Someone reading this blog might wonder why I was talking about ethical and sustainable fashion in the blog’s introduction, and then went on to two posts about travel. The answer is simple: because it made sense to me. This trip to Niagara Falls was to celebrate my birthday, and I thought about a lot of things during this trip, and one that came back again and again was that I had to do something, I had to raise my voice. I thought about a blog, and here I am. It was important to me to « open » this blog with the trip that made me start it.
Now, a more serious post:
Since I became aware of the human impact on the environment I looked for ways to change it, asking myself this simple question: what can I do about it?
I already knew the basics rules we all know, turning the tap while brushing our teeth, not taking too long showers, turning off the light when leaving a room… But then I came across blogs like Zero Waste Home (http://www.zerowastehome.com) and Trash is for Tossers (http://www.trashisfortossers.com), and it made so much sense I tried to reduce my plastics consumption. I made the easy change right away : I bought a copper bottle I always carry around, I bought a bamboo toothbrush, I sewed a few shopping bags with fabric I had, I try as much as possible to buy from farmer’s market and use my own shopping bags instead of plastics one you can find there, when I go and visit a museum I take a pamphlet I put back when I leave… But despite all these changes I made in my daily routine, going no waste turns out to be pretty difficult. I am so far from perfect, but I will not stop trying. So in the spirit of not wasting, when I came to New York for 5 months I took with me some make up I had and was not really using to kind of force me to use it, and check if I need it or not. I do not know if it is the New York atmosphere, or just me growing older and (maybe) wiser but it made me realized I actually barely use any makeup. I am already thinking about my return to France and how I am going to manage to fit everything in my suitcase. Years of leaving abroad and going back to France for Christmas and Summer vacation taught me how to evaluate pretty accurately what will fit and what will not, just looking around my room. And clearly, right now a lot of things will not. I plan on selling or donating a bunch of clothes anyway, and I will give body products to my roommates but still. I was thinking that if I could use all my make-up it would be perfect, I would not have to take it back with me to France.
I already knew the basics rules we all know, turning the tap while brushing our teeth, not taking too long showers, turning off the light when leaving a room… But then I came across blogs like Zero Waste Home (http://www.zerowastehome.com) and Trash is for Tossers (http://www.trashisfortossers.com), and it made so much sense I tried to reduce my plastics consumption. I made the easy change right away : I bought a copper bottle I always carry around, I bought a bamboo toothbrush, I sewed a few shopping bags with fabric I had, I try as much as possible to buy from farmer’s market and use my own shopping bags instead of plastics one you can find there, when I go and visit a museum I take a pamphlet I put back when I leave… But despite all these changes I made in my daily routine, going no waste turns out to be pretty difficult. I am so far from perfect, but I will not stop trying. So in the spirit of not wasting, when I came to New York for 5 months I took with me some make up I had and was not really using to kind of force me to use it, and check if I need it or not. I do not know if it is the New York atmosphere, or just me growing older and (maybe) wiser but it made me realized I actually barely use any makeup. I am already thinking about my return to France and how I am going to manage to fit everything in my suitcase. Years of leaving abroad and going back to France for Christmas and Summer vacation taught me how to evaluate pretty accurately what will fit and what will not, just looking around my room. And clearly, right now a lot of things will not. I plan on selling or donating a bunch of clothes anyway, and I will give body products to my roommates but still. I was thinking that if I could use all my make-up it would be perfect, I would not have to take it back with me to France.
But then I watched « The Human Experiment », a documentary about the chemicals put in our everyday life products, such as cleaning products and…make up! Oh my God, I knew there was a ton of shit in cosmetics but having the numbers and the stories of people who actually had their life changed because of that is different. So here I was, looking at my makeup (luckily not the one I bought more recently, organic and cruelty-free), but the one I had brought as part of my own « experiment » about which products I use and which one I do not. And I just feel torn between throwing this make-up which is basically designed to screw up our skin and body, or keeping it to not create waste. I could give it to friends or my roommates but I would feel like giving them a poisoned gif.
I truly believe cruelty-free, vegan beauty products, naturals cleaning products, no waste, vegetarian diet, vegan diet, whole grain diet, palm oil free, ethical, sustainable, eco-friendly fashion, organic, fair-trade, anti-deforestation, wildlife protection… Everything is connected. To me, one can not be completed if we are not paying attention to all of these fights people have around the world.
This is what I want to fight for, all of it. But it is sometimes pretty overwhelming. I am still at the beginning of this journey, there is so much I have to learn, and the hard part is that every time I learn something new it complete something I already knew, or add something and then I have to reevaluate everything I know or thought I knew. We are so deep in a society where everything around us is made to made our life pretendedly easier, we are not used anymore to discuss our own surroundings. Therefore we are not used to questioning it because we take what we know for granted, and each time we learn (when we seek for new, not so « mainstream » pieces of information) it hurts to have to find new points of reference, to readjust ourselves. But once we find our new balance it feels so good, we never question the worth of it!
I wonder if it gets easier with time, once you have all the information, if having all the pieces of information is even possible. Every day scientists, activists, researchers find new evidence that our modern way of living is actually slowly but surely killing us, killing our planet, killing animals, plants, everything, There is probably so many new discoveries to be made in the next years, we will always have to readjust ourselves, it will not be easy, but isn’t that the only way of survival, adaptation? #Darwin
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