[vegangel]

could someone tell me why The Body Shop is considered to be so bad? i know that they are a huge company and have some huge number of shops in another huge number of countries, so they could be an evil empire? i really love their products and am starting to feel guilty for using them...but it would be nice to know why.

i know that hydrogenated oil is used in some of the products...but if you aren't eating them, why is that bad?

muito thank you!

You've got the right idea--hydrogenated oils aren't good for your insides. Here's my advice: If you are passionate about something (the environment, your health, fair trade...), do your homework--research the companies you plan to invest in regularly (aka, shop at). You don't have to be totally ascetic-- but make sure you can live with your choices and you are making educated decisions.

Not everyone has time to make their own cosmetics, and not everyone is comfortable going "product free." But everyone (at least everyone posting here!) does have time to write an e-mail or make a phone call to a company asking them the hard questions and demanding answers. Those who want to complain about a company can write to the CEO and tell them why they are unhappy. One call/letter gets an eyeabrow raised. Ten get a thoughtful pause. 100 get to the CEO's desk. Get the idea? If you're going to shop, you may as well vote with your dollars.

[pepper]

tes, they aren't evil like nestle is, they just use garbage ingredients that aren't great for you or the planet and Massive amounts of packaging in their stores. same as any other big name really. better than loreal but not as good as something natural which they just aren't really at all.
if you like their stuff, use it, it's not going to kill you or anything! but not the lip stuff, it has the hydrogenated oil in it and you are actually eating that slowly. sadly there just isn't any safe consumable level of that at all.

[tesao]

could someone tell me why The Body Shop is considered to be so bad? i know that they are a huge company and have some huge number of shops in another huge number of countries, so they could be an evil empire? i really love their products and am starting to feel guilty for using them...but it would be nice to know why.

i know that hydrogenated oil is used in some of the products...but if you aren't eating them, why is that bad?

muito thank you!

[vegangel]

I'm not sure whether i think it's cool or not that Walgreen's regularly stocks 7th generation cleaning products and paper goods.

I think we should be happy that places such as Walgreens feel pressured enough by the presence of "green" consumers to stock these products. Not to mention, not everyone has access to the Whole Foods in their town, where as Walgreens is much more accessible to a larger demographic, making green less elite and more "street."

[tankgirl]

I'm not sure whether i think it's cool or not that Walgreen's regularly stocks 7th generation cleaning products and paper goods.

[beck]

i had a little epiphany watching crap tv - i had never figured out why the grocery bags on american shows don't have handles - and then i realised - because nobody is carrying them further than from the car to their door! the little light went on in my brain...

[dusty]

I thought that article was a bit odd, and it did make me wonder how car centric the US is. My video store is two blocks away. I walk it. I don't think it would save on energy if my dvds arrived at my door by mail (ie. by plane and then truck, no?), but I guess energy conservation is full of surprises.

I am actually terrified of flying, so when I went to the climate change conference last year, I could act all self-righteous about taking a 12 hour train ride instead of a one-hour flight.

One of the speakers at the conference talked about how on the one hand, everyone in Manhattan takes public transit, but on the other hand, there is still so much traffic that for deliveries, trucks have to go around and around the block to find somewhere to park and it eats up huge amounts of fuel.

[beck]

oooh i haven't had a holiday in so long, i would be tempted. but good on you for being principled. can you just explain the environmental reasons you are not keen so she knows it's not personal? i'm trying to cut my carbon footprint and we are switching to holidays in the UK and Europe so we can use trains instead of flying - I'm aiming for no more short-haul and minimal long-haul flights but there are so many places i want to visit i don't think i could say never...but hey, baby steps. i calculated my carbon footprint though and it was pretty good.

i'm with you on the cars, i have a licence but have never driven since i passed my test. London is not a car city (car drivers pay £8 congestion charge - and they are going to increase it to £25 for big gas guzzlers hahaha - it makes me so mad seeing one tiny child being ferried to school in a giant car the size of a tank) and parking is super expensive. We have great public transport and and all the shops I need are within walking distance or on the bus or tube. My food shops and pharmacy for my cleaning refills are within 5 mins walk of my house, v cool.

i occasionally take a cab, like if i have bought a big item of furniture too big to carry or done a bumper grocery shop, but i love not needing to drive. my friends think that once i have the baby we'll get a car, i'm not. i just won't buy tons and tons of baby junk.

