Eco Child’s Play

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I love a clean house. There, I’ve said it. I like walking into my house, breathing in deeply and smelling the pure fresh smell of Amonia nothing. Seriously, there is no odor whatsoever. My windows are practically invisible and, because I’m cheap environmentally aware there is no cleanser involved.

Ya’ huh! It’s totally not a typo. I just found out the most amazing thing, microfiber. You can get microfiber rags at auto supply stores in really dull shades of grey, red or beige. Microfiber is already adored by green moms who use cloth diapers. You can also pick them up at specialty Grocery stores like Whole Foods or Trader Joes for a little more cash but it much more appealing colors. Jeff thinks everyone should tuck a towel in their pocket (rumor has it that Jeff wears cargo pants).

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I have a confession to make: I am not the best housekeeper.  I don’t really enjoy cleaning, although I do enjoy a clean house.  There is one area of my house I insist is clean: the toilet!  Usually, I just pour in a little vinegar and sprinkle a little powdered laundry soap into the bowl and scrub away, but recently I discovered Seventh Generation’s Emerald Cypress & Fir Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner. There’s nothing like a new natural cleaning product to motivate me to clean.

Most toilet bowl cleaners are made with caustic acids that can burn your skin, and I certainly don’t want my little one’s bums to experience that!  Seventh Generation’s Emerald Cypress & Fir Natural Toilet Bowl Cleaner is biodegradable, safe for septic systems, chlorine-free, phosphate-free, dye-free, etc.  It comes in a cool shaped bottle allowing you to squirt under the toilet bowl rim. Unlike many other natural cleaners who guard their ingredients in a shroud of secrecy, Seventh Generation fully discloses its ingredients.  This toilet bowl cleaner is made from:

Aqua (water), lactic acid (plant-derived demineralizer), polyglucose, coceth-7, coceth-4 and deceth-5 (plant-derived cleaning agents), xanthan gum (natural thickener), essential oils and botanical extracts* (citrus aurantifolia (lime), abies balsamea (balsam fir), calilistris columellaris (emerald cypress). *d-limonene is a naturally occurring component of these ingredients.

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For eco-savvy parents in Los Angeles, Bel Bambini is hosting an event in store on Tuesday July 15th to equip moms with tips on how to create a healthy, eco-friendly nursery using green building products from leading experts.

Experts and hosts include:

• Hostess, Anna Getty, founder of Pregnancy Awareness
• Jay Watts from AFM Safecoat
• Josie Maran, founder of Josie Maran Cosmetics
• Kristina Lin, owner of Bel Bambini
• As well as information from Healthy Child Healthy World experts

Not only can green parents come get information on greening their children’s rooms, but they can also shop for a cause. A portion of sales from the day will go to the Pregnancy Awareness Foundation, which educates women on incorporating easy changes to boost exercise, nutrition and wellness to benefit themselves and their children.

The event will also feature eco-friendly prizes from Sage Creek Organics (an ADORABLE eco-line), AFM Safecoat, Green to Grow and more…call 213.627.1230 for more information. If you aren’t able to attend, check back for tips from the eco-experts presenting.

Related Posts:
Painting the Baby’s Nursery
Nursery Water Not Good for Babies
Organic Crib Mattresses

Young children like to be helpful, and I don’t want to discourage their desire to imitate my house cleaning (even though I often have to re-clean what they have done).  We use all natural cleaning products in our home not only because we care about the environment, indoor air quality, and have a greywater system, but in order that our kids can safely help us clean.

Basic H2 Organic cleaning concentrate was the first official Earth Day product in 1990 and has hundred of uses. From windows to stovetops, the concentrate allows you to mix the appropriate amount of water for your use.  This little 16 oz. bottle of concentrate can mix up an unbelievable 48 gallons of safe, powerful cleaner.

Basic H2 is quite sudsy, so I suspect it contains SLS; however, I am not sure this as much of a concern for a cleaning product as it is for a beauty product.  As long as your child’s skin doesn’t come into contact with it, it would not be irritating. Shaklee, the makers of Basic H2, will not release full disclosure of ingredients because, “We do not list the  specific ingredients for all of the cleaners as some of the formulae are proprietary.” This is common with household cleaners, but they state their products are from sustainable sources such as corn and coconut (SLS is coconut-derived). Read the rest of this entry »

We are doing a massive renovation at our house. Right now, we are living in a one room cabin with an outhouse, resident mouse, and possibly a bat (and oh, a one and a three year old) while our house is gutted.

