It's Time To Let Your Inner Hippie Out For A Walk

So...I thought with my post about the Shea Moisture line of products that I was coming out as a full blown hippie. But as it turns out, there is a lot more where that came from! So I'm an "extended" breastfeeding, cloth-diapering, cloth wipes, oil instead of lotion, gardening, pesticide free, natural hair kinda girl. I admit to all of that. But somehow I thought all these things made me immune to being a hippie. I even bought my daughter shoes made out of burlap, I should have known then that I had fallen down a deep dark path and am just 1 step away from moving to a commune at this point.

I guess, now that I'm a mom I can call myself an "Eco-Mom" or "Green-Mom". That sounds a lot more young and cool than "hippie." But now I've taken the final plunge. When my free and clear laundry detergent finally ran out this week I looked at the tin of Nellie's Laundry Soap that I've been using for almost 2 years now on my daughter's cloth diapers and thought - why don't I just use that? Why the thought hadn't occurred to me earlier I will never know. Each tiny tin of Nellie's is enough to clean 100 large loads of clothes with just a tablespoon of detergent. I took a sneak peak at my clothes during the wash cycle to see if this stuff really worked and if any dirt was coming out of them at all. To my surprise there was not only dirt and grime floating in the churning water but an shiny film that almost appeared to be oily. I got on the internet and started searching. As it turns out my old free and clear detergent wasn't that free and clear at all. It contained something called optical brighteners and additive to make my clothes look brighter. This stuff was actually embedded into every little fiber of my clothes and my families clothes. The optical brighteners were the shiny swirls I saw floating around with the dirt and grime released from my clothes. And the thing is, after their first wash with Nellie's my clothes actually looked cleaner, smelled cleaner and had a different texture to them. In one wash with Nellie's Laundry Soap my clothes were freed of all the chemicals that had been building up on them wash after wash. I can't believe I was washing my kids clothes in that stuff! I feel so duped by ever being convinced that those free and clear detergents were actually natural.

So call me a Green Mom, Eco Mom, Hippie or one of my friend's new words for me a Bippie (black-hippie). I'll gladly take on any of those titles. My life has been transformed because of them and it feels so good!

This Week's Rating 

Scale of 1-4 Dancing Guinea Pigs 1 meaning it is destined for the compost bin and 4 meaning it is destined for greatness

Vegan Guinea Pig gives it 4 out of 4 Dancing Guinea Pigs

Lil' Guinea Pig gives it 4 out of 4 Dancing Guinea Pigs