it was very hard to declare a winner on this test. The Ecover particularly surprised me, as I'd never even tried it in the kitchen before, and had it pegged as a lightweight, but it definitely kept up with the big boys. If I had to put it in order of efficacy, I'd say the Ecover and the Arm & Hammer came out top, the Clorox was next (but only marked down due to having to do an extra wipe to clear off the suds) and the Mrs. Meyers was last. I want to stress, though, that these are marginal differences - all performed admirably and I'd be happy to use any of them.

Second test - cleaning greasy stainless steel. I admit, I don't get up on a chair and clean the stove hood very often. This was therefore a tough test, with grease and dust to shift. Again, all four products cleaned admirably. If I had to declare winners, it comes down to the lack of streaks left behind, and the Ecover and Mrs. Meyers seemed better on that score. I double-checked streakiness on the front of the fridge, which is a brushed stainless steel, and there again the Ecover and Mrs. Meyers worked the best - Ecover being slightly better.

All in all, I feel I have to declare Ecover the winner, which I found quite surprising as I expected it to be the least efficacious. Part of this is due to the fact that one product will work well on kitchen countertops, stainless steel, AND glass (I've used it on the shower door several times and it does OK there too) - there shouldn't be a need to have several different spray bottles at one time. It's also vegan and seems the most environmentally sound product of all four - no scary warnings on this label! My concern is in the cost, but if I can find a refill bottle I think I will switch to using this one all the time.

Second place goes to the Clorox because of the price. It worked well on the kitchen counter mess, but I don't think I'd want to use it on metal or glass.

Third place (though it was very nearly a tie for second with Clorox) goes to Mrs. Meyer's. I do love the scent, and it did well in the streakiness stakes. In the end, the higher cost marked it down.

Fourth place goes to Arm & Hammer. It worked great on the greasy mess, but alas, all those warnings and the crazy color are off-putting because they imply that this contains lots of chemicals. I wish they'd have put the ingredients on the web, too. The price is good, and I like the concept of selling just the concentrate, but it just doesn't seem green enough.

Of course, if I was being uber frugal and green, I'd make my own cleaning products, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet - maybe one day, eh?

Review: Kashi Ranchero Beans

2008-09-03T13:13:00.006-04:00

I did have something to review today after all!

Strictly, I suppose, a frozen meal is neither green nor frugal. We should all be making our own organic meals, preferably from vegetables that we grew ourselves. But then again, I've never pretended that this blog is about being uber-green. It's more about buying smarter products to make your life greener as you either learn about taking the green life one step further or decide that light green is just far enough, thanks.

So, this is what I'd call a "light green" product. It isn't organic, but I wish it was. It is a frozen meal, yes, but it isn't chock-a-block full of unpronounceable preservatives. Kashi as a whole are a reputable company, I think, who do seem to care about the environment. They've reduced their packaging, as an example. They seem to care about producing healthy food. All in all, I think it's a fair choice for those times when you just don't have the time or energy to make something yourself. And, more to the frugal side of my nature, the Kashi meals are a lot cheaper than Amy's Kitchen or similar products. And they are easily found in most supermarkets, which is not true of many other products. I picked this up at my local Publix for $3.59, when most of the Amy's meals were retailing at $5.69 or so. That difference sure adds up over time.

Kashi has had a small selection of frozen meals for a while, and they've just expanded them, adding two new vegetarian options. Sorry, I don't know how many non-vegetarian ones they've added as I don't pay that much attention to non-vegetarian items. But the first of the new meals that I've tried is the Ranchero Beans, which is vegan. It's a southwest-themed meal, with roast corn, pinto beans, and red peppers in a chipotle sauce. The base is Kashi's usual 7-grain pilaf.

The bean mixture has a nice kick to it, but not so much that it is painful or in any way overbearing. It may not be enough if you're a true spice lover, but for the average Joe or Jane, I think they got the level of spice just about right. This is unlike the Black Bean Mango meal, which I do like but I find a bit too spicy on occasion. I have to admit, there's also something about the Kashi pilaf blend that I don't quite dig - perhaps the texture of the wheat berries - but I am getting more used to it as time goes by. I wouldn't say this is my favorite frozen meal but I liked it, and it's going to go straight into the rotation as something I will buy regularly for quick lunches at work, because it was tasty, seemed healthy and more importantly, fits into the budget.

3 stars.

Posting drought

2008-09-03T08:49:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posting. You know when you get in those modes where you just don't have the need or opportunity to buy or try anything new because your shelves are groaning with so many products that need to be used up? Well, maybe not, but I'm in one right now. I was going to switch my attention to reviewing cleaning products, but I'm finding that I have a mental block on how to review them - I mean, seriously, when was the last time you picked up a counter spray type cleaner and have it not work? But I will find a way, I promise! I will definitely have more reviews up by the end of the week.

Review: JASON Aloe Vera 84% Hand & Body Lotion

2008-08-26T21:43:00.003-04:00

I bought this product not even intending to use it. It was a bargain at Marshall's and I thought I might give it away as a holiday gift or something. I'm not a big user of hand and body lotions, and I have a large supply of them that other people have given me over the years. So I really didn't need any for myself.

And yet, curiosity got the better of me, and I thought I might try just a tiny bit to test it out. And the tiny bit became a bigger amount, and then I suddenly seemed to be using it regularly.

This summer I have suffered from painful, dry, cracked heels. Nothing seemed to be working on them - lotions would either not absorb, sliding right off my skin, or would make no difference whatsoever. However, right from the start the JASON lotion seemed to help. Now, after only a week of regular use, my heels are almost as baby soft as nature intended. It's quite a remarkable change. The aloe lotion feels silky smooth, and has a very slightly pearlescent quality. It feels very slightly greasy when you first use it, but that goes away quickly as the product sinks in. The smell is not all that wonderful, as it mostly just smells like a plain lotion with aloe in it, but that's OK, as it means that there's nothing that is noticeable to others or would clash with any perfumes you may be wearing. Personally, I would prefer a more scented product, but I can live without it. More importantly, it really does deeply moisturize and sooth, as it says right on the label. And finding something that works well without costing a fortune is a wonderful thing.

The lotion is paraben free, and contains some organic ingredients (most notably the 84% of aloe gel) however I can't help wishing it contained more organic ingredients. It has ingredients such as avocado oil, camomile, green tea extract and ginseng extract, none of which are organic - which only leaves me wondering why not? It's not like JASON couldn't have made the extra effort here. But, gripes aside, I do like this lotion, and I will continue to use it as so far it's the only thing that's helped my heels look even remotely presentable.

4 stars simply for the fact that it works. It could oh so easily have been five stars if JASON hadn't skimped on the ingredients and the scent.

Free Origins samples

2008-08-22T10:31:00.008-04:00

Check out this link which I spotted over at TreeHugger.

Origins are giving away a 2-minute skin care consultation and 4 free "super samples" if you visit a store between now and 9/3/08, or you can shop online and get the sample set free with a purchase. I wouldn't normally regard Origins as being a terribly frugal choice, but it's free! One of the sets is from their new organics line which they are touting as the "purest products on earth" - I'm sure the purest skin care products on earth don't actually come in a bottle, but I'm still keen to try it. Although the sample set comes in a nice box, which has me thinking holiday gifts again. Maybe I'll try to get two sample sets somehow - one to try and one to give away.

Organic clothes shopping

2008-08-20T09:33:00.005-04:00

At some point, I hope to write about affordable organic clothes shopping on this blog. But frankly, right now, it's all a bit depressing. I regularly google for organic clothes sales, or bargain organic clothes, or low-cost organic clothes, or...well, you get the picture. I am not having much luck finding things in actual stores, nor am I having much luck finding anything reasonably priced online. And even then, while I would happily spring for a t-shirt online, it is a bit more difficult shopping for jeans or pants because you just don't know if they'll fit properly. Especially if they're $200 organic jeans which are only in stock up to a size 2, which is what I always seem to come across.

Anyway, this week in my searching, I did notice a few promising items.

Target has some reasonable-looking organic men's shirts on clearance here.

JC Penney also has some organic men's shirts on clearance here.

