How I Shop Sustainably: Basic Cosmetics

I've generally operated a policy for this blog where I don't post links to products or shops, but as more and more people are getting interested in sustainable, ethical and zero waste products, I thought this might be a good time to share how I've tweaked my personal shopping habits for those things I use on a regular basis. As well as what I currently buy, I'll discuss what my criteria are, what I look out for, and what I actively avoid - and why. If you find this interesting or helpful, drop me a comment and let me know, as this could become a series. 

I'm UK-based so this will be quite UK-focused, so friends overseas, do please chime in with your own best tips and recommendations.

The very basics

Deodorant: switching to natural deodorant was one of the first swaps I made, during my pregnancy when I read that aluminium from antiperspirants has been found in breast milk. The detox phase, when the aluminium 'plugs' leave your pores, was a real thing, and there was a fortnight when I smelt absolutely horrible, and a period of a few months' trial and error while I hunted down a natural deodorant that actually worked. I found that I'm sensitive to baking soda, which limited my choices somewhat as it's a common ingredient in natural deodorants. I also prioritise plastic-free, recyclable or compostable packaging and only use products which are cruelty free and vegan.

I still have a few products in rotation and try new things as I come across them, but my go-to favourites now are Space Cat by Awake Organics, which I find very effective - I don't have to wash and reapply several times a day as I do with other products in my rotation, and one tin lasts me about six months so it's good value - and the sensitive range from Wild Deodorant, which I was originally gifted by a friend and found so effective I used it at my wedding.

I would note that what works for me may not work for you; one of my close friends couldn't get on with natural deodorants at all and proclaims herself firmly Team Antiperspirant, and you will almost certainly have to try a few products before you find your perfect fit, but for me it's worth it because antiperspirants and many conventional deodorants contain ingredients like propylene glycol (which is also used in antifreeze and is considered potentially dangerous to the nervous system and heart) and parabens (which potentially can cause hormonal imbalance in our bodies and have been flagged as possible carcinogens, as well as being linked to birth defects).

A word on ingredients. You may be wondering, if these ingredients are so bad, why are they in so many of our everyday products. Well, of course the cosmetics industry is regulated, although this varies depending on where you live - thousands of ingredients deemed dangerous in Europe and the UK are widely used in the USA and elsewhere. However, ingredients are often tested individually and declared as 'not harmful' as a small dose within a product - except when you then have the same ingredient as a small dose in your shampoo, your body lotion, your hand soap, your washing up liquid and so forth, you could be applying the same potential toxin in quite a large dose indeed without realising. We also don't commonly test for how ingredients that may be in different products react with each other - for example, if you have one potential hormone disruptor in your body lotion and another in your shower gel, we don't know how the combination might affect your body once it's absorbed into your skin.

For more information about this subject I would recommend the book No More Dirty Looks by Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt, here's a basic list of ingredients I avoid, and here's a database you can use to find out how safe your products are.

Toothpaste: my main issue with toothpaste is packaging, which is usually plastic and non-recyclable. Many well-known brands also test on animals, including Colgate and Sensodyne. 

An obvious swap I would recommend is a bamboo toothbrush or an electric toothbrush with recyclable heads, which are becoming more widely available (check your local zero waste shop, if you have one). I use toothpaste tabs with fluoride, which are available in refillable tins or compostable bags. (I also use a copper tongue scraper, and mouthwash tabs - the ones I'm currently using are from Lush and come in a plastic pot which you can return to the store for a discount on your next purchase, but ideally I'll be looking for a plastic free alternative.)

Body wash: solid soap is your best bet for minimal packaging. I like Lush's soaps as a treat, but they're not that budget-friendly, so in general I use one of a variety of soaps from the Really Wild Soap Co. You can also usually find some lovely natural, organic soaps at your local farmer's market or zero waste shop, or on Etsy.

Face wash: my go-to is Movis from Lush, because it comes in a solid bar (and I like the yeasty smell). 

Moisturiser: my favourite moisturiser is Imperialis from Lush. It does come in a plastic pot but again this is returnable to the store for refill and reuse. My skin has always been a source of embarrassment for me as I'm prone to breakouts, but since I stopped wearing foundation on a daily basis and switched to natural ingredients I have seen a big improvement.

Sunscreen: I have several priorities for sunscreen. Firstly, I only use what's known as a physical sunscreen rather than Nivea et al, which produce chemical suncreen. This is because chemical sunscreen contains some less than pleasant ingredients, which when they are absorbed by the skin can leach into the bloodstream. Physical sunblock, aka zinc oxide, is not absorbed by the skin (so you do have to put some effort into application to avoid the Friendly Ghost look), but does block both UVA and UVB rays.

The other downside to those chemical sunscreens is that they are highly toxic to marine life and coral reefs - even if you're not using it on the beach, all our water reaches the ocean eventually. For my little one and on my tattoos I use a high SPF sunscreen from Amazinc - yup, it's pricey, but I've been using the same bottle for three years now. For myself, particularly on my face, I use an SPF 25 from Shade, which comes in a sturdy tin so I can carry it about with me and reapply when needed. 

Shampoo and conditioner: finding a natural shampoo bar (I like bars because there's no packaging, in case you didn't guess) that works in hard water when I'm at home, without leaving my hair greasy, sticky or waxy, was a bit of a challenge. If you live in a soft water area, you can pretty much take your pick.

Sea salt seems to be the magic ingredient for me, and in hard water areas you also need a foaming agent like SLS, which I would generally prefer to avoid. There are some good, effective alternatives now made from coconut, so I'm hopeful I'll eventually find the perfect bar. Meanwhile, I'm using Seanik from Lush.

For all your solid soap bars I do recommend a soap drying rack, as letting them dry between uses makes them last much longer instead of dissolving into a soggy mess.

I also use a conditioner bar - I'm still open to trying new products here and looking for a leave-in conditioner that doesn't come in a plastic container, but the conditioner I'm using currently is from Wideye.

Lotion: if I'm being really honest, lotion isn't really a basic for me as I tend to only remember to use it when I shave, but the one I'm using currently is this one from Happy Holistics, which is rich and smells delicious.

Hand and foot cream: also not something I use terribly regularly, but I go straight to basics here and just use a jar of shea butter, a tip I got from Lucy AitkenRead's book Freedom Face, with the immortal line "No matter how you say this - "shee-uh" or "shay" - you will be corrected by someone. I like to do a huge fart at the same time as saying it, to distract from the fact I may be pronouncing it wrong."

100th Post: What's Next?

So this is my 100th blog post on Katrina, Consumed! I must admit, it doesn't feel like I've been cranking out a weekly post for almost two years now (whaaat?). I never really had a plan in place for this little space on the web, and to be honest I still don't, but I really enjoy being able to discuss and delve into some of the thoughts and topics that have come up for me whilst I've been trying to get a grip on my shopping habit. I never expected to have so much to say about it, but I love being able to share with you (even the embarrassing and not-so-flattering moments), and I'm grateful to you for reading these words and for being here. Thank you!

After my successful No-Buy July, I feel buoyed up to take on the next challenge. I've completed several successful no-buy months now - but the full year remains elusive. However, knowing I can do a month at a time with very little difficulty has encouraged me to look at the challenge differently. I decided to tackle each month as its own entity - of course, completing twelve no-buy months in a row would equal one no-buy year, but even if I didn't succeed in that challenge, there were other wins I could achieve. Four no-buy months consecutively would be a new personal best, for example. Or if I managed to complete every other month, that would be an improvement over previous years and probably help me rein in my wayward annual expenditure.

Dai had suggested that in 2023, rather than aim for a full no-buy year, which he thinks is impossible for me, or aiming to spend half the previous year's totals, as I did this year, to set my budgets at 1/3 of this year's spend. That way, even if I go over budget like I did this year, my overall spend would still drop. I think this is a good mindset to go forward with, but having achieved that No-Buy July (and No-Buy August, I'll be talking about that next week) with relative ease, I'm tempted to see if I can carry on from here for as long as I can (breaking it into those one-month chunks). If I did complete the full year, I would then be able to shop again just in time for next year's Pembrokeshire trip, when I could stock up on any replacement items I might need from my favourite sustainable shop in St David's. Although, perhaps the fact that I'm already looking past the finish line to the next shopping opportunity is not the best sign...

Alternatively, I've started kicking around the idea of setting myself a small monthly budget next year for thrifted books and clothes or eco cosmetics, in keeping with the idea I read about of giving oneself a gift, and also because I'm feeling really good and a lot more confident than I have in a while, and I'm thinking I'd really like to experiment with different types of clothes, more skirts and dresses, different silhouettes from what I'm used to. I have a lot of loose fitting t-shirts, lots of jeans and patterned harem pants, but only a handful of skirts and dresses and few other styles of top. If I thrifted one or two pieces a month, I could try out some new things but still keep my annual budget wayyyyy down from what it was this year. I also really enjoy the uniqueness of the items you can find in second-hand shops, to my mind it's much more creative and playful to build a second-hand look than to just buy an outfit from a fast fashion store. Basically, I want to play!

I think probably my best bet is to carry on as I have been, taking it a month at a time and seeing how I feel and what I need (that's actual needs, as in when things are worn out or don't fit any more, not 'oh I need a treat'), and being creative with the things I already own.

