Lemon Myrtle Shampoo – I have been using this organic shampoo for a few weeks now and I really like it. I am not normally one to care too much about stuff like shampoo, but to be honest this stuff smells pretty awesome. Even the last guests I had at my house fell in love with it too. While it is not certified organic, it is a 71% organic product with the following ingredients: certified organic aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) leaf juice, coco glucoside, d-panthenol (pro-vitamin B5), xanthan gum, certified organic citrus aurantium amara (bitter orange) fruit extract, certified organic backhousia citriadora (lemon myrtle) essential oil, citric acid, certified organic equisetum arvense (horsetail) extract, certified organic urtica dioica (nettle) extract, certified organic arctium lappa (burdock) extract, certified organic rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf extract, certified organic salvia officinalis (sage) leaf extract. For a product to be certified as organic, 95% of the ingredients must be certified organic. Because the foaming agent in this shampoo, coco polyglucose (a “non-ionic surfactant”made from coconut and glucose from corn.) is not certified organic, the shampoo cannot be. But by looking at the ingredient list, I was pretty happy with the product overall.

Balancing Moisturizer – Living where I do in Northern New Mexico at 7,500 feet, where sometimes it feels like you are walking on the surface of the sun, a good moisturizer is a must. It’s very dry and my skin has taken a beating since moving here last year. This Certified Organic moisturizer works wonders in this environment! The ingredients are: certified organic aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) leaf juice, aqua, certified organic rosa rubiginosa (rosehip) seed oil, certified organic simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) seed oil, certified organic helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, certified organic butyrospermum parkii (shea) fruit butter, certified organic ethanol (sugar cane alcohol), non-gmo lecithin, certified organic citrus aurantium amara (bitter orange) fruit extract, certified organic lavandula angustifolia (lavender) essential oil, certified organic olea europaea (olive) extract, sclerotium rolfsii gum, olea europaea (olive) leaf extract, certified organic calendula officinalis flower extract, certified organic matricaria recutita (chamomile) flower extract, certified organic althea officinalis (marshmallow) root extract, certified organic hypericum perforatum (st johns wort) flower extract. I don’t use it every day (maybe only a few times a week, really), but it does help with the dryness around here.

Shine Herbal Hair Conditioner – I only use conditioner once or twice a week on my hair, so while I am no “hair pro”, I do know that this stuff seems to work. This is a 90% organic conditioner product with the following ingredients: certified organic aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) leaf juice, sorbitan olivate and cetearyl olivate, aroma (proprietary blend of essential oils), certified organic arctium lappa (burdock) extract, moringa oleifera seed oil, d-panthenol (pro-vitamin B5), certified organic pelargonium graveolens (geranium) essential oil, certified organic equisetum arvense (horsetail) extract, non-gmo lecithin, certified organic apple cider vinegar, certified organic urtica dioica (nettle) extract, certified organic pogostemon cablin (patchouli) essential oil, myroxylon pereirae (balsam peru) oil, certified organic rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf extract, certified organic salvia officinalis (sage) leaf extract. It smells good, it’s natural, and it works – all wins for in my book.

Many companies won’t tell you the ingredients in their products, so it is always nice to come across a company that willingly does so. Even when not perfect, Miessence does seem to strive to be a better product than what else is out there on the market. And the honesty is very much appreciated by me!

So, about that giveaway…how would you like to win $50 worth of Miessence products? Erin from Ely Organics has graciously offered a lucky reader of The Good Human the chance to choose up to $50 worth of product from her online store! While it is very easy to enter, there are a few rules that must be followed in order for your entry to be considered:

1. Head over to Ely Organics and take a look at the products for sale.

2. Choose up to $50 in products that you would like to win from the online store, and then come back to this post.

3. Leave a comment on this post with the products you have chosen from the store. Your comment must include product names that you would like to win.

4. All entries must be received no later than Friday, September 25th, 2009, at 7am MST.This giveaway has ended, and the winner will be contacted next week.

