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    • Healthy Living
    • Mommy Greenest Approved
    • Eco Beauty & Fashion
    • Natural Parenting
    • Latest Buzz
    • Green News & Events
  • Mommy Greenest Guides
    • Guide to Going Green
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  • Green News & Events

    Berkeley Researchers Test Toxic Beauty Detox

    March 7, 2016 /

    There’s so much gloom and doom in the story about beauty products. From the “Stink!” documentary’s exploration of the “fragrance loophole” to tests that found lead in 60% of lipsticks (yes, really) getting ready is like walking through a haunted house: fear at every turn. My thought process tends to go something like… This sample mascara is amazing, but is the company that makes it is hiding mercury in the formula? I love my new deodorant, but am I dousing my lymph nodes with cancer-causing chemicals?  I’ve swapped out hair dye for henna and greened my makeup routine, but the fear of hidden chemicals means sometimes I feel like hiding my (unwashed) head under a rock,…

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    Rachel Sarnoff 1 Comment

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  • Green News & Events

    Back 2 School? Don’t Send Toxic Chemicals 2 Class

    August 20, 2015 /

    Are your kids back to school? Mine are. (Finally!) And bringing home school supply requests from teachers that include some pretty toxic chemicals. Here are two that are easily avoided.

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    Rachel Sarnoff 0 Comments

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    Healthy Living

    Is There Triclosan in Your Toothpaste?

    September 8, 2014 /

    Oh, triclosan. According to the FDA, it’s no more effective than soap and water at killing bacteria; studies have shown that it may compromise our immune systems, make us more susceptible to allergies, and affect our hormones. And research proves that antibacterials like triclosan breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But one personal care conglomerate is still putting this toxic stuff in your…toothpaste? 

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    Rachel Sarnoff 5 Comments

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    Today’s InspirApril Daily Affirmation: Intention

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  • There's no research that shows antibacterials like triclosan are more effective than soap and water—but a lot that prove these pesticides can hurt kids.
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    3 Steps to Avoid Antibacterials & Still Keep Clean

    June 5, 2013 /

    Bacteria get a bad rap these days, what with the focus on germ-fighting antibacterial hand washes, gels, wipes and sprays that promise to squeaky-clean our lives. But what we might not realize is that these potent germ-fighters wipe out both good and bad bacteria, possibly contributing to an epidemic-worthy spike in childhood asthma and allergies as our kids’ fragile immune systems are no longer exposed to enough of the good bacteria that they need to develop normally.

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    Rachel Sarnoff 4 Comments

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    Natural Parenting

    Want a Natural Pregnancy? 12 Tips to Protect Your Baby for Life

    April 17, 2013 /

    Getting ready for baby—or pregnancy? Congratulations! Going green for your growing belly—or for when you bring that baby home—sounds good on paper, but is a natural pregnancy doable in reality? Yes! Here’s how: 1. Eat organic: The dangers of common pesticide exposure are equal to those of smoking during pregnancy: low birth weight and early labor. Studies have shown that eating organic for just five days can eliminate many of the pesticides—linked to cancer, among other health problems—in our bodies. Following the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen lists can reduce your family’s exposure by 80 percent.

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    Rachel Sarnoff 18 Comments

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    November 30, 2015
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    Green Cleaning in 3 Easy Steps

    April 14, 2013 /

    When I was a kid, I knew the house was clean because it smelled like fake lemons and pine. But it may not have been as clean as my family thought: The EPA estimates that the air inside our homes can be as more polluted than the air outside, in part because of chemical cleaning products. Indoor air pollution can lead to serious health problems like allergies and asthma; childhood asthma rates are now at epidemic levels, with more than seven million children affected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s one in 10 kids. So I’ve spent the last few years replacing those  familiar from childhood with green cleaning…

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    Rachel Sarnoff 28 Comments

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    2 Steps to Eliminate Food Dyes Linked to ADHD

    April 19, 2013
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    May 7, 2013
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    August 15, 2013
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    Eco Beauty & Fashion

