Last month, I received an email from Carmen Drahl, senior correspondent for Chemical & Engineering News, wanting to know if I had heard about the new solid body wash products from Lush and Bomb Cosmetics, and if so, what I thought about them. To be honest, I thought she was just talking about bars of […]
So, you’ve been reading about ways to reduce your plastic use, including bringing back empty bottles and containers of personal care and cleaning products to refill, and you think, “I’ve got to try that sometime.” Â (The BULK mobile site can help you find refill locations.) But that means planning ahead and remembering to bring your […]
Are you still rubbing plastic all over your face? Since I first reported on microbeads–those tiny bits of plastic added to facial scrubs, toothpaste, and other personal care products–in 2007 and then again in 2013, the NY Times has reported on them, several U.S. states have passed legislation to ban them,  Canada is on the verge of […]
So, I kind of screwed up. I brought a tin of Chagrin Valley bug repellent with me to Hawaii, intending to use it and review it on this blog. (We don’t really have too many biting bugs in the Bay Area, so I hadn’t had a chance to try it.) It seems great. Comes in […]
Six years ago, I posted a rant about the fact that many commercial facial scrubs contain tiny plastic (polyethylene) beads meant to exfoliate the skin. Â These beads are too small for water treatment plants to filter out, so they end up in our waterways and eventually the ocean. Â In the ocean, tiny plastic pieces mix […]
Every time I stay in a hotel (and nowadays, with all the travel I’m doing to promote my book, I’m getting to visit more and more of them), I inevitably roll my eyes at the preponderance of single-sized, plastic-packaged amenities: little bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and single-sized soaps. Â Sure, many guests love them and […]
As someone with fair skin that burns within just a few minutes, I’ve used heavy duty sunscreen in plastic tubes for years. Â And even after going plastic-free, I’ve found sunscreen to be a challenge. Â I blogged about sun protection a while back and got some great suggestions from you guys. Â And this year, I discovered […]
A few nights ago, while cleaning out the pile of stuff that has collected once again by my desk, I found a box of MadeOn Lotion products that the owner, Renee Harris, sent me to review in the beginning of this year and which sadly ended up at the bottom of the giant pile of […]
Three years ago, trying to find a way to have liquid soap without the plastic bottle, I discovered that you can’t actually make real liquid soap from a solid soap bar. What I ended up with was a slimy green failure. And the reason is that liquid and solid soaps have different chemistries. The lye […]
Queen Helene’s hugely popular mint julep masque is widely considered to be a safe product. I mean, it’s found in all the health food stores, so it must be okay, right? Or is it? And is there any actual mint in it? I’ve had this same plastic tube of the stuff sitting in my bathroom […]