Green products have to be better engineered.
Case #1:
I have very sensitive skin and had been using Shiseido products for years when a friend recommended a particular line of organic skin-care products at Whole Foods. No animal testing. I gave it a try, but my face started looking terrible after a few days of using the products. I switched back to Shiseido and my face went back to normal. Result: when faced with the choice of rabbits suffering or me suffering – I prefer it to be the rabbits. But give me something that works for my skin, and I would be happy to switch.
After several years the score is: No-Animal-Testing Products 0 : Shiseido 4
Case #2:
Cloth diapers don’t work well enough! Many people who do not want to contribute to the landfill buy a whole $300 supply of cloth diapers. BTW, throwing diapers into the trash is illegal and I suppose that makes it the most often committed offense in the country or maybe the world, because everyone does it. Well, a cloth cannot contain a baby’s night-time business and when faced with leaking diapers and having to change a baby once or more times during the night… and the baby not wanting to go back to sleep… you guessed it: gimme Huggies and let me add to the stinking heap of landfill. Huggies work great and parents and baby get to sleep a few hours…
Case #3:
Paper towels work great. When there is a spill there is nothing as effective as paper towels. When a liquid approaches your laptop, will you try to stop it with a cloth-towel or don’t you think paper towels are much more effective…
In short Green products need to improve. We need to stop using trees for paper and start using alternative plant materials, e.g. hemp. Let’s face it, we are not going to stop using paper, but we can make it from a different source.
PS: Thanks for the info Xeni. Mariana Chicet, Straight from the Old Country, 8238 W 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90048. I think I’ll walk there when we play in L.A. on the 16th.
We tried cloth with our first child. What a painfull experience.
There needs to be some great advance in our ability to recycle what we use. How else can we continue?
Hey, Ottmar! XJ from BoingBoing here. Big fan! Love your blog! All the cosmetic products at Whole Foods are shit. The best natural products I ever found were made by a woman named Mariana Chicet, who runs a boutique on 3rd Street in LA. Buncha actors and actresses use her stuff, it’s the best there is and it’s very pure. I know this sounds a little like an infomercial here but — she kicks Shisheido’s ass, and AFAIK no animal testing whatsoever (although some animal materials like gelatin and placenta are used to make the products). Check it out! –XJ
I didn’t know that throwing paper diapers in the trash was illegal. Not that I will ever have to worry about that, but it’s definitely good to know. So now that I do know that, I guess the question would be, where does one put them if they aren’t supposed to go in the garbage?
Thanks for the heads up Xeni, I’ll have to check out Mariana’s stuff. Hopefully she has a website.
Two excellent natural skin care items you can buy in your local store are avocados and Aloe Vera Gel…only…some skins REALLY like them and others DO NOT…:-)…so one must experiment sparingly and gently…use the avo like a soap and after a sudsing, leave it on a bit and just keep adding a bit of cool water every now and again…umm ummm good!
Haven’t you heard that nobody walks in LA? JK. The place on 3rd is about 2 miles from the Key Club. That’s my neighborhood…stop by for coffee :)
We have been using cloth diapers on our son since he was born, and he will soon be one. We love them. The kind we got look somewhat like disposable diapers, are expandable to fit throughout the whole time a baby is in diapers, and come with a separate, breathable cover to keep in the moisture. We’ve never had any real problems with them, and in fact we briefly tried a package of disposable diapers and did not like that experience much at all.