Style | 07/01/2009 11:00 am

The Simple Green Guide to Beauty

These eco-friendly beauty tips will help you – and Mother Earth – maintain your charm.

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Since we first applied our mother’s lipstick in grade school, most of us have spent a small part of every day applying – and re-applying – an array of beauty products. What we don’t know is that every time we polish our nails or secure our hair with hairspray, we might be doing damage not just to Mother Earth, but to our own health. So, to help maintain our looks – as well as the beauty of Mother Earth – here is wowOwow’s simple green guide to beauty.

Have more green beauty tips? Tell us your eco-friendly advice below and we’ll feature it in a future slide show.

Read more about: Beauty, Cosmetics, Environment, Green, Hairstyles, Health, Makeup, Mother Earth, Skin, Style

30 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

PS: in re Olive Oil, I’ve taste tested it even in WalMart here … amazinginly, but joyously, most of it imported here now is from Spain since the Italian crops took a dive. It still ‘pays’ to check it out here before buying it for salads, etc.; not so much for that used in cooking … however.

I have physician from Spain who has been most helpful with the Spanish culinary joys of mine.

By C jay on 07/05/2009 8:30 am

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Wow. I can’t for the life of me figure out what this fruit is. About the only fruit I’ve seen here that is commonly eaten (and in season now) that I had never encountered before is medlar fruit (at least that’s the translation my dictionary gives). In Spanish, it’s known as níspero, but I’ve never heard of a talc being made from this fruit and it isn’t stone hard, though it does have several large hard pits on the inside. Quince (membrillo) is quite popular in the fall and they make a solid quince jelly from it that is eaten with fresh cheese. It is a hard fruit, but, again, this talc thing is completely new to me. Do you know the fruit’s name? Spanish olive oil (extra virgin) is out of this world. I live in an area with lots of olive trees and only buy denomination of origin olive oil, in this case, from Siurana. The stuff is liquid gold – for the inside as well as the outside.

By Elizabeth Parrish on 07/05/2009 9:56 am

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You are indeed fortunate! My mouth is watering!

I’ve searched the Internet for this talc process, and the name of the fruit (it is not edible) to no avail. Someone will chime in with info on it, I bet. If not, I’ll keep looking.

I saw some reference to an inedible pod from some olive trees, and this was in that region. However, I heard about it in the south of France when I was there, too, and later, back home learned it was also made in Mexico, but again, it’s very expensive (the talc itself), and sold directly to purchasers who can afford it. I had some, and brought it back with me, too. Darn it.

This will drive me nuts until I … well, I’ll look at the map of that train route and maybe I can find it that way.

By C jay on 07/05/2009 11:30 am

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When you wrote that the fruit was not edible, it got me to thinking. It’s not unusual to find pods of carob beans on the ground here and that particular tree is typical of the Mediterranean. (In Spanish, the fruit is called garroba or algarroba. Typically it’s used as animal feed.) I had always thought of carob as a substitute for chocolate that you sometimes find in health food stores, but a quick search on the internet turned up references to carob and talc, though I would imagine we’re talking about an artisanal product that is not widely available.

By Elizabeth Parrish on 07/05/2009 3:46 pm

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Send me that link, Elizabeth. Perhaps I can backtrack from there. ;-)) Smartee!

By C jay on 07/05/2009 5:39 pm

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More than a specific website, what I found were references to carob and talc when I did a search on google.es using “talco de algarroba.” My guess is that this is a locally produced artisanal product – and difficult to find! ¡Suerte!

By Elizabeth Parrish on 07/06/2009 8:37 am