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The Second Pound

Feminism--today I was thinking of the huge contrast between feminism in the US, with the rest of the world. The pretty awesome new EDNA bill set to remove workplace discrimination against LGBT people, just introduced in the US senate, would have the unlooked for downside of not allowing the city/county to hire any company that did not have a transgendered non-discrimination clause in place.

Why is this a downside? Because for many small companies this means that they would be automatically out of the bidding process until they can revise their company codes.

This new law would rock, but it stands in such sharp contrast to the heroic ex-UN employee in Ethiopia who stands to get 200 lashes for the crime of wearing pants. I know that if I had a million dollars, I would definitely not be spending it to end gender and sexual orientation discrimination in the West. Pic thanks to SudanWatch.


To take a break from the heavy, and to celebrate the 1 (!) pound I have lost at the gym this week, I am trying out Lick It!'s vanilla frozen yogurt, with some dark chocolate chips mixed in. Pics to come!

I've also been surfing the web hardcore, looking for the ultimate green cosmetics blog to help me finally green my makeup collection. I already feel the ruler coming down on my knuckles, but in my defense, almost all of my makeup dates from high school/college. For everyone who wants to puke, I do get new mascara regularly. So far, the best eco-makeup blog award goes to The Green Makeup Artist, who I am convinced is the most discriminating reviewer, and who actually tries everything!

Eco*Pretty wins for Most Commented. This blog is offline as of a few weeks ago, but recent reviews are still current enough. The blogger didn't seem to try many of the products, but the comment section really let you know which products worked well.

Fig + Sage is the Best Connected blog, with discount deals at several major organic beauty boutiques (Sadly, FutureNatural is not one of these, yet).

Green and Gorgeous wins for Best Freebies...this is not a real review blog, everything on here seems like it's add copy or opinions of pictures, nothing is ever even "good but not great." On the upside, they give a way a lot of free stuff--kids products as well as cosmetics, and you might just see that awesome new line here first.

To do my own review...I've seen lots of love for Physician's Formula "OrganicWear" mascara, and for Couleur Caramel mascara, but I wonder if that's because Sante's mascara is so hard to find.

An inexpensive ($14) beauty in black or black brown...it will not lengthen, thicken, curl, or any other such nonsense. It's like ink. It never clumps all the way to the last drop (or the second coat), and doesn't flake. The only downside is that it does take a bit longer than normal to dry and runs like a Kenyan when it rains. I have saved the brushes from my old tubes, so that I can try out new brands which tend to have inferior brushes (cough, Dr. Hauschka's sticky mess of a mascara). And as if it weren't enough, this natural mineral mascara comes in a recyclable aluminum tube.

It's worth finding--I got my first tube at EarthFare grocery store in South Carolina, but since then have bought it online at Natural Solutions, one of the few US sites to carry it.

**NB: Couleur Caramel is not vegan, nor is Jane Iredale, another popular organic makeup manufacturer. However, I have heard good things about Tarte's LashHugger and may have to give that a try.

The First Pound

Twenty pounds is the amount that the average American woman would kill to lose. Literally. According to surveys, we would rather lose that last twenty than end hunger or bring about world peace. And feminist scholars have spent the last couple decades dissecting how women and their weight neuroses feed the diet and fashion industries, and vice versa. Pretty much the unhappiest merry-go-round ever.

I have to make two honest admissions:

Number One: as an iron-clad third- (or tenth, or whatever) wave feminist, I have NEVER been on a diet.

Number Two: for the first time in my life, I have weighed in as 20 pounds over the magical 135 that my frame size defines as my ideal weight, and a diet is looking like a pretty good idea.

Of course, I am taking steps to read my VegNews and UTNE on the elliptical trainer instead of on the sofa, but at 20 pounds (!) "overweight" I feel as though something drastic may be in order. Something like no more vegan ice cream, my ultimate weakness. I guess I will be reviewing the low fat sections of my two brand new vegan ice cream books, which I only received on Sunday.

So while I think of calling out the big guns and phoning a nutritionist to help me nail down the lowest calorie low-fat, low-insoluble fiber veganish diet I can imagine, I'm mostly afraid of becoming so restrictive (as if my IBS diet wasn't enough) as to trigger one of those unhealthy yo yo patterns we hear so much about.

Maybe that's better though that than suffering like those great land beasts, marauding mountains of sweaty varicose flesh that are my dreaded paternal aunts.

A diet seems like the atomic bomb solution to weight and health issues...you accomplish your goal but the carnage is horrific, you wonder if it was worthwhile, or flexing your military might in front of the Soviets. Well, minus the Russians. So shelving that for the time being...

Goal for the day: following up my heart-rate monitored elliptical stint with 20 minutes of YogaDownloads I just discovered on Lori's blog, MommyGreenest.

Pictures thanks to Cosmo @ http://cosmosveganshoppe.com