Part of keeping the cost down is that we will do all our own painting and finishing of any wood.

So, we are on the lookout for low and no VOC paints and finishes to use. What are VOCs? Jessica shares about them earlier today and the virtues of new no VOC Mythic paint. Paints, finishes, primers and stains can all contain VOCs which causes indoor air quality to decline, putting little children at a greater risk of many health problems. According to Enviroblog:
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I remember being eight months pregnant with my second and realizing that I absolutely must paint the baby’s room now. I know, it makes no sense, the baby will never notice and I’d have been much better off taking a nap, but I had to have that lasso border in the room or…

I dunno. Seven years later I still can’t finish the sentence because, it doesn’t make sense to me now or then but I know I needed the stinkin room painted. A few short months ago that freshly painted room sent out the last of it’s toxins. Seriously. Read the rest of this entry »

Adding a third child into our family presents a number of physical and emotional challenges — at least that will be the case unless I can grow an extra set of arms over the next few months. But along another round of sleepless nights, having child #3 definitely puts a strain on the wallet. We’re not so much worried about the baby gear, since at this point in our parenting lives, we know exactly what we need and what we don’t. And with plenty of consignment shops, thrift stores, and generous friends, we’ve already got more clothes and toys than we’ll probably need.

But nothing puts a hurting on a budget than a new car and an eco-friendly one at that.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we need to buy a brand new car. I’m just saying that we’re going to need to invest in something big enough to fit two car seats and a booster. Well, legally anyway, because no matter how much my daughter begs me to ride on the roof, I just don’t foresee that in her future.

And we’re trying as hard as we can not to have kiss our freedom from car payments good-bye. It certainly helps when we’re paying $4/gallon for gas.

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If you are a coupon user or thrifty shopper as I am, you’ll like a new site for eco shoppers – Ecobunga.com. Unlike my husband who will buy anything on sale, I’m picky.

I shop at the Farmer’s Market for organic produce…15 minutes before closing. I select any product I want to buy online and then Google “ x product coupon”. I check for overstocks on organic and natural products at Big Lots.

I’m the original Eco deal shopper. Maybe you are too!

Business partners, Jennifer Hastings and Karen Schiff were inspired to create Ecobunga! when they learned that the 2007 GfK Roper Green Gauge Study cited cost as the top reason shoppers were reluctant to go green.

So they thought they’d help. The result is Ecobunga.

Ecobunga! is a comprehensive directory of giveaways and deals on green products and services, including sweepstakes, contests, coupons, rebates, sales and free shipping. We link shoppers to great bargains and prizes while helping companies get the word out about their eco-friendly products and services.

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Antibiotic free, cage free, biodynamic, grass fed, pastured, fertilized, free range, free roaming, free roaming, free running, irradiated, natural, no hormones, no chemicals administered, pasteurized, vegetarian fed, high-Omega 3, whole grain fed. All of these labels have been used just to market eggs.

In fact, eggs are the product with the most “eco labels” of all reviewed by Consumer Reports. How do you navigate the sea of label terms and find out what they really mean?

Consumer Reports offers an Eco-labels Center that has tools like a virtual kitchen that shows users common foods and the labels associated with them, some of which were new to me. Did you know wine can include a “salmon-safe” label, for example?

The site also offers three different ways to search for label definitions; by “label” including label term, logo, label index and label category; by product category including food, household cleaners, personal hygiene, and wood/paper; and by certifiers, the organization or program that validates the label claim.

Whilst I was researching on cloth diapering, I came across this Charlie’s Soap on many of the cloth diapering sites. Almost all of them recommended Charlie’s Soap (along with Bac-Out) to get the poop out but was also Hypoallergenic enough to use against baby’s tender skin.

Curious, I ordered the Charlie’s powder Soap on their online store. I have to say that this truly is a non-toxic cleaning miracle. I have used Charlie’s Soap not only to launder my newborn’s clothes, but to clean everything from spit ups on fabrics to pet messes. According to their website, you can also clean carpets with carpet cleaners or use it in your dishwasher. (I have neither so can’t lay claim to that.) Read the rest of this entry »