That’s pretty much it! The giveaway is open to U.S. residents, and only one entry allowed per person/email address/IP address. We will choose one winner at random from all legitimate entries, and that winner will be contacted by either myself or directly by Erin.

Post from: The Good Human

Review & $50 Product Giveaway: Miessence Organics

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How To Deal With Bugs…

Organically, Of Course! Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading, right?

The year was 1970. I was off to help some friends in central New Hampshire build a couple of log cabins on a mountaintop they’d bought. What’s more, they planned to accomplish this without power tools or motorized equipment, using draft horses to haul the logs. Back-to-the-landers, oh yeah.

But In the context of the war in Vietnam, the bombing of Cambodia, the Kent State murders, and the cultural transformation then sweeping Western societies, this was more than “living green” — the system had it in for us in no uncertain terms, which meant that living a simple, natural life in the deep New England woods was both a logical survival strategy and a revolutionary statement. The whole adventure is worthy of a book (I’m writing one, in fact), even though it ultimately foundered in a physical sense. The spiritual wisdom gained through the chaos of the time still lives, however, tucked away though it may have been over the sterile intervening decades, and it may be time to pull it out again.

The episode that comes to mind is one involving bugs, believe it or not. Mosquitos, to be exact. The wet New Hampshire forest bred them in the billions like a holy mission, and they attacked me mercilessly at first. I tried everything in the drugstore arsenal of the day, but nothing worked, and it was impossible to get anything done while swatting constantly. Belatedly, I noticed that my host appeared unbothered and unbitten. Why, he wasn’t even wearing a hat!

Upon questioning, he told me something disarmingly simple that hardly anyone I’ve mentioned this to for almost 40 years has seconded: the mosquitos, he said, recognized emotions such as fear or hostile intent and acted accordingly. All I had to do, he assured me, was think peaceful thoughts and leave them alone! That’s it. That’s all there is to it, or was: I did as he instructed, despite the high-pitched buzzing all around my face, making sure not to pre-emptively slap the few mosquitos that actually landed on my skin. The change may not have been instantaneous, but before too long, I found myself at peace again, with no new bites. (Whoa!)

Now, on the surface, this is just a funny story. It may be something you believe, or don’t, and I have to admit that I haven’t practiced as I preach for much too long. The fact remains, though, that once I changed my inner orientation to the creatures, everything shifted… It’s kind of like another thing that often happens when I want to kill a pesky buzzing fly: pick up the swatter, and he disappears! I’ll bet you’ve noticed something similar once or twice, smirked at the ironic absurdity of it all, and gone your way without processing the broader implications. We all do, probably because the truth demands too much responsibility of us: “What, you mean I have to watch my thoughts?”

Well, yes.

Everything is connected in ways we don’t automatically accept because it can’t be measured (yet). But who wants to be the last to catch the clue train? Unfortunately, living a materially simple life in harmony with nature in America is still a revolutionary act. I haven’t managed it myself yet, but maybe we can say intention matters at least a little bit…

(Just ask the unofficial state bird of New Hampshire!)

Post from: The Good Human

How To Deal With Bugs…Organically, Of Course!

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Dear EarthTalk: I want to start an organic vegetable garden in my yard and I would like to know how to combine crops to make better use of time and space.

Most commercial farms concentrate on growing a few select crops to supply a wide variety of customers, but gardening at home is a different story entirely. Most backyard food gardeners are looking to augment their family’s diet with a variety of seasonal fruits, vegetables and herbs throughout the growing season.

For those of us who face time and space constraints in our gardening endeavors, combining crops within the same planting areas makes a lot of sense. Such techniques are particularly well-suited to organic gardens where chemical fertilizers and pesticides aren’t used to artificially boost crop productivity.

