I recently went back to the ol' 1-gallon showering method, for several reasons: one, it is so gloriously hot in Winnipeg right now that even my house is warm enough to bathe in; but mostly, two: a friend of mine has stopped using shampoo and conditioner* and I hate her for being more eco-friendly than me.
My sister says that I am a neuron: I'm either all-in or I don't respond to a stimuli at all**. So when I decide to be eco-friendly, I get all excited and decide to go all-out. I start bathing in a bucket. I start saving my face-wash water to flush the toilet with. I start looking for hand-powered wringer-washers online so that I can start washing clothes by hand. I stop doing the dishes. And I start shopping online for organic soaps.
Being wary of greenwashing, I steer clear of any brand-name I've ever bought before, because of course the BodyShop has 'organic' body-wash now, but some big-brand 'eco'wash is not good enough for me. This is how I ended up buying an $8 bottle of soap from the strangest company I've ever found. I end up on the website for Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. The first thing I see on this site is not the classic earth-friendly photo of a sunflower or a child holding a leaf or a strawberry to make you connect plants with the laureth-sulfate you're about to buy; instead there is a photo of a creepy looking guy wearing goggles holding up a bottle of soap. I feel good about this choice, and, after spending several minutes debating whether the 'good'ness of the soap cancels out the 'bad'ness of sending a bottle of soap several thousand kilometers so that I can stop using the Safeway brand, I have found a discount soap site and a bottle of Dr. Bronners Pepperminte Castille Soap is on its way to my house.
By the time the bottle of soap actually arrived at my house, I had realized that there was no point in trying to be more eco-friendly by using a good soap when it would mean throwing out my bottle of 'bad' soap, thusly putting just as many bad chemicals into the land as if I had washed myself with it first. So I haven't actually used the soap yet, but let me tell you, I am excited about this. This stuff must be pure magic. It says so right on the label. It also says a whole bunch of other stuff in a bizarre, barely-understandable, broken strain of english written in words so tiny that I can barely read them. The first line of text on the bottle is:
"1st: If I'm not for me, who am I? Nobody! 2nd: Yet, if I'm only for me, what am I? Nothing! 3rd: If not now, when? Once more: Unless constructive-selfish I work hard perfecting first me, absolute nothing can help me!"
I am already amazed with this soap. I don't think I can use it with a good conscience until I've finished reading the label, but that might take me a while. See that photo? See the print? No? That's probably because it just looks like little white dots. Those are words, people.
So I got really excited about the soap and wanted to tell everyone about the label on the bottle it came in, and maybe invite people over so they could read it for themselves. Luckily, it was 10am on a Wednesday morning, and everyone was at work. My logic got the better of me, and I didn't invite anyone over to read soap-bottles with me (not because that would be a weird thing to do, but because let's face it who's free at 10 on a Wednesday morning). So I narrowly missed convincing several more people that I am crazy. But I am crazy, so I think I'll start posting lines from my soap bottle in each of my posts. Pure poetry.
*and by that I mean she uses baking-soda and vinegar instead, not that she has just given up on personal hygiene. Although that would show an even greater commitment to the environment...
**If you don't get this metaphor my assistant will explain it to you.
I have also jumped on the baking-soda-cider-vinegar bandwagon, and would pat myself on the back if it wasn't so much more difficult to bring to the gym than my usual tiny bottle of shampoo.
ReplyDelete-Al
can't you just put the sodawater in a tiny bottle and bring it with? I have on if you want to borrow...
ReplyDeleteYou can't use a tiny bottle because you need a cup of water per tablespoon of baking soda, and then another cup of water for the vinegar rinse, and I use the whole cup for both of them. I have a pretty decent system though, where I put the baking soda in a 1-cup-ish sized bottle, fill it with water at the gym, and bring the vinegar in a film canister to use with the same bottle. It's just a little more of an involved process.
ReplyDelete-Al