Pure Mavens

What is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 0.93% Argon, 0.038 Carbon Dioxide?

YES, It’s AIR! You astrophysicist you.

I have been interested in air and air quality ever since I learned that there are many particles and gases in the air that are harmful for our bodies. We are exposed to many of these everyday.

As we are now in the colder months (in the Northern Hemisphere) we tend to stay indoors a greater percentage of the time. Indoor air can be harmful if it is not properly circulated or treated. Indoor air can contain constituents such as VOCs from paints and coatings as well as formaldehyde concentrations from carpeting and insulation.  On top of that indoor air that is not circulated/recharged properly with the outdoors can be oxygen deplete.

There is a solution:

Indoor plants such as the Money Tree, Mother-in-laws Tongue can literally ”Grow Clean Air” as proven in a TED talk by Kamal Meattle and are easy to maintain in the home or in the office.

For a more compact solution check out: Andrea, a pure product that uses a single potted plant to rid up to 144 ft² of VOCs and formaldahyde, as it lists in its product specs.

When it’s too cold to open the windows, recharge and purify your air the natural way. Stay healthy in the Great Indoors.

…..And no, this wasn’t named after that John Mayer song.

Here’s a Healthiness Report Card for a female friend of mine. The report was complied using The Good Guide and Environmental Working Group’s (cosmeticdatabase.com). There are some good low toxicity skincare products in the group, such as Jason Moisturizer, as well as a bunch that contained Methylparaben. She received a average toxicity rating of 5.72 out of 10, notably worse than the guys personal care products.

The Pure Deodorant Search has led me to bigger things…..

I decided to conduct a investigation about the ‘healthlyness’ of personal care products I use. The purpose was to identify the products that contain harmful chemicals in order to replace them with more pure alternatives.  The most common toxin on the list is Fragrance followed by Methyl Paraben. List was complied using The Good Guide and Environmental Working Group’s (cosmeticdatabase.com)

In a quest to try and limit the amount of chemicals my body is exposed to, I started to analyze my personal care products. More specifically the deodorant I use.

The Beginning

The search for a natural deodorant started when I began using deodorant.  I developed rashes from many forms of deodorant. I tried numerous stick deodorants (gel and dry) without avail. Then I took to spray deodorants (which still caused irritation but much less sporadically) when I was 16 and have used them ever since. I knew there had to be a better product out there…and so my search began.

Research

I ran the product I use by a couple of rating sites and found:

Results of Findings: Not That Good

EW’s [cosmeticdatabase.com] Rating: 5 (scale is based on level of toxicity 0-10, 0 being the best)

The Good Guide Health Rating: 7.0 (scale is based on ‘goodness’ for you 1-10, 10 being the best)

Both ratings expose butane and fragrance as the main ingredients to worry about in that the ingredient ‘fragrance’ could contain a multitude of bad chemicals and that butane causes surface irritation and is currently banned in the EU(European Union) for use in personal care products. Which brings me to the question: Why am I paying to put these bad chemicals in my body??

Choices

I’ll tell you first off, I am not a health guru or a doctor, but I know that many chemicals can get absorbed through the skin and stay in your body. Since the under arms or arm pits contain many pores (see link: skin anatomy) it’s especially easy for the chemicals to enter your body there.

I made the obvious decision to stop using spray deodorant. I lead an active lifestyle so I needed a product that could be effective against body odor while containing no harmful substance and skin irritants.

My search led me to three choices:

1. Crystal Deodorant Stone

2. Arm & Hammer Essentials

3. A home remedy of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and water.

Blake of TOMS Shoes and Me

Blake Mycoskie’s story is one of passion, love, and excitement. As the founder of TOMS shoes, Mycoskie has helped provide over half a million pairs of new shoes to children in need.

I wrote a post in October on the One for One Movement, and last week I had a chance to meet face-to-face with Blake, Chief Shoe Giver at TOMS. He’s a sharp guy, and has a ton of innovative ideas that can (and should) be leveraged to help advance the pure and natural products industry to create cleaner, safer homes.

Customers can be a company’s best marketers.

Blake told a story about the first time he spotted someone in public wearing his shoes. The young girl was wearing a pair of red TOMS, and when Blake inquired about the footwear, the girl proceeded to tell Blake all about the One for One movement and even recited his own story to him.

This kind of evangelism is at the core of the extraordinary success that TOMS shoes has experienced since its inception three years ago. Imagine how this viral word of mouth, if properly channeled, could inspire and inform the world about natural and pure products. With the passionate community of pure product evangelists, I can see the mainstream of the future being excited and enthusiastic about using only the best natural skin products.

