Today I saw another commercial promising to magically remove stains from your laundry.  All you had to do was buy another product just for stains, throw it in with your laundry and laundry detergent and presto bamo! no more stains.  Some women I know adore this idea of a quick fix, but those same people are often the last ones to ask what chemicals are in the product that are strong enough to do that.

Most laundry detergents and softeners are not required by law to disclose the chemicals in each product.  The same goes for most soaps and cleaners marketed for “household” use.  So if you can figure out what powerful chemicals are in those magic stain removers and powerful detergents, it is liable to be things that you would not volunteer to wear on your clothing next to your skin or your child’s skin all day.

So what to do about stains?  Keep a stick of blackboard chalk in your laundry room.  Simply rub a little chalk on a stain before throwing it into the wash.   The chalk powder absorbs grease, leaving the stain easy to remove by the laundry detergent.

And what about all those soaps?  Well, I don’t want to get up on my soap box (pun intended), but soap is soap.  There is no need to have a soap for the floors and a soap for your hands and a soap for your hair and a soap for your face, etc, etc.  Finding a basic liquid and a basic bar soap without chemicals and additives is really all you need.  Companies that sell a soap or cleaner for every little surface in your house and on your body just make money selling more bottles of the same chemical laden crap to you.  In our household, we buy J. R. Watkins “dish soap” for a liquid household cleaner.  We make our own vegan bar soap for hand washing and body washing and we simply use vinegar mixed with club soda for an all purpose surface/floor/window cleaner.  The vinegar we buy from Sams Club is $1.30 / gallon.   It saves a surprising amount of money and leaves us with a peace of mind knowing our house isn’t covered in nasty chemicals.

To get the job done, we have found that Trader Joe’s laundry detergent and Seventh Generation Laundry detergent are paraben-free liquid detergents that are concentrated and work well.  For the dishwasher, we use Mrs. Myers Automatic dishwashing detergent.  We have tried using our household liquid soap, but the dishwasher needs a higher concentration to get things clean.  Selecting a chemical free dishwasher soap is vitally important, because it is inevitable that some soap will stick to your dishes and be ingested as you use them to eat.

Related posts:

1. Nothing works! The Do-Nothing method to natural, healthy skin
2. Hundreds of Toxic Chemicals Found in Babies umbilical chords
3. Prenatal cosmetic use may determine if a child has behavior issues

This December I read an article on Treehugger.com addressing healthy armpits.  Armpits are a common conundrum among health nuts like myself who have decided not to use deodorizers with chemicals and metals in them.  So many armpit products today advertise as an “antiperspirant”.  But do you really know why they work or how?

Metals that exist in most antiperspirants like Aluminum Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex GLY actually react with your skin to close the sweat pores so that you are unable to sweat from your armpits.  Aluminum Zirconium is a metal that is a human nervous system toxicant.  This metal is the most common ingredient in antiperspirants like Axe, Dove, Secret, etc.  These products often also contain fillers like PROPYLENE GLYCOL, BHT, CYCLOPENTASILOXANE , and PPG-14 BUTYL ETHER. The EWG states that these ingredients are known to cause “neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, persistence and bioaccumulation, organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), enhanced skin absorption, contamination concerns, occupational hazards, biochemical or cellular level changes.”

Do you know what you are smearing under your arms each morning?  Check your label and consider an alternative.

The only product out there that does not contain harmful substances and actually works is called Crystal. Instead of forcing sweat glands shut with a toxic metal powder, Crystal uses natural salts to kill the bacteria that eat your sweat and exude that awful stink you are trying to get rid of in the first place.  Get rid of the bacteria producing the smell, don’t force your skin to swell shut preventing natural sweat.

My favorite Crystalproduct is the “original” stick.  It is actually a rounded piece of salts rock that you apply right after showering when you arm pits are still damp from the shower.  I have been using it for a month now after previously having settled for another all natural stick that just masked odors.  There is no smell!  Even after a hard workout at the gym, I smell good.  Amazing!

Related posts:

1. Nothing works! The Do-Nothing method to natural, healthy skin
2. Skin’s healthy glow comes from inside, not outside
3. Can We Change our Genetic outcome by eating healthy?

This caught my eye.  It is right up our alley.  I think we will use stone balls instead though.  There is the issue of where to put the ball when you need to get into the jar… No teabagging though

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1. Copper clothes hanger. DIY project for $5

What are you doing this weekend?  Anything to improve your quality of living or reduce your impact on the earth?  Well, if those things appeal to you, sign up for a one week trial of guided No-Impact Living!  The challenge starts this weekend October 18.  There is no cost, just simply visit the website to sign up using an email account.  Each day you will be emailed a how-to for each step along a one week period for reducing your footprint on the environment.

No-Impact Global Experiment Video:

Related posts:

1. No-Impact: Reusing glass jars
2. No-Impact: Revised Apartment Living
3. DIY Round Up: Weekend Projects

Many people live in apartments for various reasons.  Let’s face it, houses are expensive and if you buy anything for $100,000 or more and pay over 30 years, you actually end up paying three times the actual cost of the house.  So until we can put a sizable chuck down on a piece of land and build our own “off the grid” self sufficient home, we will begrudgingly rent.

