Happy New Year everybody! Did you have a lovely festive season? We certainly did. Relaxing has the been the name of the game at our place, so much so that I've had trouble convincing the kids to leave the house! We've had several 'pajama days' and I've played more board games in the past few weeks that I've placed in my entire life leading up to this point. We've also been enjoying having the time to make things together including this fabulous Design Your Own Superhero Cape kit my sister sent Henry for Christmas.
The Seedling brand kit came with a ready-made cape and lots of great things to decorate it with including felt, foam and glitter-glue. Henry is already a bit of an eco-warrior so he quickly decided he wanted to be Monkey Man, a superhero who encourages people not to buy products that contain palm oil (which ruins the habitat of the South East Asian orangutans)! Quite a specific superhero I agree but he saw something on TV about the Melbourne Zoos Don't Palm Us Off campaign last year and ever since he has been my supermarket vigilante always asking if things have palm oil in them. Bless...
NB: If you're a bit of an eco warrior too you might like to watch this short video about the plight of the South African rhino.
Sounds like a wonderful holiday for you all Caz...Henry makes a great Superhero. I hadn't heard of the 'Don't Palm Us Off' campaign although avoiding palm oil products is a big issue over here too. Monkey man is such a great idea and is obviously working...
ReplyDeleteOh and thanks for sharing the video...
Debx
Aw, that's so cute- and great to see he's taking a worthy cause to heart! I now look for Palm Oil in everything, too....gee, it sure cuts down on the junk food I buy! Luckily some brands of chips, and some bikkies have no Palm/'Vegetable'/Palmolein oil in them. :-)
ReplyDelete(I also buy Palm-Oil free soap online, beautiful Aussie handmade stuff, if you'd like the link? Made using goat's milk and coconut oil. :-) )
'Monkey Man' - that's such a wonderful superhero idea ... the world needs more environmental heroes like that! :)
ReplyDeleteMy heart aches at the plight of some species.
Deb, Manu and Tracey
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you all think it's worthwhile doing your own little bit to help out with these causes. I know lots of people who really believe there's no point in making small gestures like checking labelling, buying organic/ local but in my mind big changes come from lots of small ones?
Manu, I'd love a link to your goat's milk soap. I use Country Life which is palm oil free but it's a very basic soap and sometimes it's nice to have something a bit more handmade isn't it?
Hi Caz,
ReplyDeleteI used to buy Country Life, but I'm pretty sure they're not cruelty-free, so....yeah, that's my other non-buying-criteria. ;-)
Makes it very hard to find supplies, but it does seem there are some companies out there that will do both PO-free and cruelty-free. :-)
The lovely soaps I buy are from http://www.bubbylon.com.au/ - Genevieve makes lovely soaps...receiving a parcel of them in the mail is always such fun- unwrapping each soap and sniffing it, and then the hard decision of which one to use first!
I tend to buy about 10 at a time, so I'm well-stocked for a few months. She does change the varieties from time to time based on demand, but I have my favourites- the gardener's soap is lovely for giving your hands a good clean after a productive day pottering around outside. :-)
They last for ages, and always smell so nice in the bathroom...
Thanks Manu. I didn't know that about Country Life:( I saw some goat's milk soap in the chemist the other day which was advertised as using 'orangutan-fiendily sustainable palm oil'! It can get quite confusing can't it? Thanks for the link to Genivieve's website. Sounds like a great option.
ReplyDelete