Which wrap should you choose? Well we prefer reusables over all else so here are some wraps you can use over and over again…
Reusable Wraps
Wrap your presents in cloth and tie with string
Or just use cloth and the ancient Japanese method of knotting. Called furoshiki. YOu can find more info here .
Make or buy reusable crackle paper made from recycled tents.
Make or buy a fabric gift bag
Try this stretch wrap from Wragwrap
fabric bottle bag from Wragwrap
Crackle Paper
I have to admit to using synthetic tents. I feel this is one instance where plastic really is the best product for the job, (remembers sleeping under canvas and shudders #plasticweuse). But what to do when your trusty old tent is no longer up to the job. Well you could re- use it to make crinkly sounding wrapping paper. Or if you don’t camp, or sew, you could buy some recycled Glastonbury tent wraps form these guys….
FESTIWRAP
FestiWraps are made from tents, discarded at UK music festivals such as Lattitude and Glastonbury, and then collected by us. Tents that cannot be recovered by charities and would normally be sent to landfill, are collected, cleaned and used to create fabulous reusable gift wrap. The wrap itself is made from two outer layers of tent fabric sandwiched around a piece of ground sheet. This creates a crinkly sound like paper folding and un-folding, bringing the emotional sounds and experience of a wrapped gift to life. The fastening cord, which makes the FestiWrap so quick and easy to use, is made from the recovered tent guy ropes. You can buy here.
More
You can find other gift wrap options here, plus biodegradable sticky tape, string and pretty ties
And you can read up more about special days and general partying here.
Extracts
Did you know that simply by steeping herbs, peel and fruit in alcohol you can make extracts? I discovered this quite by accident when researching what to do with an excess of leggy lavender from a rampant bush. I found a post about lavender vodka and because I refuse to follow recipes, I used far too much lavender. Rather than a delicately flavoured beverage I ended up with a murkey liquid which, lucky for me, turns out to be an extract.
Make Your Own
Extracts are strongly flavoured plant extracts. They used to flavour drinks and food. They are a great way of using up a glut of something and preserving it for use later in the year. They are incredibly easy to make and have to be the easiest way of preserving.
The alcohol used is usually vodka and the general rule of thumb seems to be to buy mid range. Too cheap and the nasty flavour intrudes, too expensive and it is a waste of good vodka. Some recipes also suggest rum.
The method is the same.
Take the herb put it in a jar cover it with vodka and leave in a cool dark place remembering to shake occasionally. Time steeping varies with the herb and the recipe.
Once done you strain off the liquid through a sieve and them some fine cotton.
Here are some steeping guidelines.
Apparently extracts will keep for 3-5 years.
Interesting articles
Three main reasons for using alcohol
Water carbonated / fizzy drinks
I have long wanted a Soda Stream to make my own fizzy water for soft drinks and, more importantly, mixers for gin -the best of all spirits. For now I am buying tonic in tins (but they of course come plastic lined), or bottle (plastic-lined, metal cap and very expensive!).
But it has to be a SodaStream Crystal Sparkling Water Machine ( see one here) because these take glass bottles rather than plastic.
Until now there have been 2 drawbacks to this scheme. Recently I have been traveling… a lot. No fixed abode means no large kitchen appliances. Extended travel also results in limited income and those things cost around £110.00 pounds. Yes I am sure I would make the money back in the long run but in the short term I simply don’t have the cash.
Recently however the planets have aligned. I now have a kitchen and I got a bargain on Ebay. A new Soda Stream machine in original packaging for less than half price. Given my gin drinking habits, I will soon make that back!
Yes the machine is plastic but I consider this to be plastic that ultimately cuts my plastic consumption. And of course it is cutting my consumption of disposable plastics while it is a reusable item.
Packaging
The Soda Stream itself was well packaged. The box is shiny cardboard (maybe plastic coated) with one little plastic carry handle. Inside it was all brown card protective units. Yay!
The Ebayer I bought it off sent it wrapped in bubble wrap, corrugated cardboard and plastic tape.
