Greenstyle

November 18, 2008

• RMS Beauty Just Launched :: New Organic Cosmetics From Celebrity Makeup Artist Rose-Marie Swift
  

  Back in September, I shared a brand new organic cosmetic line coming to market and now all five products in various shades and colors are available for purchase online.  Designed to work synergistically with the skin, it is food for the face, highly concentrated pure skin care with mineral pigments and the only cosmetic line that pure skin care guru Dr. Alkaitis endorses.  Rose-Marie’s philosophy {from the site}:

  “After many years in the fashion and makeup industry, I’ve learned a lot about the impact of daily exposure to chemicals in beauty care products.  I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t live up to its promises.  I see the results of taking a quick-fix approach to looking good.  I know first-hand the price our health can pay in the pursuit of beauty.  I realized that what women need is a cosmetics line that is as pure as possible, one that creates a solid foundation for anti-aging and long-term beauty.”

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• The Plastic Bag: To Re-Use or Not to Re-Use
  

  Read the full post at Triple Pundit.

  The Wall Street Journal ran a fascinating piece a couple of weeks ago on the emergence of the reusable bag as the go-to green choice of retailers nationwide – and the eco-disaster these bags represent.

  A lot of leading retailers offer reusable bags – they’re the hip new green thing to be doing… and some municipalities (San Francisco) and retailers (Ikea) have taken the initiative to forbid the use of the ubiquitous “disposable” plastic bag.

  But at what cost?

  - about 1 month
  source: (Environmental News Bits » Green Products)
• Think Anti-Aging Products + Organic Beauty An Oxymoron? Introducing SukiSpa ~ The Brand New Cosmeceutical Grade Skin Prescriptions Line
  

  

  As if to outdo themselves, the already fabulous Suki skincare line has just turned it up a notch.  Launched at ISPA this past weekend and online today, the brand-new bioengineered cosmeceutical grade skin prescriptions “spa line” boasts the culmination of breakthrough scientific advancements with pure organic botanicals, creating a high-powered line of potent & pure skin care.  After years of research & development, Suki Kramer continues to challenge industry standards of purity and efficacy.  Designed to target some of the most stubborn of skin issues with high doses of cutting edge actives, this line will combine the same philosophy of suki advanced. organic. science.™ with even more advanced cutting edge ingredients.  The six new sukispa™ products include:

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Celebrities like Nicole Richie Walk the ‘Green Carpet’ at Environmental Media Awards
  

  Nicole Richie, Rosario Dawson and more celebrities came together to award the Simpsons and 30 Rock for promoting environmental concerns in their entertainment efforts.

  The Environmental Media Awards have been presented since 1991 and launched the concept of the “green carpet”. The awards go to TV shows, movies and musicians that use their entertainment role to promote environmental concerns. The awards, which were presented this year on November 13, also promote an eco-friendly awards gala and organic food.

  With environmentalism becoming the norm, the Environmental Media Awards have gone mainstream with stars like Nicole Richie, Rosario Dawson and Amy Smart (wearing an eco-friendly black gown) walking the green carpet.

  Awards winners after the jump.

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Notes From The Underground
  

  Launch Date: Summer 2005
  Number of Employees: 4
  Location of Headquarters: Seattle, WA
  Location of Manufacturing: Seattle, WA
  Design Heroes: Vivienne Westwood, Rei Kawabuko, Natalie Chanin

  Twenty feet from the railway tracks of Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, Camilla Eckersley and Davora Lindner hunker down in their overcrowded, dilapidated workspace to design, manufacture and market Prairie Underground. With their bruegeoning label, these two childhood friends from Lincoln, Nebraska have transformed elements from the post-punk style of their 80’s teen years into romantic, wearable statements for the modern ecofashionista.

  While Camilla focuses on the creative end and Davora more on business development, both women contribute to the look and feel of their handmade line. “We try to blend utility and seduction, to find ways clothing can be both useful and ornamental. As entirely independent designers, we walk a fine line between experimentation and commerce and hope to offer something novel and desirable with each new collection.”

