Author: N

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My personal care routine

I shower every day, but I don’t use shampoo or conditioner. I “wash” my hair with water alone. This involves wetting my head, then scrubbing my scalp as if I were using shampoo. The scrubbing helps redistribute oils, and remove dirt and dead skin from my hair. I’ve been doing this for about two years. It works best if you have soft water. The minerals in hard water tend to bind to sebum, leaving you with sticky, white, waxy buildup.

Before that, I used baking soda in place of shampoo, which works fine. Before that, I used natural shampoo.

Bath brush. Picture from Ancient Industries. I bought mine at a cultural fair in Sweden. It was made by the Onslunda Borstmuseum (brush museum), a working museum in southern Sweden.

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Heat wave alert!

California is having a heat wave today and tomorrow. Around San Jose, it’s supposed to get up to 102°F or so! Whew! It’s time to take extreme evasive maneuvers, which means camping out in air-conditioned buildings!

J and I rarely use the air conditioning (or heat, for that matter). My preference is to leave the windows open at night to bring in the cool air or just tough it out if it’s too warm. If it’s too hot to sleep (usually > 83°F), we turn the AC on for a few hours before going to bed. If it’s too hot during the day even for sitting at a computer, though, I would rather just go somewhere else.

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How to go low-waste in the bathroom

This includes bathing and skin-care, mostly.

Tips

  1. Use less shampoo. For example, focus on shampooing your scalp rather than the length of your hair.
  2. Shampoo less often. If you shampoo every day, try every other day, then every third day. You’ll find that you can go a whole week with no shampoo!.
  3. Buy shampoo that comes in a returnable, refillable, or glass bottle.
  4. Buy your shampoo in bulk (and bring your own container) if you have a extensive bulk store nearby.
  5. Make your own shampoo. This can be as simple as using bar soap or liquid soap on your hair, or you could make really fancy concoctions.
  6. Go low or no ‘poo. There are many alternative haircare routines that generate less (plastic) waste, are cheaper, and are better for you.
  7. Take navy showers. Only have the water on to get yourself wet and to rinse.
  8. Make your own exfoliating scrub. A classic is sugar and/or baking soda in oil. Commercial scrubs often contain plastic microbeads, which aren’t removed in the water treatment process and end up polluting the environment.
  9. Use a washcloth, bath brush, natural loofah (compostable) in place of plastic loofahs (those mesh scrubby things).
  10. Use less soap on your body. Soap up less often. The oils you’re taking off keep your skin moisturized.
  11. Use bar soap for washing your hands and body in place of body wash and liquid soap. Bar soap can be bought loose (no packaging) or in paper, which can be easily recycled.
  12. Use oil as lotion. But if you’re using it on your face, make sure to check comeodogenic ratings first. These tell you how likely an ingredient is to cause acne. The lower the number, the better.
  13. Use a menstrual cup and cloth menstrual pads (or use prescription birth control to get rid of your period).
  14. Use a straight razor of double-edge razor instead of a disposable razor or razor with disposable heads. Here’s help to get you started!
  15. As always, don’t use disposables. Question if you really need that disposable item. If you do, then see if you can find a reusable replacement.

It’s been so long since I de-wastified my shower and skincare routines that it’s hard for me to think of suggestions for this. If you have any questions, like what to replace a particular product with, just ask!

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Purisima Creek Trail

A few weekends ago, J, friend A who likes bugs, friend S who is a friend of friend A, friend S’s college friends, and I took a trip to the Purisima Creek Open Space Preserve. We hiked on the Purisima Creek Trail a total distance of 12 miles!! That was much longer than anticipated, but J and I were surprisingly not in bad shape the next day. My calves were a little sore, but that was it. J and I do walk a lot now (at least 2 miles a day, just to the train station and back. If we do any extra activities, like on the weekends, then we easily reach 6+ miles in a day.).

We saw a tooon of banana slugs. They’re famous for being yellow and living in  redwood forests. It would seem that they have aposematic coloration, but they’re not toxic. In fact, there’s an (annual?) banana slug recipe contest in Russian River, CA.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of this trip. J brought his fancy camera, though, so I’ll have him upload something soon.

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Mattress update!

I worked on my wool mattress last Saturday. I was just stuffing it (and worked all day!), but got barely halfway done. I can’t imagine making wool mattresses for a living…

It’s been taking up so much room on the floor. And the wool I’m using is really dirty, so there’s dirt and wool everywhere. The apartment is going to get a thorough cleaning once I’m completely done with the mattress. There’s even wool fluff under the sofa.

Despite all the work, I’m glad I didn’t buy a commercial wool mattress. Mine is almost certainly going to be higher quality than most of those available in the US. And now I know how to make a mattress!

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Keeping track of the books I read

I made a Goodreads account to keep track of books I read that are relevant to this blog. If you want to see what I’ve read and what I want to read, take a look at my profile.

Goodreads is a website that allows you to rate, review, and track books you’ve read. There’s enough detail for you to track how far you are through a book (60% or 70%?) and when you started and finished a book. The reviews are quite thoughtful and helpful when choosing a new book to read. Check it out!

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Awesome Japanese, ethical, slow fashion clothing brand!!

After the Mahouka movie and my thrift store finds, we browsed the Japantown mall. In the atrium area, there was an amazing Japanese clothing brand~ They were having an exhibition to advertise and sell their products, and I totally got sucked in. Everything was amazing!!! I could tell even from a distance that it was my type of clothing, from the colors to the cut.

The company is called Usaato, a contraction of Usaburo Sato, the designer’s name. It’s a pun: “usaato” also means “rabbit” (although it’s a less common word than “usagi”), which they use in their logo. Here’s their Facebook page (in Japanese) and their USA page, which still has quite a bit of Japanese.

Ahhh, just look at that. The top layer is cut on the bias (you can tell because of how the stripes chevron into each other along the back seam), which is an unusual and complicated detail for commercially-produced clothing. And the cut of the collar and sleeves is so nice.

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Redwoods and Cacti

A few weeks ago, J and I had an uncharacteristically adventurous and nature-filled weekend with our friend A. It turns out A really likes hiking and such, especially since he can look for cool bugs! I’m more into plants, but it’s good to learn about native insects too. Sadly, we didn’t see any banana slugs 🙁

A big tree at Sam McDonald County Park on the Heritage Grove trail. Heritage Grove has some of the last old-growth redwoods (the rest were logged). J’s camera has better, but inaccessible, photos.

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