ToT: Secondhand Shopping

Secondhand shopping is such an excellent, ethical choice . . . I love it.

-It reduces environmental impact: fewer materials and less waste (both the product itself and the manufacturing), fewer shipping emissions, saves landfill space, etc.
-It supports local economy.
-It reduces the demand of new production of items and sends a message to manufacturers that more is not always more. Down with consumerism!
-It reduces the demand for items that may have been sourced or manufactured in slave conditions.
-It often supports job creation for small businesses or individuals who may not have many other opportunities. (Goodwill, for example, hires a number of employees with intellectual disabilities.)
-You can find all kinds of crazy stuff you wouldn't find elsewhere.
-You can usually get a good bargain.

ToT: Black Friday, Indeed

Today, I am posting my Together on Tuesday topic RIGHT ON TIME! Barely. Small victories.

Time to share our thoughts on Black Friday. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, it won't be hard to guess what I have to say.

"Christmas is not only getting too commercial, it's getting too dangerous."

Daily Detox: Fragrance

You were going to get a post about cosmetics or personal care, but I realized that is just too BIG to be a daily detox! That is a project that takes years, as I know from experience. If you care about finding products that are safe for you and your family, enhance the lives of the people who make them, AND work, that's a serious undertaking!

photo: beautorium.com

So, I'm starting with Fragrance. You'll see it on your ingredients list as "fragrance," "perfume," or "parfum," or some other version of that. It's in perfume, of course, shampoo, lotion, lip gloss, laundry detergent, candles, air freshener, you name it. In a nutshell, it's poison.

Ok, I'm being dramatic. It's not always poison, but it often is! Because of trade secret laws, it's ridiculously difficult to find out what's really in those chemical formulas. But most of us know from experience that some fragrances cause headaches. Some cause our eyes to itch and water, our throats to close, our breath to change. Nearly everyone knows someone who is highly sensitive to added fragrance--and there are reasons for that! Those poor souls get a tough rap, but they might just be ahead of the rest of us in caring for their health.

Some fragrances contain neurotoxins. (Read: brain poison.) Some contain known allergens. Most contain materials we don't know enough about. Most contain pthalates, which mess with your hormones, can cause birth defects, or cause cancer. This stuff can also irritate the skin and make us look bad.

Of course, there are many conversations around the relatively low levels of these products in our self-care supplies. But I'm not interested in using them at all! Some of them accumulate in the body. All of them accumulate in the water supply. Think about it: millions of people using synthetically scented body wash, which goes down the drain, into the sewer system, and back into the water. And if you're thinking we can't absorb these items via skin, think again. We absorb birth control hormones, nicotine, and antibiotics transdermally. What's the difference?

So what can we do?

-Avoid the ingredients fragrance, perfume, or parfum. Be careful when you see a label that says unscented--sometimes fragrance is added to mask the scent of other ingredients. Check the label!

-If you like to use scents, try natural solutions. Use products scented with essential oils (though be careful--you may be sensistive to some of these.) Freshen your home by boiling citrus peels on the stove. Make natural febreeze-type spray out of 1:1 vodka-water mixture, plus a few drops of essential oils for fun. Be creative--you'll find tons of good stuff on the internet!

I am loving LAVANILA for fragrance and other personal care products. It's a bit of a splurge, but certainly less than your department store fragrances. They have all kinds of yummy products without all the yucky extras. Now if we can get them to clarify their sourcing, ensuring people are treated well across the supply chain, it would be just about perfect.

Aura Cacia is a good source for essential oils. They do a pretty good job with their sourcing, too.

What about you? How do you avoid pesky chemicals in fragrance?

Again, check out No More Dirty Looks for more info. Their book is my personal handbook and where I find lots of this stuff.

Sweat-free Shopping

Clothing is one of those American entitlements. Most of us have a disgusting amount of perfectly fine clothes, yet find reasons every year to buy more because we "need" certain items. I'm guilty of it. Our culture does an excellent job of convincing us we need certain pieces to look complete, put-together, professional--every woman "needs" pumps and a little black dress, for example.

I call BS. Most of my clients get by without any of the stuff many of us think we need. And buying all that junk contributes to waste in landfills, dangerous chemicals in our ground, air, and water, and exploitation of people at home and abroad. I'm sad to say that sweatshops and forced labor are alive and well.

Did you know there are more slaves alive today than there were when slavery was legal? How is this possible? Because demand for cheap crap outpaces demand for human dignity. People are making money off of it--OUR money.