I hope the links work, but if they don't, you should be able to find them going to the main store website, typing "organic" into the search box, and then going down to either "clearance" or "outlet + clearance" in the sub-headings.

Gaiam is running its annual sale at the moment, with prices at 50-75% off. This still doesn't leave things terribly cheap, but they have some quite nice women's tops at around $18.99. The Gaiam sale includes clothing, yoga gear and some home accessories, as well as sheet sets.

If you know of any good places to find reasonably priced organic clothing, let me know in the comments!

Review: Boscia Willow Bark breakout treatment

2008-08-19T11:01:00.003-04:00

Part of being frugal, I think, isn't always about being cheap. It is about making the most of your money, cutting back where it isn't important or necessary to spend extra money, but equally being prepared to spend a little more when it is worth it. Although the Boscia skin care range isn't terribly expensive (products are typically $20-$30), it's also not the cheapest out there, but I think some of the products are worth it. In particular, the breakout treatment.

Boscia is a natural brand, rather than an organic brand. There are no preservatives, and the products contain a lot of herbal and natural plant-based ingredients, but that also doesn't mean that it's necessarily as pure as the driven snow. However, when I have any breakouts, I mostly want something that will work.

Willow Bark breakout treatment contains as its major ingredient, willow bark, as the name implies. For those of you that don't know, willow bark is what the first salicylic acid and hence aspirin was made from, as people had known for millennia that willow bark included a pain reliever. It also contains willow herb, which reduces inflammation, and soapberry peel which is rich in saponins which cleanse, purify and heal. It's a clear gel that is slightly sticky, but which absorbs well. It isn't going to prevent future breakouts, but dab some on a breakout you already have, and the redness and inflammation will go down remarkably quickly without it seeming to dry the skin out. In fact, I think this works far better than most harsh chemical-laden breakout treatments, which always dried my skin out so much it would peel. Or made it redder than it already was to start with.

Boscia is available from places like Sephora and Amazon. There are two sizes - the smaller one is a pen that you click the base of and a little gel pops up, and the larger size is a pump. I have the smallest size (0.14oz), as my skin has got drier in recent years and I don't need to use it very often. It has lasted me quite a long time! The pen usually retails for $15, the larger 0.5oz pump is $22.50.

Just good stuff. Four stars.

Review: Alba Pineapple Enzyme Scrub

2008-08-18T08:44:00.004-04:00

One of the things I have tried to do as I go more "green" is to look at my usage of products, and try to decide if I actually need them. When you think that the average woman uses 12 products a day which include 168 chemicals (according to Environmental Working Group), it's easy to see that we shouldn't just be making sure each product is green, but that if we cut out a product or two, we'll save adding a few more chemicals to our systems. Because even green products have chemicals, so unless you are prepared to make everything from scratch, it's hard to avoid them.

So, toner has gone from my shelves, as has eye cream, as has shower gel. I'm trying to cut down on my perfume addiction, but it's hard. At least I'm trying not to buy more! But then I got to exfoliants. You could argue that it's a product that we don't really need, and therefore it's an easy one to ditch. But my skin reacts well to exfoliants and they definitely help me to feel like I'm looking more fresh-faced and healthy, so I don't really want to give them up. What I try to do is not use them in addition to cleanser, but to find an exfoliant that I can use once or twice a week instead of cleanser.

I quite like the Alba pineapple scrub, but there's something lacking. There aren't many exfoliating grains in it, as presumably it relies more on the enzymes than on a physical scrubbing action. But half the time, I don't think the enzyme are really enough. I want more grains! The scrub has quite a creamy feel, and has a pleasant pineapple-papaya scent to it. It doesn't really lather, but that's just fine in my book. It is quite gentle on the skin, and would probably be good for sensitive skin. It also has a nice cleansing action, so I don't feel like my skin has been cheated out of a step if I use it in place of cleanser in the morning. However, I always want to dump a teaspoon-full of brown sugar or something into the mix, in order to boost the exfoliating power.

Maybe one of these days I really will become a proper greenie, and start making my own exfoliant, but in the meantime, this one is average-to-good. It usually retails for about $11.99 although I notice that drugstore.com currently has it on sale for $9.59.

Two and a half stars.

Shopping Report: Dollar Tree and Marshall's

2008-08-17T14:40:00.006-04:00

This weekend I decided to test how much organic goodness I could pick up at some discount stores.

My first stop was Dollar Tree. I knew this would probably be a plastic-filled wasteland with nary a green item in sight, and my suspicions were oh so nearly proved true. But much to my surprise, after ambling up and down all the aisles for a while, I spotted some WestSoy organic soy milk - 32 fl oz. (very nearly a liter) for a dollar. Yup, $1. Now, OK, it's probably not worth a trip just to go to Dollar Tree to pick up one item, but maybe just maybe you can combine it with a visit to another store close by and start to put together a decent basket full of things. They also had some white vinegar, which you could use for cleaning or washing fruits/veggies (diluted, of course), but I didn't pick any up. And some Mediterranean sea salt. And that was about it.

My next stop was MUCH more successful. I went into Marshall's trying to see if there were any organic skin care items that I could pick up. In actual fact, there was such an overabundance of items, I almost felt ashamed that I hadn't thought of going there in the first place and that I have been wasting my money at other stores. There were many many shampoos and conditioners (Giovanni Organics, Nature's Gate, EO, etc), a large selection of Juice Organics skin care items, more natural soaps than I could possibly use in several years, some JASON hand lotions and other smaller labels that I can no longer remember. They also had some giant 32 oz family-size Nature's Gate lavender & aloe shampoos and conditioners (for $5 if I remember correctly!), and family-size Giovanni Organics tea tree shampoo and conditioner (for $12), which would both be great for kids. I would definitely have bought them if my hair weren't so picky and in need of more oomph than a family shampoo can give me. I do love a giant family value-sized item, though, and actually, the amazing bargain of the Nature's Gate stuff is eating away at me, such that I may have to go back and snap up the giant sizes just because. I can always use them every other time I wash my hair and it hopefully wouldn't leave my hair too lackluster. Besides, I may have hallucinated the $5 price tag so I may have to go just to double check. Or double-take, depending on your point of view.

In the end I picked up a Giovanni Organics shampoo for $4.99 ($7.95 at Whole Foods), a Juice Organics Brightening Cleanser for $4.99 ($9.99 at Target), two Giovanni Organics vegetable oil soaps for $2.99 each, and a JASON hand & body lotion for $3.99 (which was even more of a bargain because it was a "25% extra free" size). Some of this stuff I don't have any urgent need for, but it will keep until I get around to using it - I figure with places like Marshall's and TJ Maxx you need to buy when it's there because you never know what merchandise they are going to have available. I may be doing a good portion of my holiday shopping at Marshall's over the coming months, as some nice natural soaps and/or body lotions could be good stocking stuffers. I didn't check the clothing section for organic cotton items, but I may just have to do that one of these days. Marshall's/TJ Maxx is definitely a winner in the frugalista's book.

Review: 365 Organic Black Tea

2008-08-16T16:59:00.004-04:00

Most organic teas seem to run in the range of $4.99 and up for 16 or 20 bags, and as lovely as the tea may be, it is hardly what I'd call frugal. So when I saw that Whole Foods has some organic teas at $3.99 for 80 bags under their own "365 Organic" label, I knew I had to snap some up to try it. The range includes black tea, green tea and a pomegranate/cranberry green tea. It also had a decaffeinated green tea with some other flavorings, but that was $3.99 for 40 bags so it was twice the price, and therefore didn't get a second glance from me.

Inside, the 80 bags are portioned out into 8 sachets of 10 teabags each. While this doesn't please the plastic-hating part of me, because it means more plastic has been used in the packaging, it does please the tea-loving part of me because it keeps the teabags fresher for longer.

The tea itself was very nicely refreshing and definitely not stale, so I know the packaging had the desired effect. It isn't a strong tea, but has a pleasant flavor (sorry, my tea vocabulary is not up to snuff so I can't describe it very well). The black tea is a standard English-style blend, and it has a fresh, almost fruity tang to it (somewhat reminiscent of a perfectly brewed cup of PG Tips, and definitely better than Lipton). It's no lapsang souchong or bohea, either of which would have me swooning with ecstasy over finding an organic tea for this price, but it is a wonderfully smooth cup of regular, everyday tea that will give you a great pick-me-up. And at slightly less than 10 cents a cup (or 5 cents if you use a pot and eke at least two cups out of one bag as I do), it seems like a veritable bargain compared to the other organic teas out there. It is going straight onto my "must-have" list as a regular staple item.