    Shortcut to Natural Beauty: 7 Ingredients to Avoid

    April 13, 2013 /

    I love natural beauty, but it’s not like I’m some crazy Birkenstock wearing woman with stinky underarms. I wear lipstick as much as the next girl—I just like to know mine’s lead-free. Think I’m kidding? Studies have shown that two-thirds of lipsticks contain lead, which is a neurotoxin. And that we women eat about nine pounds of the stuff over our lifetimes. All gag reflex aside, it’s super important to know what’s in our health and beauty products, because they’re designed to be put on our skin. And as we all know from high school health class, as much as 60% of what goes onto your skin goes into your…

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    Rachel Sarnoff 26 Comments

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Welcome! I created this blog in 2008 as a resource for healthier living with less judgment. I'm a mother of three, former journalist, and co-founder of the (shuttered, sniff) sustainable beauty and fashion site EcoStiletto. I was Executive Director of the nonprofits The 5 Gyres Institute and Healthy Child Healthy World and appeared as a sustainable lifestyle expert on "The "TODAY Show" and "CNN Headline News," among others. Oh, and have you checked out my TEDx talks: Trash is Ruining Recycling and Can One Straw Change The World? Today, you can find me here. Let's keep in touch! xoRachel

https://youtu.be/sOol1MIgois

rachellincolnsarnoff

Sometimes you have to just go climb a rock. #joshu Sometimes you have to just go climb a rock. #joshuatree #joshuatreenationalpark #amrelaxing #amnotwriting
What’s on your cookbook shelf? I usually go off What’s on your cookbook shelf? I usually go off script when it comes to meals (sometimes it works, sometimes not so much) but I do love reading these beautiful books. My stack started with The Joy of Cooking, which my aunt gifted me when I graduated from high school and is now held together with tape, next to the copy that I gave my daughter when she left for college (and may have inspired some of her @jujusdujour recipes). The newest addition is a truly gorgeous and inspirational cook/help/poetry/amazingness book by @julesbdavis #TheKitchenHealer out now from @soundstrue. It’s about cooking and healing and community and women and accessing our power both individually and communally. Plus a little bit of memoir from this amazing author and inspirational human. #AmReading #julesblainedavis #thekitchenhealer #cookbooks #books #bookstagram
These #vintage records include classic tracks like These #vintage records include classic tracks like “Lonely Little G-String” and inspire serious #MadMen vibes. Sadly missing the instructional booklet. You can’t make this stuff up! #amwriting #amlistening #60sstyle #60smusic
Late last year, I read an essay by @elizabeth_gilb Late last year, I read an essay by @elizabeth_gilbert_writer in which she described her process when she first began submitting stories for publication. It was like tennis: Every time a story was lobbed back to her she sent it back over the net to another potential publisher. One in, one out. I took that to heart and each time I received a no, I swung harder. I still haven’t placed a story, but last year I published three nonfiction pieces. More than 50 agents passed on my novel, but 11 requested the full manuscript and responded with detailed notes. (After enough time in the slush pile, querying writers like me gauge success by the detail of the rejection.) No, this work is not lucrative and yes, it is a privilege to carve out the time and attention that it demands. Last spring, I was inspired by @jamiattenberg’s #1000wordsofsummer to schedule hour-long writing sessions, often at 5 a.m. before work, in order to chip away at a new novel that just topped the 50,000-word mark huzzah! Cheers to all the creative people who can’t stop won’t stop trying to make sense of this reality through art. I am inspired by all of you.
#AmWriting #Memoir #Essay #Nonfiction #Fiction #WomensFiction #WritersOfInstagram #Writer #Writing #WritingCommunity #PacificUniversity #MFA
So excited for this double feature! @deshawncharle So excited for this double feature! @deshawncharleswinslow co-led our fiction workshop @pacificmfa in January and his insight was AMAZING. Can’t wait to read these books! #amwriting #amreading #deshawncharleswinslow #decentpeople #inwestmills #pacificmfa #writersofinstagram
Every year, it’s like a living painting outside Every year, it’s like a living painting outside my window. Lula likes it too. #losangeles #pearblossom #socal #spring  #dogsofinstagram