I'm heartened by how well I've been doing - the biggest and most noticeable shift is that I haven't really felt like I've even been doing a shopping ban, my attention overall has just moved away from consuming. This has led me to start thinking about what else I can do next - I'm thinking about reducing our household waste, trying to eat more locally and sustainably, and learning more in general about greener living and changes we can make to be more eco-friendly, frugal and self-sufficient.

There is so much information out there about this already, so many different ways to try to be sustainable, and so many ways to fail at being sustainable, that it's really always felt a bit overwhelming up until now. We've made a few small changes as a family, but now I'm finally in a place (and I hate to link everything back to shopping, but I do think that untangling myself from that consumeristic mindset makes this a lot easier) where I can see what to do next. It's also helped that I've been following the work of sustainability influencers like Gittemarie Johansen, who stress effort over perfection, and practicality and realism over aesthetics, and also - simply put - aren't quite as intimidating as some of the zero waste hardliners I've come across before.

I appreciate that individual change, in and of itself, won't and can't change the world. But as a Pagan, and a person who loves the Earth, I feel like this is a path I need to continue to take to bring my way of living more in line with my beliefs and personal values.

It's also worth mentioning that I have seen great personal benefits since I started this journey in 2019 - trying to reduce my consumption has made me happier, calmer, more confident, it has helped me achieve some of my lifelong goals, and I honestly feel it has even positively affected my relationships and my health. Pausing my excessive consumption was like dropping a stone into the centre of a pond, and the ripples have spread outwards throughout my entire life and being. If the attempt to simply shop less can bring this much change, growth and joy, what fresh change might be wrought by working on some other areas of my consumption and lifestyle? I can't wait to find out.

In other news, it was my birthday this week (I am thirty-one, which seems a little ridiculous to be honest!).

Also, some more advance reviews for my book (The Anti-consumerist Druid, available for pre-order now from all the usual suspects) have been appearing around the internet (and readers of Pagan Dawn magazine may have recently seen my article The Anti-Consumerist Pagan in the Lammas issue, available here. It's a three-page spread, which I did a little happy dance about).

Publishers Weekly describe TACD as an "introspective debut": "Townsend’s trajectory from skeptic to believer makes this well suited for readers who might not be sold on paganism (she discusses her fear of “being too woo-woo”), and her discussion of how her druidism intersects with sustainable causes illustrates what the tradition has to offer modern practitioners. The result is a pensive pagan outing that will appeal to nonbelievers." Full review is here.

Saskia of Graveyard Picnic (who is also a DJ and therefore on my list of Very Cool People) says this: "Townsend’s writing style is inviting from the get-go. She comes across as friendly and non-judgmental and manages to dip her tales of woe into a healthy dose of humour. Her openness about not only the ups, but also the often overwhelming downs of her quest makes it virtually impossible not to sympathise with her. Despite the perhaps somewhat unconventional subject matter, there is nothing too woolly about Townsend’s prose. She comes across as delightfully down-to-earth and also provides insight into her own bouts of scepticism, making her all the more relatable." And also, "Townsend’s path may not be one-size-fits-all but it does offer far more nuance than your average self-help guide. It’s also a delightful read to boot." Full review here.

The release date for TACD is approaching fast; I can't wait to start seeing it on shelves!

The Dark Side of Decluttering

I swing back and forth on the subject of decluttering like a pendulum. This is another area where I've had to accept that my opinions and behaviour might differ from the prevailing tides amongst society in general, and also my friends.

Firstly let me say that I can understand why we declutter. It is certainly easier to maintain and manage a household that is not so filled with miscellaneous stuff. I live with two people who are in general less bothered by mess than I am (one of them is three, and doesn't actually realise that toys all over the floor constitute 'a mess' to other people) - Dai can sit and relax in an untidy room, which I find very difficult nowadays. I'm not a very tidy person, and I don't want to live in a show home, but sometimes things do get embarrassingly out of hand.

The other positive aspect of decluttering is of course mental - when you've had stuff piled up on your surfaces and in your cupboards (and That One Room that you're always going to get around to sorting), it's a huge relief, and greatly satisfying, to let it all go.

However, where I personally get stuck is that I see getting rid of stuff consistently described as positive, always positive. But actually, I don't think that constantly shedding possessions is a positive thing at all. It's a waste. Not of your money - those costs are sunk - but of the materials and energy that went into your stuff (our stuff). Since reading The Story of Stuff, I've really become aware that everything has been made somewhere, using somebody's resources, and it all piles up somewhere else when we, the privileged, decide that owning it has become a burden. The burden doesn't go away. We just push it off onto someone else's shoulders.

I'm not saying you should keep every single thing you've ever bought or been given. But I think we could take far more responsibility when we do get rid of stuff, and be more thoughtful in how we do so, rather than the standard procedure of dump-and-run at the charity shop or tip. The amount of fly-tipping of household goods that occurred during lockdown shows how burdened we feel by our vast array of possessions, but also how little we care for them, for the environment, or for each other. 

I've been following a lot of menders and makers on Instagram, and it's really got me looking at everything as a resource - one worn-out pair of jeans can be used to patch the next pair. I'm really excited about visible mending, it's something I want to get much more into. (I've also been looking at companies who make made-to-measure clothing out of recycled textiles, and giving serious thought to having my childhood character bedsheets lined and made into a crop top and pencil skirt set.) 

My other bugbear about decluttering is that not many people seem to talk about the flip side - buying less. Instead there are loads of people who have an annual 'big clearout', and then seem to immediately set about refilling their houses and closets again. Even if they actually intended to try minimalism. Obviously big business is loving this, but it's not doing anyone else any favours. I do eventually want to own much less stuff, but I've kind of resigned myself to getting there very slowly, when the things I use and cherish eventually wear completely out or break beyond repair. To my mind, buying less is a more important choice - for peace of mind, for sustainability, for putting a middle finger up to corporate capitalism - than finally getting around to clearing out your spare room.

Of course, I have to admit here that I'm biased, because I am very bad at decluttering. Not the actual getting rid of stuff, I'm pretty good at that. Mainly I'm terrible at decluttering because of regret. This year I have asked a friend to post back to me a shirt that I gave her (yes, I felt like a dickhead), and bought a t-shirt on eBay identical to another I'd cleared out. I'm also giving serious thought to buying some of my own clothes back from Thrift+. Which is deeply tragic. I'm pretty sure at this point that jumping aboard the decluttering train is not going to be for me. I get on much better when I accept that my clothes are my clothes, and try to wring every last drop of use and enjoyment from them, than always having half an eye on what I can next discard and replace with something else. Not treating everything as replaceable.

Some of my favourite menders:

@gatherwhatspills

@logoremoval

@mindful_mending

@visiblemend

@wrenbirdmends

@katrinarodabaugh 

Change, Not Sacrifice

In late December, since my finances were going to hell in a handbasket for reasons largely beyond my control, I decided to stop tracking my daily spends for a while, as it seemed like beating myself up more than anything. Although I'd conceived of this as a temporary break whilst I waited for life to get back on an even keel, I found it quite difficult to get on board with, as though not writing down my purchases would trigger some kind of enormous supermarket sweep that I wouldn't be able to stop. It seemed like giving up.

And in many ways, I think I was giving something up. It had become an almost subconscious belief that if I could just sacrifice enough, my individual actions would counterbalance fossil fuels, banks, governments, the entire underpinnings of capitalist society. As if one person's abstinence from air-freighted asparagus might tip the system.

It isn't that I don't believe individual actions are necessary or valuable. Quite the opposite! I believe that we each need to do what we can in our own lives and in our communities to build resilience, protect and repair our ecosystems, vote with our wallets, and otherwise gently but firmly wrest power from the corporations that hold it. 

However, my family, friends and peace of mind were telling me that since I can't singlehandedly perform miracles, I had to stop looking for the amount of personal inconvenience that would magically fix the climate. I have this kind of romantic ideal of the person I'll be when one day I don't want to shop any more and can afford an organic veg box again, when I live in a fictional idealised community that has a food co-op and a tool library and I can get everywhere I need to go by foot or bike.

The thing is, that's not where I live now, nor is it the life I'm living. Nor does making myself feel guilty about every choice, purchase or action get me there any faster.

I don't really accept the prioritising of personal luxuries over global issues. I'm not going to be cranking the heating up in January so I don't have to wear a jumper or sit with a blanket. It's still my intention to reduce my meat and dairy consumption and try to avoid air-freighted foods. But I do want to feel generally happy and comfortable, so I did finally fill a Thrift+ bag with the clothes I don't wear (or that I force myself to wear) and sent it off. I also finally decided that I'm not doing a shopping ban this year, although my intention is still to reduce my overall spend, especially on clothing, and choose wisely. The way I describe this change in the privacy of my own head is, "I want to dress in a way that makes my heart happy," and I'm working towards that.

I'm also trying to accept that at the moment I am skint, and so I can't always afford - for example - the Ecover washing up liquid instead of the supermarket basic. (I hate knowing it's damaging to aquatic life every time I do the dishes, but I also need to eat. Instead of blaming individuals, I'm learning to blame a) the companies who make these things, and b) the system that makes it more expensive to not harm the planet and imagines that trickledown economics is a viable way to sustain a fair and just society.)

