Category: Deliberate Consumption

What I Learned from Today’s Shopping

Posted on Posted in Deliberate ConsumptionTagged

Shopping was an ordeal tonight, and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood. Here’s what I learned:

1. Macy’s is now carrying Made In USA tagged clothing, in hip styles (did I just write “hip”?), in their Women’s department. Cool.
2. Do not go shopping during possibly hormonal times-o’-the-month.
3. Today is not the day to finally give in and realize that yes, indeed, according the the measurements I have, that I’ve known for awhile now, I do actually need to pick a size larger in pants. Yes, I actually have lost weight and have gone down a size, but that just means I was wearing 2 sizes too small. This also doesn’t mean that some things in a smaller size don’t fit, it just means that it really, truly is just a number. I need to go w/ what looks good, and forget that number stuff.
4. Numbers?! Lane Bryant has started a proprietary sizing for their jeans. They require a sales person’s measuring of you, and the numbers don’t correspond to any of the traditional sizing methods. Even better, the styles of jeans can have a different number size for you. And of course, this means, hypothetically, that a size 18 person will wear their size 4. Now, I understand the 1, 2, 3 standing for XL, XXL and XXXL respectively. It doesn’t even correspond to that. I’d really like to understand this at some point.
5. Thanks to a $50 coupon, I bought a bunch of accesory crap. No doubt, Made in China. See #2 for the possible reason for this silly splurge.

Unrelated to today’s shopping, but related to last week’s browsing in neighborhood, I was delighted to find out that Trendy Wendy in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle sells plus size clothing made in America.

And now, to sort stuff and hope to get rid of my tension headache.

96 degrees, and still consuming!

Posted on Posted in Deliberate ConsumptionTagged

This blog is becoming all consumption, all the time, huh? I’m running with a theme, so I hope that my two (maybe three) readers will bear with me.

It’s hot in Seattle today. It’s NYC hot. It’s Chicago hot. It’s so-not-the-Pacific-Northwest hot. My wardrobe is not equipped for this hot. Neither is our apartment. Or our willingness to cook at home. Or even toss a salad at home, at this point.

Before Jon and I leave the house to consume foods made in some nice, air conditioned restaurant, and before I go look for accessories that will make this weather more bearable, I’ll leave you with my clever thoughts on shopping as I was driving home.

The common advice to going grocery shopping is to make a list, and never go grocery shopping hungry. This will avoid buying crap food, and make sure you stick to a budget, and stick to those things you really need, and are really healthy for you. My old grocery shopping style was “go in, see what looks good.” That ended with me consuming a lot of horrible prep-foods, spending lots of cash, and eating poorly. I’ve gotten better at that, and life is pretty good now.

My clothes/accesories/stuff shopping style is very much the “go in, see what looks good.” I’ve gotten better at not impulse buying, but my decision making process could use some fine tuning. It occured to me today that maybe I should make a shopping list for all this other stuff I consume.

Example:

eyeshadow (two colors, pink and purple, not to shiney)
lip color (medium tone, brown base)
skirt (black, A line or similar, conservative style, medium length)
shampoo (color conserving, no horrific scent)
3 work shirts (short sleeved, buttons optional, easy laundering ,fun colors)
cropped pants (black and khaki, business wear)
sunscreen

Budget for all these things: $175

Now that’s not a real list, but it’s what I’m proposing to myself for my next round of shop-o-rama. Instead of hoping that I can get what I want for a low price, and accepting the price I pay for whatever I choose, going in with a budget and a mission, and not buying what’s not on the list.

And NOT going shopping when I’m trying to just satiate an emotional need.

So with that, as I sweat through my clothing … I’m going to eat and shop.

Keep cool out there!

This Week in Consumption

Posted on Posted in Deliberate ConsumptionTagged , , ,

My friend Kalki, who lives in the NYC area, was giving away some beauty products and offering them to whoever wanted them. Having some of my own half-used beauty products laying around the house, I offered a swap instead of a one way send. What I ended up getting was Bed Head Brunette Goddess shampoo and conditioner (smelling strongly of fake brown sugar) and Kiehl’s Herbal Toner with Mixed Berries and Extracts and Ultra Facial Moisturizer (she also sent me a grab bag of other things). In return, I plan on sending her some left over Aveda Tourmaline Charged cleanser and face cream – both seem to be too heavy for my skin.

Trading left-over products seems a lot more eco-friendly than sending them to the trash pile. However, I should likely underline the word seems.

From a recent New York Times article Buying into the Green Movement:

It’s as though the millions of people whom environmentalists have successfully prodded to be concerned about climate change are experiencing a SnackWell’s moment: confronted with a box of fat-free devil’s food chocolate cookies, which seem deliciously guilt-free, they consume the entire box, avoiding any fats but loading up on calories.

My “Thinking Green” makes me feel good — as does many other forms of consumption. I can feel guilty about one thing, and then consume another, and feel like I’ve done something good. I think that the analogy to SnackWell’s is a particularly great one, and it reminds me of Michael Pollan’s essay,
Unhappy Meals:

Consider what happened immediately after the 1977 “Dietary Goals” — McGovern’s masterpiece of politico-nutritionist compromise. In the wake of the panel’s recommendation that we cut down on saturated fat, a recommendation seconded by the 1982 National Academy report on cancer, Americans did indeed change their diets, endeavoring for a quarter-century to do what they had been told. Well, kind of. The industrial food supply was promptly reformulated to reflect the official advice, giving us low-fat pork, low-fat Snackwell’s and all the low-fat pasta and high-fructose (yet low-fat!) corn syrup we could consume. Which turned out to be quite a lot. Oddly, America got really fat on its new low-fat diet — indeed, many date the current obesity and diabetes epidemic to the late 1970s, when Americans began binging on carbohydrates, ostensibly as a way to avoid the evils of fat.