If I had got it from a shop it would have been almost plastic free… but when you are skint you often have to compromise. Sigh.
Bottles & Gas
It was so cheap because it came without a bottle. At least that is what I understood the blurb to say. So I bought some gas and a glass bottle from Amazon. I know it was wrong of me and I wont do it again but they too were bargains.
The Amazon packaging was cardboard with plastic tape and the original soda stream gas and bottle packaging were (plastic coated?), shiny cardboard.
The gas bottle itself had a plastic cap and a seal. And a plastic sleeve with information printed on. I see no reason why this could not be paper.
Not In My Bin….
The tape had to go on my monthly plastic tally but the boxes I free-cycled. There’s always Ebayers who need packaging.
Syrups
To make fizzy drinks you need to mix the carbonated water with concentrated cordial. You can buy a range of Soda Stream mixers to make all manner of beverages from cola to tonic. They come in plastic bottles and while this represent a massive cut in overall plastic consumption, I think it is avoidable.
You can buy cordial in glass bottles from most supermarkets but it is really easy to make your own and you get to control how much sugar and other nasty additives go into them. I find commercial soft drinks, even tonic, to be way too sweet.
To date I have made raspberry fizz and ginger and lemon sparkle. Both taste great with gin!
Raspberry Fizz
Go to Bently Grange PYO fruit farm and get some raspberries. Boil them up with some sugar. Strain. Add fizzy water. Yay!
Ginger & Lemon Sparkle
Boil ginger pieces, lemon juice and sugar. Strain. Add fizzy water. You can save the ginger to flavor other stuff with. Goes great with melon!
Grapefruit & Lavender Blush
Juice of the grapefruit, few heads of lavender the last dollop of jam. Add some sugar, boil.
Storage
If you put enough sugar in I guess these cordials would last a long time. I don’t use much sugar so I make small batches and keep them in the fridge for a few days. If I make a lot I freeze the cordial as cubes of icy flavour.
Find more recipes in the plastic free cookbook
Fabric Shops Button Box
Button Box, Huddersfield
At Queensgate Market where you can get a wide range of plastic free stuff
It looks more like a hobbies shop catering to quilters, stampers and card makers. But dont be put off by the decoupage, it has recently upped its fabric game. I remember the range as rather limited and extremely synthetic – think dance fabrics. Now it has some really nice stuff; funky prints, subtle colours and a lot of natural fibres.
More plastic free
They sell paper patterns and cotton bias binding by the meter. They have some hessian and cotton ribbens that look natural.
Plasticless
They do 100% cotton thread but it comes on plastic reels. You can get cotton on wooden reels online (link below), but you to be well organised and plan ahead, skills I have yet to master.
The Button Box stocks metal zips in what looks like a polyester fabric.
General
They have all the other stuff you need to sew with but it comes plastic packed (for plasticfree sewing supplies see the link below).
They have a great range of ribbons and laces which look to be mostly synthetic.
Find
The Huddersfield store is located at the entrance of Queensgate Covered Market.
Samuel Taylor’s Button Box
4-5 Queensgate Market Arcade
Princess Alexandra Walk
Huddersfield
West Yorkshire
HD1 2UJ View on map
01484 435 235
About
Samuel Taylors is a family business that has a number of Yorkshire-based, fabric retail stores and an online shop. You can find them here…
Head Office & Internet Showroom
Harrogate Knitting & Haberdashery
More
You can buy plastic free sewing supplies here.
Find other Yorkshire based #plasticfree products and shops here
Lard & dripping
I am a lard eater! Yes, I know… sounds strange right?
Until now I have always used a liquid vegetable oil for cooking thinking it was better for me.
Now I am not so sure. But health benefits aside, it is the plastic element of oil that bothers me.
Pre-packed oils always have a plastic element – if it comes in bottles it will have a plastic lined cap and probably a plastic pouring widget in the bottle top. Buy it in cans and there will be more plastic caps plus the cans are plastic lined. Some places will do refills but they are few, far between and very expensive.
