Feeling a little unpleasantly green.

 

I've been feeling a little ill the last few weeks, which has made writing in this blog not really something I've been thinking off.  This time I felt so bad I caved and took copious amounts of lemsip and cough medicine. It's not something I normally do, usually I just let my body deal with it on its own accord, having a hot drink with lemon juice with honey (sometimes), and maybe take some paracetimol if I need to lower my temperature. I generally prefer to do this as it gives my body a chance to deal with it on its own and get my immune system working. But it did make me think, are there any natural remedies that you can take when you're ill that actually work.
So far, the natural products usually put forward as the best ways of dealing with a colds, vitamin C, zinc and echinacea, don't do too well on the research front, with the mixed results generally leaning towards the negative.  Even chicken soup isn't getting the thumbs up, mainly because its difficult to find something that looks, feels, smells and tastes like chicken soup to compare it too.  So what can you use?

1. The first seems pretty obivous, lots of rest!  Dealing with a cold (or flu) does take a lot of energy and so, ensuring that that's the only thing it has to deal with, increases your body's ability to deal with the illness and to get better sooner.  This I definitely try and do, but I have to admit I get easily bored lying in bed for hours.
2. Drink hot drinks.This is really just to spot dehydration, relieve congestion and help sooth inflamed areas.  It's not a cure, but it does help make things feel better.
3. Gargling.  Again, not really a cure, though gargling with warm water and salt can help with the actual infection, but it does help smooth your throat by moistening the area and removing the particules that cause inflamation in your throat.
4. Steam.  Great for adding moisture to dry chest and throats, as well as opening up sinuses to allow breathing and to remove infected mucus from the body.
5. Honey.  Designed to keep the hive healthy and happy, honey has antioxidants, antibacterial and antiviral properties.  Best with the least amount of processing possible, honey can help boost the immune system, soothe soar throats, improve coughs and helps eliminate the secondary bacterial infection that you can get with colds and flu.
6. Ginger. Containing compounds called gingerols, which has been shown to reduce pain, inflammation, germs and viruses, its one of the best ways of reducing the affects of the cold or flu virus and helping your body to get rid of the virus itself. Mixed with honey and warm water, a warm ginger drink can be one of the most soothing things you can take while feeling ill.

If I'm honest I usually try most of these when I'm feeling ill, but probably not to the extent that I should to actually make a difference.  As I've said before, I get bored very easily when ill and don't really do the things I'm meant to do.  Next time I'm not feeling great, which hopefully won't be for a very long time, I'll test all of these to see if they actually work and, if so, how well they work compared to the pharmaceutical things I used this time.

Empties #1

As anyone trying to use up products will know, it takes a lot longer then you would expect.  But I have decided to work my way through my stash to use up items that have been sitting there for a while and to reduce the duplicates so that's what I'm doing.  This is what I've got through so far.

24 Hour Naked - Coco de Mer Body Butter.

I have to admit I love this stuff, I smell totally edible, but its not moisturising enough for my skin in the winter and I can't buy it again until I've used up the other moisturisers.  Just a self tanning moisturiser (I have no idea why I brought this) and a body butter from the Body Shop and I'm out of moisterisers.

Botanics Enlivening Body Polish.

Not a big fan of this.  It's meant to exholicate your skin and have oils to help moisturise at the same time, but I didn't really find that it work particularly well.  The crushed shells didn't help exholiate by skin and the oils weren't concentrated enough to actually add any conditioning to my skin.  It's discontinued now, but I wouldn't buy it again even if it wasn't. 
Actually I've decided not to buy anymore body scrubs at all, but instead I'm going to use something a bit more mechanical (and Japanese) to help remove the dead skin and detox the skin intself. A dry skin brush to brush up my body before I take a shower. Mine's from Botanics at Boots.

Scrubby, scrubby.

Sorting my clothing.

Ok, I'm not exactly a clothing hoarder and I can fit most of it into a tiny little wardrobe.

With an unbelieveably large number of jumpers in the back.

