Healthy and Green Living

Treat yourself and friends or family to facial steams, masks, body soaks and scrubs–a spa day! Your home environment can enhance the healing and relaxing effects of a spa day if your home honors the earth as well as your body.

Here are some tips that ensure clean air and water, careful use of resources, and safe, healing products.

1. Use natural massage oil. Skip mineral oil.

WHY: Mineral oil is a refined petroleum product providing no nutrients to the skin. Petroleum products are non-renewable resources and many petroleum-based ingredients that have been used in consumer products are now known to be carcinogens.

HOW: Massage therapists love coconut oil for massage, because it melts on contact with the skin, leaves a protective barrier on the skin, has a slight lathering ability, and easily washes out of towels. Other oils stain, and towels become odorous after a while. Coconut oil is available in many natural food stores. Another alternative is to use vegetable or nut cooking oil. Test a few different kinds before you find one that feels great on your skin. Old, dry skin loves avocado oil, for example, whereas grapeseed oil is less oily, and safflower oil is a good all purpose solution. A variety of oils are available in health food stores, such as organic unrefined oils from Spectrum Naturals.

HIGHLIGHTS: Save resources, reduce your need for products that foster the polluting petroleum refining industry.

MORE: More ways to use coconut oil for massage.

2. Clean the air with plants and give more oxygen to your air.

WHY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ranks indoor air pollution as one of the top five threats to public health, and most Americans spend 90 percent of the time indoors. Living with clean indoor air is best for health.

HOW: Studies show that plants can reduce pollutants by significant amounts.Click
here for the Top Ten Plants to Clean the Air.

HIGHLIGHTS: Plants bring more oxygen to your home, clean the air, and are aesthetically pleasing.

3. Choose beeswax or vegetable oil candles and skip those with paraffin.

WHY: Paraffin is a petroleum product, which is not a renewable resource and causes pollution in its production.

HOW: Pure beeswax and vegetable oil candles are readily available. Some brands include Beeswax Candles; Pure Light Candles; and Pure Essential Oil Candles.

MORE: Candle soot can cause indoor air pollution. Read more about candle soot here.

4. Drink lots of filtered water.

WHY: Reports of heavy metals, industrial chemicals, and pesticides seeping into drinking water, along with the offensive smell of chlorine in city water supplies, lead many to look at available home water filtration systems.

HOW: The first step in an intelligent and effective water treatment program is an analysis of your water source. Your choice of filtering system will be different if you draw water from a well or use a municipal source. As a rule of thumb, Reverse Osmosis is often considered best for well water because it filters bacteria, whereas Carbon Filters are best for municipal sources since it removes metals and pollutants, but not bacteria (which is removed by municipalities). Distillation removes everything, along with minerals needed for health, but some prefer the complete removal of contaminants that distillation provides.

HIGHLIGHTS: Good, clean, healthy water to drink; awareness that for the health of the planet, we need not to pollute rivers, lakes, and the sea.
5. Clean your tub without poisons–soft scrubber, drain cleaner.

WHY: Toxic cleaning products not only threaten your health, but leach into the environment and threaten our wildlife and water supply.

HOW: Try Annie’s favorite, famous and safe Soft Scrubber formula, and this effective and safe drain cleaner.

HIGHLIGHTS: Clean, fresh, healthier air; no contamination of the waste water stream.

6. Turn to natural scents and skip synthetic fragrances.

WHY: Many of the ingredients in synthetic perfumes are considered hazardous chemicals. Petroleum-based synthetic perfumes are not sustainable and the ingredients can be toxic to your health and the environment. Instead, try pure essential oils! People who are sensitive to synthetic perfumes typically have no problems with this natural alternative. Pure essential oils are also harvested more sustainably with very little impact on the environment.

HOW: Get to know natural brands in your local markets. Some brands of pure essential oils include Frontier’s, Attar, and Mt. Harmony Oils.

HIGHLIGHTS: Better health for you and the chemically sensitive people around you; aromatherapy benefit from natural oils.

MORE: To test essential oils for purity, try this test.

Make your own rose water.