Who else is reeling from reading this incredibly p Who else is reeling from reading this incredibly powerful and terrifying book? Let’s discuss. #amreading #barbarakingsolver #demoncopperhead
My local dog park has been transformed into a pet My local dog park has been transformed into a pet cemetery. Spoiler alert: the duck dies. #onlyinla
Last week, my husband asked me what experiences we Last week, my husband asked me what experiences were on my bucket list. Today he surprised me by checking one off. #falconry #hawking #bucketlist #bucketlistadventures #valentinesday
Things I learned recently. 1. Ritual works. A r Things I learned recently.
 1. Ritual works. A room, a desk, a coffee shop. Paper and pen or antique typewriter. Someone changes his shoes like Mr. Rogers before he sits down at his desk, another does visualizations. For months, I switched into writing brain by exiting my office, where my work desktop lives, and sitting with my laptop (wifi off) in a chair next to the window in my bedroom. I now recognize this as a ritual.
 2. Quality, not quantity. Maya Angelou rented a hotel room and wrote in it for six hours a day. (She asked the staff to take all the art off the walls, so she wouldn’t be distracted. And she drank sherry.) But many of us are working writers - by this I mean working at something else while maintaining a writing practice. We squeeze it in where we can. Currently, I get up at five so I can write for an hour before starting work at seven, a luxury made possible by remote work. I rarely have a concentrated stretch of time, and yet I keep chipping away at my novel, one paragraph or page (on a good day) at a time. 
 3. It’s a practice. Until recently, I didn’t believe that writing every day was that important. I would sit down and write for eight hours and then not for weeks at a time. (I was also a working co-parent of three children. So there’s that.) Now I’m trying to write every day, even just for 30 minutes. And what that means is when I’m doing something else — working or driving carpool or yoga or walking the dog or cooking or watching television — a part of my brain is still with those characters and re-entering the scenes is easier. 
 4. Writing is a tap you can’t shut off. Waking up in the middle of the night to scribble in the dark. Dictating a note to Siri in the car. Pinching your arm in a dark movie theater so you’ll remember a word when the lights turn on. Today I realized that one of my main characters has freckles and another needs to find a credit card and a third is smelling vanilla. All of these realizations happened while I was doing other things (see above). That’s writing, too. 
Right? 
#AmWriting
Exiting the @pacificmfa womb and headed into the w Exiting the @pacificmfa womb and headed into the world, proud of brilliant graduates including @allisuuunshines and @krazykenzer14 and honored to be on this path with @kburmz_ and @katiesumers and @rwrowe21 and too many others to name “jumping and dancing and skipping” and writing and reading and listening and thinking. I am profoundly grateful for this community and fellowship that is truly life-changing, and I read this poem TODAY which is further proof the universe is listening.
THE DAYS (abridged)
If only I could live my life, not write it,
I’d have double the experience
and be better at nothingness, at being present.
The page, I once believed, offers permanence,
sanctifying time, making it longer,
but now I see my words as susceptible,
even if digital, to fire, flood, misplacement.
To misinterpretation. To accidental
download by enemy. I don’t yet want them 
to be lost, but I dread the possibility
that they won’t self-destruct at the end
of my life, or the end of my lucidity.
Maybe I’ve been using paper all wrong,
committing to ink what should live in my head,
which is part of my body, which will not last…
Each night, I had written Here is what happened
like a kid whose pen makes her small life exciting,
then gone on mistaking the plot for the story,
as if the point of writing were writing.
-Adrienne Su “The Days” published in the New Yorker January 2/9 2023 (abridged)
#AmWriting #Memoir #Essay #Nonfiction #Fiction #WomensFiction #Stories #Story #WritersOfInstagram #Writer #Writing #WritingCommunity #PacificUniversity #PacificMFA #MFA
Searching for the sleeper wave. #amwriting #amread Searching for the sleeper wave. #amwriting #amreading #fiction #writer #writersofinstagram #writingcommunity #mfa
