I fell in love with Suki Skincare when I tried their Lemongrass cleanser/exfoliant (I don’t even really use an exfoliant regularly, but the smell was so heavenly and my skin was so baby-like, I was smitten). What’s more, Suki products are void of all those scary ingredients (parabens, phthaltes, SLS, petrolatum, and so on), packaged in easily recycled glass containers, and with care given to the environment through all aspects of production, manufacture and distribution. In other words, a company with a conscience. A clean conscience.

So when I learned recently that Suki Kramer is equally smitten with The Virtuous Consumer…well…it made me giddy. According to Kramer, featured in the August 2009 issue of Body+Soul (incidentally one of my favorite reads), my book is on her bedside table, along with the Eco-Chick Guide to Life and The Green Beauty Guide, two equally awesome books.

I’m thrilled to be in such great company and sharing a vision of a greener future (in which my skin glows, courtesy of Suki’s lemongrass cleanser). Nirvana!

A few years ago, our dog, Chloe, suddenly and mysteriously started losing control of her hind-quarters. She would fall over. Or trip on a step. She always looked a bit baffled by this, like she couldn’t quite figure out why her body wasn’t cooperating. We returned to our vet, who was equally baffled. We decided to wait it out and see if it improved.
In the meantime, I shared Chloe’s plight with a dog-loving friend who was increasingly interested in holistic and natural rearing of dogs. She was active on a Web-based “dog” board and had been fielding a lot of questions related to dog behaviour and health issues. The more she dug, the more she became convinced that the culprit (or one of them) was over-vaccination of dogs.
She asked me if the symptoms presented themselves roughly three months after Chloe’s rabies vaccination. Yep. Seemed consistent with other stories she was hearing. She continued to research (did I mention this friend is a PhD candidate? Research is her raison d’être.) and was alarmed by her findings, which she talks about at length in a blog post on her own site.

In the meantime, we’ve discussed vaccinations with our vet and opted out of vaccinating our 20-year-old cat, a decision our vet supports wholeheartedly. But with an eight-week-old puppy and a new kitten, we’ve got some serious thinking to do. For our older dogs, the answer seems clear.

Little girls love jewellery. At least my two girls do. And, well-meaning friends and relatives have kept them well-supplied with bling. But just when we thought the costume jewellery aisles were getting cleaned up – thanks to U.S. legislation restricting lead in jewellery – there’s a new metal showing up in Made In China kids’ products that poses potentially a greater threat to children’s health. Cadmium is a naturally occurring element, appearing in tiny amounts in soil. It’s the amount of cadmium that an investigation by Associated Press found in children’s costume jewellery that has health advocates so alarmed. Indeed, some pieces tested contained 91% cadmium by weight, according to this MSNBC article.

Cadmium builds up for decades in the kidneys, making even small amounts potentially dangerous for growing bodies. It’s also a  known carcinogen. And certainly deserves no place in children’s products.

The products were sold at (surprise, surprise!) Wal-Mart, Claire’s and some dollar stores.