Mageirocophobia at MoMA

A client recently gifted me an admission ticket to the Museum of Modern Art. Six floors worth of dodging hordes of tourists had exhausted me, but I found myself imbued with the curiosity of a nubile once I discovered the Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen exhibit. For those of us who love all things domestic, dreamy, and efficient, this exhibit featuring the idealistic post-WWI German public housing projects kitchen is worth the 20-minute long wait at bag check. Those who reject all this should not only call upon my services (ha ha!) but should also see the exhibit for its nod to feminist artists who rejected the isolation of women to the kitchen and the kind of society such isolation fostered. I learned a new word: Mageirocophobia, which means fear of the kitchen.

Olivia Lane is a Blogger, Green Living Educator, and Health Coach trained at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She's also author of Baking Soda & Bliss: The Healthy & Happy Guide to Green Cleaning.   

 

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Green Guinea Pig: Coffee Facial Scrub

 My stockpile of Desert Essence facial scrub is all used up and the brand has disappeared from the shelves of both the Park Slope Food Coop and Trader Joes. What's a girl to do?

Inspired by dull skin, a lack of motivation to search for a new brand of facial scrub, and the crafty folks on the World Wide Web, I made my own facial scrub today. I used the coffee grounds leftover from this morning's coffee, a minuscule sample of fancypants Mayan sea salt, the dregs of a honey bottle, a drop of tea tree oil, and a wee bit of olive oil.

The results?

The Bad: I had to be super careful not to get any of the brown mixture on my white shower curtain. There was a lot more cleanup to be done post-shower because of the coffee grounds. I wouldn't recommend this unless you have a mesh strainer over your tub drain. (Luckily, I do.) Predictably, the mixture also smells like burnt coffee, which I'm not so into.

The Good: Although the scrub was a bit coarser than what I'm used to, it did an excellent job exfoliating at least a week's worth of nasty dead skin cells- maybe even better job than the Dessert Essence scrub. My face also felt very soft, moisturized, and refreshed. It probably cost me less than a dollar to make this vs. the $4 I would have spent on a store bought product. Reusing something always feels great and because the city compost worms will still get the coffee after I've scrubbed with it, I've given the coffee 3 lives!

Conclusion: I will probably continue to use this but only over the kitchen sink. If I get my hands on a chamomile tea bag, I'd like to add some tea to this mixture.

Olivia Lane is a Blogger, Green Living Educator, and Health Coach trained at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She's also author of Baking Soda & Bliss: The Healthy & Happy Guide to Green Cleaning.   

 

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Eco-friendly Disposal & Recycling Book

It's not uncommon for folks to keep things because they don't know what to do with them. Lots of us eco-minded folks are concerned with not wasting something that is in decent, useable condition. This is especially true if our parents guilt tripped us with images of children wasting away in Africa for want of our rejected dinner veggies. We'd also like to dispose of things that are past their prime responsibly, including toxic things like expired batteries and old paint.

Green House: Eco-friendly Disposal and Recycling at Home by Norm Crampton is a great resource that offers practical, easy-to-follow suggestions that address both these concerns. And like almost every book I will mention on this blog, it's available at The Brooklyn Public Library.

Olivia Lane is a Blogger, Green Living Educator, and Health Coach trained at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She's also author of Baking Soda & Bliss: The Healthy & Happy Guide to Green Cleaning.   

 

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