Wow. I’ve been neglecting the blog. January was busy, I guess. And now February has been busy too. I’ve been helping my husband with his blog and trying to workout and joined a book club so I’ve been sneaking in minutes here and there to read the book (tonight’s the night! I’m hoping that the book club is nice. I love reading and the last one I joined was pretty disappointing). Today I thought I’d update on some of the natural product choice changes we’ve been making from The LIST:
#3: Stop Using SLS based shampoos and soaps. Happy to say this is going well! I’ve eliminated a bunch of products already: facial cleanser, shampoo, baby wash, bath gel, and toothpaste. Yay for us! We do use softsoap to wash our hands, though and I’m not sure but I’m guessing that also has SLS. I need to look into that and also to see if Dove moisturizing bars contain SLS.
#4 – Begin Using a Natural Toothpaste. We’ve been using a natural toothpaste from Trader Joe’s for several weeks now. No complaints here. My mouth feels clean and fresh. The texture of the toothpaste is different from what I’m used to though. It’s thicker, drier and grittier than the toothpastes we typically buy. I haven’t heard any complaints from my husband either. We’ll see if the dentist notices anything. If not, then we’re sticking to it. I bought a tube of Tom’s to try next. I think I want to experiment a little and see what we like out there.
#14: Switch to cloth wipes. I started using cloth wipes about two and a half weeks ago. So far it’s going well. I made up a solution of olive oil, baby wash, and water and have been spraying it onto wash cloths to wipe down baby. I use them for both wet and dirty diapers. It’s really not that bad. I do still use disposable wipes but WAAAY fewer. Sometimes on Karina’s crazy diapers, I’d use five or six wipes. Now I’ll use a couple cloths and maybe a disposable wipe or two. Much better. And I really really like the idea that I’m not putting so many scary chemicals on her, like the kind that are toxic when inhaled. Ugh. I do use disposable wipes on the go, however. I think now that I’m going to be using them more sparingly, I’ll buy the natural/flushable kind. I’m open to any recommendations if you have any!
On a side note, we’ve also switched the type of garbage bags we use. We used to buy a big box of them for pretty cheap at costco. We just started buying biodegradable garbage bags. I’m not sure if my city shreds garbage before putting it in the landfill so I thought these couldn’t hurt help the contents of the bags biodegrade a little faster. So far we haven’t had any issues with leaks or anything like that. One thing that is a little more cumbersome is that the kind we bought don’t have drawstrings like the old ones did. This makes things harder in two ways…first, I have to get a garbage tie and tie it up instead of grabbing the drawstring and tying up the bag on the way to the big garbage can in the garage. Next, since there’s no drawstring, it slips out of the kitchen trash can more easily and I find that I’m having to re-fit it at least once a day.
Man. Being less green sure is easier. Sometimes I think about whether or not I’d be more productive if I just trashed stuff like diapers and wipes and didn’t bother recycling. I guess I would have a few more minutes in the day but that’s just not me.