An Exception-Hygiene Products: Do your Research

Throughout this Compact Challenge, we have been abstaining from unnecessary consumption, yet the rules also have exceptions. There are purchase exceptions, one of which is hygiene products. This obviously makes sense since no one would want, sell, or buy used hygiene products, but when looking at the many options available, which ones do we choose? During a depression people often change their habits and once the depression is over, some new habits they adopted remain unchanged. The changes I have experienced have mainly been in regards to my hygiene products. For example, when thinking about toothpaste, my mother always told me the toothpaste my grandparents used was simply baking soda and water. Yes, modern dental hygiene has dramatically increased but is that because of new dental hygiene habits like brushing three times a day and flossing regularly, using mouthwash and more, or is it because of new additives to our products. Fluoride makes up at least 20% of most toothpaste products, and it is given to children when they visit the dentist to strengthen their teeth. Fluoride has even been added to our tap water throughout the US, with Davis being an exception. I will not divulge into the history of fluoride, but there is a bit of controversy over whether it is safe and whether it is necessary. Personally I do not believe in using it in my toothpaste every day so I did my research and found out that Trader Joe’s has their own brand of toothpaste that is fluoride free, which I have been using for the past couple of months. If you would like to read more about the history of fluoride and some of the controversy surrounding it, please check out this book on Google Books, entitled The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson. I think it is important that everyone takes a little time to do some research on their favorite products, especially the products we use every day, sometimes more than once a day because what is in these products affects our body in most likely higher than normal doses. Another hygiene product that I have recently changed is the soap I use. For example, normally I would wash my hands with SoftSoap, regular or antibacterial, and upon looking at all of the ingredients I notice they are mainly chemicals I have never heard of, nor do I know their exact purpose. On the other hand, Trader Joe’s also sells a form of Castile Soap, which was a natural form of soap before corporations began manufacturing soaps with chemicals in them that revolutionized the 1950s. The Peppermint Castile Soap Trader Joe’s sells has ingredients like coconut oils, olive oils, peppermint oils(for scent), and others that are easily understood. Oprah has a short list of “Green Cleaning Recipes” including a window cleaner, all purpose spray, and veggie cleaner spray, which can substitute for some of the chemicals we use around our house like Windex and Clorox products. Castile soap is an ingredient in a few of these recipes. So how do hygiene products relate to a fashion class? Well we have learned from Kawamura that fashion is much more than clothes and includes our body as well. Also, Mai Yamani in his except found in our reader entitled “Changing the Habits of a Lifetime: The Adaptation of Hejazi Dress to the New Social Order,” clarifies the definition of dress by saying “moreover, dress includes a long list of possible modifications such as coiffed hair, coloured skin, pierced ears and scented breath as well as garments, jewellery, accessories. Furthermore, as Barnes and Eicher in their book Dress and Gender (1992) explain, dress is not only visual, it may also include touch, smell and sound. In short, the dress of an individual is an assemblage of modifications of the body and/or supplement to the body” (55). So dress includes a person’s skin, breathe scent, body scent, etc. which most of us produce through the hygiene products we use on a day to day basis. Modifications to our body can be done through hygiene products and their effect on us. As for the alternative products listed above, I am not promoting the purchase of these items to everyone reading this blog, but I am merely citing them as examples of uncommon hygiene products that many may not know about since most of the major hygiene products are produced by large corporations. It took me a while to find these products because they are not on the internet since some companies like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods do not list their inventories on their websites, and you cannot find them in major stores that are often very well known and disperse. To find out about these products and others like them physical research needs to be done by actually going to markets and asking questions. My question to everyone reading this is what are the hygiene products you use every day and what are the ingredients used to make them? Are they chemical compounds you cannot even pronounce or pick up naturally in nature, or are they ingredients you can identify and have heard of, which in combination will do the same as the name brand products? A little research never hurt anyone, especially if you are going to be using these products on a mass scale throughout your life. As with soap, our skin is the largest organ on our body and it is porous. What you put on it will in some way seep into the deeper layers, such as lotion which magically disappears when you rub it into your skin, yet the fragrance often remains perceivable. What has your skin just absorbed—a bunch of chemicals to help make you smell attractive? Think about the consequences of your actions in the long run, say ten to twenty years down the road, even fifty. Most cosmetics are not as heavily regulated as other products we consume so take the time to regulate them yourselves and research. Think of it as an investment in yourself.

