Photo Credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Public Affairs

No matter where you are, you can help the efforts to clean up the Gulf oil spill, and recycle at the same time. Matter of Trust is collecting donations of hair, fur and pantyhose to help with spill containment and remediation. Oily hair on your head may be bad, but hair’s affinity for oil also makes it a great tool for getting oil out of water and away from where it can damage ecosystems. The hair gets stuffed into the nylons to create booms that, when attached end-to-end, contain the oil and stop the spread. Hair is also made into oil-absorbing hair mats that can be used to remove the oil from the water and to line the enclosures of oil-soaked wildlife while the animals wait to be scrubbed and cleaned.

To help the cause, sign up for Matter of Trust’s Excess Access database. Because of limited warehouse resources, the organization is directing individual donations to separate locations where they can be used most efficiently. Once you’ve signed up for Excess Access, you’ll receive instructions and a shipping address for your donations. Anyone can donate clean hair. To keep the processing times down, the group prefers larger donations of bulk hair and fur from barber shops and pet groomers; if you’re not a salon owner, consider talking to your stylist or groomer about arranging to donate clippings from all customers. (continue reading…)

ⓒ iStockPhoto - Studioxll

Nourishing your skin from the inside keeps it healthy, but to truly shine, your skin also needs topical care. Exfoliating and moisturizing keeps your skin surface as healthy as the layers underneath and prevents the dry skin that is not just unsightly, but opens you up to infection.

These recipes for homemade skin care products are so insanely easy, you’ll never shell out for the high prices of commercial lotions, scrubs and body butters again! (continue reading…)

©iStockphoto.com - YanC

#6 Baking Soda Deodorant

As a deodorant, baking soda neutralizes body odor instead of just covering it up. Dust a bit of baking soda under your arms, on your feet, or wherever else you need odor protection. If you need a natural antiperspirant in addition to a deodorant, avoid the aluminum-containing commercial products and make an inexpensive, natural antiperspirant/deodorant by mixing equal parts baking soda and cornstarch. Apply with a powder puff.

#5 Baking Soda Toothpaste

Baking soda has a long history in oral care. As a mildly abrasive grit, baking soda scrubs tartar right off, and is particularly useful for those who, on advice of a physician or dentist, are reducing fluoride exposure. Dip a damp toothbrush in baking soda, then brush as you normally would. You can use baking soda with or without toothpaste. To use with paste, simply dip your brush in the baking soda then apply the toothpaste on top. (continue reading…)

ⓒ iStockPhoto - Zhenikeyev

A bit of blush, a few coats of mascara, a swipe of lipstick — if you wear makeup, you probably have a routine for applying it. But how exactly do you put it on? A bevy of specialized makeup brushes are available. Even if you usually opt for all-natural beauty products, don’t automatically rule out synthetic makeup brushes! Compare natural and synthetic versions, and learn the pros and cons of each.

Different Functions, Sizes and Shapes

When it comes to makeup brushes, one size definitely does not fit all. Specialized brushes are designed for different areas of the face and different types of makeup. So, how can you tell one kind of brush from another? It can be confusing, but here are some quick hints from Julyne Derrick, makeup expert for the Web site, About (1): (continue reading…)

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The evils of plastic water bottles get a lot of attention in eco-friendly media, but what about shampoo bottles? With most consumers using traditional hair cleansers, the number of shampoo and conditioner bottles headed to the landfill is astronomical. The Census Bureau predicts the number of U.S. households will reach 115 million by 2010, and according to a Treehugger article from 2007, 23 percent of Americans don’t recycle. If every non-recycling household throws away a shampoo and conditioner bottle every other month, that’s 317 million bottles ending up in landfills every year.

Shampoo Bars: One solution to reducing the number of shampoo bottles in circulation is to adopt the usage of solid shampoos. According to solid shampoo manufacturer Lush, one shampoo bar is equivalent to three 250-ml bottles and can last up to six months. That means that each solid shampoo bar purchased saves at least three plastic bottles from potentially ending up in a landfill. It also saves the resources that would have been used to manufacture those plastic bottles in the first place. Solid products also weigh less, so they require less energy to transport. Lush’s Web site reports that one truckload of solid shampoo is enough for 800,000 washes — or the equivalent of fifteen truckloads of bottled product. (continue reading…)

©iStockphoto.com - Yuri_Arcurs

It used to be that the wide variety of cleaning, health, and garden products available posed a wonderful choice and bounty for the consumer. But with the economy the way it is, buying lots of different products is no longer a luxury that people can necessarily afford. A better solution is to learn how to use simple products in different ways. Finding one product that can do a multitude of things is cost-effective as well as environmentally sound. Why pay for and dispose of tens of different boxes and jars when one container will do the trick? Why not reuse the containers your old products came in to make new “at home” products of your very own?

Epsom Salt, aka magnesium sulfate, is one of those great products that’s so simple and low-cost that it’s often overlooked. Many people may have bought Epsom Salt just once, after pregnancy, and never used it again. But what they don’t know is just how many kinds of uses this simple product has. Here are some of them. (continue reading…)

The average woman ingests about four pounds of lipstick in her lifetime.  Who knows how much toothpaste and mouthwash we accidentally swallow keeping our pearly whites white?  If that is not reason enough to be concerned about the ingredients in makeup and personal care products, consider that the reason transdermal patches for nicotine addiction and hormone replacement therapy work is that the skin is an efficient absorber of the chemicals spread on it.

Cosmetics in the U.S. are required to state the ingredients on the label. However, there is little regulation about what those ingredients can be. Here are five ingredients to watch out for in your cosmetics and personal care products.
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