After the recent announcement of the fusion breakt After the recent announcement of the fusion breakthrough at Livermore — where my grandfather once worked as a chemist, that’s him on the right — many messaged me that the “climate crisis was over.” At the lab, lasers fused two forms of hydrogen into helium, which released more energy than it took to make it. And yes, this is amazing: Nuclear fusion releases no greenhouse gases and the waste is less problematic than what’s produced by nuclear fission, which is what my grandfather worked on. But the Livermore experiment — among many others — was able to produce just a small amount of energy and scaling its ability will take a lot of time, which we don’t have. Here’s what we do have: Wind and solar and regenerative agriculture, which are all eminently scalable now. As my grandfather might have said, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Photo: Bonestamp
#Climate #ClimateJustice #KeepItInTheGround #CleanEnergy #Motivation #MommyGreenest
I’m not big on resolutions, but I do believe in I’m not big on resolutions, but I do believe in ritual. Every New Year’s Day — and my birthday — I try to do the things that I want to be doing for the rest of the year. I spent the morning writing and then did some yoga and went for a walk with my family. I made posole for my son’s birthday party and ate said posole and it was delicious. I prepped a bit for work and played my guitar. All in all, an excellent start to another year. How about you? #happynewyear #newyear #resolutions #ritual
I have always been a writer. Published? Not so muc I have always been a writer. Published? Not so much. I published myself, obviously — MommyGreenest since 2008 woot! — but with other projects I tended to give up after a pass and internalize the rejection. But late last year, I read an essay by @elizabeth_gilbert_writer in which she described her process as tennis: Every time a story was lobbed back to her she sent it back over the net to another potential publisher. One in, one out. I took that to heart and each time I received a no, I swung harder. I still haven’t placed a story, but this year I published three nonfiction pieces — in the @washingtonpost, @nwreview, and @hippocampusmag. With encouragement from Kate McKean’s @agents_and_books newsletter, I submitted to over 50 agents who passed on my novel, but 11 requested the full manuscript and responded with notes (this will mean nothing to most people, but after enough time in the slush pile, querying writers gauge success by the detail of the rejection). No, this work is not lucrative and yes, it is a privilege to carve out the time and attention that it demands. Last spring, I was inspired by @jamiattenberg’s #1000wordsofsummer to schedule hour-long writing sessions, often at 5 a.m. before work, in order to chip away at a new novel that just topped the 50,000-word mark huzzah! Next week, I’ll join @pacificmfa peers in Oregon for my first in-person residency on the slowest train ever to an MFA. Cheers to all the creative people who can’t stop won’t stop trying to make sense of this reality through art. I am inspired by all of you.
#AmWriting #Memoir #Essay #Nonfiction #Fiction #WomensFiction #WritersOfInstagram #Writer #Writing #WritingCommunity #PacificUniversity #MFA
Finally c-positive, which is a negative, but the p Finally c-positive, which is a negative, but the plus side is a cozy blanket, knitted with love by a friend, and this amazing book, sent to me by my mother, which includes this wisdom: “…it strikes me as a particularly dangerous fantasy…that someone might be able to live without…heartbreak or sorrow. Which I’m pretty sure you only get to do if you have no relationships, love nothing, are a sociopath, and maybe, if you’re enlightened. I don’t know about you, but I check none of these boxes.” Love love LOVE. Who else is reading/has read? Let’s discuss! #amreading #rossgay #essay #nonfiction #inspiration
Los Angeles is full of magical places, especially Los Angeles is full of magical places, especially this time of year. We got dressed up and went to one of them. Highly recommended. Happy holidays, everyone!
When your daughter is doing the crossword puzzle a When your daughter is doing the crossword puzzle and you know both the answer and the person in the clue.
#JennaJambeck #Plastic #CircularEconomy #BreakFreeFromPlastic #Motivation #Health #Wellness #MommyGreenest
Obsessed. #Natural #NaturalBeauty #CleanBeauty #Be Obsessed. #Natural #NaturalBeauty #CleanBeauty #Beauty #Perfume #NaturalPerfume #HenryRose #NotSponsored
Slow and steady wins the race. #SlowAndSteady #Ha Slow and steady wins the race.
#SlowAndSteady #HappyHolidays #HappyHolidays2022 #AmWriting #WomensFiction #WritersOfInstagram #Writer #Writing #WritingCommunity
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