One change I will be making is a move away from Amazon. I know, ironic for an author whose book will be sold there, but I don't like their approach to either resources or people, and I feel there are better places to put my money than in the pockets of billionaires. Honestly, it's something I've been thinking about but putting off for ages now, because the selection is so vast and the prices are so cheap. One of my survey sites pays in Amazon vouchers, which I used as a shopping ban loophole for a time. When they temporarily changed their vouchers, I found myself having to admit that I didn't want to spend actual money on some of the things on my wishlist. Because things were so cheap and plentiful, I was beginning to make poor choices.

Equally, in the same way I don't buy clothes from fast fashion retailers any more, so too do I want to move away from the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' mentality with regards to books. There's still the library, book swaps, charity shops and - for a real treat, as it was when I was growing up - independent book sellers.

Buying an item of clothing has become a more special occasion for me now that I do it less often, and usually in person, from a small retailer, often combined with a visit to an interesting place or event. I'd like to see this same shift with regards to buying other things. It feels like an improvement to my life rather than a sacrifice.

A complete Amazon boycott would be difficult - an awful lot of sites are hosted through their web services, for example. But I can move my custom to other booksellers, at least. 

So my plan at the moment is to change and improve the way I shop and what I spend money on, rather than to stop shopping entirely. Is this a step backwards or forwards? I guess I won't know until I try.

The Feral Gardener

Sitting in my garden this morning with my fleece over my dressing gown and a lovely, steaming mug of coffee, I smiled to myself wondering what my neighbours must think of my approach to gardening. My method can be described as a combination of thrift, ecological-mindedness, a fair amount of total ignorance about gardening, and a bit of laziness too. I like that the most ecological approach to gardening often seems to also be the easiest.

I did work hard last summer getting a lawn area seeded for the little one to play on, and planting our first vegetables. Then I was a tad disheartened when the lawn grew in patchy and we lost most of our radish crop to pests. The weeds, however, grow with abundance - I kept meaning to borrow a hoe and tackle them, after a few afternoons spent digging out each and every one with a trowel. Then I discovered books like The Forager's Garden (Anna Locke) and Letting in the Wild Edges (Glennie Kindred) and realised I could be digging out plants that were useful or beneficial. I decided to stop weeding indiscriminately and instead to learn what exactly I had growing. I also choose not to use chemical weedkillers or fertilisers, which sometimes feels like I'm stacking the odds against myself, but I'm adamant it's the right thing to do. 

One of the few things we bought new when we moved in was a compost bin, which is happily doing its thing. Dai's dad has offered us his old water butt, and we've made pathways out of rubble we found in the garden when we moved in, and planters for herbs out of whatever we could find, such as an old sink and a beer keg. Currently I'm saving up Amazon vouchers (one of the survey sites I use pays in Amazon vouchers rather than cash) for a bokashi bin set, so that we can turn our kitchen scraps - including those that can't be composted in a standard compost bin, like meat and dairy - into fertiliser.

The first frosts came around before I was ready, and we lost many strawberries and a couple of tomato plants. At first the colder weather drove me indoors, but after deciding to resume my morning sit spot regardless of the weather, I began to spot more and more wildlife in our weedy, scraggly patch. Robins are apparently partial to the three tangled elder trees that I had gingerly separated and gently pruned in the hopes of helping them avoid disease. There were blue tits in the bare-branched apple tree that reached over our fence from nextdoor. Once or twice we spotted a squirrel racing through the yew trees just behind our fence.

My neighbours on the left have the most velvety and pristine lawn you can imagine, which is nursed by sprinklers dawn till dusk, April till October (I've never seen their children in the garden - though I've seen them gaping at us from the bedroom window!). Comparatively, last year I decided not to mow my lawn, to help it establish itself, and since I haven't weeded it either what I have now is a small and bedraggled meadow (I will mow it in the spring!). I also didn't rake up the leaves from the neighbouring sycamore - I can't quite get behind the idea of raking a biodegradable, soil-nourishing product into plastic bags, so I'm hoping it will work as a kind of free mulch.

The result of all this is that right now, my garden looks a terrible mess. The clematis at the bottom of the garden has evidently been left unmanaged for several years, and has swarmed up the nearest yew tree with parasitical fervour to form a green wall between us and the cemetery. I'm not sure what I can do about that - I tried hacking it back last year but it has simply shot straight back up with undiminished enthusiasm. But in the spring we will have nettles for tea and soup, and in the summer we have blackberries - though Dai would rather plant a thornless variety. We were able to decorate our house for the winter solstice with holly and ivy from our own garden. 

As well as our three elders and nextdoor's apple we have a beech tree, a conifer and a small aster of some description. We've also tried planting a cutting from a friend's fig tree, and should soon find out whether or not that has been successful. So the ingredients for a forager's forest garden (and a small, handy grove) do seem to be in place, and I'm hoping that my job this year will amount to steering it in the right direction, and adding more and more edible plants. 

Ethical Alternative Clothing

One thing that really surprised me when I started trying to shop more ethically was that the alternative clothing market, generally speaking, is no better than the rest of the fast fashion brigade. With the exception of a handful of notable brands, clothes marketed to consumers who want to stand out from wearers of 'mainstream' fashion are produced in the same environmentally unfriendly ways and in the same brutal conditions as other big-name companies. Hopefully this is an area where we will begin to see change, as we all become more aware of where and how our clothes are made, and as more and more consumers begin to speak up.

I must admit, I find it really ironic - and annoying - that clothes marketed towards the peace-loving hippie, the fiercely creative goth or the anti-capitalist punk are often produced in ways that are the antithesis of all those values. From ripping off indie designers and artists (Dollskill) to mass-produced punk clothing (what is the actual point?!), styles that were once proudly handmade or stood for something genuinely radical have become yet more fodder for the great consumption machine.

I kind of didn't get for a long time how radical were the advent of hippie and then punk fashion, but when I started to understand that before the sixties there was essentially one correct way for women (and men) to be attired within the boundaries of one's social class, defined for you right down to your hairstyle, make-up and undergarments, I began to see how shocking a statement the miniskirt and Mohawk really were. 

It seems to me that very little in fashion is genuinely shocking now (when I first dyed my hair blue, aged twelve, a lot of people pointed or gawked, which seems hard to imagine nowadays! Teenage me would have been very, very excited about the rainbow of make-up and hair colours that are now readily available on the high street), and the boundaries between what is 'mainstream' and what is 'alternative' seem to be getting blurry. Alternative, now, just seems to mean doing a different kind of consumption. You buy from Killstar instead of ASOS, Camden Market instead of Selfridges. But it's still about having a certain look, and about consuming, whereas back in the mists of time, those 'alternative' subcultural markers were often a political statement.

It's not that I think being different, or looking different, is only for activists and anarchists. But I find it interesting to note how clothing as a form of cultural shorthand has changed in just a couple of generations, and how pervasive is consumer culture that even the styles of sixties and seventies countercultural movements are now mass-produced.

However, it's not all negative. DIY fashion is still a thing, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of small makers and artisans selling their wares at markets up and down the country, as well as on eBay and Etsy, many of whom source their materials ethically and sustainably and strive to pay a fair wage to their workers. Of course, the second-hand market is a treasure trove for those seeking a more different or unusual look. I've found that since I started to follow bloggers like Sheila Ephemera and Vintage Vixen, I can more easily see potential amongst the charity shop rails. Vix's blog actually helped remind me of what I loved about clothes in the first place. As she says, "I don't follow fashion and if I look ridiculous so what? Not being noticed and blending in with the crowd is my idea of hell." This kind of individual self-expression, the skill and artistic eye required to develop a really unique look, is to my mind much more 'alternative', creative and meaningful than buying an entire outfit from Hell Bunny and calling it a day.

My personal idea of a way of dressing that is alternative in a meaningful way (rather than simply as visual code for Being Different - not a bad thing in itself, but less important to me now than it was ten years ago, and easily subsumed by the modern tidal wave of personal branding) would be something like that expressed by Nimue Brown in her post In Search of Greener Clothes. I've been thinking about this sort of thing as I move from trying not to shop at all to learning to shop mindfully and in moderation - I want to own and wear clothes that make me feel good, that make my heart happy, and I completely identify with Nimue's comment, "I have a horror of looking like the sort of person who has bought all their clothes from a supermarket." 

There's an excellent article about ethical goth clothing on the Domesticated Goth blog, which I recommend for further reading on this subject.

I generally try not to post shopping links on this blog, for what I think are fairly obvious reasons, but a handful of alternative ethical and/or sustainable brands I am generally happy to purchase from are:

Gringo

Wobble and Squeak

Wanderlust and Faeriedust

Celtic Fusion Design (although I'm getting towards the top end of their sizing, which is a bit of a shame)

Gippies range by GutsyGingers (their own designs - the name 'Gippies' being a blend of goth and hippie)

AltShop UK

MoonMaiden

I haven't personally purchased from these (yet), but my research also turned up the following:

Foxblood

Church of Sanctus

The Last Kult

Holy Clothing

Noctex

Breaking the Spell of Consumer Culture

The winter season got me, like many people, thinking about aspects of our culture like commercialism, gifting, and money. As do probably quite a lot of people in the wider Pagan community, our family celebrates a kind of blended version of the Pagan Yule and the secular Christmas (which should be a contradiction in terms, but certainly for most people I know there's not a lot of Christ in the festive season - which itself of course pre-dates Christianity. Perhaps we should call the modern iteration, with its inflatable Santas and themed hand soap dispensers, something slightly different, like ChristmasTM). 