The most common way to combine garden crops is via an age-old technique called interplanting, which in essence means planting various garden edibles with different growth and spacing attributes together in the same soil beds or rows. One example involves combining fast-maturing vegetables, such as lettuce, field greens or beets, with slower-maturing ones like winter squash or pole beans. According to the informational “Our Garden Gang” website, mixing tall plants, like sweet corn, peas or staked tomatoes, with low-growing crops such as melons or radishes, is another way to maximize diversity and yield.

Building on the idea of interplanting, Better Homes & Gardens magazine suggests that gardeners combine plants that produce vines and can be grown on trellises or fences along with low-growing crops. So-called “vertical gardening” concentrates much more production into each square foot of planting area. Also, the magazine reports, crops grown off the ground “tend to be healthier because they are less likely to contract fungus infections or soil-borne leaf diseases.” Tomatoes, pole beans, cucumbers, snap peas, melons and winter squash are all examples of crops suitable for vertical gardening if staked or supported properly.

Another common technique often employed by “weekend” gardeners, organic or otherwise, is succession planting, which entails replacing a finished crop with a different one, or planting a single crop in small amounts over an extended period of time. One example would be to replace a spring crop with a summer crop, such as planting cucumbers—which thrive in warmer weather—where the peas had been growing earlier. Another form of succession planting involves staggering the planting of seeds from one specific crop throughout its growing season to ensure a continuing supply as long as possible.

Some crops particularly well-suited to succession planting include bush beans, lettuce, spinach and radishes, each of which have long growing seasons but can be harvested after only a few weeks. A related technique would be to plant both early- and late-maturing varieties of the same type of crop around the same time, and harvesting the resulting crops successively. Tomatoes and corn, for example, each come in varieties that ripen at different times during their respective growing seasons.

And while it may be easy to get carried away with edible gardening, don’t forget to plant a few flowers to spruce up the look of your garden and also attract bees to help pollinate your food crops. Marigolds and sunflowers are good choices as they are relatively easy to grow organically and tend to attract lots of bees.

CONTACTS: Our Garden Gang; Better Homes & Gardens.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 USA; submit it at EarthTalk; or e-mail us. Read past columns at our archives.

Post from: The Good Human

EarthTalk: Backyard (Organic) Vegetable Gardening In Small Spaces.

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Food grown on a farm used to be good for us, before we had to start choosing between “conventionally” or “organically” grown in the grocery store. Farmers (or homeowners, really) took great care to grow food in a natural way, using seeds passed down from generation to generation and using their families’ compost to fertilize the soil. We didn’t need to worry about DDT or GMO foods – seeds were planted, crops were picked, and food was eaten. This was “organic” throughout history until the 20th century came along thinking that it could improve on nature. Sadly, it cannot without the addition of toxic chemicals, modified seeds, hulking machines, and giant corporations pulling the strings. Take Monsanto, for instance. Here is a company that has designed their own genetically modified seeds that are sold to farmers. These seeds are not only designed to be resistant to, wait for it, the company’s own pesticide, but also to only last for one season. Want to grow that crop next year? Gotta buy more seeds, as they are created to only germinate once. And on top of that, (for the seeds that they make that do germinate more than once), a person could get sued if the seed flies through the air and happens to grow on the property of someone who didn’t pay for the seed, as in the case of Monsanto vs Schmesier. Scary, no?

I guess my point is that organic should just be the way it is. I personally don’t like knowing that I eat food that basically engineered in a lab, designed to be controlled by a huge corporation, and covered with toxins. I would like my food to be “old-fashioned” in this sense, so I could possibly know where it came from, who grew it, what it is made out of, and why it’s good for me. This is the reason we try to buy as much local produce as possible, even though it’s not possible to buy all of it here in Northern New Mexico as the climate is not ideal for growing food. But we do our best with the resources we have available. However, it’s too bad I have to choose between organic and conventional at all, because while they may have been synonymous in the past they most certainly are not today.

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Organic Is Just Another Word For “Old-Fashioned”.

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