get excited–cloth pads!

So,

two weddings (and being MOH in one)

one high school graduation (for the little brother)

one college graduation (for the brother-in-law)

one Air Force commissioning (also bro-in-law)

five accompanying parties to throw and/or attend

one return flight from Ukraine to welcome home (with boyfriend on board)

and

two weeks of summer camp

do a pretty darn good job of keeping a fledgling blogger from her blog. Oops. My apologies. Anyway, as a welcome back to whoever may be watching, I’ve compiled a list of links having to do with cloth menstrual pads (and one for tampons). I haven’t personally made my cloth pads yet, but I need to get on it, considering that time of month is sneaking up quickly! Once I do, I’ll offer my thoughts. I could rehash a lot of things here, but there’s a terribly long and informative discussion that I’m going to link to (and highly recommend reading), so I’ll just say this: reduce, reuse, recycle. “Disposable” anything is a huge waste.

Fantastic discussion full of advice and personal experience at Crafster.

Several different styles at Adahy’s Cloth Pad Patterns

Cloth pads with removable inserts at sew green and a way to donate them to a good cause.

An interesting idea for reusable tampons.

A clever, minimal waste pattern from Jan Andrea.

UPDATE: I tried the pattern from sew green last month, and while it was simple and easy (I made two pads from quilter’s cotton in about 10 minutes and used peices cut from an old towel for inserts), it felt like wearing a diaper, and I wasn’t used to the wings (being a previously all-tampon kind of girl). So we’ll see what this month brings…

sweet treats

So, I’m all about experimenting in the kitchen–whether it’s food to go in my belly or on my face. Today I whipped up a quick face mask that left my skin feeling clean and healthy. I didn’t even think to measure out what I was doing, but luckily, it’s not complicated at all, and the pictures I took show the ratio of ingredients. When I get around to making my avacado mask again, I’ll be sure to stop and quantify what I’m doing for you. Without further ado, the Lemon and Honey Mask (gel, really, but let’s not get technical).

Ingredients: honey, juice from a very small lemon, olive oil, fresh mint, and cornstarch

First, pour (and squeeze or juice) all the liquid ingredients into a small bowl, like so:

Next, crush your small handful of fresh mint, like so:

Add the crushed mint to the liquids and transfer to a small saucepan. While still cool, whisk in 1-2 tsp. of cornstarch. Heat on high until boiling, then remove from heat and pour back into the original bowl. Allow to cool until it’s not painfully hot, and then rub on your face and let sit for however long you like. Rinse off with warm water and a wash cloth. The finished product, here:

And, if you want lovely (but slightly time consuming) sweet treats for your belly, head over to Bakerella and whip up some cake pops–I’ve lovingly dubbed them “sugar-coma on a stick.”

getting off the bottle

So, it’s not quite as serious as alcoholism, but using shampoo and conditioner creates waste and may introduce you to icky toxins, like the paraben family (good info from Allie’s (Green) Answers here and here). So in an effort to reduce my plastic waste and toxin-absorption, I’ve cut them out of my morning routine (along with lotion and face wash).

Rebecca over at The Herbwife’s Kitchen recommends making the change gradually in her wonderfully informative post here. I’m really bad at waiting though, and as I already had pretty limited shampoo/conditioner usage, I cut it out straightaway (I was using a Suave shampoo and Herbal Essences conditioner, with showers ever 2 or 3 days) and went for a glycerin-based soap. Enter: Pacifica’s Nerola Orange Blossom, part of a three pack of soaps my mom had given to me as a gift but I never got around to using.

First of all, it smells heavenly. Secondly, it is made of all natural ingredients–no animal products or testing. And thirdly, it is packaged in the tiniest little bit of thin plastic around the bar of soap, which is kind of unnecessary with the adorable paper packaging they have, but at least it’s only a little bit, right? Anyway, I love the stuff, and I started just working the soap into my hair right from the bar. It does the job pretty well, though I did have a few borderline-greasy days at the beginning. The Most Exciting Part though, is that my hair, which has always been somewhere in between wavy and straight, air-dried into the most luscious waves with no help whatsoever! It’s a beautiful thing.

Recently, I’ve started using a baking soda solution (I don’t have any measurements here… I just put about a teaspoon of soda into a small bottle and fill the rest up with hot water and mix). The only issue I’ve had with the baking soda is rinsing it all out. Sometimes I’ll catch tiny little grains of the stuff in my hair after I get out of the shower and have to rub it out with a towel. I still need to try the natural bristle brush, herbal rinses, and apple cider vinegar that Rebecca mentions in the post above, but so far, I’m really liking this transition away from your everyday shampoo and conditioner. The hardest part of the whole deal has been not having that slick, smooth hair that conditioner gives you–without it, I hate running my fingers through my wet hair, but I just towel dry it, and just let it sit while I get ready, and it does it’s own thing. And that is amazing. I was wondering how I would reconcile having to use either styling products or a blow dryer (using electricity) with the whole waste-reduction aspect of this little experiment, but I’m finding that I don’t need to interfere with the natural state of things too much anymore.

And I have a feeling that a post on the wonderousness of baking soda is coming soon, so get ready!

Oh, and I just have to share this… I met two of my most favoritest musicians EVER. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova! Beautiful, kind people.