Adventures With Eco-Friendly Deodorants

Years and years ago I found out that there was an ingredient in antiperspirants that had been directly linked to Alzheimer's. From then on out I stopped using them, because I mean really, Alzheimer's is *freakin'* scary shit. It wasn't until a few years ago that I jumped on the eco-friendly beauty product band wagon and started to try out new deodorants that were made out of healthy ingredients.

If you have tried this before you know where this was going. Let's just say for a few months I was a smelly, unhappy mess. I first started with some stick that didn't work. Then I tried the salt rock that you wet and put on and that lasted all of, I don't know, 2 hours. I was seriously unhappy until I found SoapWalla's deodorant cream. I have been a very loyal customer to her for about 3 years. Until recently.

I understand that everyone needs to make money and as something gets more and more popular, the price will normally go up. Well when I first started buying her cream it was about $7.50. Now the price is up to $15.00. I'm sorry but that is a huge increase. Adding on shipping and the inconvenience of having to order it weeks in advance (god forbid you forget and run out of your current stash) and I was fed up.

Now I am experimenting with other brands. Ones that are more accessible  so that I'm not always having to think about ordering new stuff when mine is getting low. Here is a list of products I have tried for about a week each and what I thought. Keep in mind that everyone is different and I'm sure there are people out there that love all of these products. Also, I paid for all of these myself and have not been contacted by any of these companies so this is not a sponsored post.

Soapwalla Deodorant Cream - This stuff is obviously what I have preferred for a long while. It took me some time to get used to putting it on my hands and then rubbing it on as it is not a stick but it really wasn't that big of a deal. It has a strong scent in the bottle but once applied it isn't that strong anymore. I found that it would last all day, through an evening yoga practice and I wouldn't smell until the next morning when I was showering anyways. Once it absorbed into my skin there wasn't any funkyness in my pit (ie, it wasn't sticky or wet). As I mentioned above, I love this stuff but it's getting to be pretty expensive including shipping and the inconvenience to use.

Tom's of Maine Naturally Dry -  When I first started experimenting with other brands I picked this one up. I love love loved it! That was until I remembered to read the ingredient list a few weeks later and found out this has aluminum in it. I didn't mention this above but aluminum is the ingredient in antiperspirant that has been linked to Alzheimer's. I will say that if you just cannot make the switch to deodorant, this is a good option.

Desert Essense - I bought this stuff right before Matt and I went camping in PEI for labour day weekend. I am so glad that Matt and I are comfortable around each other because for the rest of the weekend I pretty much smelled bad when you got too close. I found this stuff stopped working after about an hour or so. But it stayed on your skin creating this yucky sticky environment in your arm pits. Granted it was a humid weekend but I still don't think it should have had that type of reaction.

Tom's of Maine Long Lasting - On the way home from the above mentioned camping trip I was so fed up with smelling bad that I made an emergency stop into Lawtons and found this stuff. It was pretty much the only non-salt crystal deodorant in the whole store. It has a pleasant smell, only a teeny tiny bit of stickyness at the end of the day and after using it for a week I can say I actually liked it.

Nature's Gate Winter Clean - Why I tried a new one I honestly can't tell you. I guess I either like to torture myself or try every possibility. This stuff is unscented and honestly, it doesn't stand out to me. It was a while ago now that I tried it, and I switched back to Tom's of Maine Long Lasting after a week or two. Not much of a review but oh well!

This is where my stinky journey comes to an end. Although I loved the first two products, I stopped using them for their own reasons. I am still using the long lasting Tom's of Maine one. I'm sure when that one runs out I will try another new one and the adventure will continue. One can fantasize about an amazing, eco-friendly deodorant after-all :)

Reason #2 For Becoming Vegetarian + Cupcake Recipe

"You are what you eat". I can't even count the amount of times I heard this as a kid. Growing up on bologna & cheese sandwiches and bologna & cheese omelets I never really thought about this saying. I mean, obviously I don't look like bologna & cheese so it can't be true right? But maybe there's something to this idiom.

My diet, just like almost everything else in my life, has gone through phases. Once I started to do yoga regularly I became more in touch with my body. I felt connected to it in a way I've never experienced before. So when my diet fluctuated from eating healthy to not eating healthy it was very obvious to me how it affected me. Junk food made me feel sluggish, slightly sick to my stomach and overall dreary. The more I started to increase my water intake and decrease my junk food intake the more fluid and strong my body started to feel.

