It's fashion, baby!

Without knowing that 23-29th of April is Fashion Revolution Week, I eliminated 3 black sacks of clothing from our closets(mostly mine) swearing to myself I would never buy anything new, until I really, really have to, and if I did, it was going to be sustainable, organic and from a brand with fair, ethical working condition in regards to the PEOPLE who make them.

Few days ago I accidentally came across an advertisement for a Q and A panel for Fashion Revolution Week, and I made it my mission for my lazy, unproductive week off from work, to get my lazy, unproductive ass down there.The panel was held at the Nano Nagle Place, an oasis of tranquility right in the centre of Cork city.

For the first hour and a half we were shown a documentary called The True Cost, somewhere through the first half I realized I had already seen it, but it's one of those docs, that has good bit of information packed into it, so it won't hurt you to watch it over and over again.Also I find it, the more you watch it, the more uncomfortable it makes you and more likely you are to actually take some form of action.

 The film itself shows how fast fashion, a phenomenon only to have appeared a few decades ago, is rapidly increasing in it's size, causing some serious ethical questions.Who made my clothes?How is she and he (but mostly she, around 80% of manual labourers are women) doing? Are they getting paid what they deserve? and another bigger part of the film asks Are my clothes safe? Not only Are they made in a safe environment but Are they safe to wear?

The discussion panel consisted of 5 women.

L to R :Carolyn Moore, Carol Doyle, Liz O'Meara, Bronwyn Connolly and Emma Pearce

Short introduction to who these women are:

Carolyn Moore is a fashion journalist with a fashion designer background.She spent 10 years running her own label, from a market stall to a Topshop concession, latter  gave her a greater insight into how fashion operates behind closed doors.She later turned to fashion journalism, after starting her blog The Dress Down.

Carol Doyle is the founder of Cork's first ethical boutique Belle Etik. She has a wide range of experience with ethically sourced and sustainable goods, and has worked with some of world's innovative sustainable fashion brands for more than 10 years.

Liz O'Meara is the founder of an online boutique Ethical Souls, that sells sustainable and ethical fashion for women and children along with natural beauty products.

Bronwyn Connolly is the founder of ethical fashion brand Wear We Wonder and also runs the little shop called Wild Design in Paul street shopping centre.

Emma Pearce is from Positively Eventful, your go to gal for anything to do with ethics and sustainability in fashion.

The panel touched major points in the documentary and how it affects us on a more personal level and what we in return could do, to change things.

This pyramid is a simple way of putting how our thought process should be, if we ever feel the urge to buy something.

 You start from the bottom and ask yourself Do I REALLY need it? And I am the first to raise my hand and admit a lot of the times my answer would be: NO, but it's so cute, I might use it some other time.

2- Borrow, I'm all for it, it's a great way to save money and environment etc., but personally I have never been a borrower, I hate borrowing money, and I would hate borrowing clothes, because I feel it comes with too much of a responsibility and I just get stressed out knowing I owe someone or I'm wearing something that isn't actually mine.I mean I used to borrow from my sister and she borrowed clothes from me, but I think we all know between siblings "borrow" means, you can kiss this goodbye, because it is now mine and mine forever (enter evil laugh here)...or is it just my family?

3-Swap, now while this was mentioned at the panel today , the first thing that came to my head was, that would be brilliant, but how? I do come across every now and then, events,  where you bring your own clothes and go through everyone else's, but there isn't that many of them, and they might not be accessible to you, plus my fear has always been, what if I go there and nobody want's my stuff.And on websites like Adverts or Depop where you can sell your clothes, people occasionally pop up asking for a swap, but it's not always a match.

So how about an app......wait for it-Tinder for your clothes.You list your likes and criteria on your profile, and post the stuff you want to get rid of with appropriate key words, that other users might be looking for for themselves, and off you go swiping whatever  like and if the owner of the item likes something of yours, you swap. Now can anyone make this app for me?Or does it already exist?

4-Thrift....yes I do, my main way of shopping for clothes, although I've made  conscious decision, only to do it, when I actually need something.

5-Make...but I'd also like to add mend and like one of the women in the audience pointed out, take care of your clothes properly, know how to wash them, know that you don't have to wash them as often as we do and don't treat them as disposable items.

And last, if all else fails, buy.But buy ethically.

Coming away from the event today, I wish we had touched a little bit more on the subject of us actually feeling the need to buy so often, because I think, that, today is  a major issue.I count myself into that large group of people, who feel the need to buy, almost for the sake of buying, or at least not thinking before doing it.

I buy, therefore I am.