And apart from rapeseed oil, most oils are imported. Product miles and plastic!
Read more about vegetable oils here. And here is something on product miles….
Dripping
It started with dripping – that’s the gateway fat! I saw some beef dripping, in a paper wrapper, on the shelves in Tesco’s. I didn’t know beef dripping still existed.
And it was made in the U.K. ….. but I felt uncomfortable with the idea! We have been told for so long that animal fats are bad for us. Even now, when it turns out that hydrogenated vegetable fats are probably worse and soya is something of an environmental disaster, the prejudice still holds. I could not shake the idea that cooking with lard would lead to an instant hardening of the arteries but it was cheap which always sways me.
So I bought it and cooked my way though a block of dripping using it where I would have cooked with oil.
I thought it might be heavy and greasy but it wasn’t. And it fried really well. So I went to buy some more. They had run out. All they had was lard.
Lard? 
LARD!!! now that has to be piggy… (it is of course made from pigs), and oily and.. well, lardy?!
It wasn’t. It was fine, better than fine it was really easy and made great roasties.
I have cooked with it for months now – but in secret. Then the other day I got caught and the kitchen rang with squeals of horror. But, quickly forgetting my own early misgivings,I leapt to lards defence.
I told them if we eat meat so we eat the rest of the animal including the fat, we hardly ever shallow fry, never deep fry and for weeks no one noticed.
It’s really cheap, plastic-free, made in the U.K. Plus it may even be better for you.
So now we eat lard and dripping. And we are happy!
Buy
You can get lard from Tesco’s and the Co-op and everywhere else I bet. It comes in what is (possibly), plastic-free, greaseproof paper. It’s really hard to tell! Read more about that, here.
N.B foil is definitely plastic lined!
More
Lots more plastic-free food here.
What are oils, waxes and butters?
Look out for these other sneaky plastics
Fatty Acids – Oils, Butters & Waxes
Welcome to the slippery pole
Fatty Acids Or Fossil Fuel?
Fossil fuel oil is slippery is very versatile. As well being the base for most plastics and driving our cars it can be found in less obvious places. It is sold as a moisturizer (think Vaseline and even E45), petroleum-derived, synthetic fragrances are added to many commercial cosmetic products and hexane (another petroleum derivative), is used to extract some vegetable oils.
While I don’t mind oil on my pistons I draw the line at rubbing it on my skin or using it to fry my eggs.
So what to use instead? Renewable Fatty Acids of course
What Are Fatty Acids?
So let’s talk fatty acids. For the purposes of this post, fatty acids are the oily greasy stuff you use to cook with, cut off your bacon, burn in your beeswax candles or rub on as your Shea Butter Body Moisturiser.
They are the oil that is formed in a plant or the fat stored by an animal. There is of course a lot more to them then that and Meanwhile here is a beginners guide.
Fatty acids are fatty, oily, greasy or buttery. They can be harvested from plants and animals.
Vegetable Derived These are obtained from the seeds, nuts and even flesh of plants.There are many kinds of vegetable oils, butters and waxes. Mains uses are cooking & cosmetics.
Animal Derived This is the fat stored by an animal. These are mostly solid ranging from hard and waxy like lard to the softer butterExamples would be butter & lard
Essential Oils Are not an oil at all as they don’t contain any fatty acids.
Uses
Main uses of fatty acids are cooking, cosmetics, lubricating and soap making.
Some like Jojoba should only be used for cosmetic purposes. Coconut oil on the other hand can be used for just about everything.
Find out about using oils to make creams and cosmetics here.
Types Of Oil, Wax Or Butter
They come in a variety of forms under the following headings – but it is a rough guide only.
Liquid Oil – never solidifies
Solid Oil – firm when cool but has very low melting point so sometimes it may be counted as an oil i.e. Coconut oil
Butters – a solid oil. Has a high melting point. Rather confusing. Milk butter for example acts more like a solid oil, while Cocoa butter is more like a wax.