In this post I talked about the main reason I became vegetarian. I'll be honest, it wasn't that hard of a switch for me since I didn't eat a ton of meat anyways. But once I cut meat out from my diet completely my body had an overwhelmingly positive reaction. I immediately had more energy. My body felt a lot stronger and more efficient. Overall, I just felt more healthy. And that's because eating meat isn't healthy for you. There are a ton of anti-meat and pro-meat articles all over the internet. I am not interested in getting into that debate here. I just wanted to share with you some of the health related facts I have found about not eating meat.

• "Dr. William Castelli, director of the Framingham Heart Study, says a low-fat plant-based diet would lower an individual's risk of heart attack by 85%." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.16)
• "Meat eating is also believed to exacerbate gout, contribute to rheumatoid arthritis, and to be a major factor in the formation of kidney stones." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.17)
• "A USDA report published in 2000 estimated that a staggering 89% of US beef ground into patties contained traces of deadly E.Coli." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.18)
• "Factory-farmed chicken is so unclean that Gerald Huester, former USDA microbiologist, says, 'the final product is no different than if you stuck it in the toilet and ate it'." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.19)

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Information is pretty easy to find online though so if this interests you I would suggest starting at The Kind Life site, Colin. T. Campbell's site and PETA's site.

Source: Chapters

Reason #2 for becoming vegetarian: better for my health. Even though I had been told many times that eating red meat was bad for you, it wasn't until I became vegetarian that I realized just how bad all meats are for your body. Combined with the environmental impacts eating meat has on our planet, my argument to be and stay a vegetarian became a lot stronger.

Again, I would like to stress that becoming vegetarian or vegan is a very personal decision. Although I know everyone can do it, I know it's not for everyone. Just remember that you can improve your health by eating less meat in general. Try a new vegetarian/vegan recipe weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. The less meat you eat the healthier you will be.

Now on to the yummy stuff! To go hand in hand with the chocolate frosting recipe from this post I figured I would pair it with the chocolate cup cake recipe from Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook.

Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes):

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (I never add salt to my recipes)
1/2 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup Earth Balance (butter), at room temp.
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup orange juice (this added the most amazing flavour0
1 teaspoon grated orange peel (I was in a rush and didn't use this)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to  350 degrees F (180C). Line a 12-cup muffin pan with crimped paper liners.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and the cocoa powder. Add the baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate small bowl mix together the milk and apple cider vinegar and let sit until lightly curdled.
In a separate large bowl, beat together the Earth Balance and the sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat an additional 30 seconds. Pour the flour and milk mixtures into the sugar mixture and stir until well combined. Add the orange juice and orange peel and stir together but do not overmix. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each liner about two-thirds full. Bake about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Remove from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool completely. When cooled, top with your favorite frosting.

Enjoy :) And don't forget to lick the bowl clean!

Reason #1 For Becoming Vegetarian + Chocolate Frosting Recipe

I am the last person I would have ever expected to become vegan. My whole life ham and bacon have been two of my favorite foods. People have laughed at me before in the past when I have talked about giving up meat because I love pork so much. It has been an interesting journey to get to this point and I wanted to talk a bit about my reasons for making such an extreme change in my diet.

Source: Chapters

The changes started for me back in March 2011. Most of my life I have tried to find ways to save the earth. I have always tried to be eco-friendly but it wasn't until 2010/2011 that I really started to research about the state of our environment and what kind of impact my lifestyle was having on it. There are lots and lots of books, websites and articles out there about this but it was The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone that really hit home for me. Below are some scary facts about the impact our meat industry has on the environment:

• "It takes 441 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef... By comparison, it takes only 33 gallons of water to grow a pound of carrots. One 16-ounce steak uses the amount of water you need for 6 months of showers!" (The Kind Diet 2009, p.25)
• "It takes more than 11 times the energy to create animal protein than grain protein. When you take into account the fuel used for planting, watering, and harvesting of the grain a cow eats, its transportation, the energy used by factory farms, transportation of the cows to slaughter, and then the distribution of the meat to you... the average American eats 97 pounds of beef a year, our national burger-lust requires the energy equivalent of a mere 29 billion gallons of gas!" (The Kind Diet 2009, p.26)
• "The average American car produces 3 kilograms of carbon per day. The clearing and burning of enough Costa Rican rain forest to produce one hamburger creates 75 kilograms of carbon." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.27)
• "In fact, cattle grazing is the number one factor in the destruction of the rain forest, and we're losing 2.4 acres of it per second. That's 144 acres per minute. Seventy-five million acres per year! Rain forest used to cover 14 percent of the earth, but now it covers only 6 percent. You see, every hamburger requires a plot of land the size of a small kitchen to be cleared." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.27)

Those are just some of the disturbing facts I learned from Alicia's book. I highly recommend it as a good source for information on being eco-friendly when it comes to eating and also for the recipes.

Reason #1 for becoming vegetarian: better for the environment. After learning all of this information I couldn't continue to eat meat knowing how much damage it was doing to our planet. I will admit that deciding to become vegetarian or vegan is a very personal decision and it can be extreme for some people. I will never try to push this lifestyle on anyone but I would like people to take a step back and think about how much meat they eat. Even just consuming less meat than normal will help lessen the strain that the meat industry puts on our planet. I saw this amazing idea online somewhere of starting "Veggie Mondays". Every Monday try to eat anything but meat all day. It's only one day to commit to and it can be a great way to incorporate some creativity and culture into your cooking and your diet.

Another way we can lighten the stress on our planet is to choose better meats. Go to local farms or farmers market. Buy meats from farmers that do not overuse antibiotics and allow their cattle to eat grass instead of corn. Not only are you supporting people in your own community but you are buying food that has traveled less than 100km to get to you instead of 1000's of kms. You're also supporting ethical food production instead of giving your money to factory farming.

One of the biggest challenges I have found since making the jump to vegetarian and then vegan has been finding good recipes. I recently tried a recipe from The Kind Diet and am in love with it. Here is Alicia's chocolate frosting (The Kind Diet 2009, p.190):

Ingredients:
-1/2 cup (4 ounces) Earth Balance Butter
-1/2 cup agave nectar
-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
-1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
-1/2 cup soy milk powder

Directions:
To make the Fudge Frosting, use a mixer to cream the butter together with the agave nectar in a mixing bowl until very smooth. Add the vanilla extract and about half the cocoa powder, mix on low speed to combine, then add the remaining cocoa powder. Add in the soy milk powder, and beat at medium-high speed until fluffy. If it is runny, refrigerate the frosting until it sets up a little.

I used this frosting on cupcakes that I made from Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook. Keep tuned tomorrow for the cup cake recipe and "Reason #2 for becoming vegetarian".

Inspirational Videos

TED is one of my favorite websites. If you have never heard of it before TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a nonprofit devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading". They hold conferences all over the world where inspirational people will talk about an idea. The reason I like it so much is because there is a huge variety of topics discussed.

Today I would like to share with you two videos I found. If you haven't been able to tell by now I try to live an eco-friendly life which includes being vegetarian. I know that lifestyle isn't for everyone but watch these two short videos and challenge yourself to think differently about how you live and what you eat.

Favorite Etsy Finds

Over the past few months I have made a handful of purchases on Etsy.com. If you haven't heard of Etsy before it is "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade, vintage, and supplies". You can find everything from beauty products to clothes to furniture to food. I have spent many hours just browsing through the pages and favoriting items that I would like to eventually purchase or that inspire me.

One of the really neat things about Etsy is that they have a team called "EcoEtsy". This is a team of sellers that are dedicated to reducing, reusing and recycling. You can visit their Etsy profile here and their website here.

Another interesting thing about Etsy is that you can shop for sellers/items in your area. That way you can reduce your environmental footprint by shipping products less distances and support local entrepreneurs.

I haven't done a whole lot of purchasing on Etsy yet but I did want to share some of my favorite finds. These sellers are from all over the world and I highly recommend their products.