[pepper]

oh, the body shop is a horrible company. the only thing good about them is their P.R., they manage to come off looking natural and nice when they couldn't be farther from it.

and beck US cities? dude, same here in this part of canada. i've never lived anywhere without some kind of bus service before. there is Nothing here, and no bus, i have to hitch rides with friends and family for literally everything. i'm going to move to someplace else that doesn't require having a car, i can't hack it. i never learned to drive and i hope i never have to, having a car is a luxury item that i am have zero attraction to.

on another note, my little sister is working in hongkong and she's super sad about missing out on her nephew and baby niece. she invited us all to come out and visit because she and her boyfriend and "renting a place on a secluded beach with a separate apartment" and they'll pay for us to come. how do i gently decline this offer, i've already given her a few excuses but she's pretty into it and frankly the idea of flying and being responsible for all that air pollution for a pleasure trip is abhorrent to me. i could drive every day for my entire life and not produce as much pollution as my One seat is responsible for on a single air flight. gah, i can't do it!

[beck]

anyone else read the article on being more green in the most recent BUST? I mean, it's nice that she's trying, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more than turning off a few appliances and buying some fancy bamboo t-shirts to make up for driving 30 miles in city traffic every day! reducing our impact on the environment is not just another shopping opportunity.

i guess the layout and infrastructure of some US cities makes it difficult to live without cars?

[nxdprincess05]

i thought the body shop was a really good company. am i wrong????

[pepper]

i used to work for them. read the ingredients sometime. awful. hydrogenated oil in ALL the lip care products too, WTF?

[dusty]

The Body Shop can't be all that unnatural, their stuff goes rancid. Bleh.

[pepper]

that lush crap really steams me up! they are so unnatural, grr! the garbage they put into their stuff, and it's all totally avoidable too. why any company would choose to use anti freeze in a product meant to be used on the body is beyond me but they All Do it! the body shop is horrible too. there's nothing at all natural about their products. crap.

i read somewhere that carbonation causes cellulite anyhow, i avoid it just in case!

[coela]

oh NO, coela, why is carbonated water bad for the environment?!

I don't know how the tap water is where you live, if it's very chlorinated,
but where I live the tap water is clean and very good, and it makes no sense at all
to buy water that has been bottled in plastic and transported all over the country
or even from abroad just because I like fizzy water.

I allow myself a small bottle of soda OR carbonated water once a week, and that's it.
But since I really am a sucker for bubbles, the siphon seems more and more attractive
every day. We'll see.

Shampoo bars seems like a very good idea too. My ex was very happy with Lush bars
and used them all the time, but I use juniper tar shampoo for my crap scalp, and I doubt
there are many tar bars out there... anitagrant.com sell shampoo bars without SLS too.

[pepper]

omg, that's incredible looking soap! there's no sodium laurel sulfate in it at all! wow. *bookmarked*

[faerietails2]

oh NO, coela, why is carbonated water bad for the environment?! i've weaned myself off soft drinks (for the most part) by sticking to cans of seltzer. i'm just addicted to carbonation, i've decided. *sigh*

pepper, that sewable fabric is wicked awesome!

i've always tried to recycle as much as possible, but when i think about the reality of how much plastic people go through, i'm just blown away. on the bright side, in my initial plastic freakout i came across these bars of shampoo. i'm excited to try them out once i have a little extra cash on me.

[pepper]

horrible but easy to deal with

get crafty with one of these...
singlet style shopping bag, like a plastic shopping bag.
wallet size fold up reusable shopping bag.
sewable fabric from plastic bags.


you can purchase stainless steel travel mugs, thermos, klean kanteen sport water bottle, a tiffin lunch pail.
you can avoid prepackaged food items like snack packs of apple sauce, cheese and crackers, etc.
stitch up some produce bags out of that sewable plastic in the links above and put your veggies into them at the grocery store instead of those produce bags that you have to throw out after one use.
i have been using baking soda, salt, vinegar, dr bronners castile soap and lemon to clean everything in the house, i can get it all in bulk and refillable containers too. it totally disinfects and leaves everything sparkling clean. using a microfiber cloth polishes stuff like crazy amazing too.
you can also make your own bath products and cosmetics in a lot of cases, you can even bring preweighed glass jars for the raw ingredients to the store if you are buying in bulk so you don't have to take any bags for that.
i've been composting lately and it makes a really big difference, my neighbour puts out FOUR full garbage cans every week, i put out half a can. i'm hoping to reduce that to even less, all the items that don't get recycled in this area i'm saving up and shipping off to my mom's where they do recycle them. it's just a portion of her trunk every few weeks, no biggie. that's really making a difference too.

now if only my little boy's school would stop sending home SO MUCH PAPER! gah, they send so much. nothing important either, just stupid crap that isn't worth the tree they cut down to print it on. grr.

[coela]

re: article - Horrible!

The largest supermarket chain where I live recently swapped their grocery bags
for 100% mulchable bags. Small step, but it made me a wee bit happy. I bring my own
bag to the store as often as I possibly can, but sometimes I forget.

Although I love carbonated water, I've given it up since it's so bad for the environment.
I'm thinking about getting a siphon instead, so I can use regular tap water. Seems like
a real luxury problem, and it is, but I love love love sparkling water!

[thenewrussia]

Me too girl! I just read the article.