2008 Archives: Green, Greener, Greenest
So we were talking with our friend A about the whole NatGeo debacle, and she was like “What?” and we were like “What? You don’t read the newsletter?” and she was like (we’re from California, deal with it) “Actually, I just check out the beauty section and then click through if it sounds interesting.” And. She’s. Our. Friend.
Totally unscientific research confirmed that this is what most readers do—Beauty is our most hit-up section. We get it: Who has the time to read everything that clogs up her inbox, and beauty stuff is the most fun to read about anyway, what with its tantalizing allure of quick ‘n cheap transformation. So we figured we’d throw A a loop: This week, our beauty section features our new favorite book, Lori Bongiorno’s Green Greener Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-Smart Choices a Part of Your Life.
Ha! Take that, A!
We know that we like a book when we finish and a few page corners are turned down—we finished this one with pretty much every other page. Starting with food and working its way through home, parenting, cleaning, transportation and pretty much everything in between, this is a veritable encyclopedia of green living—the kind of book you can keep on your shelf and pull out when you’re wondering what non-organic fruits and veggies are safe (those with skin) or what plastics you can recycle.
But it’s in the Personal Care chapter that Lori, a journalist who was on staff at BusinessWeek and has written for Glamour, Plenty and The Green Guide (love those guys!), among others, really rocks. There’s a section on decoding labels, a spotlight on phthalates (now we’re even more scared) and frank talk about feminine protection that includes the oh-so-revolutionary reusable cup (which was dissed, unexplainably, in another recent green living book for women, as “a very strange device that you use instead of a tampon,” which shows you how much she knows about it). And all of it is categorized by how eco you wanna go, like, for example, the advice on oral care for the “green” reader is simply to not swallow your toothpaste, the “greener” girl gets a link to recycled toothbrushes, organic toothpastes and dental floss, and the “greenest” recommendation is to use a mixture of baking soda and water to brush your teeth. (As. If.)
It’s a handy way to figure green into your lifestyle, and was a wake up call for us, since, apparently, we’re Greener, rather than Greenest, Girls.
