No poo – for a whole year!

No – I am not severely constipated, I am talking about shampoo!

My hair has always been my ‘thing’. People would often comment on the frequency of my hair changes – colour and style. I had short hair for a very long time and would style it in a variety of funky ways and it has been many, many colours including green, blue, purple and red. I really do dread to think how much I have spent on it over the years. It has always been a major way for me to express myself and today is no different.

I had  started to grow my hair, to save on the 6 weekly hair cut costs and to make it as long as possible for the wedding, when I thought about my red hair colour, which is my current colour of choice. I realised that of course that wasn’t even slightly green or in keeping with my trying to cut down on unnecessary man-made chemicals to use commercial dyes and so I swapped to dying it with henna. I use Lush’s Caca Rouge, so it is as red as I can get it. It take a long time – 5 hours in total and creates a severe amount of mess, I use a whole newspaper preventing the bathroom from also being dyed,  but it means I still feel like my hair is part of my personality without an environmental cost.

When I read this blog post entitled ‘no poo’ (tbh I thought she was talking about something else when I saw the title!) I thought – right. I can do that. Looking for the reference to that post has made me realise I have been no poo for a whole year! Amazing!!

What am I talking about? Well now I don’t use any shop bought shampoo or conditioner for my hair at all, just water, massage and a vinegar, redbush tea and rosemary essential oil mix for a rinse/conditioner. I also brush my hair for about 4 minutes in the morning and evening, massaging my scalp in the process. I only wash it once or twice a week now, as it doesn’t seem to need any more than that.

It took me a while to get to the stage, I am at now I started by using a bicarbonate of soda and water mix to wash my hair, but I phased this out over a few months. I didn’t go through a greasy stage at all, but it didn’t feel normal for a while. Occasionally I feed it some more by giving it a hot, rosemary infused olive oil treatment, or a mayonnaise treatment. I smear one or the other on for about half an hour and then wash it out. On these occasions I do have to use soap (my handmade stuff) to wash it out, otherwise it does look oily.

Now my hair is growing well, is healthy, bouncy and has got back its natural curls – I love it and its shiny redness! It also means I can skip a whole section of the supermarket and I save money not buying shampoo or conditioner.

Have you gone ‘no poo’? How did you find it?If not – think about giving it a try to let me know how you get on. I really love knowing my hair isn’t dependent on SLS and other toxics.

Lotions and potions

I am back to work/studying tomorrow and although I love doing what I do I have a case of the back to work blues! I really enjoy my time off. Oh well!

I am sure this is not helped by the fact I have an interview on Tuesday, for a school (up to the age of 16), which is interesting as I haven’t trained to be a school teacher and I will have to do further training if I get it, which was so not in the plan for things at the moment. But then, what is?

Anyway, onto what I wanted to say: I went on an amazing course on Saturday, which I would love to share with you, but before I do I want to talk to you about one of the things which gives me a great deal of pleasure in my life and links with the course.

Creating my own beauty products!

I love the task of making them, as well as using them. It makes me feel properly witchy – hubbling and bubbing away over my stove top. I put on my favourite Pagan music and get brewing.

I make pretty much all of my beauty products now and they make wonderful presents for other people.

Candle, soap and bath melts make a great present. I already had the cellophane - I will not be buying anymore once it runs out

I make:

• Body lotion
• Cleanser
• Toner
• Face moisturiser
• Face exfoliator
• Body exfoliator
• Soap
• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Bath melts
• Toothpaste (well, this is very much a work in progress to be honest!)

As well as making them I love using them. It gives me a small frisson of pleasure each time I reach for a product I have made. I have made with love, care and attention, teaching myself a valuable skill, cutting down on packaging, beauty miles (ok, I made that up – but you know what I mean) and from a socialist-feminism point of view, sticking it to the mega-beauty patriarchal, capitalist companies and all that they represent. (oh yeah!)

Would you be interested in some of my recipes and how I make them? No promises, what so ever about timescales!

Story of stuff

OK, so I finally watched this, only a month after I said I would Like I said, I am on half term!

One word summary? Amazing.

Don’t know what I am talking about? Click here for The Story of Stuff

I have written this post straight away after watching it, before I click around on the site, which I am sure is going to be wonderful too. So, a more cohesive response… It is beautifully produced and very informative as well. I highly recommend you watch it yourself. BTW – all facts and figures here are relating to the USA.

There were many points which  stood out for me. The first was the concept of “externalised costs” – we are not paying for the cost of making something to the company, the actual costs are put elsewhere – into child workers, toxic chemicals, low paid employees etc etc. Someone else pays for our products – normally someone a lot worse off than we are.

I also liked her “golden arrow of consumption”. The idea that high levels of spending was created by government and is now protected by government and corporations. Oh, and while we are talking about corporations; they are now bigger than the government. Scary.