1. Christy Studio. Christy is from Malaysia and makes the best hand bags I have ever purchased. She makes her hand bags in lots of beautiful colours and has a style that can suit anyone's needs. The first bag I purchased from her was the Denise bag in a purple/fuscia color. She didn't have it listed in this color but when I messaged her she had no problem making the bag in the color. The second bag I purchased from her was the Anna bag in hot pink. The color is even more stunning in person than it was in pictures. It is huge as well. I have used it as a carry on bag when traveling and it fits everything I would ever need. Her customer service, speed and quality is absolutely amazing. I find a lot of bags I buy start to fall apart pretty quickly but these ones are built well enough that they can handle anything. She is one of my favorite sellers on Etsy and I will definitely be going back to her in the future. Click here to check out her Etsy store.

This bag is huge on the inside. There are 5 good sized books in there right now as an example. This is the Anna bag.

2. mylavendercottage. Kari is from Wisconsin and she is seriously gifted when it comes to paper. I purchased her 12 Month Planner and List Keeper stack with the 3-month and page marker add ons and layout upgrade. I had questions about my order and Kari responded to my messages quickly and with great willingness to help. Her handy-work is absolutely superb and I can promise I'll be going to her when this day planner expires. Click here to check out her Etsy store.

Kind of beaten up already but still in great working order.

3. cottonpurr. JoJo is from Georgia and she makes the most beautiful wallets/clutches. I think one of my favorite things about JoJo is that not only does she have different styles for different needs she has soooooo many different patterns. It took me a while to decide which one I wanted because there were so many that I liked. In the end I loved my decision and have received multiple compliments on it while out shopping. Her custom service was fantastic when I had issues with shipping (Canada Post strike for the loss) and was willing to do what it took to make the customer happy. Click here to check out her Etsy store.

Fits way more stuff than I ever thought it would.

4. soapwallakitchen. Rachel is from New York and has made the only natural deodorant that actually works. Well maybe not, but the only one I have been able to find that actually works. It smells fantastic and really does last. Even through a sweaty hot yoga class. The deodorant took a couple times to get used to because it is a cream not a stick but the cream absorbs into your skin really quickly so there were no problems. I bought two tubs with my first purchase and I can guarantee I'll be going back for more when I run out. Click here to check out her Etsy store.

Convenient size to fit in your purse as well.

5. tibetane. Cara is a little different from the rest of the above sellers. I guess I am kind of cheating here because she is no longer on Etsy. She makes stunning jewelry for really great prices. I originally purchased my earrings from her when she was still on Etsy. Since then she has closed the store and moved to a different website. I highly recommend you check out what she has up. She is super sweet and really talented in what she does. She also has new stock in frequently so there is always something new to see. Click here to check out her online store.

You can't tell from the picture but the turquoise is so vibrant.

As you can tell I like to shop. Hahaha. But honestly, I really do recommend all of the above sellers. If you've heard of Etsy before, do you have any favorite sellers?

Routine : Eco Friendly

I've done the routine mentioned in my last post twice now and I really like it. It's quick and easy. The poses flow together really well. But I still get a decent work out. I think what I'll do from now on though is at the end of the sequence add in a few poses that I might be needing that day. Like today I did pigeon and handstand after. I'm hoping to get a lot of yoga done this way and maybe get more bikini friendly for Christmas. I haven't mentioned this but the family and I are going to the Dominican on the 24th!! So excited :) Hoping to get lots of relaxation done. Maybe even some yoga and meditation. We'll see though.

I'm going to start reviewing products on here. I've been doing more reading on beauty products and a lot of them are made with some pretty gross chemicals. So in an attempt to be more healthy and to be more Earth friendly, I'm going to start switching over my products. Now the hard part about this is that I can't just do it all at once. So I'll be doing it in steps over the next who knows how long. On Saturday I bought the Lafes natural and organic deodorant stick. It is just a stick of potassium alum (natural mineral salts). You get it wet and then apply it like a regular deodorant. It doesn't have a smell but so far it has made me not smell as well. I really want to give it a good try though before I really review it. Another product I'm trying is the Diva Cup. Now I know this is going to be TMI for most readers but oh well. This is me, I don't have a filter. So far it has been working really well. It was weird to get used to but I really like this option better as long as I keep having good experiences with it. In some of the reviews I read people said that they had issues getting it to "pop" open once it is inside but I haven't had that problem. And no leaks so far! Even when doing yoga it has been fine. Again, I'll give a more in depth review after I have tried it out more.

Off to bed I go though. Starting to fall asleep as it is.