You’d Better Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

By Alternative Channel's Youth Contributor Cody Larocque

Popular culture has often made a stab at the eco friendly individual, characterizing them as tie dye wearing, patchouli soaked, granola eaters walking or biking around town to find the local grocer. Often laughed at, this image's ethoses have however slowly crept into the beauty industry. In the space of a few decades, "Green" spas and salons have popped up all over the world, notably in North America. The average spa or salon can go through gallons of water a day, not to mention creates a lot of waste, due to treatments and procedures. These earth conscious businesses and companies are making a shift in the right direction.

Not only are these new green spas opening their doors in neighborhoods all over the continent, existing beauty parlors are changing their wasteful ways and opting for more sustainable practices. The conversion to eco-friendly styling isn't as difficult as some imagine. The first area to fix is energy consumption. The easiest way to save energy is to change all a salons bulbs from conventional incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, which last not only 10 times longer but also use 75% less energy, which will help to alleviate a salon's stress on the power grid. Another option for many spas is to buy an energy star certified appliance, which has been marked by the environmental protection agency, which use any where from 10% to 50% less energy than standard models.

The next possible way is to switch to more sustainable beauty products, which have conservation of both flora and fauna. Companies like Aveda, have been holding the torch of pure, organic beauty since 1978. The U.K. based company has some impressive numbers to drop, the most impressive is there use of 100% wind energy purchase which totally offsets their consumption of there manufacturing plant in Minnesota, 90% of their essential oils are certified organic and 89% of there raw herbals are as well. It doesn't stop there they continue with a high use of recyclable and renewable packaging. Aveda also supports fair trade through buying most of there ingredients from traditional and indigenous producers. Also websites like www.nailsmag.com on their conscious salon channel, and www.aveda.uk help to promote change.

The face of beauty is changing; natural products have replaced the once chemical filled products of the industry. The ideology of beauty as well has changed to reflect nature and appreciation for inherent beauty. Hopefully our renewed sense of connectivity to earth via beauty will bring about change in other industries that would otherwise never think of going green.

Photo by: tanakawho, courtesy of flickr.com

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Pop culture is very strange thing…
flowers to Russia

I may not feel:--I never may behold
The spark of life, that trimmed in garb so bright
That flying quintessence of ruby, gold,
Mild emerald, and lucid chrysolite.
Yet am I glad that life and joy were there,
That the small creature was as blithe as fair.