  

  Camilla and Davora make sustainability and affordability equally important aspects of their chic organic cotton, hemp and silk line. According to Davora, “We only offer a couple of styles each that aren’t completely or partially made of organic or sustainable fabrications…We’re as concerned about the economic accessibility of our clothing as we are the environmental impact, both of those points have been a part of our mission since day one.”

  Prairie Underground is a bastion of American small business. This indie fashion label is proud to utilize a local dyehouse (very rare amongst American designers), source most of their fabrics in the U.S., and hire Seattle-based sewing contractors. “Each day we work to establish a fair and ethical model for doing business in the garment industry and to create a different type of American business.”

  Even when describing the type of client they keep in mind while designing their garments, these women keep it local. They envision “the people we grew up with, our friends and family, the cool women walking around on Seattle’s streets.” Fortunately for the rest of us, Prairie Underground has surfaced at over one hundred boutiques outside of Washington, from Alaska to Nebraska to Utah to North Carolina. From California to the New York Islands, this brand was made for you and me.***

  ***Note from the Editor: Following the 2008 election of Barack Obama, I have become prone to patriotic outbursts. These may continue throughout the coming months, leading up to the inauguration. Beware: a newfound love of country can be contagious, especially amongst liberals, treehuggers, and intellectuals.

  
  
  - about 1 month
  source: (In The Loop)

November 16, 2008

• Five Ways to Age with Beauty
  

  

  Advertising is full of suggestions that getting older is a bad thing, and that it must be fought with every weapon at our disposal: chemical, physical and surgical.

   

   

   

  The truth is that most women in their forties, fifties and sixties experience a greater sense of self-esteem and self-fulfilment than those in their twenties and thirties. Age is something to be celebrated, wherever we are on its path. But there are things you can do to ensure that you age with beauty, confidence and power, and they don’t require you to go under the knife, or surrender your weekends to colonic irrigation or sadistic gym routines. Here are five ways to lose years and gain beauty:

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Book Review: The Green Beauty Guide by Julie Gabriel
  

   

  As interest in the world of natural beauty products grows, so do the number of books written on the subject. The latest is The Green Beauty Guide, by nutritionist and beauty writer Julie Gabriel. This back-to-basics guide will help you navigate the world of “natural” beauty and, like so many of its peers, gives you a list of ingredients to avoid as well as the latest research on what’s not to love about them. Unlike most other books in the same category, The Green Beauty Guide also gives you a better understanding of what types of ingredients are necessary to create, for example, a standard body lotion. Even better, Garbiel offers a number of recipes for those of you who find yourselves inspired to create your own scrubs, masks, massage oils, and lotions. Personally, I’ve never been one to try making my own toiletries. If I’m going to make a mess in the kitchen, I want to eat the outcome; everything else just sounds like work. That being said, I have to admit that after reading this book, I briefly considered giving it a try. If any of you have given it a whirl, I’d love to hear how it went! For those of us who prefer to leave the cleansing of our skin to the professionals, she recommends several widely available, safe and natural products from the likes of Dr. Hauschka, Aubrey Organics, and Burt’s Bees.

   

  Which brings me to my only critique:

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Handmade Soaps: Health and Happiness for You and the Environment
  

  With green living, homeopathy and natural alternatives growing in popularity, soap makers are springing up around the world, concocting magical creations of coconut and lime in gleaming, glycerin-infused goodness that cleanse the body, mind and soul. 

  Oh, and your hands too!

  Growing up in my house, ‘handmade’ soap consisted of my mother gathering up all the remaining bits of bar soap from the shower and bathtubs, tossing them into a container with some water and shaking it up.  “Voila, hand soap!” she would state proudly.  But her objectives were to save money, not create a luxurious lather to soothe and soften the skin.  And, trust me, an acrid amalgum of Dial and Irish Spring was anything but soothing! 

  But today’s handmade soaps are a beneficial blend of nourishing nutrients, rich with essential oils and alleviating aromatherapy that care for the skin and calm the senses.  And because they’re chemical-free, they’re an eco-friendly alternative to their caustic counterparts, making them a great way to indulge yourself and the earth.