Four and a half stars. It's only lacking a half star due to my predilection for more robust, smokier-flavored teas. Which isn't its fault, really, as it is perfectly fine for what it claims to be - a standard black tea blend. OK, maybe 4 and three-quarters stars.

Update: I'm bumping this up to 5 stars. It has really grown on me, and is now my go-to tea. WTG Whole Foods!

Review: Juice Organics Brightening Moisturizer

2008-08-14T09:14:00.005-04:00

I've had a mental block with this moisturizer. I've been meaning to review it for days, if not weeks. And yet, I haven't been able to come up with anything insightful to say so I kept putting it off thinking I would be inspired by something - but perhaps that's the real problem with this moisturizer. It is just kind of blah.

I picked this up from Target for $14.99 at the same time as I picked up the Juice Organics Brightening Cleanser. I've been using it on and off ever since, but it is not inspiring me at all. It has the consistency of a lotion, which is fine for daytime (if it had an SPF in it, that is, which it doesn't) but for nighttime, I tend to want more of a cream. I want to at least believe that my nighttime moisturizer is doing something special, even if it isn't really. This is too thin for me to believe that. It is in a pump container, which is a good thing as keeping the air out means potentially having to use fewer preservatives and anti-bacterials. But one pump leaves me wanting more moisturizing (especially around my eyes), and two pumps leaves me feeling like I'm drowning in the stuff. The scent is nothing to write home about, slightly orangey/appley but it's the type of smell you get if you've left the juice sitting around just a tad too long, so there's something mildly unsettling about it. There's a hint of stickiness once it's on your face, which isn't necessarily what I want either.

It's not bad, but it's not special either. Two and a half stars. It might work more on someone with oilier skin than mine, who just needs a light dose of moisturizing at night.

Review: Pacifica Tibetan Mountain Temple soap

2008-08-11T13:49:00.003-04:00

Oh, I wanted to love the Tibetan Mountain Temple soap from Pacifica so much. The perfume is my current favorite of their range. It has notes of vetiver, patchouli, ginger and orange, but on my skin the orange comes through loud and clear, tempered by just a hint of ginger and incense. I find it lovely and refreshing on a hot summer day when you want something that will cut through heat and humidity - there's something so uplifting and head-clearing about a good citrus scent.

So when my trusty French Lilac soap ran out, I was very keen to try the Tibetan Mountain Temple soap. Unfortunately, it isn't wowing me. The soap bar itself is more of a translucent glycerin soap, whereas the French Lilac is a creamy, opaque soap. The Tibetan Mountain Temple doesn't lather nearly as well as the French Lilac, and it doesn't feel like my skin is as moisturized. That could all be completely in my head, of course, as it's not like I've had to add a moisturizer on top so it's clearly not drying my skin out. But it's not feeling quite so luxurious either. I have a feeling that this soap may be a bit longer lasting than the French Lilac, just because not so much of it is lathering up each time I use it. The scent is also not quite as good as the perfume, to my nose at least. I keep detecting a hint of coal tar soap, even though there probably isn't any in there, but one of the notes has turned slightly astringent in the soap. I suppose it seems a bit more manly than the perfume, which I regard as a soft unisex scent. I would love to smell both on a man to see how they compare.

3 stars

Synthetic Ingredients to avoid

2008-08-09T13:18:00.003-04:00

I have a great little booklet called "Natural Ingredients Dictionary" by Aubrey Hamilton of Aubrey Organics. You can look up a bunch of ingredients that are present in food, cosmetics and personal care products and find out about them. At the back it also has a very handy little reference guide called "Ten Synthetic Cosmetic Ingredients to Avoid" which I'm going to paraphrase from because I find it useful.

1. Parabens - Methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben and ethylparaben

These are preservatives which extend product shelf lives and inhibit microbial growth. They are hormone disruptors and many people can have allergic skin reactions to them. Not to mention that they are known to be toxic.

2. Diethanolamine (DEA), Triethanolamine (TEA)

These are emulsifiers and/or foaming agents. They can cause allergic reactions, eye irritations and dryness, and can also be toxic.

3. Diazolidinyl urea, Imidazolidinyl urea

More preservatives. These have been shown to be a primary cause of contact dermatitis and can release formaldehyde, which is toxic.

4. Sodium lauryl sulfate, Sodium laureth sulfate

A cheap, harsh detergent used for its cleansing and foam-building properties. Can cause skin irritations and allergic reactions.

5. Petrolatum

Also known as petroleum jelly. This is a cheap mineral oil that is supposed to be moisturizing but it can interfere with the body's own natural moisturizing mechanism leading to more of the problem it is supposed to help with.

6. Polyethylene glycol (PEG), Polypropylene glycol (PPG)

These are synthetic petrochemicals used as humectants (moisturizers). They have been known to cause skin irritations. They are somewhat similar to propylene glycol which actually may be OK if it is formed from a vegetable glycerin mixed with grain alcohol - so check to make sure you are getting a product from natural ingredients if propylene glycol is listed, otherwise avoid it to be safe.

7. PVP/PVA Copolymer

An oil- derived chemical used in hairsprays, styling aids and other cosmetics which is toxic when inhaled.

8. Stearalkonium Chloride

Originally developed as a cheap fabric softener, this is now used in hair conditioning formulas. It can cause allergic reactions and is toxic.

9. Synthetic Colors

These may be labeled FD&C or D&C followed by a color then a number. Many synthetic colors can be carcinogenic.

10. Synthetic Fragrances

Some of the fragrances can contain over 200 chemicals and there is no way of knowing what is in them because it will simply list "fragrance". Problems caused include headaches, dizziness, rash, hyperpigmentation, vomiting, skin irritation, etc.

Personally, I don't worry so much about synthetic fragrances. Some of my favorite products, such as Pacifica soaps and perfumes, contain synthetic fragrances. I just hope that by using a company that is reputable, they will have taken care to ensure that the bad guys are left out. I guess we'll see if I'm just a fool or not.

I'd also add to the list:

11. Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone

These are preservatives that are cropping up in products I strongly suspect are greenwashing us just so they can advertise "no parabens". They seem to be implicated in neurotoxicity and allergic reactions.

Review: JASON Vitamin E with A & C Shampoo & Conditioner

2008-08-08T10:49:00.003-04:00

By Stephanie

After the Frugalista’s review of the Desert Essences Organics shampoo (which I also tried and hated) I wanted to review a product that has really worked for me.

I was nervous to invest any money in something else. Standing in front of the shampoos and conditioners at Whole Foods, I was totally overwhelmed. Sometimes, they say “paraben free” or “sulfate free”. That I understand. But, some of them were saying “grapefruit extract free” or “gluten free”. Since when are grapefruits evil? And, being gluten sensitive, I still wonder if shampooing my hair with it would matter in the least. Maybe I’m just missing something.

So, then I saw Jason. The bottles aren’t flashy or even particularly inviting. But, when I flipped the bottle, I saw great ingredients. Also, this particular formula of their shampoo gives a nod to the idea that hair that needs body still needs moisture. As a fine haired girl who is totally chemically dependant for my haircolor, I appreciate this.

So, I bring it home and use it the first time. Instead of getting that “dry shampoo” feeling that I get from a lot of natural shampoos, it actually lathers! And, it makes my scalp and hair feel clean without feeling stripped. The scent is clean and green- not like anything in particular. The conditioner is thick without being too thick and oily and rinses nice and clean as well.

My hair feels "bodified" from the active ingredients (which are vitamins and proteins) but, not weighed down from any natural oils they put in the product.

For about $8.00 a bottle it’s a good deal ($6.59 online). I can’t give it 5 stars because that would be for a perfect product. For me, a perfect product would have an amazing smell, too. This one doesn’t. I guess it’s too much to ask for this product to be infused with the great scent of the Desert Essences Organics line. Ah well, 4 stars it is.

