Tuesday, April 24, 2007

yes... i'm a lush...

a lush cosmetics lush, that is.

anyone who knows me is well aware that i've been a borderline fanatic for this company's products for about eight years (and, believe me, when lush stores started popping up here in the U.S., i swear i heard angels singing :).

anyhoo, not only does lush, for the most part, use all natural (with recent expansion into organic and free-trade) ingredients, it has never been involved in animal testing (hooray!)... AND the stuff just plain rocks!

while long soaks in the tub used to be par for my daily course, i've reduced them dramatically (saving water, you know). but, when i DO partake, one of lush's delicious bath bombs is always in the mix. the company also has some amazing hair and skin care products, not to mention my favvy perfume in the whole entirely world -- karma. yum!

as if that weren't enough to earn my unwavering devotion, the company also donates about 2 percent of its profits to small (at this point, u.k.-based) charities and has unveiled a hand lotion, charity pot. all proceeds from the sale of this new product goes to other small community groups, such as the sumatran orangutan society. pretty darn cool... only downside is that i don't see it for sale on the company's U.S. site - but, hopefully, that'll change.

c'mon.. be a lush, too!

Friday, April 13, 2007

hanging out

this is one of those ideas i've been tossing around for a while, but haven't acted upon... looks like now is the time!

april 19 is national hanging out day, a celebration of the clothesline as an alternative to the dryer. besides being kinder to the earth and saving oodles of energy, clothes dried on lines last longer AND smell better!

a couple of tips i've run across regarding clothelines... plastic ropes won't sag like over time like regular ropes, and plastic clothespins last much longer than their wooden equivalents... also, tossing your towels in the dryer for a few minutes after taking them down from the line will help make them softer and less stiff.

if you can, give this a shot!

Photo: Sara Remington for The New York Times

Thursday, April 5, 2007

my name is kristen... and i'm a book-a-holic...

i confess... i spend way too much time (not to mention money) on books that are read and do nothing but collect dust afterward... believe me, i love the library (remember those?)... problem is that it can be tough to get recent releases...

ta-da! along comes paperbackswap.com to solve both those problems! this is just an awesome idea!

basically, you just need to register and list nine books you're ready to blow the dust off of and get out of your house... that gets you three credits and then you can start trading away. all it costs is the postage to send a requested book to another member. and every time you do that, you get another credit.

btw... there's a related site to swap cds, too.

sweet!