Green as a Thistle

Dear Mr. Baird,

Please be more like this guy. He just published the UK’s first ever climate change bill, then went all hipster with it on You Tube, and he has two blogs! On top of this, he has apparently used three-word alliterative phrases 309 times in his debates — no wonder everyone loves him.

Yours greenly,

Vanessa.

As I’ve said before, I love being green but hate to compromise style. This is why, when I ran out of handwash today, I restocked with Method. On the green front: it’s made with naturally derived, biodegradable ingredients, recyclable plastic and isn’t tested on animals. On the style front: it’s designed by slickster Karim Rashid (who, on the local front: also happens to be Canadian! … OK, technically he was born in Cairo … All right, and he may or may not live in New York now … but close enough!).

It retails for around $4, which is pretty reasonable for handwash. I find that it doesn’t lather up that much, but spreads around easily and feels like it’s getting the job done. The people behind the brand are a little kooky — they have this whole “people against dirty” campaign, which creeps me out for some reason — but they seem nice enough.

Best of all, though, is that you can get this stuff everywhere, so no need to go digging in the dusty aisles of that alternative health store with the semi-comatose cat in the front window.

*Update: Jessie Jane has a great comment on this post. “My favorite thing about Method,” she says, “is the story my boyfriend heard the CEO tell at one of their corporate meetings — apparently he came home one day to discover his infant daughter had drunk almost a whole bottle of the surface cleaner (apparently it tastes as good as it smells). They took her to the hospital, but aside from a brief tummy ache she was just fine, no stomach pumping necessary.”

Yes, you could always get that door fixed… OR, you could get yourself a funky chicken doorstop! (If you live in England, that is — otherwise, that’s rather a lot of airplane fuel and packaging for a single wonky door, no?) Each one is made from reclaimed vintage fabric and comes flat-packed, so you just undo the zipper, pour in your favourite organic, locally grown rice and throw ‘em down.

The folks at refab also offer psychedelic snake draught excluders (a fancy British way of saying cold-stopper), in case you can’t be bothered to properly insulate your house, either; they’re pre-filled with buckwheat husks.