Washing Greener

Lots of posts about the bathroom, I know. But it's such a big area where we can cut back! Today's tips are about hand soap, although some of these tips you could use for body wash too!

• Dilute it: No matter what we use to wash with, green or not, it certainly can't hurt to cut back a little. Diluting it into a foaming pump (ratio about 1 part soap to 3 parts water works for me) makes a small amount go a long way.
• Buy refills: When your pump runs out of soap, you don't need to buy another cute little pump with your soap! Purchasing a refill container saves the environment as well as your pocket.
• Use dishsoap: Although some people find it drying on the hands, others don't. If you find that it is, try one of the foaming dispensers. The dilution makes it much less potent. Also, dishsoap is much less expensive than hand soaps, and I find has less scent.
• Use bar soap: I find that old hotel soaps work quite well for hand soap. Or, instead of body wash, use a bar such as Dial or Dove. If you do this though, try to let the bar sit in open air for about a week before you use it. The bar will last much longer this way.

Conditioning Greener

Following up on yesterday's post on shampoos, I thought today I'd talk about conditioners. There are so many types! Wash-out, leave-in, hair masks, etc. It never ends.

What's the difference?: I use a wash-out conditioner as a leave in, and it works fine for me! Jump out of the shower, rub some all over my hair, towel dry, and comb. No need for two conditioners! The actual difference is that wash out conditioners are made of heavier components that don't wash out completely, while leave ins are thinner and don't sit as heavy on the hair. Think of it like fats and oils.

For an every day conditioner, there are a few recipes that work wonders.

• Apple Cider Vinegar: After washing your hair, rinse it with apple cider vinegar. There are varying recipes of adding water, 1tbsp vinegar to 1 cup water. If you want to add essential oils to it to make your hair smell less like a salad (don't worry though, the vinegar smell goes away as your hair dries) you can make a larger batch and add a few drops of oil to your vinegar and water. More info on that here if youd like.
• Dilute it: Almost anything can be diluted. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm thinking of trying this recipe: 1/4 cup water, 3/4 cup conditioner. If you've tried it, please let me know how it worked out! I'm incredibly curious.
• For a once-a-month treatment, try some olive oil! Warm up some olive oil (the amount you need depends on how much hair you have and how thick it is) and massage it through your hair and scalp. Wrap your hair in an old towel, or if you want to go all out, saran wrap and then a towel. Sit for about 30 minutes, then wash your hair. Twice. One wash won't get all out. If you have particularly long hair, you may need to wash it three times. Basically, your aim is to get all the residue out of your hair. Now towel dry your hair, and you're ready to go!
• There are a LOT of recipes out there. Check out this page for some really good ones. Make sure you know what kind of hair you have, and be careful. Some recipes will lighten hair, which you might not want if your hair is colored.

Green Hair

Hair things cost a lot these days. And with all the chemicals in them, I thought I would try to find a greener, and possibly healthier way, to clean my hair. Here's what I found!

1. Don't wash twice: Just because the bottle says "Repeat" doesn't mean it's necessary. While some people think that its common sense, many people out there wash their hair twice every day. Shampoo strips your hair of its natural oils, and washing it twice is REALLY overdoing it.
2. Dilute your shampoo: Some just add a bit of water to the last little bit in the bottom of the container, others dilute it completely. I just finished trying a 3/4 cup water, 1/4 cup shampoo mixture in a foaming Dial container. Didn't like it. It's still a bit too watery for me. After this batch is gone I'm going to try a half-and-half mixture in the same container and see if that's any better. I'll let you all know how it goes!
3. Don't wash every day: I can't get away with this. I have naturally oily hair, and although its gotten a lot better since I don't put a lot of hairspray in it anymore, by the middle of day 2 I can't stand it. But some can get away with only washing their hair every other day. Try it and see if it works for you!
4. Don't blow-dry your hair: I know ladies, its hard. But at least try to give your hair a break whenever you can. Blow-drying your hair will damage your hair and you'll end up with a lot of split ends and breakage. Not worth it. Weekends are a great time to give your hair a break. If you know you're going out, take a shower early. Or try #5!
5. Try a dry shampoo: You're friends call you and wake you up from a nap; they'll be by to pick you up in 5. No time to wash your hair and dry it again. What do you reach for? Cornstarch. Mmhm! Put a little bit of cornstarch (less is more) on your fingertips and fluff by the oily parts of your scalp. Brush the rest out and go! For substitutions, take a look.
6. Use Baking Soda: Yeah, you read right. Baking soda is useful just about everywhere. Mix in enough water to make it into a paste, and massage it into your hair. A few drops of your favorite essential oil (Peppermint and Lemon are my faves) will have you smelling a bit less like a salad and feeling fresher. Baking soda won't strip your hair of natural oils like most shampoos, and theres no chemicals. Good for you and the environment!