Taking steps to make your home more energy efficient

2008-08-07T10:02:00.006-04:00

I just spent a very nice hour with some energy efficiency guys that came over to discuss what next steps I should be taking to make my home more energy efficient and treehugger-y. It was quite an enlightening experience!

But first things first. They said that absolutely the first steps you should take are:

1. Buy CFL (or LED) bulbs and replace your incandescent bulbs.
2. Buy power strips and put your electronics on the power strip and turn it off when you are not using it. Or, you know, unplug them. No more "standby" mode sucking power constantly.

The green frugalista has already done both of those. The TV/DVD and the wireless internet thingie are both hooked up to power strips that go off when not in use. Most of the bulbs are already CFL, although I have some recessed lighting in the kitchen that I had not switched because I didn't see any similar bulbs for sale. The energy guys assured me that I would be able to find them if I looked, so that is my next mission.

Both of these are cheap steps, so if you haven't done anything because you are paralyzed with indecision or think that things will be expensive, that's where you should concentrate your first efforts. There are also "usage" steps where you don't need to buy anything, you just need to use things less/more efficiently - like using cold water to do laundry, not using the dryer on a sunny day but instead hanging your clothes to dry, turning the thermostat up (or down, depending on the season) a degree or two. I also try to do as many of these as possible.

The next step up has been stumping me for a long time, though. Being frugal, I want bang for my buck. I don't want to spend a lot of money on a solar power system only to have it not save me much in terms of electricity usage. So I was never sure whether to replace the windows, put more insulation in the attic, have a solar or tankless hot water heater, have the a/c unit upgraded or what.

And what I found out was that the answer of what the next step should be depends completely on your home type, your household and where you live (as in, do you live in a hot or cold climate and need more cooling than heating or vice versa). No wonder I was confused, as I kept coming across seemingly contradictory advice because the advice varies so much. So the answer is...the next step is to:

3. Get some energy guys in, and have them check out and audit your home and your energy usage. You can either get your power company to come and do an audit, or a separate green energy consultancy/contractor. Get out your old power bills, and sit down and talk with them about your usage. It is either free or quite low cost to have someone come out.

Surprisingly, my next steps as recommended by my energy guys are not what I thought they would be. I am already frugal on the hot water front (cold water is now my laundry friend) so a solar water heater or tankless heater would not bring me large savings. It would be different if I had a larger family with hot showers being constantly taken and a bazillion loads of laundry being done a week. Similarly, my windows are fairly new and would cost far more to upgrade than I would save. However, because I live in a hot part of the world, my biggest costs and energy usage goes to air conditioning, so that's where we need to focus our effort, mainly in insulation and duct work improvements.

So my next steps (remember - your mileage may vary) involve:
4. Installing a UV-blocking film on one or two of the windows that need it and don't already have it. The energy guys recommended doing this myself, using a kit I can pick up from Home Depot or somewhere similar. I'd already done the south facing windows but they said to do west facing windows too.
5. Having the power company come and check for a/c duct work and window leaks. Have the leaks sealed. The power company will come and do this check for a mere $35. Window leaks can be sealed by the homeowner cheaply, using a sealant you can pick up at most hardware/DIY stores. For the ductwork I'll need to get an a/c company in and it might cost a few hundred dollars.
6. After the ductwork is nicely sealed, install more insulation, on the underside of the roof (I already have it on the floor of the attic, but as the a/c ducts run above that insulation, the energy guys recommended having insulation added above the duct work so that the ducts aren't sitting in a hot attic). They recommended Icynene which will be a few thousand but hopefully will have a quick payback in terms of lower cooling costs.
7. Think about solar power. Eek! This may be more than the green frugalista's budget can stand, but the energy guys are going to look into costs and financing. In fact, they said they could work out an entire 10-year plan for me on what I should be thinking about doing, and when, based on the age of the a/c system and windows and all that jazz. So I told them to knock themselves out with a plan and we'll go from there - hey, I figure even just having a plan is going to be valuable, either for myself or for the next owner.

I hope this helps someone out there. I'm pretty pleased I had these guys come out, as now I am not left flopping about with indecision. Get some energy guys! I found mine by Googling.

Review: Desert Essence Organics Italian Red Grape Shampoo

2008-08-06T11:10:00.004-04:00

I've wondered since starting this blog how fair it will be to do reviews of products that I really don't like. After all, just because I don't like something doesn't mean that you won't. For your hair, or skin, or body, or whatever, a product may be perfect even though it isn't for my hair, or skin, or body. But then I thought I should bite the bullet because maybe it'll help you save money. Or at least you can buy it knowing that the product might be a bit iffy.

So, Desert Essence Organics - they do some great stuff. I quite like one of their facial cleansers. But this shampoo is horrible. It barely, barely lathers. And I know that that's a good thing with natural products, as there's really no need to have a profusion of bubbles, nor for the chemicals that produce that much froth. But this one lathers so little I can't even spread the product around my hair. I find that I have one little patch of shampoo on my head and I can't seem to get it to the rest of my hair. So I end up working it around for a long time, just getting frustrated. And it's not a thick shampoo by any means - it's quite runny, in fact, so you'd think it would be easy to spread around.

It doesn't leave my hair feeling nice. In fact, on days when I used this and the matching conditioner at the same time, I was left with basically straw on my head. Now, I do need a lot of moisturizing on my hair, so perhaps this was not the best product to pick up as it doesn't really promise to be very moisturizing. But still.

I have had this shampoo for forever. I am not one to throw away products that don't work for me, as that seems like a waste. Instead, I will keep them in rotation but only use them once a week or so. This one was so horrible that I had to force myself to use it once every few weeks. And it still never grew on me. I hated to look at it sitting in the bathroom because I knew I'd have to keep using it and that made me shudder. I finally finished the bottle today, and lo, there was great rejoicing in the house that I will never have to use it again.

I'll give it one star for being organic and not super expensive - that's about the best I can say of it. It's about $8.99 a bottle.

I'm interested if anyone out there does love it, though. So if you use it and like it, please comment!

Review: Alba Fragrance Free Mineral Sunscreen

2008-08-05T08:48:00.003-04:00

I have tried a lot of non-chemically based mineral sunscreens. A lot. And most of them leave something to be desired, quite frankly. They feel greasy, or they don't rub in, or they separate in the tube into a sludge-y portion and a greasy portion. Not terribly pleasant.

The reason I was trying all these sunscreens is that first of all it freaks me out a bit to put a chemical sunscreen on my skin. A review of the Skin Deep investigation into sunscreens is posted here. I need some sun protection because I'm pasty, freckly and live in a sunny place, so it's something I use every day - either just on my face or on my arms as well. And I treated myself to a facial the other year and the facialist told me that chemical sunscreens were clogging my pores and causing breakouts. So I set myself a mission to find a good non-chemical sunscreen. I didn't realize how long of a mission it was going to be. Some things that are reviewed as being safe I just can't find in my local stores. Some are expensive, although I've tried some of those too. Some just don't perform well.

And then came Alba Botanica's mineral sunscreen. I've read one review of this which was not positive. The user claimed it dried her skin out and was hard to rub in. Well, yes, it's hard to rub in. It's a mineral sunscreen - they're all hard to rub in. Maybe having come from a year of testing out absolutely awful mineral sunscreens, I feel differently about things. But you have to come to this expecting that it's going to take a while to rub in - the point of a mineral sunscreen is that it contains particles that block the sun from getting to your skin. So you've got to spread those particles around and it's going to take a little while for you not to have a thick white coating on you. But at least it does all disappear after a short time. Think of a surfer dude with his nose completely covered in brightly colored sunblock and thank your lucky stars that you won't look like that. That's where I'm coming from, not from the point of view that it should be an instant sinking in like it's some super-expensive facial moisturizer.

