Lovin' your oven

It's Thanksgiving crunch time. Who's with me? Come on, don't deny that you're running by a schedule of what needs to happen when, days and hours leading up to the big meal. If you're hosting, at some point or another your oven is going to need cleaning. Maybe you do it before the holiday so that each basting of the bird doesn't come with a fresh dose of embarrassment. Maybe you do it after the holiday to clean away the memory of that exploded pie or the awful glue that we once called green bean casserole.

Whenever you clean your oven, here's a great, chemical-free way to do it. Sure, a lot of ovens have that self-clean feature that basically chars all that sh*t away, but if you're not into babysitting a 700-degree range for 6 hours, this is for you.

It comes from Cha Ching Queen. GREAT name. I don't know where she got the idea, but it's killer. Very Hints from Heloise. My mother had a copy of that book and it was like a Bible for housework. Basically it goes like this:

-- Mix some vinegar and water in a spray bottle.
-- Spray down your funky oven
-- Throw in some baking soda. Toss to coat, as they say.
-- Spray down the whole thing again
-- Listen for the hiss, close the oven door, and gorge on BuzzFeed lists of cute animals while the acid-base reaction of the vinegar and baking soda do all the work.

Are you trying this? You totally should. But even if you don't, take a minute to think about how you do clean your oven. Maybe stop using those cans of toxic, corrosive cleaner, yah?  Do it for Heloise.

Best,
Jazzy

Phthalates have met their match!

Do you follow TED? There was a link in my FB feed last week about these two brilliant teenagers who in 2013 presented on bacteria that can break down plastics! Amazing. Watch here.

My favorite comment on the video is someone who wrote, "where are the trumpets?" Seriously, these girls deserve a LOT of attention for their findings and for the notion that we have the intelligence to put people into outer space, breed wolves into thousands of different versions of a different species, and see through sh*t with x-rays and ultrasound and infrared. But we can't figure out the plastic problem?

Poised and informed, these ladies could probably take their solution pretty far, reducing waste and even applying their science to recycling processes. Who else wants them to save the world? Who's supporting their work (besides their parents)? Isn't in time to stop whining about the damage we're doing to this planet -- and by extension, ourselves -- and take some real action?

In the meantime, phthalates can suck it.

Yours,
Jazzy

Mustache you a question...

Hey there! It's been a while. But things keep on keepin' on, don't they? It's mustache month, where we kick off a long winter by watching our friends and loved ones of the hairier gender grow some serious 'staches to raise awareness (and sometimes some money too!) for prostate cancer. So it's a natural that we'd take a look at shaving products.

Over at EWG's Skin Deep database, the results aren't surprising. The drugstore brands (Gillette, Skintimate, etc) score pretty poorly, as do products from greener brands such as Kiss My Face and Alba Botanica. The products with better scores are pretty obscure or high-end brands. I recently picked up a tube of the unscented Alba Botanica Very Emollient Cream Shave at Whole Foods, to the tune of $6.99, and the best I can do is a '3' from Skin Deep. Better than the 7s that Gillette's shave products are getting, but at more than three times the price!

GoodGuide has a lot of love for Dr. Bronner's Organic Shaving Gel, giving the top 5 spots in the category ranking to different versions of that product. It's worth comparing how the two databases rank products because they don't rank ingredients in the same ways. The Kiss My Face Moisture Shave is a good example; EWG doesn't like the retinyl acetate but GoodGuide lists it simply as 'vitamin A' with a low health concern. Which is it, folks?

So when your man is ready to shave off the dead animal on his upper lip, don't let him use something harsh and toxic on his skin. Hit up the databases, do your homework, and find a shaving cream that doesn't cause the cancer we're trying to avoid.

Hairlessly yours,
Jazzy