Green Print Reduces The Paper Your Use

Green Print have a little piece of software that they claim can save you around $90 per year. It does this by reducing the amount of paper and ink that you use when printing. It’s a free software download that:

• Removes wasteful pages
• Includes a PDF writer
• Can track how many pages (and money) you have saved
• Currently only works on Windows

If you get annoyed at wasting paper and ink, take a look at Green Print’s free download.

Terratotes From Green-Kits Eco Product Review

Green-kits are made by Eco-Logics, Inc., a Virginia-based company committed to providing earth friendly products of all kinds. Most known for providing ready-made green cleaning kits, they also sell a nice range of sustainable reusable cloth bags that I was sent to test.

The video below (if you’re an RSS reader you can click here to see it) shows the cool bags I was sent, with a special surprise for me at the end!

Featured in the video are the TerraSack Botanical 4-Pack ($32), the Cotton Produce Bag “Produce” ($6), the original signature Terratote ($15), and finally the Personalized Reusable Lunch Bag ($8).

They have a massive variety of reusable grocery bags in all shapes and sizes and different patterns and sale packages so take a look.

Teaching Kids To Cook With Organic Ingredients

Handstand Kids cookbooks offer kids a fun, hands-on learning experience, while getting them excited about the world in which they live, and they do it with organic ingredients. Each cookbook introduces kid chefs to one country and comes with a delightful cooking accessory. The first book in this series journeys to Italy and comes complete with a chef’s hat, packaged together in a pizza box. The second, about Mexico, is in a tortilla bag along with an oven mitt, and has been named Toy Directory’s Top Toy of 2008.

As well as buying the book, there are now also Handstand Kids Cooking Classes that offer kid chefs a “hands-on, yummy cooking experience”. Each class uses organic ingredients to make healthy & delicious foods from around the world, along with holiday treats to share with the family!

If you order a cookbook in October (i.e the next couple of days - sorry about the late notice!) from the Handstand Kids website ($28) you will also receive a new eco-friendly child’s reusable shopping bag for FREE that you can use for grocery shopping (an $8 value).

Sign A Petition Against Excess Packaging

In doing reviews for Life Goggles I receive a lot of things through the post and it even if the product is brilliant it will sometimes be wrapped in a stupid amount of packaging, some of which can’t be recycled. Greenvoicecom is asking you to sign a petition against excess packaging and force companies to be responsible.

As well as the fun little video below, they also provided us with a couple of fun packaging facts:
- The UK produces enough packaging waste in one year to fill Wembley Stadium almost nine times over.
- Each person in the UK spends about £125 on packaging a year.
- Even though the general public are encouraged to recycle, businesses, who contribute about 90% of all waste, are asked to do nothing.

A spokesperson for Greenvoice.com says: “Despite all of our efforts, domestic waste generated has still gone up 20% over the last ten years, so it is time for the business sector to act as well.” You can sign the petition by clicking here.

Stone Glow Natural Pillar Candle Eco Product Review

I’m a big fan of candles for some reason. In fact I’m fascinated by fire I think and a candle is just a small version for me to play with. I have lots around the house and I was very excited when the Scented Candle Shop asked me to review a candle for them.

The Stone Glow Wild Clematis arrived packaged in bubble wrap which was a bit of a disappointment but I’ll reuse it. However the strong smell coming through the wrapping made up for it and once I opened it all up I was excited to burn it. Strange I know but as I said I like to burn candles and I even read with candlelight sometimes, it gives off a much better light than bulbs in my opinion.

As the candle is made in the UK from 100% natural (vegetable) wax the instructions say not to burn it for more than five hours at a time, presumably as the wax may run more than artificial candles. On the first burn five hours didn’t even get to the edge of the candle - a good sign for a long burn time. It says it will last 35-40 hours in fact.

Also the candle still smells nice when it’s lit. It’s not overpowering but the room smelt nice when it was lit which doesn’t always happen with other ’smelly’ candles. I’ve been really pleased with it and it gives off a nice glow as well as smell.

The Stone Glow Natural Pillar Candle costs £9.99 from Scented Candle Shop with free delivery.

St Peter’s Organic Ale Eco Product Review

It’s a tough life being sent beer to test but someone’s got to do it. St Peter’s Brewery is based in a medieval hall in Suffolk and has been brewing for 700 years. The brewery sent me a case of St Peter’s Organic Ale to review.

And what a treat it was. I’ve been drinking ale for years now but recently have taken to lager and even cider in the summer. But this was a delightful way to return to drinking ale. Certified organic by the Soil Association, the ale is quite light with almost no head when poured from the retro bottle. The bottle top has a nice logo of a bird and a key for some reason.

I served it chilled as that’s how I like my beer and it tasted better that way when I tried another bottle warm afterwards. As you can tell it’s quite moreish and I found the first bottle slipping down easily. Not being an expert on beer tasting I can’t tell you what it tasted of really, it was very smooth with little aftertaste (it’s meant to have a citrus aftertaste but I didn’t notice it, maybe because it was cold) and went down a treat.

It’s very light and I didn’t feel at all full afterwards making it fine to eat at the same time. The alcohol content is 4.5% too so it’s not going to blow your head off.

You can buy a case (12 bottles of 500ml each) of St Peter’s Organic Ale for £22 (or cheaper sometimes) from the brewery’s website or from the supermarket.

Lavera Men SPA Cool Lemon/Lime Shampoo Eco Product Review

As I’ve been growing my hair, shampoo has become more and more important and as I’m spoilt with all this eco-friendly shampoo I have, I’ve been relishing washing my hair. Lavera Men SPA Cool Lemon/Lime shampoo was sent to me by the friendly folk at Male Organics and Joel briefly reviewed Lavera’s gift set here.

What I need to ask him though is whether it’s lemon or lime flavour. Made in Germany (it carries the country’s organic certification called BDIH) it has the ‘flavour’ in different languages and says: “Cool Limone”, “Cool Lemon” and then in the English section it says “Cool Lime”. So I’m not sure to be honest. It doesn’t smell much like lemons but not like limes either, although reading the instruction leaflet it does say limes again plus mint and green mandarins.

Despite this confusion, it doesn’t really matter as the shampoo is lovely. It is indeed quite refreshing and the build up of a lather compared to, say, People Tree’s shampoo is much more meaning you can cover your hair with less of it.

It contains aloe vera too, a popular ingredient at the moment, I’m worried they might run out actually, and the shampoo cleans very well and leaves hair smelling nice - you can’t ask for much more.

Available from Male Organics, Lavera Men SPA Cool Lime (let’s agree on that) shampoo costs £5.95 for 150ml.

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