On Sunday, July 20 at 10:00 am Kasey and I had the pleasure of attending one of Duross & Langel’s Sunday school classes. The one we attended was called Healing Elements and we were going to be making some balms and salves.

We arrived at Duross & Langel exactly around 10 after our 2 hour drive into the city and were promptly greeted by the stores owner Steve Duross. As we were being led inside I looked around and thought how fun it was to be in a store before opening. The lights were low and the shelves were filled with an abundance of interesting handmade products. There were 3 other women who came in at the same time as us and I remember thinking it was a pretty small class. Steve led us up the stairs to the second floor workshop. I was surprised at how well organized and decorated it was.

A View of the studio back wall.

The windows looking out to the city.

A massive wall of supplies.

The workspace where we created the items.

There were also four other women up stairs so it turned out to be a decent sized class. They like to keep their classes more intimate so I think there are only about 9 or 10 spaces available. Kasey and I put on our savonnier’s aprons and took our places around the large work table. Steve stood in front and began telling us a bit about soap and the processes they use. He also told us about their mission statement and why he began making soaps. It was really interesting for me. I felt a little bad for Kasey because sometimes I think I talk to her to much about that sort of stuff, but she later said she enjoyed it.

Steve told us we were going to be making 3 products that morning. They included: Lavender soap, Belly Balm and Rescue Balm.

We started with the lavender soap. We started cutting up a huge block of Shea butter into cubes and putting them into a pot. There was also another type of ingredient (sadly I forget what it was) that we into strips so we could inbed it into the soap. Then once we had all of one of the Shea butter cut up we turned on the stove and started to melt them down. Then they were poured into a mold and left to set.

Uncut blocks of various butters.

Pouring the soap.

Here it is all ready to set!

Next up was the balms! I thought this part was really fun. There were a lot of different ingredients to mix together and for some reason I enjoy that. Once they were all measured and ready they were placed in a pot and melted together.

After everything was melted together it was ready to pour into the containers. This was the hardest part! I always thought their was a machine to do it, but it’s all poured by hand!

Getting everything together.

Watching the balm melt.

My favorite photo of the day.

Me pouring the Rescue Balm.

Kasey pouring the belly balm.

Afterwards we got one each of everything we made! I had such a lovely time that we signed up to take another class in October!

We shopped a little in the store after the class was finished and I took a few more shots of the store.

First and foremost I am in a contest to win money for rabbit rescues at (my favorite store ever) LUSH. If you could please vote for me and encourage others to do the same I would be forever thankful! Back to our regularly scheduled entry.

Kasey and I have actively been attempting to live our lives a little bit greener. At the same time we have also been striving to make our teeny living quarters more organized and give us the most storage room for our space. These two ideas have been a bit counter productive. As always Target seems to benefit most from our consumerism.

Things we have been doing better for the environment:

1. Trying to buy recycled as much as possible. This includes notebook filler paper, office supplies, etc… I have been avidly reading labels and finding out where everything has come from and what it is made of. I have also been reading up on better renewable resources that are on the rise.

2. Taking shorter showers (shocking!) and using water that is still nice and warm, but not steaming hot. I am also trying to no longer let the shower or sink run while I do my daily business. (You know what I mean.)

3. Washing our clothing in cold water wasn’t hard b/c I already do that to avoid fading and shrinking. I have also been trying to pull clothing out of the dryer when they are still a tiny bit damp (maybe 10 minutes early) and hanging them to dry the rest of the way.

4. We recently switched our cleaning products to Method products that are nicer to the environment and not as harsh.

5. We have now gone officially plastic bag free and we now have a cute collection of reusable shopping bags. It has even been fun to collect the cutest ones we see. We are good on grocery shopping, but we still need to remember to bring them with us when we do other kinds of shopping.

6. We are also now going to strive to bring things that we use: plastic bags we accidentally get, glass bottles, plastic bottle, etc…to the local recycling center.

7. We are going to get organic sheets instead of regular cotton when we replace our sheet set this spring.

8. The shoes I buy from now on will be made from recycled/renewable materials.

Alright. I think that is everything. It’s been oddly easy and actually really enjoyable to research new efficent products to fit into our lives. I always thought being eco-friendly would be so difficult and expensive. I never had the recycling bug. Even when I was younger and most kids were crazy about getting there families to recycle I could care less. It just seems so important to me now.