Overall, our perceived societal value is based on how much we consume and a lot of effort is focused on making us consume. 1% of everything consumed is still in use 6 months later. How very sad and telling is that?

This whole problem has been created by the US government after WWII when an economist, Henry Bloom(?) said:

Our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consuption…we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate

Wow. After this planned obsolesce was built into products and ever since national happiness has plummeted. Our spiritual satisfaction? What a sad statement of fact. When I saw that quote I immediately thought of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  I learned about this while I was studying marketing and now have been taught it again as part of my teacher training. The above quote elevates shopping into satisfying our basic needs and upwards, almost to self-actualisation status.

The film also explains how we are manipulated into continuing this through the work-watch-buy cycle. My answer to this one? Avoid the main stream media as much as possible! I think this element is one of the many things that my readers do, we all have reduced our consumption – although my personal hero on this one is Eileen of Consumption Rebellion – she is hard-core, but with such joy and vitality!

My final thought on this, before I go back to the site and start clicking through on all of the links, is that I am pretty much preaching to the choir here. I am fairly sure that everyone who reads this blog is already living a greenish life and is taking steps to make it more so. The people who comment are those who already are following this path – please let me know if you are just starting out, or even don’t live a green-ish life.

How do we reach those who are not? I don’t want to be a green bore… I try to set an example in my life and of course I realise that I am a long, long way from perfect, but how can we engage those who just don’t realise there is an alternative and what about those that just don’t care?

Stepping back and cutting down

My life has become extremely busy of late – trying to balance working for money, studying for my teaching qualification, teaching and preparing for teaching, as well as normal life things. Its been a big change for me from nine months of working a couple of days a week.

I have a tendancy to getting myself into an extremley stressed state, which can develop into depression if I am not careful.

So, I have decided to step back and cut down. I have loved reading blogs – all sorts – green, crafty, feminist, pagan and everything in between. But recently my RSS feeder has been a source of stress for me – it had 6 subject tabs with loads of blogs on each, making me feel guilty for not reading them all. So I have cut them down – to just a few which I read now and even then not every day. It has been strangely freeing to do so.

I have also stepped back from making all of the Christmas presents I had planned to do. I realise from a green or frugal perspective this is not great, but I just cannot do it all and I have to look after myself. Next year, I will make presents in my summer holidays!

Although I have high ideological stadards I would like to attain I have to realise that I am only human and I cannot do everything at once. I cannot compare myself to people who are retired, or have children, live in America or Australia with huge grounds, or have a different life to me. We are all in our own place and we have to make the choices which are right for us right now.

Being Pagan isn’t about escapism, it is about being part of the world which surrounds us and interacting with it in reality. For me, this means being true to myself, including admitting that I have limitations, and sometimes I have to step back and cut down in order for me to remain my best.

Slow it down

I don’t know about you, but I know that I can be a  better person.

I read all of these wonderful blogs and now Rhonda has a Down to Earth Forum there are more things for me to read and beat myself up over because I am not doing them right at this moment.

And it all gets a little too much for me.

I am the sort of person that wants to do everything NOW and its not good enough that I am learning to do it, it all needs to be perfect NOW.

I have to give myself a little credit for what I do and that I am taking steps to tread more lightly on this planet and be a better person, but I have limitations – not least that there are only so many hours in the day and days in the week. And as much as I would like the power to rewrite the laws of the universe or the way the western world marks time I just cannot do it. Nor can I summon huge amounts of money for someone to teach me how to do all these things I want to be able to do, nor can I afford to go and buy all of the ingredients/tools I need.

So actually a big part of my journey is slowing down. Whether that is because the universe is telling me to, or because slowing down is a key part of the greener life and I have to move away from this hyper fast modern world we live in which teaches us that we can have it all NOW – we just need to hand over the money. I am enjoying searching out second hand tools, or balls of wool or fabric in sales or the charity shop so that if I mess it up it doesn’t matter and I can learn to let go of my need for everything to be perfect.

As well as trust in the power of synchronicity.

Unfortunately I just need to rewire my psyche. New circuitry gratefully received.

The library

Since moving to a new area I decided to start investigating our local library. The one in Brixton, where I lived a couple of house moves ago was beautiful; housed in an old, old building originally built by Tate & Lyle. Stretching over 3 floors it was stunning. However it seemed to have no books in it and was primarily taken over by computers. We could order books, but this had to be done in person and we were charged 50p per book (not a fortune, I realise, but still) and we were notified by a postcard, which we filled in.

What a difference at my new local library.

I can search, reserve and renew books online. This is great for when I read about a book on blogs, I can just go there straightaway and order. It is free to reserve books and I get notified by text message. How modern is that!

They have an Internet cafe as part of it and so there is still ample amounts of free Internet access, important in our town as (without seeing any statistics) I would say there is a very high proportion of unemployment and poverty.