I have rented apartments in Minnesota and Arizona.  My top complaints with these buildings are the lack of foresight into the energy efficiency of the buildings and the lack of recycling in the apartment community.  In Minnesota the insulation was terrible on most places resulting in monstrous heating bills.  In Arizona, so many buildings are colored to absorb rather than reflect the blaring sunlight and so few buildings capture sunlight on the roofs with solar panels.  Appliances are often not energy efficient, window glass is not insulated, carpeting is made from plastics, the list goes on and on.

However, there are some things a renter stuck in a situation where they are unable to control these factors can do to have a smaller eco footprint:

1. Rent small. For most of us who work all day, home is a place for eating, relaxing and sleeping.  Assess your family’s space needs and rent the smallest apartment necessary. This will save you money each month on your rent, and in your
   

   Using the top of the cabinet as a bookshelf. A little herb garen below.

   heating or cooling bills.  For just the two of us, this meant sizing down to a 595 sq ft. Studio.  You may have to get creative in utilizing your space when downsizing.  If you approach it as a challenge and an opportunity to free yourself of unnecessary “stuff” you may have accumulated over the years, it can be a rewarding experience.  We solved our lack of storage predicament by buying a metal frame fold up bed that has 14″ clearance for under the bed storage.  Instead of buying a bookshelf, we used the top of our kitchen cabinet to keep books.  It looks chic, saves space and money!

2. Solar may still be in the cards. Most apartment complexes do not allow you to install solar panels outside your apartment, but there are still some ways to get around this.  If you have a porch that gets full sun, you can rig a mobile solar unit and run the power into your home for day use things like computers.  There are also solar bedside lamps or desk lamps that you can set outside to charge during the day and use at night.  Or if you are a DIY type person, you can rig up a small solar panel light yourself. You can even hang a solar panel in your window that will charge your iphone when you get home from work.
3. Freeing yourself of THINGS. I have a rule about my clothing.  If I have not worn it in a year or I didn’t know I had it, it is time to get rid of it.  This motto bleeds into
   

   The studio laundry/utility room had only one shelf, so we installed two more metal shelves for towels and cleaning supplies.

   other areas of my possessions, making me prone to throw things on craigslist.com or donate to Goodwill.  Keeping my life clutter-free allows me to need less space to live and to store.  In our family, everything we own that is not “in use” a majority of  the time is stored under our queen bed.  This mainly consists of camping gear and out-of-season clothing.

4. Quality over quantity. In our house, we have a very low tolerance for plastic and disposable things.  When we do buy items for our home, we insist that they be made of quality materials, even if it means paying more.  Buying a glass food storage set may cost four times as much as buying a Gladware pack, but the glass will last forever, will not have BPA leaching, and has a better resale value if we decide to pass them along.  Glass and metals are also easier to recycle than plastics.
5. Buy reclaimed. Furniture and antiques are a great way to recycle furnishings from the past.  Make a family project out of finding interesting garage sale pieces and fixing them up to fit your home.  Or if you have a little more to spend, stop by a quality antique shop.  These places carry beautiful reclaimed pieces that come from Europe, Asia and date back often to the 1700′s.  You’ll find dining tables with thick cuts of wood that you would never be able to buy brand new.  These pieces often are comparibly priced with high end Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel funishings, but with antiques you get the benifit of adding some history to your home and recycling all at once.  The quality of the antique wood is often far better than any modern furnishing.
6. Grow your own herbs. Get creative and make a little ledge or indoor garden.  If light is what you lack, use a flourecent or led lamp (powered by solar?) and cut your own fresh herbs, tomatoes, whatever you have space and time for.
7. Recycle! At our current apartment, they do not advertise where the recycling recepticle is located.  I had to call the front desk to figure out where it was.  Because I had a difficult time finding it, I assumed that other residents might not know either.  So I sent a letter to the management of the complex asking if there was a way to make residents more aware of where to recycle and requesting that they put a permanent sign on the recycle bin so that non-recyclables would not be thrown in by accident.  Be proactive in your apartment community.  Most people will not recycle unless it is easy, so you may have to insist that your management be more helpful in letting residents know where and how to recycle.

Learn more: Glass in the Bath, Growing an Herb Garden

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Our family cooks our meals two days in advance.  We spend about and hour cooking for two days, which frees up a lot of time not having to prepare food throughout the day or worry about what we will be eating.  Using herbs to flavor our food is important when eating clean, so we added a little herb garden to our studio apartment.

Budget:  $40-$80

1. Finding a location for your garden is the most important part.  A ledge, shelf, counter top, separate table all work fine. Without sufficient lighting in our studio, we installed two fluorescent lights under the kitchen cabinets for $14 a piece from IKEA.  We also bought a light timer from Walmart for $4 and set that to be on for 18 hours and off for 6 (plants do best with 6 hours of darkness).

