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The Levi’s brand announced it will include jeans made with 100 percent organic cotton in its fall 2006 product line.

Organic cotton will be used in select new and popular men’s and women’s styles within its Red Tab and recently launched Levi’s Capital E lines. The jeans will be identified as ‘Levi’s Eco’ and be available in November 2006 exclusively at Levi’s US stores with additional products to be introduced in spring 2007.

“As the inventor of the jeans category, it is critical for us to continue to innovate with our products and within the category itself in order to drive positive change,” said Robert Hanson, Levi’s US brand President.

Building off the brand’s world-famous product guarantee, Quality Never Goes Out of Style, Hanson added, “Given our history as a leader in responsible manufacturing and business practices, this initiative is about quality and responsibility never going out of style. With Levi’s Eco, consumers who seek to minimize their personal impact on the environment can choose jeans that demand less from the environment without forfeiting the style or quality they’ve come to expect from the Levi’s brand.”

Famous for style leadership and its product iconography, Levi’s jeans made with organic cotton will be available in a range of popular fits and finishes and marked with a few subtle identifiers.

Jeans made with all, or a significant percentage of, organic cotton will be signified as ‘Levi’s Eco’ and feature an embroidered lowercase ‘e’ inside the front pocket, or at the bottom of the right leg of each jean. A natural colored canvas ‘Levi’s’ tab and ‘Two Horse Patch’ made from 100 percent organic fabric as well as natural colored pocket stitching of the brand’s famous arcuate will also indicate the jeans are made from organic cotton. All external packaging will be made from organic fabric or recycled paper and printed with soy-based ink.

Among the styles made with 100 percent organic cotton are the Red Tab Vintage Straight Jean for men, and the women’s Skinny Jean and Skinny Knee Knocker Short. In the brand’s super premium line, Levi’s Capital E, a selvedge denim Shrink-to-Fit 501 Original Jean, and forward fits like the men’s Wrapped Skinny Jean and Skinny Slouch jeans, and the women’s Twisted Skinny and Twisted Cropped jeans will be made from 100 percent organic cotton. Other elements of the Levi’s Capital E lines including the use of recycled buttons, rivets and zippers and natural indigo to dye some styles of jeans were employed for their minimized impact on the environment.

The fall US introduction is part of a global launch of products made with 100 percent organic cotton. In Europe, the Levi’s brand will offer certified organic denim versions of its most popular styles — the Levi’s 506 Standard Fit Jean for guys and the Levi’s 570 Straight Fit Jean for girls. They will be available in select stores within Europe at the end of 2006. Additional styles made from 100 percent, or a significant percentage of, organic cotton will be introduced in both regions in 2007

Invented in 1873 by Levi Strauss, Levi’s Jeans are the original, authentic jeans. They are the most successful, widely recognized and often imitated jeans products in the history of apparel.

Levi’s Jeans have captured the attention, imagination and loyalty of generations of diverse individuals in more than 100 countries around the world and continues to do so today through jeanswear innovation. Levi Strauss & Co has been a leading brand for more than 150 years.

Levi Strauss & Co

I don’t know about you but when I think of my dream house the most important room in the house is the kitchen. I have lots of ideas for how I would want my dream kitchen to look and function but I have few clear ideas on how I can make it as environmentally friendly as possible. That is why I love this book:

Good Green Kitchens
by Jennifer Roberts

This newest book from green living advocate, Jennifer Roberts, is loaded with inspiration and information for creating a dream green kitchen. What makes a kitchen green? Good Green Kitchens shows that eco-friendly design is a continuum that’s shaded from light to dark green. At the light green end are easy-to-do steps such as choosing less polluting paints or selecting energy-efficient appliances. At the darker green end are strategies like using certified or reclaimed wood, consciously choosing to simplify or downsize, or using the kitchen project as a launching point for greening the whole house. Good Green Kitchens gives the low-down on what’s green and what’s not when it comes to kitchen design. It includes: up-close profiles of beautiful, green kitchens and the people who created them; tips for environmentally responsible redecorating, remodeling, and building from the ground up; in-depth chapters on greener alternatives for floors, cabinets, countertops, and appliances; strategies for greening the whole house; tips for keeping costs in check; and much more.

I ran across a fun quiz today! What flower best represents you?

I did the quiz and found out that I am a Canna:

“You stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets in the way of what other people think. You are proud of yourself and your accomplishments and you enjoy letting people know that.”

I came across a great article recently about how Debra Lynn Dadd (a personal hero of mine) decided to install an above ground pool at her home and care for it without using chlorine.

Why you ask? Chlorine is a very toxic chemical that is easily absorbed through the skin. And our bodies absorb much more chlorine and other chemicals through the skin than from actually drinking the water. In addition to the toxicity of the chlorine itself, chlorine in the presence of any organic compound (including leaves and other plant material, insects, and human bodies) turns into carcinogenic trihalomethanes, which include chloroform.

