Step Into Our Cosmetic Case

Have your cosmetics and/or toiletries melted in their carrying cases yet? We took our makeup bags to the beach last week (not very smart) only to retrieve melted lip balms and spoiled lotions.  

Makeup purses and toiletry containers should be edited frequently. Makeup especially has a short shelf life and using products past their expiration date can lead to infection.

 

Hair and dust builds up easily too – take the time to empty the contents and clean out carrying cases. We vacuum ours! We’re not kidding.

Removing hair from brushes and combs helps significantly. And we love the idea of Windexing (it’s a verb to us) the little mirrors attached to compacts.

 Clean cases with a drop of your favorite essential oil or cologne – the scent will linger for weeks.

Step Into Our Greenery

The ritual of bringing fresh greenery into one’s home during the dark, cold month of December is rooted in the ancient Pagan tradition of celebrating Solstice (or the return of the Sun).

 

No need to reiterate how this ancient tradition of collecting beautiful green and red foliage (that the earth still spoils us with despite the bleak, death-mirroring landscapes of the darkest days) has turned into a plastic, BPA-filled, clutter disaster. We’ve all become aware of how the commercialization of this tradition is directly and explicitly related to holiday stress.

Historically the winter months were valued as a period to rest, re-group, ration, and wait for spring. Not to shop in dehydrating malls with fluorescent overhead lighting to purchase things we’re not sure people will want, use, or have storage space for.

The majority of Canadians have committed to simplifying their holiday traditions and even their decorating rituals. We encourage our Customers to let go of the plastic santas, snowmen (snow-people?), and opt for more “green” (pun intended) ways to express their holiday cheer.

 

Going outside with friends and family (or even alone for some “me” time) to gather and collect pinecones, red branches and fresh greens is a lovely way to re-connect with the earth. We also encourage decorating with fruit and fresh flowers – items that will brighten up any space (and that don’t require storage for an entire year).

 

Happy Solstice!

Step Into Our Sale!

Want to give a unique and useful gift this holiday season? We highly recommend a de-cluttering gift certificate!!! 

Between now and December 12th 2011 Edit My closet is offering 25% off the regular cost of a de-cluttering session. 

Purchase a session for yourself (or for your best friend who can’t bear to part with their yearbook collection or the million faded sweatshirts he or she swears they “work out in”).     

 

Step Into Our Tupperware

The brand name “Tupperware” has become synonymous with (and inaccurately used when describing) our many collections of cheap plastic containers and mismatched lids. The majority of these polyethylene containers are not “Tupperware” and only became available during the last two decades (replacing the oh-so inconvenient aluminum foil and plastic baggies for food storage).

 

What was once a luxury has become a major clutter issue for many of our Customers – especially when it comes to housing mismatched shapes, sizes and lids.

We encourage those struggling with said clutter to reuse the containers for tiny miscellanea (board game pieces, tool related items, gift tags, buttons etc…) and upgrade to glass and stainless steel wherever possible. Because despite the World Health Organization’s findings on Bisphenol-A, we believe in mitigating health and environmental risks wherever possible.  

  

Check out the kitchn’s fantastic article, appropriately titled “How To Control Plastic Container Clutter”, for tips on organizing and discarding.

Then treat yourself to some vintage “Pyrex”!

Step Into Our Shopping Diet

We Bought it. We read it. We loved it. And we’ll read it again.

Phillip Bloch, a renowned celebrity stylist, has written a practical, comprehensive and highly useful guide on how to leverage one’s existing wardrobe as a strategy to forego perpetual shopping trips.

 

We believe this approach gives one immediate insight into pieces of clothing (and other non-wardrobe related items – apply the strategies to kitchenware and toiletries) they can do without. Think you need a new cocktail dress or blazer despite the many not worn in months? Think again and skip to Part Two (The Battle of the Bulge) Step Six: Reinvent The Favorites.

 

The Shopping Diet, according to Bloch, “offers a lifetime of shopping success” by:

• Unveiling your shopping compulsions
• Reevaluating and accentuating the positive in your personal style and body type
• Making your current wardrobe work for you
• Teaching you how to maximize your purchases
• Offering the gift of conscious spending

Buy the book – this onetime purchase will save you an obscene amount of money, time and regret.

Step Into Our Guest Post

This week we were privileged enough to contribute to Andrea Chan’s fabulous consciousness-raising blog Andrea’s Two Cents – Healthy People Healthy Planet.

Check it out! Andrea’s blog is definitely subscribe-worthy!!    

Beth & Cheryl

Step Into Our Swimsuit

Cheryl recently signed up for swimming lessons. When she arrived at the pool a very precocious teenager asked if she purchased her swimsuit from a hospital.

Ugh-oh.

When she squeezed into the suit before leaving the change room she thought, yeah it’s an 11-year-old, faded, unsupportive-in-places-swimsuits-should-be-supportive-in, black, high-cut one piece from a shop no longer in business – but so what? Who will notice or care?

People notice. People care.

We touched on the various reasons many of us hang onto “practical” accessories, and clothing items, in a post last winter. Those same points apply here.

Invest in new items and chuck the ones that make you look or feel homeless.

We all get gold stars for wanting our purchases to endure (and for not wanting to further congest landfills) but as Gretchen Rubin explains in her continually inspiring book, The Happiness Project,“Spending Out” (purchasing things we really need and using them) plays a significant role in feeling grounded (even happy).

As for raising awareness around items others should probably part with, a certain level of directness, combined with sensitivity and grace, can go a long way. That kid at the pool could have just said “your faded one piece doesn’t really suit you”.     

Gold Stars