And it shouldn't be like that.It has become an addiction, and working in retail, I've come across people literally saying:"Look at this, I don't need it, but it's only 20 euro".Or coming up to Christmas there was a family doing their last minute present shopping and the mam of the family was like "What's the postman's name?Paul?Ben?Who's Ben?Ahhh I don't care, this will do him." That described exactly what John Oliver had said in the Daily Show...We buy things, with money we don't have, for people we don't even like.Be more thoughtful.

I had taken a great unplanned break from my blog only after starting it, so I'm going to get back on track with it and continue my zero waste saga, I've some experiments and recipes to try out, and hopefully post the results here soon :) 

My existential beeswax wraps.

Zero waste is all about being sustainable, mindful and surrounding yourself with things that you really need and are useful to you.

 It's no surprise that a lot of people who are zero waste are also minimalists.And I do find myself getting all hung up and frustrated if there is too much clutter.Of course I have to find balance, seen as Mila has inherited her dad's hoarder gene.Then again I, too, used to get attached to every little piece of paper, had shelves full of hideous figurines that each reminded me of that time I went to that place with that person, so I can't get off scot free either, I guess.

And of course then there's the mentality that you need shit loads of stuff to be happy and to validate your existence, but I actually think that it's a way trying to fill a void or to fill what you think is a void, in fear that you don't know who you are without all your things. Does that make sense? Because I kind of gave myself a stroke trying to type that one out.
Jon Krakauer wrote in "Into thin Air" (or maybe I read it off a bathroom wall somewhere, I can't really remember where I heard that one)anyway, I'm paraphrasing here at best: if you get on the top of the mountain, you can either see a lot there or only see clouds and snow.It all depends what you yourself bring there. And that's what I try to always remember, to emphasize the importance of memories and experiences over things.
And I guess there's always that fear, what if I get rid of most of my things, would that get rid of parts of me, or what if I'm just boring if I don't have all the clothes and accessories and make up to cover myself with.I feel that a lot of people(I include myself in there) who aren't for example artist, whose work would be a way of defining themselves, find the easiest way to do it through buying things, but they are things made by someone else, and the purpose of those things was never to help you, it was to make money for someone else.And with advertising they want you to redefine yourself every week and most don't give a shit what they put in there as long as they can make it as cheap as possible....WHICH FINALLY got me to the point I was trying to make with this post:Do it yourself.
(Didn't expect that from someone who is working at selling things to others in TK Maxx, although TK Maxx isn't so oblivious to zero waste either.)

What I like about Zero waste, is that before you go buying something, you first look around your home and see if you can make it yourself.And you can take home in a wider sense, like a community.Your neighbor might have really good beeswax wraps made up herself.And zero waste itself is a community, people share tips and recipes to try at home.

One of the things I wanted to try was beeswax wraps.I had the fabric leftover from years ago and all I had to get was beeswax and jojoba oil.Now I've read that most company produced wraps also have tree resin as one of their ingredients, but I've read mixed reviews about that plus I had no idea where to get tree resin, other than go to Fitzgerald's park and start hammering?? maybe at a tree there, I don't know, how's the official way one obtains tree resin.Anyway, here it is :

I chose a fairly small piece of fabric to test out first, before I go beeswax mad.

These are the tools needed

                                         
                                            All you have to do is to grate the beeswax and add the jojoba oil
                                      and put the wrap in the oven.Max Gas mark 4, anything higher and you'll                                                                                    burn the wax.

It will literally take few minutes, so keep an eye on it, once the wax has melted, take it out and use the brush to evenly spread all the wax round, if you need more wax in some parts, just add it to the fabric and put back in the oven.After all that's done, leave the wrap to dry

At first I thought it was a clear fail, the wrap doesn't cling well do itself, so that's the part tree resin will play, (you might see me in Fitzgeralds's park with a hammer and nails after all) but I tried it over the bowl of blueberries there and it sits fine, I need to make bigger ones for cheese and thing like that.

So there it is, alternative to cling film, less toxic to use and less toxic to make.You can wash them in cold water with mild soap, and they could last you up to a year.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So far the changes we've made towards a more sustainable life have been fairly easy.

The first thing I ever did, and that was years and years back, was give up using plastic bags.Alan still occasionally gets one as he keeps forgetting to bring a bag with him when going shopping, but I'm working on it.

I use smaller cloth bags for produce in the market or shops for fruit and vegetable, the first time I used it in a supermarket I was ready for few puzzled faces at the tills, but they never gave me any hassle :)

The drawstring bags I got from Sostrene Grene are perfect to buy pasta or rice in bulk.

Another, slightly more difficult change, was swapping kitchen paper towels for reusable cloths.I couldn't find a material that was absorbent enough and which wouldn't leave a trail of fiber all around the place(I'm not a fan of the microfiber cloths ).After testing out different products, all which I still have and use, I came across the (current) winner

You can compost the sponge cloths at home, but the packaging, which is made from 100% renewable resources(cornstarch) is only compostable in industrial facilities.

