Find Your Inner Glow at Epi Center
Date: November 10, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Featured, Skin Care
After a particularly grueling month of work, I noticed that my staff was starting to look a little bit, well, unwell, and I realized that as a team we all needed a little bit of TLC to get us back on track. There was never a question in my mind that the place for us to all recharge would be the Epi Center MedSpa, the nation’s original medical spa, which has recently given itself a facelift and gone green.
Epi Center has been a trendsetter in the skin rejuvenation industry since it opening a decade ago. It has offered beauty treatments with the expertise of a board certified plastic surgeon since its founding in 1988 by Margaret Mitchell and world-renowned dermatologist Dr. Patrick Bitter Sr., MD (who developed the revolutionary PhotoFacial treatment, the results of which are truly extraordinary!) Today, Epi Center combines its beauty-enhancing medical procedures with 100 percent organic treatments in an eco-friendly environment in sustainable LEED-certified offices at 450 Sutter Street in San Francisco. (more…)
Naturally Hugo
Date: November 3, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Body Care, Hair Care
If your resistance to all-natural bath and beauty products originated with your high school guitar teacher, whose rhythmic strumming was all but obliterated by the cloud of Patchouli around him, you can (finally) take a deep breath.
More spa line than hippy potions, Hugo Naturals will set you straight about the state of natural bath options. The line of vegan, cruelty-free hair care products, soaps, lotions, scrubs and creams feels rich and indulgent, so much so that you won’t notice the missing parabens, alcohols, petroleum products, artificial colors or artificial fragrances. And the packaging, which can be recycled, is beautiful enough to make an impressive gift.
Deliciously scented with essential oils and plant essences, the smell wafting from your shower will recall visits to high-end spas, not poorly plucked attempts at “Scarborough Fair.”
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Date: October 28, 2008 | Category: Fashion, Featured, Teens for Safe Cosmetics, Women
Whether you are looking for love or just hoping you won’t have to go to the prom with your cousin, this Boy Meets Girl t-shirt from Ravin is sure to attract eco-enthusiasts as well as their less noble counterparts.
Made of 100 percent organic cotton in a fitted girl-friendly shape, the tee retails for $40 and is so cute we’d be surprised if the boys don’t attempt to kiss you in the halls. Let your cousin know in advance that he won’t have to rent a tux.
A Drink to Your Face
Date: October 27, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Skin Care
Short of soaking in a pool of wine (which doesn’t sound half bad), there’s nothing like grapeseed oil for smoothing away fine lines and inebriating our skin in luscious antioxidents. Grapeseed Company has bottled this miracle elixir into a potent, plant-derived skincare collection.
Created from by-products of the wine-making process along with vitamin-rich ingredients, like damask rose and lavender, the line is 80 percent organic. Designed to rejuvenate and plump the skin, the five-step regimen includes a facial wash, toner, pure grape seed oil, skin serum and moisturizing lotion. So if your love of the vine knows no bounds, you can sink your skin into supple without the attendant hangover.
The Future Smells Rosy
Date: October 24, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Holiday & Gift, Lifestyle, The Home, Women
What ecofab girl doesn’t love to receive a dazzling, fragrant bouquet in the middle of the week, especially for no reason at all? But all those toxic pesticides sprayed on commercial flowers can leave a bad after-smell.
Now divas can enjoy the locally-sourced blossoms they deserve from Organic Bouquet. The company features the most eco-friendly packaging in the field (sorry, we couldn’t resist), along with the first carbon offset program. We’re particularly fond of the charitable bouquet line, which benefits select nonprofits, such as the gerberas (shown) that fund the National Wildlife Federation. But regardless of which flowers you pick, a rose by any other name won’t smell so sweet.
Read My Lips
Date: October 21, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Makeup, Teens for Safe Cosmetics
Whether you’re a mom who thinks your teen is perfect just the way she is or you’re a daughter whose mom equates makeup with toxic overload, have we got news for you!