Waxes – very hard-of a candle (wax), like consistency. Bees wax for example.
Harvesting
Next you might want to know how your fats and oils they have been obtained and processed – especially if you plan to eat your oil.
Animal fats are collected after slaughter. Concerns here are rather about how the animal was treated before it was slaughtered.
Extracting vegetable oils and processing them is a more complex process. Most commercially produced oils are solvent extracted. This involves a chemical solvent like the petroleum-derived hexane. This technique is used for most of the “newer” oils such as soybean and canola oils.
Mechanical methods where the oil is squeezed or pressed out of the vegetable matter in a variety of ways involves less in the way of petroleum derivatives but depending on the method used can affect the oil. Cold pressed oil is considered the least invasive method of extraction though it also less efficient.
Read more abouts oil extraction here.
Hydrogenated Oil
Both animal and vegetable fats can be hydrogenated.
Hydrogenated oil is made by forcing reactive hydrogen gas gas into oil at high pressure in the presence of a palladium catalyst.
Hydrogenated oil is more stable, does not go rancid as quickly
It has a higher melting point, so can be used for frying.
It is used to make liquid oils more solid. Margarine is an example of a hydrogenated oil.
Oils have been hydrogenated since the 1930s.
Concerns
Hydrogenating oil modifies the chemistry significantly.
The fatty acids in oils are unsaturated fats. They are unstable.
Hydrogenating oil turns these unstable fatty acids into new more stable fats known as trans fats acids.
There are concerns that trans fatty acids may increase LDL, or bad cholesterol, and decrease HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol.
Because they are not natural the digestive system does not know what to do with them. They may actually bioaccumulate in the body.
Read more here
Storage
Most oils and waxes last for ages. Some like butter will go off.
Oils Butters & Fatty Acids I Use
For Cosmetics
You can use a lot of waxes and oils neat to moisturise and cleanse or as as ingredients in creams. Here are the oils we use to make creams and cosmetics
Cosmetics & Eating
I love a multi tasking product and you cant do better than a moisturiser you cook chips in.
Rapeseed oil – a lighter oil with quite a strong scent but U.K. sourced. Read More
Olive oil – a richer oil can sometimes be bought on tap in the U.K. Used for cooking and cosmetics.read more
Rice Bran Oil less “oily” than olive oil and rapeseed oil and not as malodorous as the latter. I used it to make suntan lotion and mosquito repellent.
Only Eating
While I love to get my monies worth I draw the line at lard as a beauty regime.
Butter – eating only. Read more
Lard – a plastic free substitute for cooking oil.
Read about the fatty acids we eat here
More
Find out more basic information about ingredients and alternative products here
Using oils to make creams and cosmetics
Read about the fatty acids we eat here
Essential Oils Are not an oil at all as they don’t contain any fatty acids.
Oils I try To avoid
Palm Oil because it is often badly farmed read more here
Margarine because it is a hydrogenated oil.
And oils derived from petrol. Don’t want to eat them donut want to moisturise with them
Chewing Gum
I don’t do chewing gum because not only does it come packed in plastic, it is actually made from plastic. Yes, while there are a few natural gums on the market most chewing gums are actually synthetic…. plastic in fact.
As I am sure you know, chewing gum is a non-nutritive, non-digestible, water-insoluble substance that can be chewed, (duh!), without disintegrating, for a long period of time.
And that it consists of an elastomer, a chewy base, with added sweeteners and flavours to make the experience more pleasant.
Up until WWII, the chewing gum base was usually made from chicle a latex sap that comes from the sapodilla tree – a natural rubber. This has since been replaced with synthetic rubber, a plastic.
Which Elastomer
Elastomers in gum are what give it the chew.
These used to be and occasionally still are natural latexes such as couma macrocarpa (also called leche caspi or serve), loquat (also called nispero),tunu, elution and the most popular, chicle.
These days most elastomers are synthetic rubbers such as butyl rubber
The raw materials for making butyl rubber are isobutylene and isoprene. Isoprene is a byproduct of naphtha or oil, and as a side product in the production of ethylene.
