Is vanity hereditary? And the lanky fringe

Shampoozled

Aaargh, am so completely over eco-friendly shampoo. Has anyone else found any that actually works? Not to get your hair clean I mean – although sometimes even that seems too much to ask – but that doesn’t leave it either stringy, lank, frizzy or dry as straw? Because I sure as hell haven’t and my research now definitely qualifies as extensive.

I’ve tried Burt’s Bees (effect similar to using baby shampoo – dry, flyaway), Bumble and Bumble (dull, lanky), Aubrey Organics (stringy, grubby-feeling), Liggetts bar shampoo (dry again), Max Green Alchemy (dry and brittle) and even the No-Impact Man concoction of Dr Bronner’s castile soap, filtered water and olive oil (like straw). The worst bit is that even if they don’t work, I feel compelled to use them to the last drop to avoid waste, especially given they all come in plastic bottles about which my angst is growing daily (I read this article via No Impact Man)

To be fair, I am perhaps overly obsessed with shampoo – I must remind myself that I had these issues with the chemical-laced stuff too whenever I strayed from Kerastase (which is why I always found my way back) - and in a strange paradox am also both incredibly lazy about getting my hair cut (I know it might help if I did this more than once every 8 months) or doing anything with it (besides washing it) and yet a trifle vain about it.

So, dear readers, can anyone help, or should I borrow the hubby’s clippers and consign my glossy long brown barnet to the recycling bin of history - along with the Kerastase bottles?

Dear Daddy,

For your first father's day I thought you'd like to help me save the planet so I've bought you an acre of rainforest in Manuel Antonio (Costa Rica) so they can protect your friends the monkeys.

http://www.kidssavingtherainforest.org/adoptameter.php

There is is only one condition for this pressie and for my continuing adoration of you which is that you take me to Manuel Antonio very soon so I can see the monkeys and our bit of rainforest. Deal?

I love you daddy. Thank you very very much for looking after me every day, for being such a cool dad and for making me laugh a lot. If you would like this loving and laughing to continue, you know what you have to do. It's easy.

Big kisses and cuddles,

Dottie.

PS Don't forget to offset our flights, k?
PPS I am also quite up for the idea of Ibiza, yes, but I think we can really justify those flights

Greeny McDreamy

I went to a green conference today for work. It was pretty good. The best thing about it was Josh Bernstein - he's like Ray Mears only tall, dark, handsome, charismatic, rugged, articulate, tan...ahem, anyway, as I was saying, he made some very valid points and let's just say that when he asks you to save the planet you say 'ooh Josh, of course I will'.

He's going to be having his own show on Discovery soon in which he goes around living wiht the Inuit and suchlike checking out how badly we've messed the world up (much more severely than the media have even told us apparently - i.e. really really really badly).

In between swooning (not only gorgeous but trying to save the planet!) and nodding furiously at all his points (knowledgable, too!), I felt familiar pangs of guilt surfacing. No, not because I was being mentally unfaithful to the hubby (I wasn't anyway, honest) but because although I'm doing ok, green-wise, I have lately been committing some eco-sins I just know Josh wouldn't approve of - some of them smallish - not collecting compost during the week to take upstate - and some of them really big - last weekend we filled a skip with junk the previous owner left in the barn, none of it obviously useful (or indeed recognizable), but why did I not figure out a way to dispose of it sustainably? Lack of time, but is that a good enough excuse? No. Really not. I am useless and a hypocrite to boot. Ugh.

Actually, you know what? It was the hubby who ordered that skip, and filled it. I bet Josh wouldn't have done that. And if I was married to Josh, I bet I'd be collecting compost during the week, driving a hybrid (or a bicycle), growing vegetables, painting with low VOC paint, campaigning outside KC's headquarters...

You know, if every woman had a Josh Bernstein in her life, I bet you the world would be a much greener place. Wonder if we could clone and distribute him to the women of America?