Arthur Dove's 'Clouds and Water' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC
Daughter Lesley told me recently about a blog site she found of a small crafty businesswoman who posted a bunch of helpful tips for simple, green cleaning.
I haven't read about house cleaning there yet, but I will. I still have some Clorox Green cleaner to use up.
I did adopt the tips for facial care and shampoo-free hair care. She recommends this site for instructions on the poo-free hair care thing, and this site for the facial care thing.
Facial care:
I'll let you read the particulars at those sites if you're interested, but basically the facial care is merely cleansing your skin with equal parts olive oil and castor oil. Like she says, why would I put anything on my skin I wouldn't put in my mouth? I massage the oil onto my face at the end of the day, then lay a hot washcloth on it for a little facial. When the washcloth begins to cool, I gently clean and rub my face. It feels very soft when I'm done. I used to have flakiness around my chin and nose. Since cleaning my face with these oils, I have none.
Hair care:
The hair cleaning part is a little trickier, and I'm still figuring it out since we all have different hair types, lengths, etc. But since I already only washed my hair every 3 days before this, I was a good candidate to try it, since some people find that it takes a couple of weeks for their hair to adjust and stop generating extra oil, making their hair look greasy. Anyway, one tablespoon baking soda dissolved in warm water, massage into scalp and let sit a minute. Then rinse with a cup or so of water with a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar in it. I've done this twice now, and both times my hair was soft, bouncy and shiny. And it did not get the greasiness, thankfully. Please do look at those instructions for answers to questions. It does take some getting used to not having any lather. But that is just a psychological ploy someone taught us, that we need lather and suds to get things clean! Thems are chemicals that create that illusion - SLS and SLFS (sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate) - YUCK.
As the woman at this site says, shampoo got introduced in the 20th century, it's a detergent, and it strips our hair of natural oils. So, conditioner had to be invented to put the oil back in. Pretty ridiculous, and pretty typical of much of our oh-so-modern world, la-di-da! (who said in a movie "la-di-frickin-da"? Was that Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment"? Oh! No! It was Chris Farley in "Saturday Night Live.")
It's funny how this feels so radical and new when it's not. I love that.
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