Other Stuff
Other ingredients according to Wikipedia may include the following:
- Resins: provide a cohesive body or strength, and are most often glycerol esters of gum, terpene resins, and/or polyvinyl acetate ( more about the latter below).
- Waxes: act as softening agents and are most usually paraffin or microcrystalline wax.
- Fats: behave as plasticizers and mainly come from hydrogenated vegetable oils.
- Emulsifiers: help to hydrate, the most common being lecithin or glycerol monostearate.
- Fillers: impart texture and the most commonly used are calcium carbonate or talc.
- Antioxidants: protect from oxidation and extend shelf-life; the most common type is BHT.
The Gum Association says
Gum base ” is made of a combination of food-grade polymers, waxes and softeners that give gum the texture desired by consumers and enable it to effectively deliver sweetness, flavor and various other benefits, including dental benefits.
What are polymers?
A polymer is a string of molecules (monomers) that usually contain carbon and hydrogen. Polymers are found naturally in the human body, animals, plants, and minerals. For example, DNA is a polymer, as are the proteins and starches in the foods we eat.
Man-made polymers can be identical in structure to those found in the natural environment, but in many cases, these polymers provide guaranteed consistency, quality and purity that are not always found in some natural materials. This quality is particularly important for food-grade polymers used as ingredients.
What are food-grade polymers?
Food-grade polymers have been rigorously tested and have been determined to be safe for use in food. In chewing gum, polymers are what provide gum with its basic elastic properties. All polymers used in gum are food-grade and are legally permitted for use by international/national regulatory agencies, including those in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
You can read more about synthetic polymers here.
Safe To Chew?
So are these food grade plastics gums with their paraffin and yummy vinyl acetate additive are safe? Well plastic and paraffin certainly don’t sound appetising and vinyl acetate was once classified by the Canadian Government as a “potentially high hazard substance.” This was later overturned (2010) under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). The decision was based on information received during the public comment period, and from the risk assessment conducted by the European Union.
Environmental Hazard?
YES!!! Because it is plastic, gum doesn’t biodegrade – which means it has to be carefully disposed of – either landfilled or incinerated. If it ends up on the street as much of it does, it sticks like mad to the pavement and looks really ugly. It needs to be specially removed – which costs a lot. “The LGA (Local Government Authority points out that the average piece of gum costs about 3p to buy – but 50 times that to clean up (£1.50). Most chewing gum never biodegrades and once it is trodden into the pavement this requires specialised equipment to remove. “
Natural Gums
If you cant give up gum there are some natural gums out there. I have not tried these so please let me know how they taste. And I guess they come plastic packed. Again do let me know.
Peppersmith U.K. do a natural based gum.
It contains Xylitol (wood sugar), Natural chicle gum base, Peppermint oil, Calcium carbonate, Gum arabic (thickner), Rapeseed lecithin (emulsifier), Vegetable glycerol (humectant), Carnauba wax (glazing agent).Suitable for vegetarians.
You can buy it at Holland & Barrett, other stores and of course on line.
Here is a review of 8 of the healthier chews available in the U.S.
Sneaky Plastics
Here are some more products that surprisingly contain plastic.
Polymers & Polymerisation
Polymers
A monomer is a molecule that can join with other molecules to form a chain of molecules. A chain of monomers (or molecules) is called a polymer.
Chains of polymers then bond or stick together to form stuff like cellulose, the woody stuff in plants.
Natural polymers are created as part of ongoing biological processes.
Read more about monomers and polymers here.
Polymerisation
However polymers can be made, by wo/men in labs, chemists. Here they create synthetic polymers and stick them together to create a huge range of products.
Some may copy the polymers found in nature but others, like plastic, are completely new – they have no natural equivalent.
The process of making polymers is called polymerisation.
Most synthetic polymers that we use today are made from hydrocarbons derived from oil.
However as oil becomes more scarce and more expensive, synthetic polymers are being derived from all manner of substances including corn, potatoes and even chicken feathers.