Smooth Color Lip Cream by J. Lynne Cosmetics provides the perfect sheens for tweens. This smooth balm comes in seven sheer shades, with enough razzle to dazzle without being heavy on the eyes or earth. Part of a full line of environmentally conscious cosmetics–including powders, blushes, foundations, eyeliners and shadows–it’s so naturally glamorous, it might even inspire moms and daughters to share.
Defend Your Dermis
Date: October 20, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Body Care, Featured, Kids, Skin Care
Planet Botanicals’ Organic East African Face Balm with shea butter is the perfect salve for skin during the damaging cold weather months ahead. Thick and creamy, without being greasy, a small amount goes a long way towards moisturizing delicate facial skin and making it soft like butter.
And, as the balm dives deep into your epidermis, it leaves a light earthy scent behind. (The product is also available in an unscented version for those of you with scent-sensitivities.) (more…)
Countdown to Eco Chic Shopping SF Style
Date: October 13, 2008 | Category: Accessories, Bags, Fashion, Jewelry, Makeup, Shoes, Skin Care, Women
If you just couldn’t justify turning Columbus Day into an excuse to shop, perhaps Appel & Frank’s Eco-Chic Shopping Event might just qualify as a must-spend evening. A few of us are making plans to attend and indulge in two of our favorite pastimes: drinking wine and shopping for great green finds!
On Thursday, Oct. 23, eco-inclined shoppers in the Bay Area have the chance to spend an evening perusing green fashion items by designers like beacauseatom and Fair Tribe, as well as ogle the wares of mineral makeup vendors, ethical jewelers, natural bath product companies, environmental media groups, vintage clothes sellers, advocacy groups, and more.
The event runs from 5-9 p.m. at the Regency Center in San Francisco (1270 Sutter Street @ Van Ness). As incentive to get there early, the first 300 guests to walk through the doors will receive a reusable gift bag filled with green goodies like eco eye shadow, organic tea, Green Zebra guides, Bloomsberry chocolate, and other treats.
You can pre-order tickets online at the two-for-one price of $15. Now you can pick up all your sustainable holiday event gear on an organic shoestring budget.
A Calorie-Free Chocolate Treat
Date: October 13, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Makeup, Skin Care
Seriously, is this stuff actually lip balm?
On a recent jaunt down Hayes Street in San Francisco, Heather picked up a tube of Ganache for Lips in a tiny boutique called jacqueline talbot. The lip balm, which is made using Scharffen Berger Unsweetened Chocolate, smells and tastes so good that she has been licking her lips like a lunatic ever since.
The products were first cooked up in May 2003 in the kitchen of owner Patricia West, who was recovering from treatment for breast cancer. West set to work on creating an all-natural, healing lip balm for herself and her friends using aromatherapy concepts she had employed as natural remedies for the side effects of chemotherapy.
Ganache for Lips makes nine amazing flavors, all of which are 100 percent natural and free of petroleum products. And whether you are a vanilla enthusiast, deep into chocolate or like to pucker up with a lemon-flavored lip balm, none of the company’s products are tested on animals.
Just in time for winter, the creamy salves will prevent chapping… that is, of course, if you are able to resist devouring the tubes.
To Donate, Just Add Hot Water
Date: October 10, 2008 | Category: Beauty, Body Care, Skin Care
Can you cure cancer by taking a long soak in the tub? Not exactly, but all this month when you buy EO’s Rose & Chamomile bubble bath or shower gel the company will donate a portion of the proceeds to breast cancer research.
Both products are made with pure, therapeutic-grade essential oils and the company’s trademark Coconut Oil Cleansing Complex - a gentle formula that creates frothy foam but contains no irritating sodium lauryl or laureth sulfates.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and EO has pledged 15 percent of its proceeds from these very pink products to the Breast Cancer Fund.
So don’t be a boob. Light a candle, fill the tub (to the 1/2 way point, ideally) and close your eyes. You’ll be doing your part in a very relaxing way.