Well, that's just one reason.

Among the super-important things we can do to stop slavery is to stop the demand for slave-produced goods. Clothing is a main culprit. While factories around the world can provide much-needed income for families, they can also destroy lives. We have to pay attention to what we buy. All the activism in the world won't change lives if we then turn around and use our hard-earned money to support the slavery we hate.

Buying second hand is a GREAT way to reduce demand for new slave-produced goods. The stuff already exists, is often of good quality, and looks better in a closet than it does in a landfull.

Buying fair trade is a great option as well. There are so many good places to buy fair trade gifts, all you have to do is google. For clothing, try Fair Indigo. It's not the most fashion-forward, but that's what vintage stores are for. Fair Indigo has great basic pieces with good cut and good quality. There's a HUGE sale right now--cashmere for $25! Sizes for ladies run a bit large, so keep that in mind.

To find out which manufacturers and retailers even care how their factories are run, check out Chain Store Reaction.
Better yet, send them a note and let them know you care. To find out what more you can do to end slavery in our time, visit Free the Slaves or Green America's Guide to Ending Sweatshops.

[Factory labor is just one type of modern slavery. To learn more about what you can do to end sex slavery in the US, visit Doma International.]

Blood Chocolate

I am a big fan of chocolate--specifically 72%, high-quality dark. The sad, ugly truth about chocolate is that most of it--especially the cheap stuff--comes at a great expense. Child labor, forced slavery, kidnapping and human trafficking, dangerous working conditions, long hours, and extremely low wages are just part of what keeps our chocolate chips and candy bars affordable.

Photo from Green America

No one I know thinks it is OK to exploit children for a profit, and yet the chocolate industry is thriving on this model. Some big companies are responding to consumer pressure and are reworking their policies. Others have a long way to go.

So what can we do? We strive to buy only fair trade chocolate, which ensures safe and equitable working conditions through the supply chain. You can look for the fair trade label. Endangered Species chocolate is ethically sourced and donates a percentage back to nurture the environments where chocolate grows.

We can tell everyone we know the real story behind chocolate. We can tell bakeries, coffee shops, and grocery stores that we care about the people who provide chocolate for us, and that we will support businesses who do the same. Most importantly, we can continue to campaign the big chocolate companies that it's time to change. We can no longer support harmful pracitices for the sake of a little indulgence.

Fair trade isn't perfect, and these are small steps to solve a big problem, but it's a start. What do you think? What do we need to do to ensure our free market system is also ethical? How can we elevate human dignity over the demand for cheap goods?

Blood Cell Phones

Ok, Ben and I both have really ancient cell phones. We are mocked regularly. Obviously, we really don't care. There are a few reasons for our exceedingly unhip phones, which include the following:

a) Neither of us want to be chased constantly by our email or the internet, thus no smart phone

b) We have better things to spend our hard-earned money on than fancy phones and data plans

c) We just aren't that interested in electronics

d) We are humiliated and disgusted at the sourcing for materials for phones

The answer is e) all of the above.

Now, the time has come to shop for a new cell phone. The one I use currently is over 5 years old and waaaaaay past its prime--not good when my work depends on it. While I am miffed at the whole concept of planned obsolescence--why not make phones that are designed to last for those of us not into the latest and greatest?--I am far more disturbed at the thought that my purchase of electronics contributes to unspeakable atrocities half a world away.

What's a woman to do? There are no electronics on our market labeled conflict-free. And yet, for middle-class professionals, our culture essentially demands that we use them.

I am fully aware of my option to go ascetic. (In the eyes of some of my peers, using my apparently ancient phone qualifies.) But that would require me to change careers, finding a place where my clients don't need 24-hour access and I don't have to use a computer to document every interaction. I could turn a blind eye and buy a new phone anyway--we all know that individual boycotts have very little effect on the big picture.

Or, I could get creative. I could let my phone company know I am disgusted at my options (and I plan to!). And I can buy refurbished. Ok, the blood minerals are already in there, and that is not OK with me. But I don't increase demand for these products; in fact, my purchase will indicate that reusing resources and minimizing new production is important to me. And my letter will connect that to the need for ethically sourced minerals.

It's small, maybe, and plenty of people will tell me I am overthinking. I just can't imagine the women and children who endure rape and torture at the hands of the people selling the minerals think it is all worth it, so long as the thirty-something social worker in Indiana gets a cell phone.