Fun Quote
“nature has been knitting polymers since the beginning of life. Every living organism contains these molecular daisy chains. The cellulose that makes up the cell walls in plants is a polymer. So are the proteins that make up our muscles and our skin and the long spiraling ladders that hold our genetic destiny, DNA. Whether a polymer is natural or synthetic, chances are its backbone is composed of carbon, a strong, stable, glad-handing atom that is ideally suited to forming molecular bonds. Other elements—typically oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen—frequently join that carbon spine, and the choice and arrangement of those atoms produces specific varieties of polymers. Bring chlorine into that molecular conga line, and you can get polyvinyl chloride, otherwise known as vinyl; tag on fluorine, and you can wind up with that slick nonstick material Teflon.”
An excerpt from Susan Freinkel‘s book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.
Watch – wooden
Who wouldn’t want a wooden time piece to mark the hours ? Buy one from WeWood in Australia and they will also plant tree for you. So sweet! You can get them from Ethical Superstore.
Want something cheaper There are more wooden watches on Amazon and you can sponsor a tree plant via the national forest scheme.
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| Thyvogue Men’s Red Round Red Dial Wooden Wa… |
Cleaning Up Index
The astronomical spring (Northern Hemisphere) 2016 began on Sunday, March 20. It will end on Sunday, June 1. We celebrate by building a big wicker man and ….. no those days are over. Just a few charred photographs left to remind me. All we do now is have a jolly good spring clean. And here’s how to do it plastic free….
For cleaning products I use a combination of bought and what I have in the cupboard in conjunction with a bloody good scrub… i.e. both chemical and manual cleaning
Chemical Cleaning
Uses the power of chemicals in a solution to remove soils. Soils in this case refers to stains. You can read how alkaline dissolve fat and why vinegar works here.
Places to buy and tips on how to make cleaning products here
Mechanical Cleaners
These are the tools used to loosen, collect and wipe up up dirt such as brushes mops and scouring pads. Often used in conjunction with chemical cleaners of course.
All Posts
Antiseptics & Disinfectants
Read More
Buckets – metal
Read More
Car Wash & Screen Clean
Read More
Cleaning Liquid Refills
Read More
Cleaning Products – Chemical – Buy or make
Read More
Cleaning products – refill system
Read More
Dirt, pH balance and chemical cleaning
Read More
How to wash the pots plastic free…..
Read More
mop and bucket
Read More
Pan Scrub Luffas
Read More
Pan Scrubs – Coconut
Read More
Pot & Bottle Brushes
Read More
Rubber Gloves
Read More
Scour, Scrub & Wipe
Read More
Scrubbing away
Read More
Sponge Cloth Biodegradable
Read More
Sweeping Up
Read More
Washing Soda
Read More
Washing Soda, Bicarbonate Of Soda & Borax
Read More
Washing Up Liquid Soap
Read More
New Product – Cleaning Products – for home, business and car
A reduction rather than a plastic free solution, this company offer concentrated product in a capsule form that you then dilute in water. Both the capsule and the product that is. The capsule itself is water soluable – hooray no plastic.
From the website…
Wolf Formulations Ltd has developed a wide range of innovative green cleaning products which are designed with a practical single dose water soluble eco capsule concept. The super concentrated eco capsules have the cleaning power of the standard ready-to-use cleaning products, whilst reducing waste and minimising cost. Our range of green cleaning products have been developed to offer complete cleaning solutions for household, motor vehicle and professional sectors.
Cleaning At Work
They do cleaning products for kitchen and bathroom cleaners both for the domestic and businesses market.
Of course keen readers of this blog know we have covered those bases already. .
However it could be a useful option for professional cleaners who need to use or distribute a lot of products.
profi-max_floor
PROFI-MAX Floor Cleaner
profi-max_kitchen
PROFI-MAX Kitchen Cleaner
profi-max_glasswindow
PROFI-MAX Glass Cleaner
profi-max_bathroom
PROFI-MAX Bathroom Cleaner
Washing The Car 
What caught my eye was the car cleaning products. I always use washing up liquid (refillable) a sponge and whenever available, a boy scout…. but I guess purists out there might prefer something more specialised.