It’s important to have a brand you can stand behind.

Blake Mycoskie

Leaving it up to customers is a great idea, but people aren’t going to spread the word if the product isn’t exceptionally good (unless of course it’s exceptionally bad, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole). TOMS has created a durable, comfortable product that comes in so many different patterns and colors that it’s almost impossible not to find a shoe that fits your style.

Companies need to hold themselves to a higher standard of quality if they want to succeed. Online natural cosmetics stores like sephora.com have created their own rating systems and seals of approval. But what, exactly, does that mean? Who’s going to hold them accountable? The modern consumer is savvy to tricky marketing techniques that can sneak their way into a companies messaging.

Innovation is the only way to grow.

TOMS is not a non-profit. Mycoskie has found a way to innovate upon the traditional business model to create a win-win-win situation. The children who receive free shoes win, the customer that gets great footwear (and feels good about) it wins, and the company that turns a small profit wins.

The shoe company also constantly innovates on its product by re-engineering the original shoe design from Argentina and offering new styles like the laced Cordones (I have a pair, and they’re ridiculously comfy!).

Who is going to design the next line of safe, natural products? I’m confident that in the next three to five  years, companies will find ways to produce safer, more natural cosmetics, clothing, and other every-day items, at lower costs and with greater confidence in their purity. How we’ll get there is through social responsibility and innovation, and by putting the power back where it belongs — in the hands of the consumer.

What are your thoughts? How can we reinvent traditional business to create massive, positive change?

Steve Demos, founder of Silk Soymilk (a brand I work with as a marketing consultant) built his business, and rules his career, under a concept he calls “right livelihood.” The video below is 20 minutes – inspiring if you’re into business or interested in responsible corporate practices – but the last 3 minutes includes a message everyone should hear.

Steve sums up the concept of right livelihood as running business in a way that’s “good for me, good for you, good for everyone who touches it.” An incredibly simple, but surprisingly novel ethos. Consider that just about every business school in the country still teaches students that their primary responsibility in business is to return profit to shareholders. Personally, I prefer Steve’s definition of corporate value. And with a $330,000,000 sale price, he proved that one can do well while… doing well.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124766892562645475.html

This Walmart sustainability announcement is a pretty big deal. The key question is whether Walmart – notorious for merciless price pressures on manufacturers – will really step up and partner with its suppliers, or just pinch them further into the vice of price pressure. They should act in a meaningful way, since it’s Walmart price pressure that’s resulted in so many Chinese, irresponsibly-manufactured products in the name of “everyday low prices.” Will they really change their tune? Since Walmart sells about 30% of the products in just about any category they carry, it will make a tremendous impact – one way or the other…

Hello – my name is Hunter, and I’m a junkie. My juice of choice is sunscreen. Like many, I dabbled at first in my teen years. Rubbing it on just because “everyone was doing it” – urged by my friends. It went on harmlessly enough. Then, one relatively mild sunburn a few years back, and I became obsessed. And not just some cut-with-lotion recreational balm. I was on the hard stuff. 45 SPF and up. Sweatproof, waterproof, non-stinging, spray-on, rub-on, comfort grip bottles… you name it. I knew where to score the high grade, PABA free for the best price.

I started hiding it from the people in my life. Putting it on in private before joining everyone at the pool. “Running to my car for a minute” for a quick re-app. Then, one day, I found myself using alone. It got so bad I needed a hit of 15 SPF just to get my day started…

Finally my family tried to intervene. “It’s too much,” they said. “Just cut back a little and see how it feels,” they urged. “If for nothing else, you’re going broke on Coppertone,” they pleaded. Nothing worked. I only retreated further into the bottle. Or tube. An ugly, greasy addiction.

But unlike most addicts, I never had a dramatic wake-up call. Rather, one day as I lathered up for the umpteenth time with that intoxicating cocoa-scented elixir, I pondered “This has got to have chemicals in it. What’s the downside of all this ‘protection’?” I shrugged it off, and lathered on.

Then my son was born. And I faced the sobering choice of either getting smart, or raising my boy to follow in my pasty footsteps. So I made a half-hearted attempt at self-help by googling “chemicals in sunscreen.”

And that was the beginning of my new obsession: seeking products that are pure for myself and my family. But that’s no easy task. There’s a ton of information – and misinformation – out there. And, while I’m keen on living a healthier lifestyle, I have a career and family, too. So the hours of confusing research to sort out the pure from the Pewr (TM) is a handful.

I could’ve just waited for the next media-driven craze, but I decided this needed to stick. So my friend Matt and I proclaimed ourselves PureMavens and began educating ourselves and taking on the pursuit of making the world a purer place.