Anyway. There are aspects of modern Christmas that I really love, and which suit our extended family with its Pagan/agnostic/atheist/Methodist blend. I love mulled wine and roasted chestnuts, Christmas stockings and carol singing, roast dinners with bread sauce and Brussels sprouts (controversial!), visits to Santa's grotto and the big Christmas lights switch-on in town. What I don't love, and this is hardly ground-breaking (someone in the Guardian usually writes a similar column each year, for starters) is the rampant commercialism, over-advertising, over-saturation and glorification of all-out balls-to-the-wall consumerism.

This is where, for me, the gentler Yule traditions really come into their own. We're kind of feeling our way into what works for our family, as there are so many different practices associated with the season and already so much to do at this time that to try to re-enact all the aspects of a traditional twelve-day celebration would lead to total overwhelm. But it does help to remind me of some of the origins of our modern celebrations, and that keeping things simple isn't always the worst idea and in fact much more in keeping with the history of this ancient festival. Instead of buying more decorations and more plastic crap every year, we collect pine cones and holly branches. 

Yuletide, though, is one of the few times of the year when I feel that consumerism is largely absent from modern Paganism. The rest of the time, it seems to be part and parcel, sometimes even a main aspect. Consider: we are encouraged to own not just one Tarot or oracle deck, but to collect several - or many. Crystals, a limited resource, we often treat almost as disposable - leave one here, bury one there, buy three or seven or however many for each working, rite or spell. We are encouraged not just to have sufficient of any given item but to build collections. People seem to compete on social media to have the largest, fanciest, most 'aesthetic' of altars, even if that means buying new statues and altar cloths and other decorations with every turn of the Wheel. 

I realise it's a fine balance, as we want to support the artists and artisans in our communities, as well as the shops and small businesses, but as gift shops and crystal shops abound at every mystical or sacred site, and our communities both on and offline come to revolve around shops, markets and commerce, perhaps we need to get realistic about how much is really enough. 

In the introduction to her book Seasons of a Magical Life, H. Byron Ballard muses that there seem to be less Pagans cleaning up streams and picking up litter - practical tasks to build relationship with the land - than there are sitting behind their screens quibbling over practices and terminology. To this I would add that also, we are shopping. You can literally buy a witchcraft-in-a-box kit; but for me part of the practice, part of the experience, part of the point, is in the finding, the growing, the making, the foraging, the adapting, the cobbling-together. The more we buy our tools and our spells, the less involved we are with the mud and the roots, the blood and the bones, the craft. If you can download an app to tell you when the moon rises, you stop needing to look at the sky. 

A World Without Climate Change

Even if there was no climate crisis, our way of life still needs to change.

If we continue clear cutting and burning our great rainforests, we will lose their beauty and biodiversity. Without forests, we would face greater flooding and soil erosion. Thousands of species, many even undiscovered as yet by us humans, will lose their habitats and face extinction. Many plants that could be used to create lifesaving medicines will be destroyed before we even learn their properties. Indigenous peoples will lose their ancestral lands. Their way of life will be under threat, their wisdom lost. 

If we continue strip mining the earth for her resources and using toxins in our factories, the air we breathe will continue to be pumped full of toxic pollutants. Air pollution is already killing people all around the globe. 

If we continue to demand more and more of those resources to make things we don't need, children and prisoners of war will continue to be forced to work in open pit mines in brutal and dangerous conditions to harvest minerals. Sweatshops will continue to flourish, trapping thousands of people, mainly women, to labour in degrading and unsafe conditions for long hours for paltry pay. The fruits of this labour will continue to be piled high and sold cheap - and we will continue to fast track them to landfill, where they will leach toxic chemicals into our soil and water. What will we do when we have no space left for landfills, no places left to build incinerators to belch out poisonous fumes over our communities?

Our oceans will continue to be choked with plastics. Our marine species will continue to decline, their bellies full of wrappers and cling film mistaken for food leaving them no room for nutrients and condemning them to starvation. Illegal fishing practices will continue to devastate our seas, destroying habitats on the sea bed, reducing populations of fish below sustainable levels and risking their extinction, threatening the livelihood and food security of coastal populations. The salt marshes and mangroves that provide protection from storm surges and flooding from the sea will be lost to human activity such as agriculture and development.

Our sewage will continue to pollute our rivers and oceans. Dyes and other run-off from our factories will continue to be pumped into rivers, killing wildlife, spreading sickness amongst those who need those waters for drinking and bathing. 

Pesticides will continue to devastate our insect population, again killing entire species, and those species that depend on them, and so on all the way up the food chain. Our topsoil will become starved of nutrients and unable to produce flourishing crops. We are degrading our soil far faster than it can replenish itself, risking desertification - meaning we would not be able to feed ourselves. Without wild bees and other pollinators, we would lose many plant species around the world, including some of those we rely on for food.

Imagine the world we are heading towards if we don't clean up our act - figuratively and literally. Polluted air; polluted water; food shortages. A world of poverty and misery, tarmac and concrete, the stench of landfills and burning plastics. Pandemics and flooding, slave labour, starvation and homelessness. Loss of bees, whales, dolphins, butterflies, birds, and millions more.

Climate change sceptics argue that there is no climate emergency, that we can continue on this course of endless profit and eternal growth. Even if that were true, look at what it would cost.

My Love Affair With Old Clothes

One of the biggest shifts in my thinking since I started making efforts to change the way I shop has been in the way I view clothes. Previously, like many people, I bought new clothes unthinkingly. I worked in a charity shop, so often bought secondhand, but I also trawled Topshop (RIP) in my lunch breaks, and as regular readers will know, shopped online on a daily (if not hourly) basis. Clothes came into my house and went out again to the charity shop like flotsam borne on the tides.

This last year, I've stopped buying fast fashion. It's something I'd considered before - and tried before - but I failed to resist the siren song of New Look, Zara and H&M. This year, for whatever reason, it just suddenly clicked, and all of a sudden fast fashion holds no more interest for me than a dictionary would for a bumblebee. 

Old clothes are just so much more interesting! Whether from charity shops, online resellers, or passed on from friends, you never know what you might find. I'm currently wearing a pair of mauve, navy and emerald brushed cotton trousers - St Michael - which I got in a charity shop for just £2. They are so unusual, and comfortable too.

I have a tendency to rescue the weird and unwanted from charity shops - a moth-eaten cardigan with a Fair Isle-ish pattern in an ugly colourway gets a few punk patches added and becomes a wardrobe favourite, warm and versatile. 

Charity shop cardigans mended with patches

Another source of old clothes is my own wardrobe. I have clothes that are coming up ten years old - most notably an orange Star Wars t-shirt with a pun about coffee (May the Froth Be With You), which I originally bought for 94p in a charity shop when I was about 21. It's been worn on pretty much a weekly basis for all those years and has become attractively weathered. It still goes with everything.

The longer I go without buying new, the more grateful I feel for what I have. I expected to feel bored with my older items, and sometimes I do 'rest' items for a bit, but at the moment every time I open my wardrobe I feel delighted!

I regret getting rid of an old favourite t-shirt of mine - it had a beautiful Ganesha design on it and was just the right length - when it became peppered with holes. It didn't occur to me then that I could mend the holes, or put a different coloured fabric underneath and make a feature of them. 

Customising clothes was an idea I first really became aware of in my goth years. As the goth scene developed out of punk in the late 70s and 80s, it came with a strong DIY ethic. Or perhaps it was more deconstruct-it-yourself, as rips, patches and safety pins were often strongly featured. Sadly, over the last few decades this handmade, creative ethos has been seen less in alternative fashion, with the rise of goth brands selling ready-made items to the black-clad masses (as seen particularly in the 90s with Hot Topic chain stores in the USA). Whilst more expensive than conventional fast fashion, the majority of these brands  - in my day some of the big names were the likes of Dead Threads, Hell Bunny, Poizen Industries, Phaze, Banned - are no more transparent about their supply chains and manufacturing processes than any of the stores on your local high street.

Whilst I certainly availed myself of these brands as a young gothling, I was always aware of a faction within the goth scene who sourced their clothes secondhand, customised and altered prosaic items of black clothing into something unique, or even made their own clothing from scratch. I didn't have the commitment then to adopt this ethos, although even I got handy with some black dye and safety pins from time to time.

Since moving on from the goth look, customising hadn't really had a place in my life. I was a bit wary about being judged for things looking 'handmade'. Funny - now I embrace it. I love that visible mending is becoming more popular, and as well as darning, patching and replacing buttons I'm looking to tackle bigger challenges. I have a much-loved dress that doesn't fit any more that I'm intending to make into a skirt. 

I don't worry much any more about whether I'm suitably alternative, or how to define my look, but I do love having a wardrobe that is totally unique. The only possible downside is that my growing tendency towards making things work means that I'm keeping things I would have previously let go of. This is better for the environment, but not brilliant for keeping my wardrobe under control! Especially since I'm working in a charity shop now - I'm trying really hard to keep my acquisition in check, but gosh, I really couldn't resist those checked trousers. I'm spending wayyyyy less on clothes these days, but not necessarily buying less!

I am away next week - normal service will be resumed upon my return!