AUTO-MAX Car Screen Wash
Car Wash & Wax Shampoo 3x9ml
AUTO-MAX Car Wash & Wax
Car Window & Mirror Cleaner 4x5ml
AUTO-MAX Window & Mirror Cleaner
Car Screen Wash
AUTO-MAX Gift Sets
Not so green?
Sadly the onward packaging doesn’t look so good. It appears to be a hard plastic case? Recyclable? I don’t know. And it appears to vary depending on the product.
Buy Cleaning Products
Being committed to local shopping I prefer to buy that way whenever possible. I would encourage you to do the same. One of the joys of living plastic free is mooching round the local shops seeing what you can source.
If you can’t buy local, please do check the links in the posts. They link direct to the suppliers. Do consider buying from them and support their online businesses.
If you can’t do that then I have put together and Amazon catalogue. Yes I know…
Amazon is a very dirty word at the moment and I thought long and hard before suggesting them. Heres why I went ahead….. No we are not entirely happy with Amazons recent history. However these links are for 3rd party sellers, we have always found the Amazon service to be good and their packaging usually compostable. In the absence of anything else we feel we can recommend them.
Mop & Bucket
Dustpan & Brush
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| Metal Long Handled Dustpan and Brush Strong… £34.99 |
Rolson 60690 300mm Metal Dust Pan £7.50 |
DISCLAIMER
The information in this blog is for guidance only. None of the recipes or tips in this blog have not been tested on anyone other than me and some fearless chums. I strongly advise you do your own research and proceed very carefully. Be aware of the risks of listening to someone who
a) doesn’t have any training in this field
b) most of what they know comes from Google,
That’s me I mean.
Also posts may be incomplete, out of date and possibly wrong! Please read on to find out why…
Chiffon Shirt
For the Feria (the week-long party in Seville,)I made a chiffon top. I know – get me…. in chiffon. I wanted something see through to wear over my vest and bombazine skirt that would look sort of dressy. I wanted something like this.
I had a practise run with white lawn which was partly successful. Now I was ready for the real thing. I bought some silk chiffon from Ebay. Other than it is natural fibres, there is nothing particularly sustainable about this but it was cheap, it was seen through and if it all went wrong I would not have spent too much.
I made it in black. It was fine for the Semana. Easter week is marked with big parades, penitents in gloomy Klan outfits incense and weeping virgins. Gloomy black was just right.
It was not going to work for the Feria. In the last week everyone has started on their outfits. The shops are full of fantastic frocks, people are staggering through the streets laden down with lace, flowers and shiny jewels. There are tasselled shawls fans and fedoras every where you look. They don’t do minimalism
This is what people are planning to wear and that is the plainest dress I could find.
I can get away with black, I cannot do without trimmings.So the last few days has seen me desperately titivating my outfit. In Seville. They sell cotton crochet yarn very cheaply here so I have knitted a frilly collar through which I have threaded some lace and ribbon. I have attached this to the chiffon top.
I have also bought some fancy tights. Hope this will see me right!
Sustainable Rating
Natural fibres
Homemade
Made with plastic free sewing supplies (you can find them here)
Buy
I bought this fabric on Ebay. It came packaged in a plastic bag.It cost £15.00 and I have some left over.
The cotton coller was made from cotton bought from the Chinese Grocery in Macarena, Seville and knitted using metal needles bought in plastic packaging.
The ribbons and lace are all synthetic fibres.
More
This counts as part of my fair share of global fabrics – a self imposed rationing system. You can read about it here
You can read more about clothes I have made and the the rest of my wardrobe here.
Find other clothing related posts here
Essential Oils
Essential oils have gone from being an obscure aspect of botany to an all round marketing ‘good thing’. Almost every product you buy from washing powder to shampoo trumpets that they contain essential oils. So much better, so much greener. As such they have been embraced by the environmental movement as the fragrance for your home made products, a staple in your medicine chest and the relaxant in your bath.
