well that stinks.

since coming home from kenya i've made much more of an effort to be socially conscious in my purchases. things like making a strong effort to buy certified sweatshop free clothing, or, more often, second hand clothing, helps me not feel like my gap jeans are laced with the blood and sweat of Chinese children. things like that. it's a fuzzy line, though, as to where "socially conscious" becomes "trendy and stupid".

one decision that continually baffles me is the choice between buying the cheapest possible toiletries (because spending $20 for foundation when the same $20 could vaccinate a child against 5 preventable childhood diseases is wrong, regardless of how glowing and flawless it makes my complexion) or buying, say, $9 organic, fair trade shampoo (because then i know it's not in a bottle made in Vietnam by exploited workers, put in said bottles in Bangladesh by underpaid children, after the chemical runoff from the grown ingredients and all the byproducts are dumped into the amazon (or whatever the hell the process is before it gets to target)). i don't know. this makes it very, very stressful for me every time i run out of shampoo or soap or toothpaste, because lives depend on my hygine choices- sometimes the lives of CUTE CHILDREN, or worse, HANDSOME MEN. i generally try to work it out so i can buy organic, fair trade things when they go on sale, but that doesn't always happen.

so, anyway, long, boring story short, i went off the organic deep end this summer, plummeting head first into a deep, deep pool of organic aloe vera and carefully cultivated lilac and rose hips (which was sticky). i bought a bottle of organic, fair trade, hemp and orange all-purpose "magic soap", made by dr. bronners. i bought it BEFORE i went to the company website and read that the formula was developed after the original dr. bronner escaped from a dutch insane asylum; i wouldn't have bought it if i knew it was crazy soap. i was seduced by it's claim to be 18 kinds of soap in one, including shampoo, body wash, dish soap, and toothpaste; clearly this was a product that could change my life, so i bought it, and it is AWESOME. it smells great, and i feel clean, and i love that it is organic and fair trade and family owned and the highest paid employee at the company makes just 5 times the amount of the lowest paid employee. at first i thought that was a lot, then i learned that in 2000, the average u.s. CEO made over 500 times the amount of the lowest paid employee in the company; suddenly, i could respect a cap at 5 times the amount.

not all such adventures into the large, hemp-scented world of organic toiletries were so glorious. i tried organic toothpaste, Tom's of Maine, specifically, which was awful. it was advertised as being "spearmint" flavored, but really was simply "bland white paste" flavored. i used it, because it was expensive, but let's just say i wasn't kissing anybody that month. um, or really any of the past few months. but i digress. i did give the organic toothpaste another try, though, and bought nature's gate brand peppermint flavor, which tastes much better, but, i later realized, is not fair trade (like Tom's) or give any of its proceeds to wilderness conservation (like Tom's). dammit.

so anyway, the biggest plunge i took was in switching to organic deodorant. risking that my hair might be slightly less supple and shiny is one thing, but risking becoming a stinky, sweaty mess is quite another. still, with some research claiming that the active ingredient in antiperspirants, aluminum, can lead to breast cancer, and the fact that all the other funky chemicals in there are bad for my armpits (and other living things), and that they're manufactured God knows where by Lord knows who being compensated in Jesus knows what way, i decided i might as well try. plus, one was made by Toms, a company i already respected, and it was rose and honeysuckle scented. now, if there is anything i'd like my armpits to smell like MORE than Secret Platinum Protection Powder Fresh, it is roses and honeysuckle. so i bought it. and you know what? i'm a stinky, sweaty mess. i smelled like roses and honeysuckle for about 56 seconds, but then the sun came up, and it all went to hell. even though the container says the formula now contains hops (uh, isn't that a main ingredient in beer?) and that should help me smell better, it did not.

this wouldn't be SUCH a big deal, except i also forgot my razor at my parents' house, and now live at my sister's house. so i haven't shaved in a few days. so i'm getting a little hairy. and am now stinky as well. so, yes, in one weekend, i went from someone who dabbled in burt's bees lip balm to a full, all out, lentil eating, Birkenstocks wearing, henna hair dying, stinky, hairy, dirty hippie. it was a short but painful fall.

to be fair, though, i don't actually have Birkenstocks, i wear chocos. and i'm not dirty, i use dr. bronner's magic soap.