Hope it helps!

Sink Clogs

I found this neat article recently that talks about how the chemical cleaners we pour down our drains every time it clogs can actually erode the pipes themselves. It probably doesn't do much in the short term, but after a while you might need a pipe replaced because it burst. And I can't imagine that its cheap. So, I found a few ways to unclog that drain without all the chemicals:

• Hot Water: For matinence, one website suggests pouring boiling water down the drain once a month. Good for a while, but probably won't clear up any clogs that are already there.
• Baking Soda: For a sink that is draining slowly, try a cup of baking soda followed by 3 cups of boiling water.
• Plunger: Sometimes, all you need is a plunger to force that clog on its way. Fill the sink (or tub) with a few inches of water, and then plunge away.
• Baking Soda and Vinegar: We all did the volcano experiment in elementary school, right? Well here's a real use for it! Pour one cup of baking soda down the drain, then follow it with 3 cups of boiling water and 1 cup of vinegar. I would suggest putting a lid over the drain right after pouring the vinegar in, so that it pushes through the clog instead of just overflowing it into your sink.

Need the recipes again? Here ya go! Hope it helps.

Dishwashers

Many people think that they can out-wash their dishwasher. And in bygone days, that might have been true. Nowadays though, unless you have and extremely old dishwasher, that just isn't true. The best, of course, have an EnergyStar sticker on them. They use much less water than you ever could. One thing though, to use even less energy, Only set your dishwasher to clean your dishes. Then let them air dry, or towel dry them off!

EnergyStar.gov

Recycling

So I know everyone knows about recycling. Its one of the three R's of being green: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Now, knowing that this is such an important part of keeping our planet just a little greener, I was sad when I noticed that my home for the summer (an apartment complex) had no recycling bins anywhere in the building! But never fear, I figured out a way to recycle. I thought it might be a good idea to share it with you too!

Now, I live only about a half mile from my college, which thankfully has a huge recycling program. They named it RecycAll and they have these bins and trashcans all around campus that take recycling. All of it. The same bin takes paper, plastic, glass, and cans. Pretty neat, huh? So I'm reusing plastic grocery bags (from when I forget to bring my own) to hold recycling in my apartment. Then once a week or so, I drive up to one of the campus parking garages and drop the bags into one of the bins. Everything will get recycled that way, even the plastic bag!

My boyfriend has a slightly different problem: he's never been a recycler. He and his mom just throw everything away. I'm still trying to convince him to start recycling. All he has to do is figure out when the trash truck comes to pick it up! Most trash companies out there nowadays have at least once a week where they pick up recycling. If you don't now, you might think about checking out their website!

Another option is this: Back home, my local rec center has a bunch of bins out in the back of their parking lot where there is recycling for boxes and newspaper and some other things. If your trash company won't pick up some of your recycling, take a look around your community. Some rec centers, and heck, even some landfills have recycling centers. Theres no excuse to not be doing it!

Powering Down

So, continuing on the thoughts of computers and lights, I thought I'd talk about all the other things we plug in daily. Cell phone chargers, printers, computer peripherals, gaming consoles, and a host of other things that really don't need to be on all the time. Even if you're not charging a phone on the end of that charger, its still drawing energy. And that is wasting your money and a decent amount of energy. Theres a couple neat fixes for this, and a couple cheap ones. I'll start with the neat ones.

There are these nifty things out on the market called smart strips. Theres a couple of different kinds. The first kind has a few different colored outlets. One is blue, 3 or 4 are red, and the rest (different numbers depending on the size strip you get) are white. The white strips are uncontrolled, like your normal power strip. Plug in, recieve power. The blue outlet is known as the control outlet. The strip can monitor power consumption from this outlet, enabling it to know when whatever is plugged into it (in our case, lets say a computer) is off or on. When the device is off for a user-defined period of time (30 seconds to 30 minutes) the strip cuts power to the items plugged into the red outlets (in our case, lets say a printer, speakers, and a monitor). Pretty neat huh? And since you can time how long before it cuts power off, you can safely reboot your computer without turning everything off, but you can be sure you're not drawing power when you're in class.