Decluttering Regret and Charity Shop Rules

I mentioned once before that my rusty 'joy antennae' have meant that when I have had clearouts in the past I've gotten rid of the wrong things. My biggest regret in particular is letting go of a pair of skirts I bought ten-years-ish ago in a seaside hippie shop called Rainbow's End. They were by a brand called Dark Star, and they were both tulle maxi skirts, made from dozens and dozens of overlapping layers like petals. One was in all the colours of the rainbow with raw edges, the other was in my favourite rich purples, blues and indigo, and every 'petal' had a lace trim. They were, hands down, the most beautiful garments I'd ever seen in my life.

I have trawled eBay ever since I got rid of them hoping to find replacements, but so far no joy. Whoever bought them from the charity shop I donated them to is a lucky duck. I've even been back to Rainbow's End and asked about them, but while they had skirts that were sort of similar they weren't half as gorgeous. (I haven't given up, though! I'll check every time I'm in that neck of the woods.)

Why did I get rid of them? Fear. Shame. A desire to conform. After my teens and early twenties had been characterised by wild and unconventional clothing choices, I hit an awkward stage after some online bullying and felt like people were judging me everywhere I went. I adopted a palette of sensible neutrals and started shopping in the 'trendy' shops, trying to blend in with everyone else. 

All my strange and colourful clothes went to the charity shops, except my stompy goth boots and one velvet medieval gown I couldn't bear to part with (for which I am now extremely grateful - I intend wearing it on my 30th birthday. It has been worn in such diverse places as a goth night in York and a crazy golf course in Kent). I've forgotten most of the other garments that disappeared in this first big purge - most of them wouldn't fit me now anyway - but I bitterly regret ever parting with my beautiful faerie skirts!

In mid-April, my hunt for replacement skirts led to a bit of an eBay splurge. I hadn't bought on eBay for years other than essential items for the Spud, but within a few days I became the proud owner of: a steampunk-ish pinstriped waistcoat (for the bargain price of 99p!); a purple satin bullet bra, vintage but pristine (a fiver); a tie-dye fishtail skirt in shades of blue with a barbed wire motif (£7.99); a stunning purple and black velvet and lace skirt with pixie-esque pointed layers and mirrored embroidery (£22.50); and a tiered tulle skirt in blue, indigo and green (similar-ish to my long lost Dark Star skirts but not quite as exquisite. £14.50). 

I realised I was getting carried away one night when I was still on eBay at one a.m. (those shopaholic tendencies just don't die). I was starting back as a volunteer at the charity shop the following weekend, and my sudden enthusiasm for second-hand clothes made me a bit nervous. It was much more sustainable than my previous shopping habits, but it wasn't exactly free. However, at least I now had a handful of exciting and unusual pieces to mix with my more mundane t-shirts, jeans and jumpers. But before returning to the charity shop I knew I was going to have to set myself some limits... and crucially, actually stick to them.

Based on my previous stint as a charity shop staff member, I set myself the following rules:

Thou Shalt Not Buy Anything Which Doesn't Make You Go "Wow"

(otherwise you end up with a wardrobe full of "all right"s and "nice enough"s, which is one thing if you're really short on clothes but a bit unhelpful if you're me and want to avoid repeating the declutter/refill cycle for another ten years)

Thou Shalt Not Buy Anything Which Doesn't Go With What You Already Have

(again, been down this road before, and it's super annoying. If it doesn't work with my existing favourites it's essentially pointless. No garment can stand alone)

Thou Shalt Not Spend Silly Money

(the category of 'silly money' varies depending on what the item is - e.g. I have enough t-shirts that any money spent on t-shirts is 'silly' - what else is going on that month, and whether the money could be better spent. For example, a pair of walking boots or a nice lightweight summer top would be really useful for me, but any more tie-dye anythings borders on excessive and sets me back a bit further from being able to do the courses I'm interested in.)

I've told myself since my teens that it didn't matter what mistakes I made with regards to personal style in my twenties, because no one really knows themselves when they are young, and through all my experimentation I would have my shit together by the time I hit thirty. 

Well, I'm staring down the barrel of that date now, and though it's a little bit more complex than 'ta-da, I am now a finished person', it seems I wasn't actually too far off with that estimation. I've rediscovered some of the confidence I used to have with regards to clothes and I no longer worry about other people's opinions of my outfits, but I've also learned more about what I like and will actually wear rather than just buying stuff 'because it's different'. And I'm happy that I've learned to source things second-hand (with a very occasional item new from small ethical and sustainable brands)  - it means that my wardrobe won't be cookie cutter, but it's also more responsible and less wasteful. 

I don't think I can commit to not buying anything at all at the charity shop, because I know from experience that all kinds of gorgeous things will turn up right under my nose. (And I suck at resisting a bargain, as recently discovered when I got an email to say that Dresden Dolls merchandise was up to 80% off. I managed to snag an art nouveau-style  t-shirt before they sold out, with equal parts guilt - another black band tee - and glee - a DOLLS black band tee!) I find it amazing how some people just... stop shopping. Even after two years of analysing and navel-gazing, I still struggle. Honestly, I've considered professional help! I don't expect perfection, but it's so frustrating, and at times I feel spoiled, greedy, embarrassed, entitled.

But I can do my best not to overdo it, and make the right choices. Right now, my new eBay items seem to have plugged the obvious wardrobe gaps (a waistcoat for layering and because waistcoats are funky, some long skirts for the summer), so I can't think what might tempt me to stray! But I know there will be something!

Just please, keep your fingers crossed for me that a pair of rainbow layered Dark Star faerie skirts come my way.

I Suck at Being Green (But I'm Still Trying)

There are a number of reasons why I'm not very good at being green. I've been trying to 'go greener' since late 2019, when I learned about the climate crisis and went into panic mode. And whilst I do my best, I still often feel like a beginner at these lifestyle changes, and I've made more than a handful of bad decisions along the way. I console myself with the fact that I alone won't make any huge difference one way or the other, but as someone who cares about nature and the environment, and who wants to leave a safe and thriving planet for future generations, I still feel that it's worth trying to bring my lifestyle in line with my values.

In some areas, I feel like I'm doing okay. I've hosted a successful clothing swap party (pre-COVID!) and look forward to doing so again one day. We clean our house with reusable cloths and white vinegar, we use cloth wipes for the little one's bum (he doesn't like wearing the reusable nappies, though, which I wish I could have predicted before I bought them as they're hardly cheap. And I don't know if the staff at his nursery next year will be willing to use cloth wipes, but I'll certainly ask), and I continue to volunteer for Greenpeace. I use an eco friendly natural deodorant, and it took a long time to find one that was natural, effective, and doesn't contain baking soda, to which I'm sensitive (I use Space Cat by Awake Organics; it lasts absolutely ages - one tin lasts me six months - comes in recyclable packaging, I smell faintly citrussy, and I don't need to worry about aluminium in my breast milk). My hair dye is henna; for laundry I use an eco ball with a touch of Dr Bronner's if it's Dai's work gear or baby poop; I have a safety razor so I don't use disposables. We have a sustainable loo roll subscription. I'm on a green energy tariff (I use USwitch to get the best deals). So it's not all bad!

But there are still a lot of changes I'm struggling with. My biggest weakness - and this won't surprise you! - is that I still find it really hard not to shop for new clothes. Even though I don't need any! It's a problem. I've noticed that I have a big splurge around every third month (September, December, March). So gotta watch myself this month. And yes, I'm buying from much better companies, and I no longer spend my entire bank account every month (hooray) so things have distinctly improved. Fashion is such a polluting industry, though, that I really want to stop shopping when I don't actually need to be. (Even as I'm typing this, my brain is like "oh but when you go away for your birthday weekend you might see something you like," but I must try harder to be a bit more ruthless if I don't want to end up back at square one.) 

I find it hugely frustrating that others find it comparatively easy not to clothes shop. My friend Topaz has only bought a handful of second-hand items on eBay since her last big clearout, which was last year. Whereas I seem to be convinced that I'll miss out on some magical item that will, I dunno, round out my personality and give my life meaning? 

Food is another bone of contention for me. We did try switching our weekly grocery shop to an organic delivery company last year, but in the end we had to accept that although the quality was great, the cost just wasn't realistic for us. I also don't do all the grocery shopping for the family, and those who do don't necessarily share my concerns about excess packaging and imported foods. I did put my foot down over blackberries in January flown from South America, but when somebody else is buying your food you can only do so much whingeing before you start sounding seriously ungrateful. We also do eat meat, although we have cut down a lot, but I can't honestly picture Dai ever going veggie.

I have also found that frugality and environmentalism don't always go hand in hand. Often they do, such as with our kitchen cloths and baby bum wipes, but sometimes the price of an eco alternative puts it well out of my reach. Sometimes I accept paying more for an item which is better for me and better for the environment, for example I only use cosmetics without a whole host of toxic ingredients (except the batch of seriously colourful make-up I recently bought off a goth friend - she wasn't using it, so it's recycling, and although I'm ambivalent about make-up on occasion I've been enjoying playing with things like upsettingly orange eyeshadow and swamp-witch-green mascara. I dread to think what's in it, though). And since I switched us all to natural bath products, the Spud's eczema has cleared up, which is telling. It means that my spend on cosmetics is a lot higher than some people's - what's a body lotion cost in Aldi? 70p? The last one I bought was from Luna Levitas and cost about a tenner. But I use what I buy, only buy what I need, and my skin does actually seem to benefit. And we save on eczema creams, so there's that.