Refills is another big game changer.I get most of my refills from one place, Natural Choice health shop above Tesco in the Paul Street shopping centre. Natural Choice is a constantly expanding shop in giving more zero waste choices each time I visit them.They also support local businesses, so you know the product didn't have to come a long way to end up in your home.

I get refills for all my cleaning products there, and I don't really use that many different products anyway.They also recently started doing refills for shampoos and conditioners.

There are two more places in Cork city that do refills, a shop in the English Market called The Good Food shop from where I get the sponge cloths and Quay Coop which also has a lovely vegetarian restaurant upstairs.

I recently started using a shampoo bar I found from Natural Choice shop.So far I'm very happy with it.I only ever used shampoo and conditioner bar from Lush, but their ingredients aren't the greatest.Plus the shampoo bar I have is palm oil free and half the price of Lush bars.It will take some time to get my hair used to it, cause it will need conditioning after, so I either use the AppleCiderVinegar rinse or the conditioner I get refilled in the shop.

Another good way conditioning hair would be aloe vera hair mask.

Handy to have some growing on your windowsill.My dream house  would come with a massive backgarden where I could have a big greenhouse and grow anything and everything we need, to be as self' sufficient as possible.

In the bathroom we've changed to bamboo toothbrushes, that can be found in all three aforementioned shops and I used homemade coconut oil and baking powder toothpaste for a while but then got all paranoid that my teeth are going to fall out, but I'm going back to that again as my teeth felt healthier and looked whiter when I was using it after all.

So these are the little changes we have made/I have forced upon us so far.

In the near future I want to try and make beeswax wraps and I want to try make my own solid perfume.

Now as a honest and somewhat disheartening disclaimer: As I was typing this up, Alan came back from doing the shopping, I have never seen so much plastic in my life :) One day, we'll get there... one day

Welcome

   
Hello everyone,

  My name is Matilda and I live in Cork, Ireland with my 4-year-old daughter Mila and her dada, who funnily enough happens to be my boyfriend, Alan.
We live, work and go to school in what is possibly the best city in Ireland.

    For a good while now I have been fascinated with Zero waste movement.And this blog is mostly about just that.Zero waste and "converting" myself into a zero waster.
I first came about this brave new world a year ago.
I always liked to think I was environmentally conscious, but I don't think I did much about it.
For example until a year ago I was grand with plastic everything, thinking sure you can just recycle it later and they can melt it and make it into something else plastic and just keep doing that over and over again.Or that I didn't even think to check what all the chemicals I use for cleaning do to the earth once it's gone down the drain or what they even to to me and my family directly.
I think having Mila was one of the triggers that made me think twice about what I was doing and how my actions were affecting the planet and others on it.

   Now I'd like to note, that I am only starting off, with baby steps. What I've realized is that I'm going to have to find some sort of a balance. If I was living alone, the process would probably be easier, or at least faster, the only person I have to convince would be myself, but living with another adult and a 4-year-old is a different story.I'm not going to not buy her the my little pony toy because it's wrapped in a plastic bag, nor force my boyfriend to brush his teeth with homemade toothpaste if he doesn't want to, (getting him to use a bamboo brush was a task in itself already), I just hope that some of my actions towards being more environmentally conscious will eventually rub off on them too and they will want to make the switch themselves.

    As shallow as it might sound, I came across the zero waste lifestyle through a cute secondhand dress I spotted on instagram. The wearer was @stevieyaaaay whose advice and tips on zero waste,    I' ve been following since.The other person I found on youtube looking for a alternative toothpaste recipe is Lauren Singer from @packagefreeshop.

    Funny story on the side,when I first mentioned zero waste to Alan and how I've been reading about it, he stopped me before I could even go into detail and went off on this half-rant, why women have this fascination with being skinny and why do I want to lose weight, and how can one even have a zero waist.I couldn't stop laughing.I explained that it's WASTE not WAIST and it made a bit more sense to him then.
   
We are not vegan, or vegetarian, although our meat consumption is fairly low. We live in an apartment block, that unfortunately doesn't even recycle.I have started to separate glass and  what I don't need myself I take to a local health shop that gives it to it's customers to use in buying bulk products.And with reducing our plastic use,hopefully it won't be too big of  a struggle to start separating all the main recyclables myself and taking them to one of the collection points in town.
 
   I had several reasons why I wanted to start this blog: I am hoping it will spread some consciousness all around to anyone who chooses to read this, I am hoping that people with more knowledge would come and share their's and I also thought this is a good way to keep myself in check and see the process of becoming zero waste.

    In my next post I will share the little changes we have already made, how hard or easy they were and what switches I hope to do next.