Another kind of smart strip has what's known as an occupancy sensor (like a motion detector, but for inside your home, not outside). Most of the outlets (about 6 of them on an 8 outlet strip) are controlled by the sensor. When you walk in your room, just imagine your computer, monitor, speakers, printer, desk lamp, and PS3 all turn on at once, without you touching a button. Pretty cool, huh? And then after the sensor determines you've been gone for a period of time (again determined by the user, 30 seconds to 30 minutes) it all turns off.

Now, the basic smart strip costs about $25 to $30. The one with the occupancy sensor goes for about $80. Your basic surge protector (I happen to love my squid) costs around $20. If you're a person who will remember, why not just daisy chain two protectors together (plug one strip into another)? The one plugged into the wall can have all the items that need to recieve power constantly, and the second can be unplugged when you walk out of the room! (If you're in the martket for a new power strip though, I'd go ahead and buy a smart strip.)

Computers

I don't know about you, but I simply can't keep off of my computer. I sit on one many a day at work, go home and play my MMORPG, and then I sometimes fall asleep listening to music. When school is in session, I sometimes take it with me to classes. And I'm using energy all the while. So I did some looking about to try and find ways to make my computer more Earth-friendly, and here's what I found:

• According to many a website, you should turn off your desktop monitor if you're walking away from it for more than 20 minutes. Turn your computer completely off if you're leaving it for more than 2 hours.
• For laptops, there is usually an energy saving power setting that is great for when you're on the go, or don't need your computer at full power (on a train, between classes, writing papers instead of gaming,etc).
• For more advanced computer users, (or those running XP, its much harder to change power settings there) here are some instructions on using the command prompt to change the power settings for your computer. Some people even recommend changing the power profile on your desktop to that of a laptop so that you use much less energy.
• Turn off that screen-saver! Screensavers were originally developed because on much older monitors, if left on with nothing on the screen moving, the image would burn directly onto the monitor itself (It can still happen, but it takes such a long time that you'll probably never see it). So I know the stars and ribbons look pretty, but its really just an energy waster, and you're probably not watching it anyway, right?
• Set your computer to go to sleep after a while. Instead of the screen saver, set your desktop or laptop to go into a hibernation/sleep state after no activity (usually 30 minutes is a good time period) Your computer will use much less energy that way. I know that I listen to Pandora when I go to bed some nights, and it will stop playing after an hour of no interaction. So my computer is set to go into hibernate after an hour. By then, the music is done anyway!

(What's the difference between Hibernation and Sleep modes? Theres a really good article here that explains the similarities, differences, advantages and disadvantages with the two.)

And just think. With all of these energy savings, you'll save on the energy bill each month!

The Lights

Everyone needs light to see by. Although, if it's daytime, I would suggest opening the blinds and letting some sunlight in. At night time though, or if the sunlight isn't enough to see by, don't forget to turn them off!

Some say that it wastes energy to turn bulbs on and off. I found an article that sums it all up. In actuality, it depends on what kind of bulb you are using.

Incandescent Bulbs: You are actually saving by turning these bulbs off, if even for a minute. In addition, 90% of all energy that these bulbs put out is heat, so you save A/C energy too.

Compact Fluorescents: Turn off the light if you're leaving the room for more than 5 minutes. Less than that and the wear and tear on the bulb is costing you more than you're saving though, so think ahead about how long you will be gone.

LED lights: There's no wear and tear on these babies from switching them on or off, so turn them off even if you're leaving for a few seconds. Every little bit helps!

Here's a link to the article if you're interested: Turn off lights

Day 1

So I've been doing a lot of research recently on being more environmentally friendly. Problem is, a lot of what I'm finding is more for Mom and Dad and their three kids, and less for average Jane living in her apartment where she can't really install EnergyStar appliances cause who knows when she's gonna move to another city.

And there's practically nothing for college Kate in her dorm room with two other girls fighting over who gets to shower first, stuck eating campus food and borrowing money from Mom and Dad.

So I decided to share what I've found. Hopefully, the tips I've found (or made up) will help some people (in college or not) work some easy, cheap ways of being green into their lives.