Accidentally Green

Making Healthy Decisions That Honor God and Happen to Help the Environment

Avoiding Toxic Foundations

Foundation can be great cosmetic tool for women – it potentially can mask a variety of facial imperfections. Unfortunately some foundations – including products by Cover Girl, L’Oreal, Maybelline, Max Factor, Neutrogena, Physicians Formula, and Rimmel – contain hazardous ingredients. Since your skin contains capillary networks that absorb what’s applied, the toxins directly affect your body. Toxins found in the majority of hazardous foundations include: Propylparaben and ... Read more

Why Do Safe Cosmetics Matter?

Did you know that skin is your body's largest organ? Because it’s an organ, what you put on your skin makes a HUGE difference. There are capillary networks in your skin that allow certain substances to enter the bloodstream – including medications like birth control or nicotine patches. The ingredients – good or bad – in sunscreen, lotions, soaps, and makeup also enter your bloodstream through these capillary networks. If your personal care products include toxins – as so many do – they’re ... Read more

Licking an Unhealthy Lipstick Habit

Last week, I was reminded of how often I used to reapply my lipstick when I read the New York Times article, “Is There Danger Lurking In Your Lipstick?” For years (before I became a stay-at-home mom) I was a habitual frequent lipstick reapplier – if my lips didn’t feel glossy when I pursed them together, I would reapply simply out of habit. The problem with that kind of frequent lipstick use is that lipsticks are known to contain all kinds of heavy metals. While lipstick’s lead content has ... Read more

Learning to Enjoy Dusting

Disclosure: I am a Norwex Independent Sales Consultant. All opinions in this post are my own. This spring, I shared my own dusty past – how dusting with an aerosol can of dusting spray and an old cloth diaper was a cleaning chore I’ve had since I was 5 years old. I revealed how dusting sprays are hazardous to your health, and I shared an effective, all-natural furniture polish recipe. I thought my dusting future was sealed – dusty surfaces because I dreaded dusting with cheap microfiber ... Read more

How I Use a Single Cloth to Clean My Entire House

Tired of cleaning products? Learn how I use a single cloth to clean my entire house! Disclosure: I am a Norwex independent sales consultant. All opinions are my own. After I wrote all about the wonders Norwex’s EnviroCloth has worked on my windows in yesterday’s post, I thought I should specify that it does a lot more than just clean windows. Used as a dry cleaning cloth, the microfiber in the EnviroCloth has an electrostatic charge that attract dirts and dust. Used wet, the ... Read more

Making Plastic-Free Choices

Yesterday I shared about my past plastic preferences – as well as how most plastics are proven to release harmful toxins.   There’s no way I want plastic in my kitchen. I’ve exposed my family to enough plastic food storage containers, plastic sippy cups, and plastic-lined coffee mugs. I want – and need – safer alternatives. So I’ve gradually yet radically changed our kitchen wares throughout the past several years. Here are the highlights: I saved my Christmas money to ... Read more

The Problem with Plastic

I used to use a LOT of plastic food containers. Every day I packed my lunch for work in plastic food storage containers, and whenever my food needed heated at lunchtime I popped the food, plastic container and all, into the microwave to reheat. When I was pregnant with my first child I drank gallons of water from my polycarbonate water bottle. Once my son was born and ready to learn how to drink out of a cup, I never gave a second thought about giving him plastic sippy cups. For several ... Read more

Steering Away from Popular Children’s Multi-Vitamins

When I was a new mom, I was fairly trusting – until I was given reason to doubt. As a result, I tried a lot of “normal” approaches to children and parenting. Take children’s multi-vitamins, for an example. When it was time to introduce them to my toddler son, I picked up a bottle of vibrantly colored kids’ gummy vitamins at the grocery store. My son loved them – and my husband and I loved them, too, because they tasted just like candy. About that same time, my son started to have some ... Read more

Natural Ways to Soothe Poison Ivy

Last week, after searching through an overgrown area of our property for a lost ball, my son came in contact with some poison ivy. The next morning, he woke up and itched all over. At first, by the way his palms and bottoms of his feet itched so terribly, I thought he might be having an allergic reaction to something he ate. But then we remembered the poison ivy … and the itches all up and down his left arm and leg suddenly made a whole lot of sense. I’ve never had poison ivy before, and I ... Read more

Preserving Your Produce By Pickling

Hilly Billy picked a dilly of a pickled pepper. A dilly of a pickled pepper Hilly Billy picked. Last week, for the first time in my life, I made my own pickles. They were so easy and so delicious. We had dozens of cucumbers that were ready to be picked, and a family can only eat so much cucumber salad in a matter of a few weeks. I had plenty of glass canning jars, so I attempted Rodale’s Easy Refrigerator Pickles. Why have I not thought to try pickling before this summer!? All I needed ... Read more

Preserving Your Produce By Freezing

There are a lot reasons I’m thankful for electricity. I’m thankful for lights in my home, electronics, my washer and dryer, heat in the winter, air conditioning on very hot days, and refrigeration. I’m really glad for the ability to freeze foods for future meals – especially now that my husband and I finally purchased a chest freezer. Freezing food is my forte. I like to freeze leftovers if I have no interest in eating them any time soon. I freeze cookies so they stay fresh until we eat them. ... Read more

My 6-Month Clothing Fast

I’m a shopaholic. At least I was a shopaholic, especially when it came to bargain shopping. For the majority of my life, I never stopped to consider if I truly needed a purchase – if an item looked great, was a desirable brand, and it was an amazing bargain, I bought it. Then God started turning my world upside down with all sorts of realizations about stewardship and my excessive amount of belongings. Bargains or not, I had spent money entrusted to me by the Lord on stuff. Stuff that doesn’t ... Read more

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