Is fish oil really beneficial, safe and environmentally friendly?

Depending upon whom you ask, fish oil is both wonder supplement and health menace. It protects against heart disease, but it can contain mercury. It’s linked to lower risk of breast cancer and diabetes, but it can be contaminated with PCBs. Fish oil is fraught with contradiction, and we haven’t even had dessert yet.

As the number one, most-purchased health supplement even over multivitamins, fish oil flies off shelves around the world for that greasy substance procured from the flesh of cold-water fish like …

ColumnOn finding your family.

I will never forget the day in first grade when we watched The Sword in the Stone. If you’ve seen the classic cartoon, you’ll remember the scene when Merlin turns Wart into a squirrel and a she-squirrel falls hopelessly in love with him. The poor kid can’t get away from the besotted rodent, until at last Merlin comes to his rescue and she-squirrel finds herself clutching at a real live boy. She’s terrified, then devastated. We see her weeping she-squirrel tears in disbelief as a relieved …

Fashion’s royal court is only for a small percentage of Americans with royal salaries.

One has only to look at last night’s Oscar results for The King’s Speech to see that when it comes to royalty we are smitten. But where we cheer for stuttering kings and their noble supporting cast, new-found love and endearing visions of the past, do we really need a new court?

“Fashion is royalty,” a friend said to me over dinner last week in New York.

Is it possible that the most consumer-driven part of …

Gorgeous, geometric, and green insulation.

What type of noise do your neighbors torment you with? Songs of the 80s (on repeat) at three in the morning? A healthy, animated (and loud) sex life? A seventh grader who is just learning to play the trombone by dedicating two hours of every afternoon to practice?

I can help.

This functional puzzle of interlocking geometry is a vivid cladding of hexagons. I would dress my walls with these clever shapes even if there were no underlying function, but …

The Buddhists have a name for a particular level of faith: bright faith.

This is not the bedrock kind of faith that grounds your psychology or devotion. It’s not the spiritual-insurance kind of faith where we hope (trust) that life will come through for us, in the end.

It’s the Holy wow, I’m standing at the beginning of something that is so insanely ripe with potential that I wanna get naked and roll around in it right now, while singing rock opera kind of faith. It makes you grin and do uncharacteristically …

A weekly round-up of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Take five. Here’s an at-a-glance chance to reconnect with or catch top stories you might have missed this week at EcoSalon:

1. Fashion writer Kelly Drennan thinks We Can All Afford To Slow Down, asking us to consider why it is we need so much in our wardrobes. Investment dressing, slow fashion and an awareness of clothing production are highlighted.

2.Frenzied marketing campaigns to move out excessive SUVs are the target of senior editor Luanne Bradley’s article on Greenwashing The Beast. Says Bradley: “While …

Why more women are lighting up despite the risks.

We fall victim to lung cancer without even putting a stick to our lips and are encumbered with mounting pollution from flicked cigarette filter waste. So why would an increasing number of women add insult to fatal injury by smoking?

The question is like the unfunny butt of a cruel joke and is puzzling everyone – clean air advocates, anti-tobacco lobbyists and  health care experts. We’ve got the tools to quit – the nicotine patch and the Honeyrose herbal cigarettes – along with …

Designers offer insights on why some styles sell more than others.

Designers will be the first to admit that when it comes to their collections they have their favorites. But does their cloth-crush sometimes outshine the actual needs of the buyer?

A boutique owner has to be part fortune teller, part knowledgeable curator. A smart buyer realizes that above all, they need to be prudent. Getting caught up in the hype of Market Week with a designer telling them something is “Amazing!” and “Will sell through,” can translate to merchandise that …