The Alba sunscreen sinks in well, after some rubbing but not too much rubbing. It doesn't smell much of anything - it's fragrance free, after all, although there is a slight metallic tang to it. It hasn't separated in the tube, and I've had mine quite some months now. It doesn't feel greasy on the skin or in any way nasty. Your skin has a slightly powdery sheen to it after you first put it on - I guess that's the sun reflecting off the particles of titanium dioxide. But it feels soft, so it's quite pleasant. And, importantly, it works. I was initially hesitant to buy this, as it's only SPF 18, and normally I try to get SPF 30 or higher. But I haven't burned yet while I've been out gardening or doing whatever in the hot Florida sun while I have this sunscreen on - OK, so I haven't been laying out on the beach for hours at a time, but for general usage it hasn't let me down yet. And that's more than can be said for some sunscreens which sport a higher SPF on the label.

I will definitely buy this one again. It retails for about $7.99-$9.99. Four stars.

Greenwashing? Organix Hair Care products

2008-08-04T09:00:00.007-04:00

Sometimes (well, a lot of the time) I come across products that are half green and I then stand in the store forever, trying to make the decision of whether they're green enough or not. I mean, I don't claim to be an uber-greenie who makes my own shampoo or anything, but I also hate falling victim to greenwashing. If I'm going to use a half-green product, I want to know what I'm doing. In some circumstances, I will take a "better than the average" product, and in some I won't.

Case in point: the Organix line of hair care products. Look at their name - Organix. Doesn't it conjur up images of purity, and innocent children skipping through meadows of untouched wild flowers? But I don't think they're as green as all that.

For a start, they claim that the products are "sulfate free" when what they really mean is that they are free of sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate. It doesn't mean that there are no chemical compounds ending in "-sulfate", because there are. But hey, no SLS's is a very good thing. Also a good thing - the bottles are supposedly made from recycled post-consumer resin and use environmentally-friendly inks on compostable label film. They're also not tested on animals - again, a good thing.

However, the conditioner I was looking at includes methylisothiazolinone and methylchloroisothiazolinone in it, which as I discovered when looking into a Be Fine cleanser, are somewhat nasty preservatives that manufacturers now seem to be using in order to claim that their products are paraben-free. Sure, so they won't disrupt my hormones, but does that mean I want a neurotoxin instead?

Then if you read the label verrry carefully, you'll see that it only claims that one ingredient is organic, and the website also carefully only claims the use of "organic active ingredients". In the case of the conditioner I was looking at this morning, it was "organic mango citrus oil". Given that mango is not a citrus fruit, I assume that they mean it's a mixture of mango and a citrus. But is it the mango or the citrus that is organic? Or both? Also, the mango oil was listed as the 16th ingredient out of 22. Sixteenth. That's hardly a big chunk of organic goodness in there, now is it?

They're also not that much cheaper than some of the truly organic products, averaging about $6.99 for a 13 oz bottle, although they are admittedly cheaper than most.

Having said that, they have won beauty awards, I have used three of the conditioners and they seem OK, results-wise. For my hair, the citrus mango actually does a fairly good job - the shea butter was adequate and the vanilla silk not quite moisturizing enough. If you can't get anything else because this is as natural as your local store gets, it's probably a good start. However, I've decided that I really shouldn't be buying them again. They just don't seem good enough, environmentally speaking, and I know I can find better green/organic products if I just plan a bit more so I don't run out and have to make a quick dash to Winn-Dixie for emergency haircare items.

Umm, 1 and a half stars for trying a little bit?

Whole Foods article

2008-08-02T10:39:00.006-04:00

The New York Times has an interesting article today about Whole Foods trying to be more budget-friendly. It includes a little comparison price chart that makes interesting reading.

It's timely, because it repeats what I've been noticing - that on some things, Whole Foods is actually quite good on prices. And saves me the planned trip to Whole Foods today to do some price comparisons. But you have to be really careful - in fact, I have a notebook that I take grocery shopping with me sometimes, in which I jot down the prices of my staple items at each of the stores I go to. Otherwise, I'd never remember which store charged which amount. It was due to my notebook that I discovered that Whole Foods actually had the best price on Ezekiel bread. And these days I always get my organic oatmeal from the Whole Foods bulk bins - at $0.99 per pound, it's a much better deal than anything you can get prepackaged at other stores. However, some things can be much more expensive at WF than at other stores, so unless you do as I now do and spread your shopping over different stores, what you might save at WF on some items will be more than taken up with what you are paying in excess on other items.

Review: Burt's Bees Soap Bark & Chamomile Deep Cleansing Cream

2008-08-02T08:57:00.005-04:00

[Our first guest review! Hopefully the first of many.]

By Stephanie

I have been on the lookout for a cleanser that will CLEAN my skin. I didn’t want something that just made me feel good about the greenness of the product I was buying or the fact that it doesn’t flood my body with harmful chemicals.
Lots of other cleansers left me feeling more oily than before I used them. I never felt clean and my skin felt clogged and congested.

I’m selfish and picky- I wanted something that really made me feel like it was BETTER than the chemically choices I had out there. Not just something that I lived with because it was better for me.

This cleansing cream really hits the mark. I worried, at first, because being an oily skinned girl, the idea of a “cream” usually means that it isn’t a good choice for my skin. Usually, the foaming gel type ones are the only thing for me. Unfortunately, the sulfates that make those gels foam are a no-no for a green type gal.

So, when I was overnight at a hotel for a work conference, I noticed that my co-worker roommate (who is also working on trying to be as green as possible) had this cream. Well, I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to try before buying so, I asked her if I could try it.

I was really impressed. It is a thick cream but, it spreads easily on a slightly damp face. It smells nice, too. A little different than what I’m used to- sort of an anise or licorice type smell. It also had a tingly sensation which, for me, replaced the need to feel foamy to feel clean.

I removed it with a warm, wet washcloth (I rinse in the shower, too) and I felt velvety soft and clean and with just the right amount of emollient feeling- like I was clean but not stripped.

I was in love. And, for about 8 bucks depending on where you buy (Whole Foods, Burts Bees online, Ulta, Target) you really can’t go wrong.

Sometimes, I’ll even use it at the sink before I shower and leave it on for a few minutes before I rinse it off in the shower. It sort of “digs deeper” during that time and acts a little like a deep cleansing masque.

Obviously, for me, this is a 5 star product

Bike commuting is green AND cheap!

2008-08-01T08:21:00.005-04:00

I am the first to admit that I am not the perfect greenie. Or frugalista, really. In much of this, I am learning along with everyone else. However, I recently started riding my bike to work again, having done it a couple of times a week last winter. I had been waiting for cooler weather again, but decided to just go for it because, well, I ran out of excuses. It is so much better for the environment, better for YOU and it is cheap! I'm building up to cycling four days a week.

The most fabulous collection of bike commuting tips are here. I could not possibly come up with anything as comprehensive as this.

But I want to add my own tips too, just because I can. The first is some encouragement - yes you CAN ride your bike to work. It isn't the most frugal means of transport, which is walking, but it is way better than anything else around. Anybody who travels 5 miles or less to work can easily bike. 5-10 miles is harder but still doable for the novice. 10+ miles is getting daunting, I admit, but you can work up to it. This recent article in the New York Times talks of one guy who commutes 40 miles by bike. Um, yeah. It might take me a while to work up to that, but hey, you never know. Also, if you live far away, don't necessarily think you have to cycle the whole distance - maybe you cycle to a bus stop, take the bus, and then cycle from that bus stop to your work or school. Buses around here have bike racks on their fronts that are easy and quick to use - even if you have to ask the driver to come out and show you how to operate it the first time, as I did.

As for safety, just be alert, don't be afraid to wear dorky things like helmets and reflective gear, and follow the road rules. Signal with your hand if you are turning. Pay attention. There are risks, but you can minimize them by choosing your route carefully and being alert. And, 24% of bike fatalities involve an intoxicated cyclist, so that's definitely something that can and should be avoided. The failure to wear lights at night or a helmet significantly increases a biker’s risk. Finally, newer riders have to be especially careful about drivers opening doors (you’ll get clipped) and making turns (they can’t always see you), and about riding on the sidewalks (you’ll get hit by cars exiting or entering driveways). See here for some of the safety information.