2. To find a container we went to Marshalls and found two red metal containers for $20. Try to avoid wood or anything that absorbs water.  If the metal container you find does not have drainage, you can solder some drainage holes along the back about an inch from the bottom.  This will prevent extra water from constantly leak out, but will let excess water

Sage, Basil, Mint, Oregano, Rosemary

escape if necessary.

3. For soil we selected a $5 organic blend at the nursery for convenience, but you can collect from your yard or elsewhere.  We gathered a few pounds of large rocks from the desert during an afternoon hike and placed the rocks on the bottom of the metal containers before adding soil.  This helps with drainage and also makes it possible to use less soil for each container.

4.  Our herbs are from a local organic nursery and include the most common plants that we cook with.  If you buy seeds or small starter plants they each cost about $2-3 each.  Assess your own cooking preferences before buying herbs and buy what you most commonly use.  When cooking with your fresh herbs, use 3-4 times as much fresh herb when a recipie calls for dried.  For example if you need 1 teaspoon of dried basil, you can substitute 3-4 teaspoons of chopped fresh basil from your herb garden.  Happy growing!

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2. No-Impact: Revised Apartment Living
3. No-Impact: Baby Food Jars vs Ziplocks

Regen’s new solar charger for the iphone is set to hit the market in February 2010.  This sexy, stylish charging unit is designed to blend into a chic room.  The back panel hangs in a window to capture sunlight and then can be placed in the iphone charging stand to rejuice your phone.  As an added bonus it also will plug into the power grid and tells you when it needs to be charged.  You can also order additional bases for playing music that utilize the solar charger panel or even a desk lamp that also draws power from the flat panel solar array.

This will be the first of an ongoing series to share the ways in which our family is becoming a No-Impact group of humans (and animals).  You’ll find tips, creative ways to reuse and simple ideas to decrease your impact on the environment.

Reusing your glass jars can be fun and save money!  When shopping at the grocer, select products like salsa, coconut oil, apple sauce, etc that come in glass jars.  Since glass is generally easier to recycle  and does not contain BPA found in most plastics, you can do yourself and the environment a favor by

Clockwise from top: Juice Jar as rice container, applesauce jar as grape container, salsa jar for nuts, coconut oil jar for water

avoiding food products that are packaged in plastic.  Jars with metal screw tops work the best for storage.  When your jar is empty of whatever foodstuff came inside, give it a good washing, scrub the lable off and let it dry thoroughly.

You can keep a spare cubbard for glass jars so they are handy when you need the perfect sized jar.  Some common uses around our house:

• Portable water jars.  (We use salsa sized jars instead of sigg bottles.  They fit in most cup holders and allows you to see if the jar is clean or dirty)
• Countertop storage for oats, grains, nuts, etc.
• Big jars are perfect for making Ice Tea in.
• Jars of every size are a great way to replace food storage plastics like gladware and ziplocks that only help to add to our landfills.
• Small glass jars like an empty Burts Bees facial lotion, baby jars or empty spice containers make perfect q-tip holders or cotton pads for the bathroom.

Let us know how you have reused your glass jars around your home!

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1. No-Impact: Baby Food Jars vs Ziplocks
2. No-Impact: Glass in the Bath
3. No-Impact: Revised Apartment Living

When our household switched from toxic products to non-toxic, all natural alternatives we enjoyed every part of it… except the toothpaste.  We went through so many toothpaste brands like Jason, Toms of Maine and many others.  All of them left our teeth feeling fuzzy.  Some of them even still contained Fluoride, one ingredient we get too much of in our drinking water and a chemical that disrupts the natural hormone production in the thyroid.

Feeling dismayed and out of options, we found ourselves at the Wholefoods store, staring at a wide array of natural toothpastes.  We were going to trial and error again, just pick some and return them if they didn’t work when we bumped into a gentleman buying toothpaste as well.  He reached for a brand familiar to him.  I quickly piped up and asked him if he liked that stuff.  He looked at me funny.  I explained that we were having a hard time finding a paste that worked and wondered if he would recommend the PerioBrite he held in hand.  He told us it is the only thing that works and turned to leave.  Dylan and I looked at each other.  I grabbed a tube of PerioBrite and since then we have been hooked.

PerioBrite is clay-colored and does not contain “sudsing” ingredients that make conventional toothpastes suds in your mouth.  It does contain natural peppermint flavors that really cool and refresh the mouth.  And they graciously leave out the Flouride.  It is clay based and does not leave your teeth feeling fuzzy.  We use it three times a day and our teeth are healthier and cleaner than with chemically loaded conventional toothpastes.

Learn more: Organic, non-Alcohol Mouthwash

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The protective case made by NovoThink is called “Surge” doubles as a solar charger with its own built in battery backup.  It will soon be available for $70.

The device comes with an application for the iPhone that indicates how much power is available in the batteries and how much power is being pumped into the phone.  The built in extra battery pack can be charged by the solar panels and holds 120% capacity.  It comes in a range of color options and if you live in sunny state, might be your ticket to getting your iPhone “off the grid”.