(There's more in there, I'd just have to take all my clothes out to really show them all.)  But, despite the small number it's definitely more than I really need and, while I do wear all of it throughout the year, I reach for some items for more than others.
So here's the plan.  Realistically I only need 5 of each item to be happy (5 strappy tops, 5 short sleeved tops, 5 long sleeved tops, 5 skirts - I actually only have 3 at the moment -, 5 dresses, and 5 trouses - shorts aren't really needed where I live), though I'll keep the number of jumpers higher as I definitely need to be able to layer those.  As I have more than 5 of most things I really don't need to be buying anymore clothes until it's time to replace one of the 5 that I need to replace.  This will not only stop me from buying items I don't need, and so not be so environmentally unfriendly, but also save me money.  Win win all round really, and thankfully I'm not big on following fashion so I'll not going miss out there.

Greening my beauty products.

I'm not a huge beauty person. I really don't have loads of products, especially not a lot of make-up, but I still feel that the amount that I do have is more than I actually need with a lot of it brought on a whim, put to one side and then never used.
Here are some pictures of all the products I have:

 My lotions and potions on my vanity, with a selection of my nail varnishes.  Some of it is 'green' but a lot of it isn't.

 The make-up I have on my vanity.  Apart from my eco tools none of it is really that environmentally friendly, though I do have some cruelty free Urban Decay products.  The items on the front are those I'm trying to use up.....more on that later.

 The little goodies I have beside my bed.  Lavender to try and help me sleep (it's not really working), foot lotion I'm trying use up, lip treatment and cuticle treatment.  Again, not really that eco.

 The spare stash I have in one of my draws.

 My shower stash.  The shower gel in the clear bottle is actually Tea tree shower gel by Faith in Nature, I like it but it's a little bit drying, and that's not a Neutrogena shampoo it actually has my Tea tree shampoo in it by Faith in Nature.

My face products hiding in my bathroom cabinet.... and the shampoo I use to clean my make-up brushes.

So as you can see I don't have a lot of things, but I do have a lot of spares of items, especially make-up of the red lipstick variety.  I don't really want taht, I just want to have one of each thing and then buy more when it's almost or has run out.  So now I'm working through my stash and slowly using everything up, especially with the make-up.  While I like it I don't tend to wear it all that often and quite happily walk round without anything on, spots or no spots, so having a number of different types of the same product just doesn't make sense.

The next step I want to take is to make my skin care and make-up far more natural and animal friendly then it actually is.  There's no point in actually trying to be green if what I'm putting onto my body (and down the sink when I wash) is full of chemicals.  So when I'm finally needing more products I will start reseaching into more eco products and testing them out to see if they work the way I need to.  I also want to start making some of my products, especially my skin care, myself so that what I'm putting on my face is pure and has a little extra chemicals as possible.  I thought this part was going to be the most difficult part, with all the research etc needed to be done to know what the best oils and essential oils to buy, but thankfully youtube has come up with a little bit of help here. Pink So Foxy has started making videos on her natural skincare regime and the information she's given has definitely made it seem a little less scary.

I will keep up-dating this blog on what I find and what using it is like.

Recycling Plastic

Ok, not the most exciting thing to talk about, but environmentally recycling plastic is so important!  The weird thing is it can be really difficult to find where you can recycle this stuff.  One of the biggest issue is the cost for the council; as plastic is light weight, and can be bulking, and they get paid for recycling products by the tonnes so there's not as much incentive to make a priority on the recycling front.  Where I live there are loads of places you can recycle glass and paper, almost every street has a point, and a number of easily reached places for cans and cardboard, but plastic is a little bit more difficult to find.  So I had a little search, online, and found Recycle for Scotland. There's apparently a spot about 15 mins walk from me so I'll be checking that out next week.  Hopefully all my recycling worries will now be over.

Update:
I had a little wonder over to the recycling point today and  found the site I'd been looking at. It recycles cardboard, glass, cans, clothes, book, and - most importantly - plastic.  Perfect! And it is literally 15 mins walk from me. 
I've now set up a new recycling station in my kitchen.

Not the most exciting set up but it works for me.  Not so small that I have to head over constantly, but not so large that I can over fill it.
The jute bag on the left is for cardboard and paper as that's what I recycle the most, mainly junk mail.  The blue bag on the right is going to be for everything else.  With them so obvious it shouldn't be too difficult for me to remember to recycle things.

Getting back to green

I've started this blog a few times now but have never managed to carry it on past the first post. I think its because I never really knew what direction I wanted to go in or what it was I really wanted to write about. But now I do.

I'm going to use this blog to help me get back onto being 'green' and sustainable, and to document the route I take as well as the reasons behind my decision. It'll be a way of me keeping a track on what I'm doing.  And if it's useful to anyone else that's good too.