So:
*Start with one day a week. Fridays are good. You might want to do a few practice runs at the weekend to build up to the mileage you'll need to do.
*Get a helmet. This is an absolute must.
*Get mud flaps/fenders. You will at some point have to either cycle in the rain or go out on rain-splashed streets. You do NOT want this up your bum.
*Get lights. Seriously. No lights, no riding. Even if you don't plan to ever ride in the dark, you just never know when you're going to get delayed at work or if you're going to have to ride home while a storm is brewing.
*Get a bell or horn. This is another seriously. I tried to do without for a while, but I got shouted at several times for not alerting pedestrians to my presence. Pedestrians (especially, I have to say, older women with small dogs) get angry if you don't give them a wide berth as you are going past them.
*Get some reflective/flashing stuff for your bag or person. I like these which can fit on a bag strap. Sing along with me: I'm a dork, and I don't care.
*If your workplace doesn't have showers, take some wet wipes (or a damp wash cloth in a plastic baggie) and fresh deodorant, and wipe yourself down when you get there. Don't try cycling in your work clothes unless you are doing a mile or less. Change when you get there. Equally I'm not too keen on tight spandex that you'd be embarrassed to be seen walking in to the office building in, but whatever floats your boat.

*Use the balls of your feet on the pedals. I want to shout at everyone I see using their arches/middle of the feet on the pedals - you get much more bang for your buck with the balls of your feet as you can get more power.
*Think about changing your route or your hours to accommodate biking. It is much more pleasant cycling to work in the summer if you go earlier in the day when the sun hasn't had as much of a chance to heat the air up. Likewise in the winter you might want to go a bit later in the day. Cycling is also more pleasant if you are on smaller roads - if you normally drive along a busy highway, think about the smaller side streets that run parallel to the highway. Check google maps or mapmyrun.com for a route. I was able to cut half a mile off a 4.8 mile commute just by carefully selecting streets based on the distances that mapmyrun was showing me.

Pacifica 20% off deal

2008-07-31T13:29:00.002-04:00

For a limited time, Pacifica is offering 20% off its Tahitian Gardenia scent.

See this link. The deal is no longer offered on the Vietnamese Ylang Ylang.

Review: Juice Organics Brightening Cleanser

2008-07-31T10:10:00.003-04:00

I want to like Juice Organics more than I actually do. I mean, what's not to love? Their sister range, Juice Beauty, which is available at places like Sephora, is three times the price, so with Juice Organics it always feels like you're getting away with something. Their products are made with certified organic ingredients, no animal testing, 100% vegetarian products. All of the products have a minimum of 70% organic ingredients. Like I said, what's not to love?

The problem is, I think, the organic juice base that all the products are made out of. Sometimes (well, a lot of the time), it just feels like you've put orange juice on your skin. And as you know, orange juice is kind of sticky and not exactly the sort of thing you want on your face (as opposed to in your face). I haven't had much luck with the Juice Organics moisturizers, as they have a bit too much of the orange juice-like thing going on. The Juice Beauty range suffers much less from this little flaw, and their moisturizers suit me much better.

Having said all that, I think the Juice Organics Brightening Cleanser might be a winner. It's $9.99 for 6 fl oz at Target. My local CVS used to carry Juice Organics, but doesn't these days for some reason. It's a little bit runny, but not too bad - at least it doesn't run through your fingers like some organic cleansers. One pump does your whole face, so it should last quite a long time. It doesn't lather much, but actually feels quite creamy while you're using it. The cleanser smells lightly citrusy if you sniff it hard, but it's a very mild scent. And it does make your face feel nice and clean, and seems to remove make up well. It contains glycolic acid, so you know you're getting some good wrinkle-fighting effects along with all the organic goodness, and it is definitely leaving my skin feeling smooth. I do find it slightly drying, though, and I find that I need to put on some moisturizer fairly quickly, so if you have more mature skin it might not be the best thing for you. It's probably best for twenties or early- to mid-thirties type ages, unless you have oily skin, then you can probably use it well into your forties without too many problems. They have a Nourishing Cleanser that is probably more suitable for mature skin, although I haven't tried that one yet (yes, I'm still feebly trying to hang on to my youth but perhaps I'll own up to mature skin with my next bottle).

Three stars.

Review: Giovanni Organics Smooth As Silk Shampoo

2008-07-30T09:32:00.004-04:00

I have a love/hate relationship with organic/green haircare products. I have dry, frizzy hair so it needs a lot of tender loving care otherwise it looks like a giant frizzy nightmare, somewhat like I just stuck my fingers in the electrical socket. Which means that many of the natural products just don't work for me very well at all. Or that I have to spend a lot of money. One line that does work for me and isn't super expensive is the Giovanni Organics Smooth As Silk range.

The shampoo is nice and creamy, and slightly pearlescent. It has a pleasant smell, though of what I couldn't really say - it's a generic shampooey/floral/herby sort of a smell. It lathers fairly well - not so much that you're covered in bubbles but not so little like some other organic shampoos that you feel like you're working oil through your hair. It cleans my hair well, and leaves it nice and soft.

The two things that bug me about this shampoo are the price and the bottle. The bottle is 8.5 fl oz, which is quite small really, and the shape of it makes getting the last of the shampoo out of the bottle a tricky proposition. That top cap is quite difficult to pull off! I wish larger bottles and/or refills were available. The price varies locally from $5.95 to $7.99, depending on the store, so it requires some shopping around. I have seen it online for as low as $5.22 but that's about as low as it seems to go. I often go off and buy a cheaper shampoo, because it bugs me to spend that much, but eventually keep coming back to this one because it just works.

Lately I've been economizing by only shampooing my hair every other day, which seems to be working pretty well. This isn't going to help if you have oily hair, but for dry hair you really don't need to shampoo every time - you can put the conditioner straight on your hair, skipping the shampoo step. Or I guess, just not wash it as often at all, and save water while you're at it. But doing this means I use the shampoo half as often as I used to, which saves me some cash right there.

I'll give this 3 and a half stars. I would have given it more if the bottle didn't annoy me so much.

Review: Guayaki Yerba Mate - Mate Chocolatte Tea

2008-07-29T18:06:00.004-04:00

A couple of my friends are ga-ga over this Mate Chocolatté tea. After all, it's organic, it's robustly flavored and it gives you a nice kick of energy.

But I just can't get into it. I'm not quite sure what it's trying to be. Is it trying to be a coffee substitute? A hot chocolate substitute? Or a drink with its own personality? It smells like Mate tea with a hint of cinnamon and cocoa. And if you haven't smelled Mate tea and want me to describe it further, I would say there's an undertone of bark, soil and damp leaves. It's an earthy, vegetal smell. The taste is more chocolatey when you take that first sip. It's like a diluted (very diluted) hot chocolate with some cumin and cinnamon thrown in for good measure. Not that there's any cumin in it, but that's the impression that comes to mind. It's certainly not a sweet hot chocolate, but a spicy one, with an earthy aftertaste. The ingredients are Yerba Mate leaf, cocoa, nutmeg, cinnamon, stevia and clove.

I suppose if you were just giving up coffee or coke, or even hot chocolate, and wanted something to make you feel like you're kind of getting a hit of your favorite beverage while being healthier than the thing you just gave up, this is probably something to go for. If you're more of a tea drinker to start with, like I am, it may not entirely hit the spot. I feel like it's trying to be too many things to too many people rather than being itself.

Sorry girls, I don't love it. It is apparently at Whole Foods for $4.99 (I didn't buy it), but for that price for 16 bags of tea, it's got to be swoon-worthy for me. And this isn't.

Two stars.

Review: Pacifica French Lilac Soap

2008-07-29T08:38:00.006-04:00

I adore Pacifica. There, I've said it. I wondered if, in the interests of not boring you rigid with my love of all things Pacifica-related, I should limit my reviews to one soap, one perfume and one candle, because I assume that the formulations are the same. But that would just deny me the opportunity to gush.