I had a bit of a problem with shampoo, though. I tried switching to natural shampoo last year, but I didn't know that in a hard water area, shampoo needs to have a surfactant to actually work. Many shampoo bars and natural shampoos are just made with oils, so for several months I went around with greasy hair and a horrible grey waxy build-up that even the strongest apple cider vinegar rinse wouldn't shift. I couldn't understand what was going on and thought I was just going through the worst detox phase of all time. Then just when I was ready to give up, I found a post on a blog called Sustainably Lazy that explained the whole thing. I immediately switched to a shampoo bar from Lush and have never looked back! 

I've made the mistake of trying to buy my way to sustainability, spending a fortune on organic veg boxes and reusable nappies and fancy matching cloths and zero waste bras (okay, I actually really recommend these, they're from Pethau Bach on Etsy and they're brilliant and gorgeous. They also come in a breastfeeding style, which is what I currently wear) and jute washing up cloths and organic toothpaste and so on and so on, which blew a chunk of my finances and turned out to be completely unnecessary in a lot of cases. You can use old cotton t-shirts for cleaning rags, you don't actually need a colour coordinated set. I've also tried to do the opposite and stop spending any unnecessary moneys ever, but I went too far in my Eco Thrift Crusade and felt like a right joyless old frump; in the end it was a relief to run out and buy some nail polish. So as usual, extremes are counter-productive, at least for me. I push myself too far in one direction or the other and then tend to burn out. 

For a while recently I felt tired of the whole thing - I'd lost any sense of what the point was, and the ever-present temptation of shopping my way to fulfilment (or at least a sort of pleasant-ish numbness) was starting to seem a far more tantalising prospect. Funnily enough, it was my rekindled interest in Paganism (more about this later!) which has revived my interest in green and simple living. I say funnily enough because my previous forays into various Pagan paths have involved purchasing a lot of fancy implements and setting up elaborate altars only to feel disheartened and move on after a couple of months. This time I've bought no athames, pentacles, incense, altar cloths, crystals, divination decks, Goddess statues, wands, runes, singing bowls, ritual robes, goofer dust, crystal balls, besoms, black mirrors, candles or anything else! Instead I've taken my own advice - spent time daily in nature, kept up my meditation practice and done a bit of online research. I came across a description of Druidry that stopped me in my tracks, as it seemed very close to what I've been feeling and experiencing myself. 

I'll need to know more about Druidry before I say for sure, so I need to get my hands on some books and look into it further, but it really seems like a down-to-earth philosophy of living that could add meaningfulness to my environmentally-based choices and depth to my experience of the world. The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids offers a highly recommended correspondence course that I'm intrigued by, not least because you're assigned a mentor whom you can plague with questions (Dai can attest to the fact that I'm full of annoying spiritual questions right now). I've also been reading some Druid blogs (Druid blogs!) and, well, isn't it great when you find someone else articulating things you've been thinking and feeling? 

So that's where I'm at right now. Imperfectly green but doing my best, intrigued by Druidry, excited by possibilities (and overfond of parentheses). 

Ways I'd Like To Rejig Society (or, Unfucking A Couple of Things That Are Fucked)

I had a strange and memorable conversation with a dear friend a few years ago. We were talking about cosmetic companies testing their products on animals. Awful, she said, disgusting. Shouldn't be allowed. 

So, you check the labels when you buy make-up, then? To make sure it's cruelty free?

Oh no, she said with a brisk shake of the head. Can't be bothered with all that.

I think this illustrates the way a lot of people feel about this and other related issues - animal testing, food production, sweatshop factories, poverty and hunger, forced labour and modern slavery, climate change, mass extinction. Sure, we know there's a problem, and in general we think this stuff shouldn't be happening. But... the way we live is so easy. So comfy. Let's just draw a discreet veil over all the stuff we wish wasn't happening so that we can just carry on the way we are.

This is why I believe that, unlike economics, sustainability needs to apply from the top down. If new standards for businesses, new legislation, were to exist, the choices available to the everyday consumer could be made less damaging. It's easy to choose cruelty free when all of the options are cruelty free. You don't need to check your labels for the leaping bunny when cruelty free and sustainable is simply the default. 

I'm not really sure why FairTrade, cruelty free, organic and eco friendly options are still considered a bit niche, and items made by desperate people in horrific conditions using toxic chemicals are the acceptable norm. I hope to see this change - really change - within my lifetime.

Some people may feel a sense of resistance to the idea of having their options for consumption limited. We are used to choosing from a vast menu of options for everything - from wedding dresses to peanut butter - and we don't really want this to change. But who would knowingly choose children's toys containing lead and mercury, or a plastic lunch box that potentially releases carcinogens into your food? To say nothing of the hazards for the people who have to make such things. In his book Consumed, Benjamin Barber writes, "We are seduced into thinking that the right to choose from a menu is the essence of liberty, but with respect to relevant outcomes the real power, and hence the real freedom, is in the determination of what is on the menu."

Businesses and governments love to put the onus for change on the individual consumer, rather than accepting any limitations on their greed and rapacious behaviour. But no one individual can do everything, even if they felt inclined, when as we have seen, many simply aren't interested in doing things that aren't easy. In a world where we still have to employ people to pick up litter thrown on the ground, we can't expect every individual to make every choice for the good of the whole planet. And adding more and more green choices to the smorgasbord of options already available can't be the answer on its own - as Annie Leonard notes in The Story of Stuff, "It's simply not possible to get 100 percent agreement from nearly 7 billion people on any issue, and our ecological systems are on such overload, that we simply don't have time to try. Imagine if we had had to wait for 100 percent consensus before getting women the vote or ending slavery: we'd still be waiting."

I believe that we can build a less environmentally destructive, more equitable society. I also believe that as things currently stand, we need legislation to help us do so. 

Similarly, when we talk about sustainability - or, more to the point, when our so-called leaders talk about sustainability - the emphasis is always on preserving the status quo. As John Michael Greer demonstrates in the introduction to his book Green Wizardry, "Consider the endless bickering over the potential of renewable energy in the media and the internet. Most of that bickering assumes that the only way a society can or should use energy is the way today's industrial nations use energy. Thus you see one side insisting that windpower, say, can provide the same sort of instantly accessible and abundant energy supply we're used to having [...], while the other side - generally with better evidence - insists that it cannot. 

"What inevitably gets missed in these debates is the fact that it's entirely possible to have a technologically advanced and humane society without having electricity on demand from sockets on every wall across the length and breadth of a continent. [...] What stands in the way of this recognition is the emotional power of today's ideology of progress, with its implicit assumption that the way we happen to do things must be the best, or even the only, possible way to do them."

Imagining other ways of living can be uncomfortable, even scary. This, I suspect, is how a lot of people feel with regards to the idea of buying less. It's a limitation. A sacrifice. A loss of freedom. Naturally, we chafe against even the idea of restraint. We are so used to having whatever we want, preferably immediately, that alternatives seem dismal, frightening, unpatriotic. Certainly I have felt that way, even though my attempts to buy less have increased my resilience, self-esteem, appreciation and contentment almost from day one.

Ultimately, however, these are the changes we need to make - as a society, we must learn to consume less, waste less, and cooperate more. Because we have already done damage to the Earth, our home, through our current mode of living, and as this century wears on and the results of that damage become ever more apparent, we will need to adapt if we wish to survive. 

Up until fairly recently, I've been frightened of these changes. Dreading them. I couldn't picture what a society might look like that could weather the future and the crisis we face. However, John Michael Greer's Green Wizardry, with its discussion of appropriate tech, made me feel far more hopeful. And if you'll forgive me referring once again to The Story of Stuff, I found much to be optimistic about in Annie Leonard's description of her living situation, which I would very much like to emulate:

 "It's really just a bunch of good friends who chose to live near one another - really near, like next door. We find life easier and more rewarding because we focus more on building community than on buying Stuff. We share a big yard; we often eat meals together; but each family has its own self-contained home into which we can retreat when we want to be alone."

In Leonard's community, even watching TV is something that people generally do together. Stuff is shared between families so less resources are used on buying new items. Services are shared too - plumbing, cooking, babysitting, repairs, carpooling. (I WISH I had had this as a new mum.) If someone is sick, the community steps in again for rides to the doctor, childcare, even bringing flowers. 

If we could shift to a society set up like this, we could buy less and lose nothing.

Some Stuff My MP Doesn't Want Me To Tell You

There's some stuff I've been wanting to get off my chest for a while, so buckle up. 

Last year I spoke to my MP on Zoom about the climate emergency. It was hard to get a word in edgeways as he graciously allowed that he might upgrade his car from a hybrid to a fully electric model, and boasted about his heat pump boiler system (I'd recently contacted my council representatives about the possibility of installing heat pumps in public parks, to be told that the government had helpfully introduced legislation to make this an impossibility. I told my MP about this and he quickly changed the subject). 

After fifteen minutes of this smug waffle in my half hour time slot, I got a bit annoyed and suggested that I didn't feel the government is treating the climate EMERGENCY with the appropriate amount of urgency. (You know, where they encourage us all to buy electric cars and use bags for life whilst also trying to open new coal mines, and trying to fund new fossil fuel projects in Mozambique that would produce enough greenhouse gas emissions to, oh yeah, kill us all. With taxpayers' money, by the way. I didn't say that bit, though, I don't think the Mozambique thing had happened yet.)

The MP's eyebrows shot up his ruddy, pork-pie face and he started on about how we don't want to scare the public. I pointed out that 'the public' are going to be pretty scared when food shortages start in this country, which Extinction Rebellion predicts could be as soon as a couple of years. He didn't have a lot to say about that, other than to caution me again about scaring people.

