I discovered Cycleina Organic Soaps through a friend. She gave me a couple of bars late last year, and I have been using them ever since. Cycleina is a small company based in the Philippines. They take pride in making hand made soaps using the traditional cold process. All of their ingredients are pesticide free and are guaranteed to make your skin feel absolutely wonderful after each use. And they are not just saying that as a marketing stunt. As I told you earlier, I have used these soaps and they are for real!

Cycleina has several varieties – or flavors as I like to call them – of soaps. My personal favorites are the coffee soap, peppermint, and tomato. The coffee soap has coffee grinds in it, which make it perfect as an exfoliant. The peppermint is great if you want to feel refreshed. The tomato is excellent for the face. For more information, visit the Cycleina web site.

Use an electric razor. There are a lot of electric razors in the market today, and while they cost considerably more than the disposable ones, they do last much longer and save you money in the long run. More importantly, you do not have to throw away electric razors as often as you do disposable ones. Can you just imagine how many disposable razors are thrown away each year?

If you just have to use a disposable razor, then you might as well look for the ones which impact the earth in the least harmful way. There are disposable razors made of recycled plastic – go for them. Also, instead of merely throwing away those disposables with the rest of the trash, gather them and bring them to a recycling center.

Don’t you just love the sound, feel, and convenience that running water brings? Well it is a waste, and you know it. Instead of leaving the faucet running the whole time you shave, get a small basin and dip your razor. It may not be as fun, but it does the job and saves water as well.

Photo courtesy of Nivea For Men

Rebecca Lacko from The Examiner recently featured hair washing in her environmentally-friendly column. She mentioned how “in our pursuit of conquering the unruly, straightening the tightly curled, curling the poker straight and tinting the color, our hair is repeatedly abused with countless chemicals, and stripped of its natural oils—and both are washed down the drain by gallon after gallon of water.”

As such, she suggests that hair washing should be washed less frequently. Here are some reasons.

Waste and expense
a. most use way too much shampoo and conditioner, too often
b. gallons of water to rinse it out
c. more bottles of product mean more packaging waste
d. less power used for blow dryers, curling irons and/or flat irons

Now that I think about it, it does make sense. It’s not just the water and the hair products that are involved here – the blow drying and other things associated with washing your hair also puts stress on the environment.

Allowing the scalp’s sebaceous glands to do what nature intended
The function of sebaceous gland is to secrete an oily substance to protect the skin from getting dried and scaly. Otherwise the skin after getting dry would shed off.

Maybe that is why some people have problems with dry itchy scalp?

In any case, if you wash your hair every day, you might want to reconsider that habit.

Burt's Bees is considered a "murky" company

I love bodycare products and actually thought I was safe buying seemingly organic or natural brands available at my local shops. Not so, according to Organicgal’s List of Fakies and Non-fakies. Well, I did report on the carcinogens found in kid’s bath products, so this isn’t really isn’t a surprise.

My hat goes off to Organicgal though, who has taken the time to do her research and show her findings. Here are some facts which we should all know:

* Body care is not a regulated industry.

* The USDA Organic regulations/laws only extend to food items or body care items that are food grade.

* Because of lax regulations a body care company can use the word “Natural” any way they want, regardless of if they threw in chemicals and synthetics to the final product.

* A company can only use the word Organic (as in the product name, etc) on the front of their packaging if the product contains at least 70% organic ingredients

* For a company to display a label that reads “Made with Organic ingredients” the product must carry 70% or more organics with no restrictions on the other ingredients.

* For a company to display the USDA organic label, it must have 95% or higher organic ingredients with the other 5% being from an approved list.

* To carry the new Natural Products Association Label the natural product must only contain pre-approved naturally derived ingredients.

* The Eco-Cert label has fallen under scrutiny lately, for allowing synthetics in products (which is against it’s own rules) with many interest groups now not trusting the integrity of the EcoCert logo

Fakes include Alba Botanica (help! I am using their coconut body cream right now), Jason Pure Natural Organic (nice use of words, faker Jason), Kiss My Face Organics and Nature’s Gate Organics, all of which I sadly have used and believed them to be truly natural and/or organic.

Real natural/organics include Natures Baby Organics and Dr.Bronners ( Hurrah! I use their lovely lavender soap). And lastly, there are the “hit and miss guys”, whose products have both the good stuff, and the bad stuff. Included here is Burts Bees, who Organicgal says is at least honest about their ingredients, good or otherwise.

Good to know when you next shop for toiletries!