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Trashed Pop & Juice Containers Convert to Fashionable Jewelry
  

  This creative artist is hot, IT, green, and canny! Jewelry designer Victoria Spleet-Lenz doesn’t mass produce. In fact, she individually hand-crafts every item with recycled aluminum pop and juice cans. Each piece is exclusive, elegant and unique.

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• New Ideas in Online Gaming: ConcentratiOm Yoga Memory Matching Game by Gaiam
  

  Do you play virtual games? Try this new flash game Gaiam just launched called ConcentratiOm (based on concentration). It features Rodney Yee (we recently featured here) and Colleen Saidman demonstrating yoga poses. . The way it works is simply based on concentration and players must uncover yoga mats and match up each pose with its name before time runs out. You can check it out here.  Simply play and you may win:

  • 3-day yoga retreat + airfare
  • $750 in Gaiam & Visa® gift cards
  • 3-month Gaiam Yoga Club membership + 1GB iPod Shuffle®
  • Gaiam yoga DVD collection

  “Learning and remembering yoga pose names has never been more fun! See how many yoga poses you can match to their names in 2 minutes and enter for a chance to win fabulous prizes! Whether you’re new to yoga or an advanced yogi, you’ll have fun giving those brain cells a quick yoga workout. New poses every time you play!”

  This is a fun educational game for anyone interested in learning more about yoga.

  Recently, browsing around the “Ecosphere” I also read

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Green Diva’s Guide to Fresh Style: Eco-Fashion Standards - the Answer to Fast Fashion’s Big Carbon Bootprint
  

  

  You don’t have to be an eco-fashionista to see that there is a new sustainable sub-industry evolving in the fashion world and on Madison Avenue. There are shoes made from ex-Jeep bits, a wide variety of styles of clothes made from bamboo, organic cotton and now soy fibers.

  Historically, the clothing manufacturing industry has served as the poster child for bad ethical behavior and unsustainable business practices. From sweatshops and unfair trade to the questionable materials used and shipped thousands of miles before landing in Wal-Mart.

  Well, we are a demanding lot. ‘We’, the collective consumers in the US primarily, want lots of clothes, we only want them for maybe a year before tossing them, and we don’t want to pay much for them either. Over the past 10 years we have developed a hankering for fast fashion. Similar to fast food, fast fashion is quick, cheap and considered virtually disposable.

  Some eye-popping facts about the garment industry:
  

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Vaute Couture’s Contest Winning Coat Now Available
  

  When former model, Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart, couldn’t find a warm winter coat to match her vegan lifestyle, she launched Vaute Couture. She started with a design challenge and an offer to produce the contest winning garments with portion of proceeds going to Farm Sanctuary. 108 entries, 20 finalists, and over 8,000 votes later, one of the three winning designs is now available for purchase.

  

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Healthy, Shiny, Lustrous Colored Locks :: The ACT Naturals Way.
  

  I recently wrote about the dangers of convetional and OTC (over the counter) hair dyes under the post, ‘Your Hair Dye Could Be Killing You’. Since then I’ve discovered more and more hair care companies who are taking up the challenge to develop botanical alternatives. Most of these vegetable & plant counterparts don’t actually infiltrate the hair shaft, they coat it with color resulting in less damage, noticibly more shine and stronger hair - not to mention healthier scalp. But the latest and greatest from Advanced Cosmetic Technologies (ACT) goes even further by using 100% plant based color and a patent pending technique that creates a highly purified end product.

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Good One UK is the Best Sexy Fashion Upcycling Business in Europe
  

  

  It’s pretty powerful when an organization takes tons of wasted material, and upcycles it into sexy styles. Good One tells us their story, and how they re-design discarded  materials, before becoming a mess in a landfill. This is an example of Cradle to Cradle business design, yet to me it seems like an “Adoption to Cradle” approach because really, they are rescuing and giving the wasted fashion materials a new life. Watch their visual story on the Good One about page.

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Heather Mills Using a Pool-Full of Water
  

  The ex-wife of Sir Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, continues to fight with local authorities over a pool she built without permission.