I love that SnackWells is name-checked in these two articles published 6 months apart. Even better, it’s used to illustrate our misguided consumption of stuff. The 20th Century brought us a larger food supply, and cheaper crap for us to fill our houses and spend our hard earned dollars on. All of it is fueled by this ridiculous belief that we have a limitless supply of energy – in whatever form it takes, from energy as fuel for our cars and machines, to keep this stuff easily within our grasp and energy as food, making us and our children wonderfully fat. We can’t STOP consuming and no group making money today really wants us to STOP consuming as much as we do. Of course, I’m happy to be proven wrong on that declaration.

I can’t help but think about a family trip to Disney World a few years ago, when we sat in an air conditioned theatre and engaged in some thought-provoking edu-tainment Ellen’s Energy Adventure in Epcot. Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye (the Science Guy) bring up important points about our waning energy supply. Never fear, though, because in the end, we still have an inexhaustable amount of brain power to think of a solution to the energy crisis.

That is, except when you and everyone else with the brain power to figure a solution haven’t eaten in days, and are away from any clean source of drinking water. (The brain seems to work better when well rested, fed and watered.)

I could go on with regards to this weeks thoughts on consumption, but currently, I have an aching belly from nibbling while baking Lavender Shortbread Cookies and making German Potato Salad for the Fourth. I have, indeed, over-consumed, and the day isn’t even done yet.

Have a happy and safe Independence Day. Make a point to exercise a civil liberty today.

Toner, part 2

Posted on Posted in Deliberate ConsumptionTagged , 1 Comment

A couple of weeks after I swore off purchasing toner, and a week after I ran out of my trusty Aveda toner, my skin broke out. Was it the cause of no-toning? I highly doubt this, and instead attribute it to a hormonal flux. However, my skin felt greasy and unhappy, and going for the emotional need vs. physical need, I bought Earth Science Clarifying Herbal Astringent. I chose this toner after looking at a whole host of options, with price being a concern, and recognition of ingredients being the other. Drug store options were right out (aside from the standard Witch Hazel, which is available not in the cosmetic section, but in first aid.) I ended up going into PCC (a local food coop) and looking at the familiar bottles of “natural” potions. I wanted to avoid alcohol in my toner/astringent, so that put some of the more natural of the natural right out. I remembered liking Earth Science in the past, and I found it included vinegar, which a previous commenter had recommended. I was sold with these ingredients:

Purified Water, Witch Hazel Extract, Glycerin (vegetable), Apple Cider Vinegar, Sage Extract, Rosemary Extract, Horsetail Extract, Cucumber Extract, Sea Kelp Extract, Peppermint Extract, Panthenol, Sulfur, Camphor, Sodium PCA, Zinc Sulfate. Sorbic Acid, Grapefruit Seed Extract, Allantoin, Hyaluronic Acid, Ascorbic Acid, Fragrance, Cellulose Gum, Annatto Extract.

I find the toner to be refreshing – which is just NICE sometimes. Also, it doesn’t seem to have done my skin any harm, which is also a plus.

In my brief Google searches, I haven’t found where Earth Sciences (or it’s parent, Earth Essentials, Inc) come from, other than perhaps California. Perhaps it is in the same category as Kiss My Face — relatively harmless face and body care, small company, American based, etc. I’ll continue to look.

Breaking the Fast of Asian Goods

Posted on Posted in Deliberate ConsumptionTagged

In a few hours, I am heading to the Amtrak station to meet some friends and get on a train to Portland for the weekend for a wedding. This is not just any wedding, though, this wedding includes a costume party, where participants are requested to dress as their favorite mythical animal. For ease, I chose to dress as a fairy, figuring I could just add wings. However, not being able to leave well-enough alone, I bought some additional items as well.

I found that in a costume store, “Made in China” could practically be stamped on the entire store. My wings, lovely, sheer black and sparkly, cost under $10 and came from China. The spinning, “Sailor Moon” style wand that I wanted to purchase, turned out to be broken, but had I purchased it, it would also be from China. The only item that was not made in China, was a mask, which was made in Italy.

Being out the necessary blinky, I went on a quest to find a wand with an LED spinner. I checked out Claires in the mall, which was horrifying, then Toys R Us, which was similarly horrifying — the smell of latex and plastics was nearly overwhelming, and it was desolate, not the overbrimming aisles of my youth. I went up to a woman who was likely in her 50’s, but looked like she was attempting 34. I asked her about the wand, and she didn’t much understand the word “wand,” and I was having even less luck with “Sailor Moon.” Finally, I get up to the register and look for someone helpful, and just as I think, “If only there was a geek around here…” a guy at the register pops into view. I caught myself — I don’t want to be making snap generalizations about people based on their physical appearance. I picked up a recent find while I was at the registers, a very masculine-looking glowy, spinny wand with polygonal casing. I showed it to the gentleman, and asked my question again, and said the magic words, “Sailor Moon” and then aside, “Do you know what I mean?”
Continue reading “Breaking the Fast of Asian Goods” →