A weekly round up of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Not everything has to be so cold and barren in the cold winter months. Take jewelry for example, channel winter’s warm and fuzzy friends by wearing an animal talisman that will have you feeling like one of the pack. In A Walk on Winter’s Wild Side With Animal Themed Jewelry, we’ll warm your heart with stylish options.

Warm your kitchen with savory aromas with EcoSalon Recipes:10 Best Vegetarian Soups and watch how many friends come knocking on your door for dinner.

Three seasons a year your skin is hydrated, healthy, promoting dappled and rosy cheeks. But when Old Man Winter starts to blow, your skin turns into a leper’s, forcing you to moisturize night and day. Night is okay but daytime dry skin mixed with makeup is the pits and you need back-up help. In High Definition: Tinted Moisturizer for the Dry Months, Green Beauty Team founder Kristen Arnett tells you which products to buy and how to make a good tinted moisturizer at home.

Berlin winters are cold and dark but the mood is anything but somber with communal saunas and free-flowing beer. In From an Ex-Pat…With Love, columnist Abigail Wick gives us a first hand account of life as an ex-pat enjoying her own time in Berlin.

Oh Brad Pitt, you’re so sexy and know so much about cutting utilities down. Which is why in Brad Pitt Talks Utilities + 14 Ways To Cut Cold Weather Costs we are smitten by his grin enough to really listen.

Brad’s got some advice on how to cut your utilities from $300 to $30. 

Remember that hoopla a couple months ago when Brad Pitt fessed up to spending the majority of the 90s surfing the couch with a spliff in his hand? The juiciest bit of that interview, covered by gossip rags and I do believe CNN, was that he maybe inadvertently dissed his ex-wife. But the most interesting quote was buried at the end of the interview.

Talking about his houses in New Orleans, he claimed that, “People…who were used to dealing with $300 electric bills, are now paying $30, sometimes nothing.”

Now that is news worth reporting. Why? Because it’s based in reality.

We all have bills to pay and it sucks to fork out more to energy companies than we have to because of shoddy construction or, worse yet, significant failings on our part.

“You build it tight, sealing it; you build in the direction of the sun and the wind; and you use solar and water collection. It’s not that hard to do.”

Brad Pitt, thank you for pointing that out. You’re so sexy and smart.

Well, EcoSalon. You’re quite the looker, too.

Oh, stop flirting.

The next time you find yourself building a house from the ground up, we know that you’ll be taking Brad’s advice. In the meantime, here are 14 other ways to make the abodes in which we reside now more energy efficient this winter so that we, too, can save beaucoup bucks like Brad.

1. Unplug: roughly 75 percent of energy consumed by home appliances occurs while they’re turned off but still plugged in.

2. Drop the Thermostat: every degree you lower in winter and raise in summer can reduce your heating and cooling bills by 1 percent or more. Per the EPA, a programmable thermostat that allows you to set temperatures for different times of day can save you about $150 a year.

3. Get a Blanket: If your water heater is more than seven years old, wrap it up in an insulation blanket to prevent the release of up to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.

4. Insulate Your Pipes: if your pipes are warm to the touch, insulate them and you’ll end up paying less for hot water. Hardware stores offer pre-slit pipe foam.

5. Close Off Drafts: sealing drafts and upping insulation can reduce your bills by up to 20 percent, per the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy.

6. Clean Your Furnace Filters: a dirty filter restricts airflow and increases energy demand. Not very sexy, but pretend we’re Tyler Durden.

7. Double the Pane: replacing single-pane windows with energy-efficient double panes can reduce your heating costs by up to one-third. Or get an air-trapping door sweep, which is really cheap.

8. Get Better Bulbs: a quarter of our energy used goes to lights. Per the U.S. Dept. of Energy, if every household replaced one traditional bulb with an energy-efficient CFL, we would save $600 million in utility bills. For us, that’s a $30 savings for each bulb.

That was nice, but you know what really turns me on? Insulation.

9. Neutralize Your Footprint: for every pound of carbon dioxide your home releases, you can fund an environment-friendly endeavor that reduces the amount of greenhouse gases released into the air. They’re called offsets, which can be calculated and purchased at Carbonfund.org and Terrapass.com.

10. Swing Both Ways: a ceiling fan set to rotate counterclockwise creates warm air because air pooled near the ceiling (remember: heat rises) is circulated back into the living space, which could save you 10% on heating costs.

11. Use Storm Windows and Doors: installing them can increase your energy efficiency by 45%.

12. DIY Insulation: also very cheap are seal it yourself window insulation kits.

13. Buy an Energy Monitor: TED (The Energy Detective) is expensive, but according to the company you’ll save 15%-20% on each bill, which could amount to hundreds of dollars each year.  

14. Grow a sweater.

You don’t get more energy efficient than this.

Images: Arch Digest; Parade; IMDB; The Washington Post

Gourmet Magazine, an American classic, found a slump in ad sales spelled the recipe for disaster.

That’s why Conde Nast Publications is closing the oldest food magazine in the US along with Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, and the parent magazine Cookie, which I have to admit I’ve only glanced at in the doctor’s office waiting room.

While the bride magazines are used as sources to stimulate ideas for women planning their big events, Gourmet has long been the bible of American epicureans, fond of cutting out recipes for those summer salads and Thanksgiving pies. The highly respected journal, described as the “magazine of good living,” was launched in 1941 by Earle R. MacAusland, and included articles on wine and travel.

Recently, the magazine increased its coverage of healthy and organic fare, even dedicating a cocktail to actor-environmentalist Brad Pitt. It said it wasn’t just his pretty face, but the time he has devoted to the planet that inspired the refreshing cooler made with organic lime, organic cucumber, organic mint, and even Crop Organic cucumber vodka.

2 wedges of organic lime
2 thin slices fresh organic cucumber
Sprig of organic mint
2 oz (1/4 cup) Crop Organic cucumber vodka
3 to 4 oz seltzer

According to the Associated Press, Gourmet had a circulation of 980,000 last year, but despite its devoted audience of chefs and food lovers, its ad pages fell like a badly-timed souffle, down 50 percent in the second quarter from the year before, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. That’s considered one of the biggest declines ever for a popular title.

Magazines have been trying to brave the recession by experimenting with their pages, even introducing video adverts inside to lure computer screen conditioned readers, as with Entertainment Weekly. In terms of the fashion magazines, there are more eco sources developing on the web. It seems, that is where they will all end up.

Conde Nast spokeswoman Maurie Perl said some 180 employees of the four titles will be leaving the company with severance packages by the end of the week. Earlier in the year, the high-level publisher shut down Portfolio, a business journal, and Domino, a beloved shelter magazine.

It’s reported that in a staff memo, Conde Nast CEO Charles Townsend said the closures were required “to navigate the company through the economic downturn and to position us to take advantage of coming opportunities.”

Conde Nast, run by billionaire S.I. Newhouse Jr., also publishes Vogue, the New Yorker and Wired. The 19 remaining magazines owned by the company include Bon Appetit, which boasts a larger circulation than Gourmet at 1.4 million. Another foodie book, its ad pages drop isn’t much better at 40 percent.

Conde Nast promises Gourmet‘s brand will live on in books and TV programming and you will still see recipes on Epicurious.com.

Source: SFGate.com