We're not supposed to talk about the state of the world today. It scares people. It makes them uncomfortable. It puts them off their tea and biscuits.

Except, not talking about it isn't going to lead anywhere good. If we can't look at the problems, if we can't discuss the problems, how in hell are we going to do anything about them while we still have time?

The MP said that change needs to come from the individual consumer. That's you and me. Not governments, not banks, not corporations, not big business and energy companies, but the little people. 

This made me feel deeply uneasy. I hope these opinions were representative of this MP only, not the whole government, as it made me suspect that when the world is past saving, and the people are in the streets demanding to know why more wasn't done, the whole bloody lot of them might just shrug their shoulders and slope off to their bunkers mumbling something about "Well, it's your own fault for buying so many disposable straws."

This was a bit startling to me, as I had been assuming that the people in charge were largely rational and would be stepping in to help any minute now. This was the first time I got a look at the mindset that prioritises profit over people, and wants to preserve the status quo - unrelenting economic growth - over all else and at any cost.

 

It's a little concerning if the UK government thinks that our beeswax wraps and moon cups are going to save the world when 71% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by just 100 companies. That's right, companies, not countries. Businesses and their investors are doing the majority of the damage to our ecosystem and, oh yeah, killing us all. Sit with that one for a moment.

I posted about all this on Facebook once, and was surprised to find that a good few people still think that the climate crisis is a big hoax. I've agreed that in ten years' time, if they're right and we're all still alive, I'll buy them a pint. Inwardly, I found it difficult to understand a point of view based on completely dismissing fifty or so years of scientific study from assorted geniuses across the world.

But okay, let's leave aside the changing climate for just a moment. We're still in the shit, in a variety of disturbing and terrifying ways. And still nobody is talking about it. We're talking about TikTok and television and the weather, but we don't generally like to look directly at the fact that our lifestyles cannot logically continue as they are today. 

So here's a few more things you may not have known about:

- We get the metals and minerals for our cars, phones and other gadgets - and our jewellery - largely from open-pit mining. Environmental issues aside, this is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and children are doing it. Also, rocks don't grow back. Future generations will not have access to these minerals, so unless we change our technology and vastly improve our recycling (and stop upgrading our gadgets every two minutes), we will reach a point when we can't actually manufacture any more.

- I don't know about you, but I've never really thought much about these metals and minerals and where they come from, or how. Let's just hit a couple of the highlights. One gold wedding ring creates 30 tons of toxic waste, and cyanide is often used in its production to remove the gold from the ore. Generally nobody is cleaning up this cyanide afterwards and it just sits around in pools, leaching into waterways. So that's nice.

- Did you know that the release of the PlayStation 2 helped fuel and fund a war in the Congo? Coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of the games console - as well as laptops, phones and other such devices - became suddenly extremely valuable when Sony released the PS2, and rebels and militia troops from neighbouring Rwanda, as well as Western-based mining companies, forced children and prisoners-of-war to mine the 'black gold' in dangerous conditions. It's estimated that as many as 40% of coltan miners are children.

- There is enough food being produced in the world to end global hunger. It's not that we don't have the food. It's not that we don't have the money to distribute it. It's... just not happening.

- The one where Shell had nine activists killed following a sham trial. Or the one where Shell used a military police force against peaceful protesters and eighty people ended up dead, their bodies dumped in a river. There are actually more examples, yet this company with blood all over its hands just keeps on truckin'. Consequences? What are those?

- Disney's merchandise is made in sweatshops. Child labour, again. Workers are beaten, sexually harassed, and in some factories, forbidden to speak. It makes me sick that my child's Winnie the Pooh clothing was made in squalid conditions for pathetic pay by someone else's children. In 2018, Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, earned $66million. I say earned because I don't know the word for money made from the blood and sweat of impoverished people.

- The price of the average cup of chain-brand coffee could provide malaria medicine for six children in India. But again, because of the unequal spread of wealth and resources, this isn't happening, so we go on drinking our caramelattes while other people's kids die from preventable disease.

- On the topic of preventable disease, one hundred thousand children per year die of dysentery because they don't have access to clean water. If you're wondering what that's like, you might find out. Water shortages are predicted within some UK counties within the next decade or so, as our own natural water reserves are becoming too degraded, depleted and polluted to sustain us. Southern Water is looking at building a desalination plant in the Portsmouth area to treat sea water for human consumption. Which is great for us, but a bit shit for all the plants and wildlife that also depend on those polluted natural waters. Good job we don't need trees to breathe or anything! Oh, wait...

- On the topic of preventable disease once again, I don't know if you've noticed any pandemics lately, but if you missed the last one, there'll probably soon be more on the way due to our revolting factory farming practices. 

- One hundred species are going extinct every day, mainly due to deforestation. One. Hundred. Species. A day. 

- Do you know where we derive much of our medicine from? Lifesaving leukaemia drugs, for example? Quinine, another example? Oh yeah, that's right, plants from the rainforest. Imagine what other lifesaving drugs we could have found by now if we were preserving them instead of bulldozing them into clear-cut oblivion. Just a thought. We've analysed roughly 1% of rainforest species for their beneficial properties. We're destroying the rest, apparently. 

Do you find pandemics scary? Do you find food shortages and polluted water uncomfortable?

Me too. I think it's a sign of sanity.

I don't have the answers. I do know that we can't continue to deplete the earth's finite resources, or keep treating people and animals like commodities - or worse - to make stuff that ends up in the bin (for examples, see the shelves at your local Poundland or B&M). I know that we don't solve the problems by ignoring the problems. 

I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable. But I hope I am. I do believe that the big changes we need to overhaul this unfair, violent system need to come from governments and world banks and big business, but I'm also faced with the reality that they aren't going to make those changes until and unless they have to. That means we need to speak up. We need to hold them to account. We need to point out the problems and keep pointing them out until something is done about it. We need to do the boring legwork - the 'clicktivism', the petitions, the letters, the emails, the protests, the boycotts - we need to vote with our wallets, we need to raise our children to care for the planet rather than seeing it as a collection of resources to exploit. We need to stop waiting for someone else to do it. 

I'm sorry to break the news to you that Disney aren't good guys! I don't like it either! 

I know you're tired. I know you're busy. I know you'd rather not think about it. There is so much work to do. There are so many problems, and they're all interconnected - women's rights and racism and child labour and war and poverty and deforestation and air pollution and palm oil and about a million more 'ands', and it's so easy to feel disheartened and helpless. And nobody wants to be accused of being 'shrill' or 'too serious'. 

But the first step is talking about it.

We need to start talking about it.

This post was heavily inspired by Annie Leonard's book The Story of Stuff. Please do read it, if you're able. There's a lot of stuff that's shocking, but there's also a lot of reasons to be hopeful, and ideas for how we can change and what we can do. 

Instagram, Eco-Anxiety and Shopping Addiction: An Evil Tag Team

In June last year, I started taking more baby steps towards the kind of life I was dreaming about. I hadn't even particularly realised, until I started reading back through my journals looking for blog material, how my life had started to change since I quit overshopping. I tried to explain it to Dai the other day, but I'm not sure I managed to express myself terribly well. I had kind of been hoping that the uptick in my sense of wellbeing and my growth in self-esteem was noticeable to people around me, but I think perhaps it has been more of an internal shift.

Although I wasn't necessarily aware of it at the time, I was starting to experience for myself the truth of Kyle Chaka's words about beauty being found in contingency and randomness, such as when I started picking up books from local community libraries and free book shops, which were springing up around my hometown like dandelions as people sought entertainment and connection during the pandemic. I deliberately chose books that looked interesting, but which I would likely have dismissed previously as 'not my genre'. It was really exciting to be open to possibility and expand my horizons in such a small and gentle way. 

On sunny afternoons we went foraging, and we ended up with so much homemade elderflower cordial that we were able to distribute bottles amongst family and friends. I was becoming aware of a new contentment, a peace of mind that I could never have purchased. I felt more connected to my loved ones - gift-giving had become a source of pleasure and joy rather than stress - and my enjoyment of nature and the outdoors was reaching new heights.

As the lockdown restrictions eased, my mum emailed me a special offer from Travelodge - budget prices from July, so I booked three days in the village of Glastonbury, one of my favourite places, for me, Dai and the Spud.

Towards the end of June, through my work with Greenpeace I ended up taking part in the Climate Coalition's The Time Is Now mass virtual lobby, for which I had to take part in a Zoom meeting with my MP (he's a prick). The day before the meeting I was shitting a brick - I'd actually initially chickened out of setting up a meeting but then decided I'd better walk my talk. I made a page of notes from Greenpeace's briefing and asks, and I was very glad that I had, because in the event, of the twenty people in my constituency who had signed up to attend, no one appeared but me! (One other lady tuned in twenty minutes late; I have never been so glad for the presence of a stranger.)

It was absolutely terrifying. I was shaking, and my voice went really high-pitched, but I delivered the list of asks and managed to mention some quite frightening statistics I had learned about how nature-deprived the UK is compared to the rest of Europe, and the sorry state of our tree cover, and also how lifeless and meek the government seems to be with regards to the climate emergency. The Climate Coalition host sent an email afterwards saying that I and the other lady had done 'incredibly', and that ours was the only meeting where only one person turned up at the start (great...). I was really proud of myself, and glad I'd done it.