Heather Crane, Blog #6

Thank you Professor Valverde for a wonderful quarter.

Yamani, Mai. “Changing the Habits of a Lifetime: The Adaptation of Hejazi Dress to the New Social Order.” Ed. Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper and Bruce Ingham. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1997. 57-66.

http://www.oprah.com/article/world/environment/pkggoinggreen/20090422-tows-green-cleaner-recipe

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=q3v_JgjZ6fsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=sodium+fluoride+in+toothpaste,+hitler&ots=N36rjJufIY&sig=13yQoZO5gFaCvFWQnIIzPYATmeA#PPA5,M1

The Compact Challenge: A New Chance at Life

So this week I had a set back as I went to the Dollar-Tree for the first time in what seems like forever in order to pick up some poster board for a group project. Unfortunately, while my group and I were there, I was drawn away from purchasing the necessary items for the project by much more entertaining items like a butterfly catcher, which I bought along with some rhinestones which I have no need for at all! After walking out the door and getting in my car I realized what I had done in my blind shopping frenzy that seemed so innocent but really just about broke every rule in the compact challenge in less than ten minutes. I feel like a drug addict who just relapsed in that I saw a few things there I decided to wait to purchase until later, but that I really want now. Following Dr. Valverde’s advice that we need to be more conscious about the compact challenge, I decided to take drastic action and punish myself by requiring that for every unnecessary item I brought home that day that broke the rules of the compact challenge I would have to choose three times the amount of my personal possessions and give them away to charity. Needless to say this was not as easy as I imagined, considering I could not cheat and simply return the items because the Dollar Tree does not do returns, merely exchanges. I decided clothes would be a good start since I have so many I do not use. To help with my decision I involved one of my roommates who went through a few drawers in my dresser with me and parted all the clothes he had seen me wear with the ones he had not, and then further into piles of clothes I looked good wearing and clothes I did not look good in when wearing them. I found myself making excuses right and left as to why I wanted, nay needed certain articles of clothing, describing this perfect scenario in my head where a particular outfit would be perfect. Brought abruptly back to reality he reminded me that I would rarely if ever find such perfect scenarios and if I did happen to come across one much later in my life (1) what were the odds I would remember and actually wear the particular article of clothing I associated with this scenario and (2) who is to say that I would not want a new outfit or (3) that I would still be able to fit into my old outfit or that (4) it was still fashionable? I agreed and felt like I was on the show “What Not to Wear” where a poor victim is recommended by her friends and they stand there throwing her clothes away, but not before explaining to her how hideous she looked in them. The truth hurts but that is why I needed a true friend to be honest with me. So far in the Compact challenge before this little fiasco I felt confident because I have not been shopping, spending frivolously and I have definitely been re-purposing many of my already consumed items as well as others. Thus I feel that I need to be reminded of some of the things we learned in the second week of class through our readings. In our article “Toward a History of Appearances” by Philippe Perrot, he states “Clothing oneself is not a matter of freely assembling elements drawn from a wide range of possibilities but rather one of arranging components chosen from a limited pool according to certain rules. It is thus a personal act. But at the same time, there is nothing more social than clothing” (6). Although the accumulation of clothing is a simple problem most everyone has and it does not seem as important in the overall message of the compact challenge, the message my friend imparted to me was very similar to what Perrot was saying and does provide a deeper depth to an underlying lesson one can learn from the compact challenge. By getting rid of the clothes that seem to clutter up my life and consume much of my time as I need to constantly take care of them, wash, fold, organize, reorganize, pack and move from one place to another, and by keeping the clothes in which I look my best, feel my best and portray a sophisticated fashionable style, I will have more time to be social and give off a better impression to those who I meet. Before I was “freely assembling elements drawn from a wide range of possibilities” but now I have a “limited pool” (Perrot 6) which allows me to use the time I spent on preserving my burden to maybe take a friend out to lunch, maybe give someone my business card since now I feel my clothes reflect the side of me I want everyone to see. The burden consumption places on all of us is often not felt until after a portion of it has been lifted and now I feel I have a new understanding and new found respect for what the compact challenge is offering us, a chance for a new start in life.

Heather Crane
Blog #4

Perrot, Philippe. Fashioning the Bourgeosie. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. (pg. 3-25)
www.stylenetwork.com
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1329230012?bctid=1717866554