I have been using them for years thinkin that they are a so eco friendly. But are they really? And are they even oils?
What Are Essential Oils?
They are not actually oils because they do not contain fatty acids.
They are in fact terpenes
Terpenes organic compounds produced by plants (and occasionally insects).
Terpenes are made up of isoprene units, each consisting of five carbon atoms attached to eight hydrogen atoms (C5H8)
They are often strong-smelling.
So essential oils are the strong smelling terepenes found in plants and insects.
Terpenes
Terepenes (along with phenolics nitrogen-containing compounds ) are called secondary metabolites.
Secondary metabolites are chemicals produced by plants for which no role has yet been found in growth, photosynthesis, reproduction, or other “primary” functions. These chemicals are extremely diverse; many thousands have been identified in several major classes. Each plant family, genus, and species produces a characteristic mix of these chemicals, and they can sometimes be used as taxonomic characters in classifying plants. Humans use some of these compounds as medicines, flavorings, or recreational drugs.
Just so you know – search for terepenes and you get a lot of information about marijuana
They are often characteristic of particular species, are sometimes only produced under particular environmental conditions and for different reasons. The lemon tree for examples produces a pungent oil to repel insects while the rose creates pungent oil to attract them.
N.B. Fragrance oil and essential oil are NOT the same thing. Fragrance” or “fragrance oil” or “perfume” often refers to synthetic scents.
Medical Qualities
Some essential oils appear to have antibacterial and antifungal properties. Others may help speed up healing. However while many claims are made about the potency of essentail oils there is not enough scientific evidence to back them up. Generally it seems to be accepted that they do some limited good though should not be relied on to cure any serious complaints or used to swab down an operating theatre.
While they might not be hugely effective they dont do much harm either. Secondary metabolites are broken down relatively easily so are unlikely to accumulate in large quantities in the environment.
Growing the Oil
Though figures vary you can safely say it takes a lot of plants to produce a small amount of oil..
For one pound of essential oil you will need
50-60 pounds of eucalyptus
200 -250 lbs of lavender Sources include Bulgaria, England, France, USSR, Yugoslavia, Australia, USA, Canada, South Africa, Tanzania, Italy and Spain2 2,000 lbs of cypress
5,000 to 10,000 pounds of rose blossoms to produce one pound of essential oil. Primary cultivation sites for one company include: France, Tasmania, Spain, Italy, England, and China.
Extracting the Oil
Terpenes are usually extracted from plants by steam distillation or chemical extraction.
Environmental Concerns
No matter how they are grown essential oils take up a lot of agricultural land
Growing single species for harvest results in a monoculture style of farming.
Plus all the other demands of farming, – water, fuel, fertilisers organic or not.
It is a lot of input for a very small harvest of what is basically a luxury product.
Add to that the fuel needed to extract the oils “If steam distillation is used temperatures above two hundred degrees applied anywhere from 2-24 hours to extract various oils. ”
If chemical solvents are used which are more effective and so require less plant material, but in turn pose issues of toxicity for people and the environment.
Some oils are harvested from the wild from threatened species.
Cropwatch, a non-profit that keeps tabs on the natural aromatics industry, maintains a list of wild species threatened including rosewood, sandalwood, amyris, thyme, cedarwood, jatamansi, gentian, wormwood and cinnamon,
Should You Use Them…
Personally all of which makes me wary of using essentail oils. I do love the smell but I don’t like the idea that so many resources go into making one tiny bottle of luxury scent.
If you are going to use essentail oils please use them sparingly and buy from a company that is clear about how they grow and harvest their oils.
Take a look at Pravera or Yorkshire Lavender
How To Use Them…
Read more about the oils we use and what for, HERE.
More
See a full range of homemade #plasticfree personal care products here
And find out how to make lots more stuff HERE
Find all plastic free personal care products here…
Ingredients
An introduction to some of the stuff you need to make the above