In July, the evil tag team of Instagram, eco-anxiety and shopping addiction came barrelling into my life. I'd set up an Instagram account to document my no-buy year - I hoped it would keep me accountable, and it obviously seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn't.

Inspired by my new online community of eco-friends (their word, not mine!) I started trying to radically overhaul our life. Now, I do think that cloth nappies, organic veg boxes, natural cosmetics, growing vegetables, foraging, composting, crafting, bamboo toilet paper, home baking, charcoal water filters, toy libraries, visible mending, natural dyes, bee saver kits and so forth are all good things... However, trying to invest in and do all of these things in the space of a single month exploded my budget and didn't do my peace of mind many favours either. I was also spending a couple of hours each day on Instagram, which brought my mood down without fail. Everything I was doing still didn't feel like enough. At first I enjoyed being part of an eco community, but after a while, every time I picked up my phone I felt like I was being bludgeoned with more things I ought to be doing.

I found it slightly alarming at times that I'd suddenly become this person who cooks and darns things and grows vegetables and gets excited about birds. I'd become the baggy-fleece-wearing sandal-clad make-up-free mum type I would have heaped scorn on as an arsey teenager. Adding the pressure to promote my new lifestyle on social media and also change the world by buying everything marketed as 'sustainable' was overdoing it, and I was soon knocked for six by a vicious migraine, as if to make sure I got the point.

Yes, I was extremely worried - terrified, actually - about the climate. But sustainability isn't simply something you buy, and blowing my recently restored savings wasn't going to save the human race all by itself (sadly). I do believe in supporting the supply chains that try to do good things and mitigate the bad, but I also believe in buying less. And I didn't want to undo the positive changes in my own life that had been wrought simply by shopping less. 

So I got Dai to change my Instagram password, and deleted the app. I tried to go easy on myself - I didn't screw up the environment by myself, and I can't magically fix it either.

And we went out foraging for blackberries and elderberries to make our first wine. I wanted to stay anchored in the world around me, the world that over the last few months had filled up with colour, as if I was coming back to life instead of just getting out of my own head.

Budgeting and Birthday Treats

In September 2019, with a full, if slightly bizarre wardrobe and a tired heart I turned my mind to the next quandary - how was I going to keep my financial ship afloat? The state of my bank account was horrific - I was now worse off than before I started the challenge. It was time to dedicate myself to the pursuit of frugality.

Tightening the Belt

Firstly and obviously, I made sure to return as many of my recent purchases as I could. I kept two pairs of jeans from Topshop, a dress and top from Zara, and the lipstick. The rest went back.

I put a date in the diary for a clothing swap party with my friends. I didn't expect to have much to contribute, but it seemed like a nice non-spendy way to get together. 

Dai and I looked at ways we could tighten up the family food budget. Instead of buying baby meals and 'ping meals', my former staples (I could barely boil an egg), I got a Jack Monroe budget cookbook from the library and started learning to make simple, healthy food that we could all eat together. Cooking was more pleasurable than I had anticipated, and soon became a new creative outlet, and I took up baking bread as well. Simple swaps that may seem obvious to you were to me a revelation - my £2.49-a-week cereal exchanged for a hefty 75p bag of porridge oats - porridge was twice as filling and lasted me three times as long.

Once I'd started to see a difference, saving money became addictive. I breathed down Dai's neck as we trailed the aisles in Aldi, making sure we got the cheapest products per kilo. I switched our energy and internet providers for better deals and moved my savings to higher interest accounts. I even cancelled Netflix (on the understanding that we would reinstate it if there were to be a new season of Happy). Without a regular income I didn't want to invest in stocks and shares, so instead I started buying premium bonds. I started doing product testing and online surveys for a bit of extra money - it wasn't a fortune, but it was something I could provide for the family coffers whilst still being at home with the little one.

And it worked! The holiday pay came in, making my bank account healthy again - and it stayed. At last, I had turned myself into a responsible adult, able to live within my means. 

Over the next few months, I used the money we saved to save more money - buying reusable cotton cloths for the kitchen and the baby's bum (no more kitchen towels or baby wipes), a safety razor and shaving brush (bye, Gilette), and WUKA period pants (don't even get me started on the price of tampons). Happily, these changes were also better for the environment, and I was pleased with my new, greener way of living.

In the cupboard under the stairs I found a bag - a small bag - of clothes that somehow never made it to the clothing bank, and I was so pleased I almost wept. 

Age

That September I turned twenty-eight. I was finding my late twenties a very different animal than the carefree early twenties, before stretch marks, shortsightedness, the indignity of maternity bras and an onslaught of household bills. Not to mention the unwanted guest at every occasion, the furrow developing between my eyebrows. 

I no longer wanted to wiggle round town in a slip of spandex from Boohoo - or at least when the thought did occur, it was tinged with nostalgia for that apparently-fleeting time when shiny fabric with rather daring cut-outs had actually looked quite good. Last time I'd put false eyelashes on, instead of alluring, I was forced to admit that I looked deranged.

Apart from a growing suspicion that motherhood combined with my natural tendency towards introversion was making me old before my time, I found I was enjoying different freedoms. No, I couldn't now drop everything for a weekend in London on a whim, but I also no longer wanted or needed to present myself as universally desirable, which freed up a lot of time and headspace. Other women were my allies, not my competition. Daily leg shaving and uncomfortable underwear made out of bits of string fell by the wayside, and I really didn't miss them. 

So this birthday, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. This new all-natural version of me, unseduced by the glitz of the department store and the breathless excitement of the mall, who hearkened back to the easy joys of childhood. What kind of things did I REALLY enjoy? In this new shopping-free existence, my pleasures were simple - eating, reading, fresh air, looking at interesting stuff. So Dai and I elected to travel to a nearby town which was holding a flea market.

Somehow, at the time, it genuinely did not occur to me that shopping at a flea market was still shopping. 

An Accidental Ban Break

It was a beautiful day, the sky a cheerful blue over the higgledy-piggledy red roofs, the steam trains puffing industriously into the station of this historic market town. It was pretty and quaint, and we bought coffee and pastries as we wandered the stalls, captivated by doll parts on royal blue velvet and a cross-eyed taxidermy stoat. I bought three ribbons made from recycled silk and reclaimed sari fabric, thinking I could use them to customise, well, something. At some point. Definitely useful, anyway. And ethical! Supporting local businesses, too, I practically deserved a medal.

Please insert your own facepalm emoji here.

In other ways, though, my birthday was a triumph. In the run-up, I hadn't been able to escape thinking about buying this or that for myself as a "birthday treat", a habit I'd started many years ago, and, as with the holiday souvenirs, never since questioned. Dai thought that I should get myself a small treat, ban or no ban, but I had just about made up my mind not to, to confirm to myself that henceforth, I was doing things differently. 

It was also handy to have one or two specific items that I could think of when I was asked what gifts I would like. Because I hadn't been able to buy every item that crossed my path, I had a couple of books and useful items that I specifically wanted.

I also did something else I'd never done before. Usually, I spent all my birthday money on this or that, generally a large luxury purchase I'd been hankering after for ages. Not this time. This time, other than one little blip, I saved it all.

Been There, Done That, Became Weirdly Obsessed With A T-Shirt

I found September challenging in one notable way. Having broken the ban so very spectacularly in August, I was now having immense difficulty in reining in my shopping behaviours. Despite how much I wasn't enjoying it, every day I was back online, checking the new arrivals pages of my favourite stores, or - in a new twist - "researching" ethical brands, to, um, "make sure that I could buy what I wanted in the future, but, you know, from better companies". I was trying to put myself in the path of temptation. Even though I couldn't really afford it, let alone justify it, I was searching for something so beautiful, so right, that surely no one would say I shouldn't buy it.

This was how I discovered The T-Shirt. 

The T-Shirt was made by a small business in an English seaside town I had visited and loved many years ago. It was dyed with environmentally friendly dye and silk-screened by hand with the name of the town, and a quirky print of a trawlerman mending his nets with his trusty dog by his side. In classic British navy blue - flattering on me - and white.

Wow, I thought, that's so me.

But no. I was on a shopping ban. It was not to be. And yet...

It's barely an exaggeration to say that for most of the month my every waking thought was about The T-Shirt. I discussed it, I journalled about it, frankly I obsessed about it. I knew that sticking to the ban would give me more long-term benefits than any t-shirt - I wouldn't be learning anything if I didn't try to stick it out - but every occasion gave me new opportunities to try to get around my own rules. I should never have been browsing t-shirts in the first place. I was setting myself up to fail. 

Between that and the ribbons I felt like I was back at the beginning. One more thing, and then I'll stop. One more thing... And just one more. 

So I started planning a holiday for Dai, the Spud and me for my 30th birthday. I picked a place I had always wanted to visit, but had written off as too difficult, too logistically complicated. I chose Shetland. It gave me something to aim for with my newfound frugality, and also something to focus on other than acquisition. I felt that it was time to have a good hard think about the kind of life I really wanted, because salivating over a t-shirt wasn't it. 

I'd been shying away from doing that because it scared me. Change scared me. Goals scared me. But if I kept putting it off, my life would fly by in a whirlwind of shopping lists, everything worthwhile sidelined in case it was too difficult.

Oh, but that 'little blip' in my saving that I mentioned? 

I bought The T-Shirt.