Pacifica soaps are made with Pacifica's own biodegradable, vegan, vegetable oil and glycerin soap base, herbs and their signature fragrance blends with natural and essential oils. They are available from Whole Foods and other fine retailers for $6.95 (I think I read somewhere that Anthropologie has them also). You can also buy direct from their website and various other online stores. Now, you may be wondering what on earth is frugal about a seven dollar soap, but here's the deal - this soap is so creamy smooth, so luxurious, so nicely lathering and, importantly, doesn't dry my skin out at all. So it was Pacifica that enabled me to ditch my shower gel habit and thus stop polluting the earth with yet more needless plastic bottles to throw away. These days I only use bar soap in the shower and at the sink. Besides, I really do think that there are some things that we should allow ourselves to splurge on, if it's a reasonable splurge. After all, there must be some enjoyment in life! If it helps any, though, Pacifica regularly discounts one of its scent lines by 20%. The current discount is on Vietnamese Ylang Ylang, but it changes regularly - all the products in the discounted scent are marked down, whether that is candles, soap, perfume, or body lotion. So if you have a favorite, or want to only buy when they're on sale, this brings the price down to $5.55. I snap up random fragrances of the soap and perfume when they're reduced because I just love to try the different varieties.

The French lilac scent is a very rich, full lilac scent, if that makes sense. It's like you are suddenly transported to a beautiful house on a spring morning, and there is a large lilac bush blooming just outside the window you've just opened. Yet, it's not cloying or overpoweringly sweet because there is just a hint of other fragrences there - there's a hint of nectarine that seems to cut the floral scent just when it might get a bit too overbearing. It's beautiful, and scents the whole bathroom for days when you first unwrap the soap. It's not too strong on the body, though, which is where the perfume comes in for those days when you want to waft a fragrance behind you. If you don't want to do that, it is still possible to just pick up the fragrance for a while after you shower, so it does give you a delicate veil of fragrance on its own.

The only downside to Pacifica soaps is that they are not as long lasting as most other bar soaps. I seem to go through a bar quite quickly which is a disappointment, and upsets my frugal nature. The part of me that loves luxury, however, usually just ends up rejoicing that I get to open a new bar of a different scent and will enjoy that one for a while.

Four stars, only marked down because of the disappointment at how long the bar lasts for the money, otherwise it would be a clear 5-star product.

Physician's Formula Organic Wear Eye Shadow Duo

2008-07-28T10:12:00.003-04:00

It may seem like I'm obsessed with Physician's Formula, but I kind of am. It's the first drug store range of organic/green makeup. I like some of the things better than others, and I hope they either improve the line or that another drug store range comes out. But for now, I think it's a great start. I mean, it's all very well that other organic lines are lovely, but $80 for a foundation (or whatever) is too steep for me.

The eye shadow duo is 15.9% organic, and is formulated with Organic Jojoba Seed Oil to moisturize the eye area, Organic Corn Starch, and Mica. According to their website, it is 100% free of harsh chemicals, synthetic preservatives, parabens, GMO's, synthetic colors, synthetic fragrances, and is 100% cruelty free. There are four color ranges - green eyes, which is two complementary shades of green and is pictured here. Blue eyes, which is two shades of blue, brown eyes which is a brown and cream, and hazel eyes which is two mauve shades. I have the hazel eyes version. Personally, as someone who doesn't want to spend too long agonizing over the right shade of eye shadow, I like this system as it takes the guesswork over what colors to pick. The product comes in mostly cardboard packaging, so it's good that they've cut down on the amount of plastic involved. It doesn't include a brush. It is retailing for $7.95 - $9.95.

I love this stuff! It goes on easily, the two colors blend very well together, and it lasts for a very long time without dissolving into creases on my eyelids. It hasn't irritated my eyes at all, nor do I find myself rubbing it off later in the day. The colors aren't garish (at least, not the mauves that I've tried), and I've been complimented on how pretty my eyes look twice since I've started using this. That might be because I wasn't regularly wearing eye shadow before, but I think it also shows that it's hard to go wrong with this, otherwise people would have just commented on the fact of me wearing eye shadow rather than that it looks nice.

Five stars!

The Target Report

2008-07-27T18:21:00.009-04:00

In the interests of big-box retailer fairness, I visited Target today to check out what green options they have available. It was a much bigger selection than Walmart. There was a large choice of Burt's Bees products, Dr. Bronner's Castille soap, a few Juice Organics items (the cheaper sister range to Juice Beauty), some Giovanni Organics shampoos (but at a fairly high price point) and some other odds and ends. What annoyed me was that these items were in the cosmetics section, and were not by the general personal care section. If Joe and Jane Public are going to be tempted to try the organic products, in my view they shouldn't have to go looking for them. Sorry, ranting. A small selection of Physician's Formula Organicwear was also available, with the Tinted Moisturizer at $9.94 (compared to $9.93 at Walmart and $11.99 at CVS).

Over in the cleaning and laundry aisles, there was a large selection of Method products, but I'm afraid they are a bit spendy for my budget these days. A couple of Seventh Generation items were also there - again, alas a bit spendy for me. Besides, I've already tried the Seventh Generation laundry detergent and didn't like it because it didn't really get my clothes clean. They did have a bottle of Arm & Hammer Essentials detergent for $2.84 for 26 loads, so I picked up a bottle to try. There seems to be some confusion over whether the Arm & Hammer is completely green because it supposedly contains optical brighteners, but I'm willing to give it a go. It supposedly is based on plant based soaps so at least it's a lot greener than your average detergent, and at that price point it's got to be worth a shot. I got the Mountain Rain scent, as that was the only one on the shelf. I wish they'd had unscented, as it smells like pine toilet cleaner, but we'll see what the clothes come out smelling like. Review to come!

They had two varieties of Tom's of Maine deodorant (apricot and unscented). And three varieties of Tom's of Maine toothpaste, which were on sale for $3.69. They are normally $4.19 (compared to $4.18 at Walmart), so I snapped up a tube.

The Walmart Report

2008-07-26T18:24:00.004-04:00

Some greenies choose to boycott Walmart on the basis that they are the evil empire. I'm not one of them. After I read about how the new management are trying to improve things such as employee healthcare (though not as much as we'd like, obviously), and introduce more organic choices I decided that I would give them a go. I would rather that organic choices are available everywhere and if that means that Walmart and giant agribusiness have to get involved, so be it. If we have to have giant agribusinesses (and yes, I do appreciate that local, mixed farming is much more green), then I would like those giant agribusiness to be farming organically. So that is why I now include Walmart in my rotation of stores to go to. Please don't shoot me for being a bad greenie. I'm afraid my frugal nature wins out every time.

Today I scoured the health and beauty aisles trying to find green products. The pickings were slim, but at least there were a (very) few things there if you looked hard enough. There were two Tom's of Maine toothpaste choices - one with fluoride and one without. Both for $4.18. There was one Tom's of Maine mouthwash, for $5.82. A good portion of the Physician's Formula Organicwear makeup range was there - including the Tinted Moisturizer that I reviewed a few days ago for $9.93 (it was $11.99 at CVS). And that, sadly, was it. I couldn't find any shampoo, cleanser, moisturizer or anything like that. I also scoured the women's clothing section hoping for some organic cotton items, but I couldn't see any. I know they have organic cotton baby clothes, but I guess organic items haven't made it to the adult section yet. [At least, not that I could see in my local store - I checked out walmart.com when I got home, and they do have organic cotton jammies for women, and quite a few t-shirts for men and juniors as well as baby clothes. They also had some cute tote bags.]

I do regularly buy organic food items at Walmart - they have a few Amy's Kitchen meals for $2.97 and YoBaby organic yogurts for $3.19 for six (the next cheapest place I have found these yogurts is Publix at $3.97). There are also some organic vegetables as well, and I have also spotted some organic teas. You just have to look carefully as you are going around the store.

Other green items - reusable bags are now available at the cash registers for $0.99 but they are not as good quality as some of the other supermarket reusable bags. CFL bulbs are available, as are power strips so that you can plug your TV and other items in, and switch 'em off when you are not using them.

It's Not Green: Be Fine Exfoliating Cleanser

2008-07-26T08:20:00.007-04:00

Here's one for the "save your money" files. I was in my local CVS the other week, perusing the cleansers, and close to their exceedingly small group of "natural" skin care products was the "Be fine food skin care" range. Needing a cleanser, and not having tried Be fine line before, I grabbed it. I suppose I didn't study the ingredient list on the package, and as I no longer have the outer packaging I'm beginning to wonder if there was one there to start with! I'm sure it must have had an ingredient list, but I guess I was in a hurry. The line touts itself as containing food-grade ingredients, no parabens, allergen free fragrance, vegetarian proteins, and that it has had no animal testing whatsoever. So, even though I knew it wasn't claiming to be organic, I thought I'd give it a go as it seemed to be kind of green. At $12.79 at least it fit into my price range.

