Facewash/Carwash

Last night as I was getting ready for bed the hubby came into the bathroom.

"It smells like a fish and chip shop in here. What are you doing?" he said. Then, looking at the grotty old bottle of Shure Fine apple cider vinegar on the counter, "And what's this doing in here?"

"Well, I read on a website of alternative home remedies that it's good for acne, so I'm using it to wash my face," I replied.

"You are joking, right?" he said.

I shook my head.

"There are limits, surely you have to draw the line somewhere," he said.

I guess from my expression he gathered I didn't agree.

"Fine, suit yourself," he said, "but I'm not coming anywhere near you."

But in fact, the smell was indeed so strong and so reminiscent of a fish supper that I had to rinse my face before I went to bed.

I gave it another go this morning. It stung as I applied it with an organic cotton wool ball (purchased in wal Mart, would you believe?) and by lunchtime my face was red and blotchy.

Maybe the middle of a cold snap in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in a house heated by a fire and forced air is neither the time nor the place to be experimenting with extremely drying facial treatments, even if they are sort of eco friendly (especially since my hands are still like sandpaper from Saturday's cider vinegar oven door debacle). I'll give it one more try tonight and see how it goes. But otherwise I'll be sticking to my Neutrogena Healthy Skin facewash, of which I have almost a full bottle to use up.

By the way, I had been planning to blog about the following today: we do our laundry at the Narrowsburg Laundromat and Carwash (there seems to be some fascination with combining the two round here. I have to admit it's a good idea - wash your car while you wait for the laundry to spin). I was tempted to have a go myself yesterday but given that the 'real feel' temperature was 8 F (that's apparently -13C) and I was on a very windy patch of riverbank, I decided to leave it for the hubby to take care of. I also remembered that using a hose to wash the car was singularly wasteful and that I could achieve the same result at home using a bucket and sponge. So then I decided I'd do that at home today and blog about it, and went to bed feeling very pleased with myself.

Well, you can tell I grew up in England, not the aforementioned foothills of the Catskill mountains. Today we awoke to a sprinkling of snow and the thermometer hasn't crept above 22F all day. Leave aside the very real prospect of frostbite I'd incur if I'd gone ahead with the plan; I'd also have turned the driveway and road outside into a skating rink.

So the car will have to live with it's coating of salt for another few days. And we may have to settle for eco-unfriendly car washing till things warm up a bit.

So maybe I do draw the line somewhere, after all.