But as Debra pointed out, a swimming pool is like a large pond, and if left alone, nature will take its course and the pool will turn into a large pond, complete with scum and frogs and fish and everything else that lives in a pond.

Debra decided to use a unique system designed by a friend of hers. Instead of putting toxic chemicals like chlorine or bromine in the water to kill disease-causing organisms, this program restructures and oxygenates the water into a liquid that is actually beneficial to health, while at the same time being an environment in which disease-causing organisms will not survive.

This is accomplished by using a specific water conditioner and technical grade hydrogen peroxide (35%). While this hydrogen peroxide is a very dangerous oxidant at this concentration (it can burn the skin and blind the eye), when diluted in the pool, it simply adds oxygen to the water.

The water conditioner is a small pipe that is attached to the plumbing so the pool water continually cycles through it. Within the pipe is a core made of precious and semi-precious metals which adds a very small charge of electricity to the water as it flows through. The minerals in the water become 400 times smaller, resulting in water that feels very soft and silky, without adding salt or other water softening chemicals.

Between the water conditioner and the hydrogen peroxide, the water in Debra’s pool is clear, fresh, soft, and alive with oxygen.

Read more specifics about this alternative way of caring for pools without harsh chemicals here.

Getting Rid of Gnats Naturally

3 cups of water,
4 tbsp of sugar
4 tbsp of vinegar,
3tbsp of liquid soap (castille).

Mixed it all in a jar or a bowl and place where gnats are a problem.

As I mentioned in a previous post I am set to move to Arizona in a couple weeks. It may or may not be a permanent move as my motivation for it is to be with family while I undergo chemotherapy treatments.

When I made the decision to go, the first thoughts that entered my mind were about how I was going to eat organically and locally. You see I am set here in Ohio with great Farmer’s Markets, local farmer’s only miles away, and wonderful friends that make many natural household items. Moving to a new place can be scary when you don’t know all those hidden resources that make living naturally an easy accomplishment. I know that I do not want to have to shop at the grocery store down the street where organic foods are few and far between. I also want to develop a relationship with local farmers and natural products establishments again so I need to be able to find them.

Luckily there are a few online resources that make setting up a home and keeping things “natural” in a new city pretty easy. Here are a few of my favorites:

Local Harvest - This site allows you to search by zip code for natural stores, farmers markets, CSAs, local farms, co-ops, and natural restaurants.

Pick Your Own - This site allows you to search by state for farms that allow you to come and pick your own produce.

Green People - This site has a directory for lots of natural stores both online and off. It also allows you to search for local CSAs, farms, and co-ops.

I searched all of these sites to find out what would be available to me locally in my new digs. I found a great CSA that will be delivering fresh fruits, veggies, and herbs to my door once a week. I also found out that there are at least a dozen natural foods stores including Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Sprout’s Farmer Market, a Sunflower Market, and others. I located half a dozen farmer’s markets in my area and there is even an exclusively organic restaurant that is just a 10 minute drive from me. I found almost everything I could want! The only thing that I didn’t find was a good co-op to buy natural household items, toiletries, and bulk goods but that may just be the incentive I need to start one myself. I am feeling much more confident about my move now that I know my family and I will have everything we need.

If someone asked me five years ago if I knew of any menstrual product alternatives I might have recited the different brands available at the grocery store….Kotex, Tampax, etc. I may have known in the back of my mind that cloth pads existed but it was not an alternative I was willing to consider. I can say with some certainty that I would have probably laughed at the proposition of using and cleaning reusable menstrual pads.

It wasn’t until I began to use and subsequently fell in love with cloth diapers for my babies that I began to think about menstrual alternatives. After all, I was using cloth diapers in part for environmental reasons and - just like disposable diapers, disposable pads are adding to the enormous volume of garbage that goes into our landfills. In most cases they don’t break down, nor are they recycled. I wanted to lighten my environmental impact so I decided to bite the bullet and give cloth pads a try.

After the first hour wearing a cloth pad from Gladrags I knew that I would never again buy paper and plastic disposable pads. Why? They were comfortable and cool to wear, they didn’t irritate my skin, and I found them to be no less convenient then their disposable counterparts. I was so infatuated with this new found product that I immediately went online to purchase more. While I was surfing the Internet I found other menstrual products that I had never heard of before, like menstrual sponges and menstrual cups.

By now I was happy to explore new options so I ordered a Diva cup. Words cannot describe how much I loved this product. It was so comfortable to use I would actually forget what time of month it was. There was absolutely NO leakage whatsoever and I didn’t even need a panty liner (cloth or otherwise) to use along with it. The Diva cup gave me a sense of freedom that I had never felt before. I simply used the cup for a few days, rinsing between uses and then washed and stored for the next month. There is nothing to throw away and the cost savings was immediate. The menstrual cup has proved to be the best solution for my pocket book and my planet.

Now I have forgotten all about the “conventional” menstrual products and I find it unimaginable that would ever have a need for them again….and that is just fine with me.

For more information on cloth menstrual pads and other menstrual alternatives visit the Mothers Moon Menstrual Alternatives Information site.