  In a time of water shortage for many parts of the world, the 40 ft x 22 ft pool — built on top of a former vegetable garden — is stirring up controversy in Mills’ English country home.

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Simple Shoes, Green Feet :) More Cool Eco Footprint Stories
  

  

  Simple Shoes such as the fuzzy ones shown above, are not only super cute they are made out of smart materials:

  

  The shoe image courtesy of Simple shoes, is an adorable design! Now there are more ways than ever to measure our eco footprints, and with footwear no less! Did you know you can recycle shoes? Nike has also recently started a shoe recycling campaign. With large retailers on board,

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Nike Recycles Your Shoes for a Sustainable Future
  

  We all have old shoes lying around the house, no longer suitable for athletic activity, but seemingly too decent to be sent to a growing landfill. Now you can recycle your athletic shoes with the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program and they could become a basketball court, track, field, playground, or consumer product.
  

  

  Read more of this story - about 1 month
  source: (Feelgood Style)

• Buy these Green Holiday Gifts that Your Friends and Family will Love
  

  

  

  Shown above from Gift of Green, (going clockwise) ~

  1. Daisy Flower Card and “Gift of Green“- Cilantro Leaf Card: For each “Gift of Green® purchased, one native tree is planted in an ecosystem restoration project in the United States“. An average tree will absorb over 650 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) in its lifetime… In addition to absorbing CO2, the new trees also restore and revive forests damaged by natural disasters and return the forest ecosystems to all their lush glory.

     Read more of this story - about 1 month
     source: (Feelgood Style)

  2. SF Green Festival 2008: Who’s Going?
     

     If you are anywhere near San Francisco next week, you’ve got to carpool, train, bus, or bike over to Green Fest. This green marketplace meets trade show meets sustainable lifestyle conference is a must-attend for the West Coast eco-conscious community.

     There will be over 100 eco fashion companies from all over the country including Alchemy Goods, Indigenous Designs, Kate Organic, Autonomie Project, Simple Shoes, Mission Playground, Helen Riegle, and Green Guru. There are amazing deals to be had, especially on Sunday afternoon, when vendors are willing to wheel and deal in order to reduce the weight of the inventory for their schlep home. You can get samples of all kinds of new products: food, beverages, beauty products, bodycare, media.

     

     What I love most about Green Festival is getting a chance to connect directly with the founders, CEO’s, and craftspeople behind all my favorite products. Putting a face and story to my favorite yerba maté, straw fedora, organic soap, yogurt, or toothpaste really makes my shopping experience back home much more rewarding. I feel like I’m supporting my friends, as well as their missions that I’ve come to know, from conserving old growth rainforest to cleaning up rivers to backing sustainable farmers.

     

     This massive space can become a bit overstimulating, but thankfully there’s an incredible food court and beer garden to recharge in. Another great place to sit down and kick back is at one of the incredible talks given by cutting edge innovators and changemakers like Bill McDonough, Dr. Cornel West, Deepak Chopra, Democracy Now anchor Amy Goodman, and Air America host and former Public Enemy front man, Chuck D. Just when you think the festival has shut down for the day, the parties going on Friday and Saturday night in San Francisco round out what’s become an annual pilgramage for thousands of treehuggers, hipsters, and healthnuts. Check it out yourself. For a mere $15, Green Fest can not be missed!

     
     

     
     
     - about 1 month
     source: (In The Loop)
  3. New From John Masters Organics :: Shine On Baby!
     

     John Masters can remember a time when 11 or so years ago he hung a sign outside his salon in Manhattan saying that the salon was organic, natural & eco-friendly… and people laughed at how ‘hippy’ he was. How brilliantly just, that he should have the last laugh as one of the world’s most successful and widely respected organic brands. Using only the finest certified organic & natural ingredients combined with an extremely savvy approach to formulation, there is a focus on sustainable, fair trade and conscious business practices that few companies can match. Although they’ve been around for years, the simple, clean, honest and modern design has never lost its appeal. We’re thrilled to bring you this new addition to their lineup called Shine On.

     Read more of this story - about 1 month
     source: (Feelgood Style)