Things we are having trouble with:

1. We keep buying plastic storage products. I can’t help it! They are so much cheaper than anything else and we really need to have storage in the room or we will both lose our minds. I guess we will just have to make sure these get to a recycling plant after we are done using them so that they don’t get sent to land-fills. Boo.

2. Cleaning = lots of garbage = lots of garbage bags = lots of wasted plastic. I haven’t found a good solution to this yet, but honestly I haven’t really researched it yet.

3. I am drinking out of a Styrofoam cup as I write this. Way to go!

4. Organic cotton/ Bamboo clothing? Great! Available in plus sizes? Not so much. (Unless I want to look like a crazed hippie in a muumuu) I’ll have to look into this further. Still most of my new clothing comes from Bitten at Steve & Barry’s mostly in part to their new sale where everything in the store is $8.95. (Even for jeans!)

5. We still drive a lot and even though we are sharing a car right now (just due to gasoline prices, my car is fine) I know it is something that I wish we had a way around.

I’m feeling better today. I had a nice talk with Kasey and I am just feeling better about a lot of things. Damn depression. Some things are the same, but I just feel better about them. I also found the phone. Now if I could only find my camera charger.

I feel like talking about my body products! Feel free to skip if that sort of thing bores you.

I finally found an alternative to normal deodorant! My armpits have fully healed, but I still didn’t want to use anything with aluminum (which all brands in stores seem to have) and I wasn’t about to use any more from LUSH. I adore them for everything else, but never again deodorant.

While in Philly we stopped in a store called duross & langel. I had been there before. It’s a store owned by a sweet couple who last names are Duross and Langel. Even though they just opened in 2004, they already won Best of Philadelphia and they make all their products by hand upstairs. One of the owners was working when I came in and I talked to him about their deodorants (at the bottom) and he told me which one works best for him and that he is pretty sweaty and doesn’t have a problem! He also makes them personally so he knew everything about them. It was fantastic. At $11 they were a bit more expensive and I didn’t know how long they would last. Still I bought myself Sandelwood Lavender (it was that or Moroccan Cedar, which I will probably buy next time) and I got Peppermint for Kasey because I am equally troubled by her using store deodorants. Two days in and I LOVE this stuff! I will have to keep a little stock of it. Kasey loves hers too and I must say the peppermint scent is quite lovely on her. I can smell it when we cuddle and it’s more of a fresh clean scent than an overpowering deodorant scent. I also noticed that they accept orders online! Woo! I’m too obsessed with LUSH to switch fully, but for deodorant and soap I am switching to Duross & Langel. They have so many scents of soap and they all smell amazing.

I am ridiculously excited about this deodorant. I tried to tell my parents and they couldn’t seem to care less, imagine!

Okay…yesterday’s entry was a total cop out entry, but at least I had something posted by midnight. Truth is when it comes to posting a blog or having sex I am going to choose sex every time.

Now to more pressing matters! I wanted to stop using deodorants that have aluminum in them because I have heard that there are various health risks involved in using them. For those like myself who are nervous about normal medicine risks this is a problem.

Armed with info and already in love with a store that sells more natural body products I went off in search of a safe alternative. First I bought the Aromacreme, but then I read scary reviews about people getting rashes so I set that one aside and bought a different one. This time going with T’eo. At first it went great! Super! I loved my new natural deodorant. It kept me smelling nice all day and I had no side effects. I was happy. Plus the bar was expected to last an entire year. A year! That would mean spending only $9 a year for deodorant. Perfection. I could not have been more pleased.

Then about 3 weeks into use my arm pits started to hurt. I assumed it was because the bar is hard and was scraping my skin a bit at application. I didn’t think much of it. I continued use and didn’t pay much attention. Flash to 4 days ago when I looked in the bathroom mirror after taking my shower. My arm pits were flaming red! I went into the bedroom and showed Kasey and she was shocked. We decided I had to stop using the deodorant right away. I stopped using any deodorant at that time to let them heal and I also started to apply a lavender and chamomile cream to help soothe the skin. Yesterday we took pictures to help show you what I am talking about. Please keep in mind these pictures were taken 3 days after I stopped using the deodorant so they are about 4 shades lighter than in the original.

Pretty right? I am so glad Kasey and I have been together for such a long time that she wouldn’t be grossed out by this.

I am going to continue to put cremes on this to heal it, but I have also been thinking about going to the doctor because it does still hurt. I’ll keep you posted.