Using it was fine - it is quite nicely exfoliating, and lathers very well. However, because it tries hard to be very foody, it feels like you are exfoliating your face with a brown sugar paste. Not that that's a bad thing, but it kept making me wonder why I didn't just go to the kitchen cabinet and make a brown sugar paste that would probably do the job as well. For a lot less money.

It was only later that I went and checked all the ingredients. For a start, it contains sodium laureth sulfate, which is a no-no in my book. But hey, no wonder the product lathered well. Worse still, it also contains ingredients that I hadn't really come across before, and which I now know are nasty preservatives - one being methylisothiazolinone, which is apparently a neurotoxin. Another is methylchloroisothiazolinone, and I found a website that claims it is an extremely potent allergen that "was responsible for an epidemic of contact sensitivity, in some geographical areas, in the 1980s and early 1990s".

So clearly I was the victim of some green washing here. They took out the parabens so that they could claim that the product was "paraben free" and replaced them with some equally nasty, if not nastier, preservatives. Shame on you, makers of Be fine!

Don't make the same mistake that I did! Zero stars for this one.

Review: Scotts 20-Inch Classic Push Reel Lawn Mower #2000-20

2008-07-25T10:12:00.004-04:00

Time for some gushing over a gardening tool. I love my Scott's manual lawn mower. It is so so easy to use, it is amazing. I bought a manual mower thinking that I would save a ton of money by cutting the grass myself (I was paying a yard guy to do it), cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, and get a workout at the same time. Well, it turns out that I don't really get that much of a workout at all because the thing is so lightweight and so darn easy to use. And I am not the fittest, most buff girl out there. Far from it. I'm just an ordinary gal but I have no problem pushing this mower - it isn't like your grandpa's heavy old antique push mower.

I've got to say that it doesn't do as neat of a job as the gas-powered rotary mower that was being used - some types of skinny grass merely bend over when the mower goes over them, so they stick up straight. But, I guess part of the issue could also be that at the same time as switching mowers I stopped running the sprinklers unless absolutely necessary, so my yard is a bit more weedy than it used to be as some of the grass died off a bit. I also set the mower on a fairly high setting in order to allow the grass to root better and therefore more easily cope with having less water. So all of that probably factors in. Having said that, I really don't care. I have never needed to have a pristine lawn - as long as it's all green, that's all that matters to me. And I think the weeds give it character. What's so wrong with a little dollar weed, after all?

It's so quiet, and I love hearing that snicker-snicker sound of the blades turning. It also causes a few double-takes of people walking or driving past, and occasionally someone will come up and ask me about it when I'm mowing the front yard. So not only is it environmentally friendly, it's a conversation starter too!

Sadly, one of the back wheels has now fallen off (I've had this thing for about a year, maybe more). I should have realized that the nut was loose, but I didn't investigate the wobble that set in after a few months. However, it looks like an easy fix once I find a suitably sized nut. And the good thing is that the mower is still working just fine without the back wheel.

The mower is currently retailing for $113 at Amazon. I'm sure I paid about $90 for it (from the same place), so check around for pricing. It's very easy to maintain - just a squirt of WD40 every now and then. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be sharpening the blades at some point - I probably should, but they don't seem to need it yet.

I'm going with 4 stars for this. I was going to give it 5 stars, but what with the wheel falling off and the weedy yard, I'm not sure that I can. Of course, both of those things are probably due entirely to my own laziness and therefore 5 stars is probably more accurate. Let's split the difference and call it 4 and a half, then.

Review: Tom's of Maine Natural Deodorant - Calendula

2008-07-24T07:54:00.009-04:00

I've spent a long time testing out natural deodorants. It seems like it's my holy grail of personal care products. Now, this is where I must confess that I'm not a true green frugalista, because if I was, I would make my own natural deodorant out of baking soda rubbed on the skin. Or wait, is it baking powder? Anyway, I'm not that good of a frugal gal - I like to buy my products, for the most part, not make them. And I like to spout my opinion - hence the blog. But you can be sure that if I do start trying to make my own, I shall report it here.

Sadly, many of the natural deodorants out there just don't seem to work for me, but I've come to the theory that with natural deodorants there are two factors at play - how well the odor absorbers or inhibitors actually work, and how the scent interacts with the smell of your sweat. Because you will sweat, being as there are no anti-perspirants in the natural deodorants. The smell factor will vary depending on your own body chemistry - for me, alas, lavender makes me stink. Somehow, lavender plus my sweat equals funk. But, after trying the very pricey Dr. Hauschka, and the not so very pricey Aubrey Organic's E Plus High C, both of which were quite good for a few weeks and then just seemed to stop working for me, I think I have final answer. The Tom's of Maine line has been reformulated with hops which seems to keep the odor control going much longer than it used to. I've tried the Apricot scent, which is passable but still at the end of the day leaves a little bit of skank going on. But I'm currently in love with Calendula.

I don't know what calendula is supposed to smell like - it's also known as marigold, and I don't recall marigold having any very memorable scent - a vague floweriness perhaps, mixed with a vague hint of antisepticness. So I can't tell you if this is a good representation of a calendula scent or not. But I can tell you that the deodorant also has lemongrass in it, and that gives it a lovely fresh citrusy-herby scent. It's not a strident lemongrass though - if anything I'd say it was a mixture of lemongrass with some lovely, sugary candied ginger and a hint of marigold. In fact, if they made a matching perfume, I'd happily wear it in the summer to give some welcome refreshment and escape from the heat. Having said that, I also don't think the scent interferes with other perfumes that you may want to wear - it might perhaps give you a bit more of a spicy, herby vibe to whatever you picked, but it certainly doesn't clash. Nor do I think it would freak out the perfume-sensitive. It is fairly subtle, but it is softly noticeable when you lift your arms up - for the first couple of hours after you put it on, that is.

And the main thing? This deodorant works. At least for now - given my previous history with natural deodorants just giving up the ghost on me, I should probably reserve judgment, but I figure I'll just come back and update this post if that happens. So far it's been about 4 weeks and it's still going strong. Four weeks in the middle of summer in the humid and hot south east U.S., I should add.

I give this one 5 stars.

Update: Sorry, I'm knocking this down to 4 stars. A review of the improved, long-lasting version is here

Review: Physician's Formula Organic Wear Tinted Moisturizer

2008-07-23T09:48:00.009-04:00

This is a lightweight tinted moisturizer that I got at my local CVS. It's currently retailing for $11.99 which is a bargain when you compare it to the stuff available at Whole Foods or Sephora. It doesn't include any parabens or other nasties that I can see, and I liked that the sunscreen component (SPF15) comes from titanium dioxide rather than a chemical sunscreen.

It has a pleasant smell, and goes on easily. I've got to say, though, that I don't find it all that moisturizing, nor do I find it offers very much coverage. I'd like one that is a bit more emollient, but that may be due to my skin starting to dry out as I age! It is perhaps, a tad thinner in consistency than I'd ideally like. As for coverage, it is, of course, a tinted moisturizer and not a foundation, so it's not supposed to completely cover all those imperfections. At best all I get is a bit of softening of the edges of blotches and things - perhaps you could describe it as putting the imperfections in soft focus. It is enough to allow me to leave the house on a Saturday morning without anything else and without feeling too self-conscious, but it's not enough for work. I usually wear a mineral foundation on top.

In all, I'm going to go with 4 stars on this one. I think it's definitely enough to make me want to buy another tube and keep it in the general rotation. I still can't quite believe that I am getting organic goodness for only $11.99. However, it probably won't stop me trying something else when the next latest and greatest thing comes out.

Update: I have spotted this at Walmart for $9.93 and Target for $9.94 - a big variation from the CVS price I quoted. It seems to be readily available at most of the drug and big box retailers, so shop around.

Update #2: I've had some reports of people developing an uncomfortable burning reaction to this. I am still using it daily with no problems, but please post comments if you have had an issue.