So I get lots and lots of lovely free books, there has been very few books I have searched for which haven’t been available, which is superb. This is saying something considering my eclectic reading habits.

Although I am not a parent I can appreciate the lengths the library goes to to engage children. In the past there was an ‘invasion of Darleks’ event, which sounded so cool I was thinking of going down. Over summer there has been an ‘Adventure Seekers’ promotion with a list of books they recommend for different ages and some sort of sticker collection for books read and there is always a member of staff wandering around in a purple satin cloak (I assume this is connected)! There is lots of places for children to sit and read or interact with the surroundings and there is desks all around the upper floor for adults, including some comfy (ish) chairs near the daily papers and magazines.

There is also free Internet access courses for people, teaching them how to use the Internet. The foyer is used for community promotions – free energy efficient light bulbs, free blood testing for over 50′s, information pn the new recycling scheme about to be launched across the borough. The local theatre is also housed here, so there is lots of information about the local arts groups.

I am going to miss going into the library so often now that I am starting university TOMORROW! It has helped me move to a new community, given me an opportunity to talk to people who I wouldn’t normally encounter and gives me an excuse to walk or cycle into town. If you haven’t been to your library recently check it out!

My story

So, how did I get to this point? This is the second time I’ve written this post, the first it got very very long (about 3 posts) and overly personal, so this is the cut down version!

I have always been quite green in my outlook, partly as being pagan, partly because I grew up in the country and partly when I was younger I remember bugging my parents not to buy things with CFCs in them and to recycle, my Blue Peter environment book was always with me! My mum was always quite frugal and taught me about saving well. I disregarded that for about 5 years and got in a bit of a state, but I am now back on track with being frugal.

I have been working as a marketing manager for the past 8 years, promoting IT and telecoms. It made me desperately unhappy and I spent to make up for this. I stopped spending and bought my flat in November 2007, which made me very happy, but I still hated my job!

Then in November 2008 I lost my job. I couldn’t find another job and so I decided to take the opportunity to reassess my life – I moved in with my boyfriend, rented my flat out (for £350 less than the mortgage payment) and as of this week I am starting teacher training – something I have always wanted to do.

So now, I am living on very little money – I have a part time marketing job, which pays well and I will be a student. I would be ok, but I have to make up my mortgage payment (negative equity means selling isn’t an option at the moment). However, I am so much much happier and I try to make my life as green and frugal as possible for ME. As Julie and Eilleen pointed out small steps and small candles.  I create art in the widest sense of the word because I have to, this includes this blog, singing, making things, playing music, dancing, photography (although you wouldn’t know it from the photos on this blog so far), writing and so much more. I was never able to do this in the past, partly I think because working in a job I hated and now I am following my true will.

OMG I’m never going to be able to…..

….be as good as that.

I read a lot of blogs and get overwhelmed at times, mainly in the fields of green and crafty. Rhonda Jean at Down to Earth and Eilleen at Consumption Rebellion are probably the two green blogs that I follow most.

However with Rhonda I often feel that I am not going to be able to live up to her way of life and I envy it quite a lot and another part of me is screaming against it. She often states that we have to follow our own path and out simple life will not be like her simple life. I have to keep repeating that to myself as I read her blog, otherwise I get overwhelmed by it, it makes me feel rubbish for not being like that. I would like to point out that this is in no way Rhonda’s fault.

I realise that this is not a healthy attitude as it can quite easily translate into “well I might as well not bother”. I work through this and do what I can and continue to make steps to get greener as I go on. Taking on one point at a time and running with that, getting it part of my life and routine and then look at another area of my life and how can I improve on that?

But how many people in the world think like that and they just don’t do anything to help the planet? The problem is so huge and people who are making headway are quite radical, so what one person can do is not going to make any difference.

I think the key point (to quote a mega corporation) is every little helps. And little steps can add up to many big steps. One person in a family making an effort can start in ‘infect’ every-one’s thought processes and the rest of the family will do the same. My telling people that I don’t use shampoo and use vinegar as a conditioner shocks them and why I do this, but it might make them think. Hopefully anyway!

Eilleen’s blog is different. Her blog has a different tone to it than Rhonda’s, it seems to be more like a friend talking about her journey honestly and openly, complete with her struggles, which I can empathise with, as well as finding it comforting and gently encouraging!

I read a lot of craft blogs as well and at times I find them paralysing! There are so many cool projects and really, really talented people out there who seem to be able to just create these amazing things out of nowhere and with little effort.

I find it difficult to cut fabrics because I am so scared of screwing it up! My mind seems to think “I can’t create something as amazing as this, that or the other, so I shouldn’t start”. Like I said, paralysing.

So, what am I saying? Sometimes it is not good to read other people’s blogs too much as it can put you off of your own journey. Not only that, but the whole time you are reading you are not doing. But at other times they can be greatly inspiring, as usual a happy medium is the way forward!