7. Conserve water and energy.

WHY: High energy use at home not only damages the environment we live in but also increases your costs. Groundwater is being used at a rate 25 percent greater than its rate of replenishment — we need to reduce our water use to guarantee we’ll have water in the future. We are sure that wildlife and plants would thank you too, if they could.

HOW: Reuse water instead of pouring it down the drain when there may be another use for it such as watering a plant or garden, or for cleaning around your home. Turn off the water while you are lathering your hair or brushing your teeth. Repair dripping faucets by replacing washers. If your faucet is dripping at a rate of one drop per second, you can expect to waste 2,700 gallons per year. This adds to the cost of water and sewer utilities and adds to your water bill. Toilets can also leak. To see if yours does, put food coloring in the storage device, and wait a half hour. If the water in the bowl changes color, you have a leak. (Flush toilet after test so it doesn’t stain the bowl.)

Take shorter showers or shallow baths (boohoo!) to make a big difference. In addition, install low flow showerheads. A family of four using low-flow showerheads can save about 20,000 gallons of water per year. You can save 3 to 4 gallons per minute when you turn on the tap if you install a flow restrictor in the shower.

Turn off lights when not in use, and replace light bulbs with fluorescents when you buy new bulbs. They’ll last longer and save more energy. Or use candles instead (see above). Save about 3 percent of your heating costs for every degree you lower your thermostat during winter. During summer, you’ll cut cooling costs 3 to 4 percent for every degree you raise your thermostat.

Lower the temperature of your water heater to 120 degrees. Wrap water heater with a water heater blanket, especially if it’s in an unheated area. Wrap the tank and pipes for additional savings.

Skip the hair dryer and air dry your hair; open the window instead of using a fan.

HIGHLIGHTS: Make a difference by installing more energy-efficient appliances such as fluorescent bulbs. Save costs and resources by maintaining the thermostat and setting appropriate temperatures on water heaters.

8. Eat organic food that’s local, fresh and seasonal.

WHY: Fresh, organic, local and seasonal food supports local farms, requires less energy, is less packaged, and is nutritious and healthy.

HOW: Learn what products are in season near you. For example, understand that when you buy bananas in the summer in California in the supermarket it has most likely been shipped thousands of miles, and wasted significant energy in the process. Find a local farmers’ market, or local farm stand, to supply you with fresh produce. Local farms also can supply organic dairy products.

HIGHLIGHTS: A healthy diet that supports local farms.

MORE: Follow these easy Eight Steps to the New Green Diet!

9. Choose natural, non-toxic body care products.

WHAT: Skin and hair care, hair spray and styling, antiperspirants, soap, sun protection, shaving products, cosmetics, insect repellents, hair dyes and perms, dental hygiene, etc. Use less of it to save resources.

WHY: Synthetically derived cosmetics and personal care products can cause a wide array of health problems, including allergic reactions, cancer risk, neurological impairment, hormone disruption, and sensitization. The manufacture of toxic ingredients can cause long-lasting environmental harm, as can washing these chemicals down the drain.

HOW: Get to know different brands of natural personal care products sold your local or an online natural foods store. Read labels to find all-natural ingredients, and start experimenting to find brands you like. Some brands to look for include Aubrey Organics, Logona, Kiss My Face, Tom’s of Maine, Burt’s Bees, Zia’s, and Aveda (salons only).

HIGHLIGHTS: Safety, better for health and the environment, natural products are inherently more nourishing for the body than synthetic.

10. Use Earth-friendly feminine products, paper goods and accessories. Skip the plastic.

WHY: One of the most important things you can do is buy paper products that aren’t bleached with chlorine. Chlorine bleached paper can contain dioxin and organochlorine — carcinogenic residues that can transfer to any food or person they come in contact with. Choose instead unbleached paper towels, tampons, napkins, facial tissue, and bathroom tissue.

HOW: Green product companies such as Seventh Generation and NatraCare
Offer a number of unbleached paper products. Natural fiber towels and accessories are found at Linens & Things, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Gaiam.com, and more.

Choose a high-quality metal razor, or use an electric razor, instead of disposables.

HIGHLIGHTS: Protect your health and the environment from dangerous chemicals.