Month: May 2013

How to buy toxin-free nail polish

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*Updated March, 2016.

Let’s kick off with this: most nail polish is made with the same gunk used to make car paint. Yep, a toxic melange of solvents, film formers, resins and plasticisers. Whatever they are. But shall we move on? And see if there is some light at the end of this fumey tunnel?

Image via Favim.
Image via Kester Black.

I’ve written before on toxin-free cosmetics, safe fake tan lotions and toxin-free sunscreen, so I figured it was time to take a closer look at nail polish. I personally don’t wear the stuff. This is my strategy for avoiding toxins in most beauty products. But I know many of you out there do, so consider this a bit of a community service post!

For this reason, too, I’ve asked some of my expert toxin-free friends to weigh in on this stinky topic. It’s a combined effort.

1. Know your nasties.

Maria Hannaford at Econest works for an environmental organisation researching the impact our food system has on the environment and our health. She says most brands promoting themselves as “safe” these days will list themselves as “3-free”. This means they’re free of the top three nasty ingredients listed below. She explains:

  • Formaldehyde. It’s the stuff they use to preserve dead things. I should know, I worked in a lab for many years and let me tell you, there is a strict protocol around avoiding getting it on your skin or breathing in its fumes! It’s a known human carcinogen and can cause ear, nose, throat and skin irritations.
  • Dibutyl Phthalate. It’s the most controversial of these ingredients; it’s a known reproductive and developmental toxin, and is linked to hormonal and long-term fertility problems in newborn males. It’s banned in the EU. [But is apparently safe enough for Australians? – Sarah]
  • Toluene. A possible reproductive and developmental toxin that causes headaches, dizziness and fatigue. It can cause liver, kidney and brain damage, as well as damage to a developing foetus.

Irene Falcone is the creator of Nourished Life, a site specialising in selling eco-chic natural and organic beauty, children’s and home and lifestyle products. Irene also suggests you avoid nail polishes with parabens, phthalates, solvents (ethyl acetate and butyl acetate), nitrocellulose, acetone and heavy metals.

What to do?

  • If this chemical info is all too much, simply look for “3-free” labelling PLUS ensure there’s no ethyl acetate – a known neurotoxin and the worst of the additional nasties Irene lists – in the stuff. Many of the brands labelled as “3-free” still contain it.

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how to slow cook lamb shanks #2 (plus 8 super easy recipes)

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A few weeks back I shared my recipe for slow cooked lamb shanks with lemon and cinnamon. Have you tried it yet? Today, I’m getting slippery swift ‘n’ efficient and sharing a shank trick that’s fast, versatile and can stretch ingredients further. Oh yes, you’ll be shanking me for this shanky share!

Screen Shot 2013-05-03 at 11.35.40 AM
Par-slow-braised lamb shanks…recipe below

So. It works like this. Shanks can be rather large, often 400g each. Which, even when the bone is removed from the equation, I personally think is too much meat in one sitting, for both sustainability and health reasons.

Also, one often buys shanks in bulk and one might not want to cook up a whopping great casserole with six or eight of the buggers. One might, instead, want to use the meat in different ways. Or one might only have two shanks to one’s name, which you can’t really justify slow cooking for 8 hours in a slow cooker.

Which is why I’ve played around with this idea:

par-slow-cooking the shanks first…

 

…then splitting up the meat, freezing it and using it in a variety of dishes.

Yeah, I love the idea, too.

The recipe below uses three shanks, which can then make 5-6 different meals (recipes below). Here’s how to do it:

Par-Slow-Braised Lamb Shanks

  • 2-4 lamb shanks
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

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my simple home: earthing mats

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Brace yourselves, team. We’re heading into the kind of territory that brings folk out of the woodwork to throw the usual cries of “but where’s the vacuum-sealed, octo-blind, inreverse placebo, set-in-concrete scientifical study that proves what you say beyond a doubt?!”.  Yes, today we’re going to discuss earthing mats. Which sound like something that a dude in fisherman pants and a child called Forest Pxyiee would try to sell you, right?

Photo by Toby Burrows
Photo by Toby Burrows

Admittedly I did first hear about the idea while I was living in Byron Bay. And it was a dude in fisherman pants who waxed lyrical about the it will toting a chai. A few months back, however, building biologist Nicole Bijlsma brought the idea and the mats up again when she did a toxin audit on my home. She claims the mats will reduce body voltage created by the electric fields around you, and are particularly good for those who have electric hypersensitivity (EHS). You can see the video chats we did in my home here and here where we discuss the various sources of electromagnetic fields in the house and the solutions you can put in place to minimise them.

In a (cracked?) nut the idea behind earthing, however, is this:

The earth has a negative grounding charge. We humans build up positive electrons (free radicals) from EMFs, Wi-Fi etc.

Connecting directly with the earth equalizes things.

To earth is simply to walk barefoot on dirt or beach or grass. The effect is much like grounding electrical outlets to prevent build up of positive electrical charge. Health benefits, calmness, good sleep ensue.

How to earth:

* Walk barefoot. While we used to connect via our bare feet, know we have a layer of rubber between us and the earth, which insulates and prevents the grounding transfer. Get your shoes off and walk in a park on the grass or dirt, or along a beach.

* Walk on the beach. Wondered why you come back from a beach stroll so anchored and calm? Sand and salt

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today I’m wearing a dirty white T-shirt

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Today I woke with a plan to wear my white long-sleeved T-shirt. I’ve worn it twice already in the past fortnight and it has a little bit of makeup on the inside neckline and a little bit of a lived-in smell to it. Today I’ll be riding on my bike between meetings. A slightly uncrisp white T-shirt is appropriate.

photo

But there’s this: my white T-shirt is one wear off a wash. And I have a load of whites in the machine, waiting to be justified as a Full Load. Waiting for another white-in-need-of-a-wash. And so, wearing this white T-shirt today and washing it tonight (with a dash of bleach) will bring me a disproportional sense of satisfaction. Completion. It’s the Capricorn in me.

As I got dressed this morning (pulling on a short summery skirt because I like to “wear up” all my summery gear before I move into my cooler weather wardrobe), I wondered: Do other people have Little Life Processes like this? Little things that bring completion? Little thoughts and structures that fill their brains between more important thoughts? If so, what are they?

For it is in these Little Life Process Moments that I think so much about a person can be really seen.

These nerdy, particular, slightly odd-ball moments are so intimate. I fall in love with a person when I see them engage in theirs. It’s a moment of care. It’s a moment of uncensored them-ness. It’s a moment that exposes their needs, their vulnerability.

I know my need for completion and for “using things up” says oodles about my need to feel safe, to feel that I’m a

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