You may already carry around a few safety pins, a small pair or scissors, or even a needle and thread. But sometimes these fashion flop tools just don’t make the cut, and we find ourselves in a situation that requires a little more creativity or preparation. 

The following 7 quick fixes to the most common fashion disasters fills you in on what you need in your purse to tackle any fashion faux pas coming your way.

1. Camel Toe

There’s nothing quite as embarrassing as a camel toe you can’t control and you’re too far from your wardrobe for a quick change. Luckily, this is a common fashion disaster that has a quick solution. Camelflage and Camel Ammo sell pantyhose inserts that smooth out the feminine zone prone to camel toes whenever you don leggings, tight pants, shorts, or skinny jeans.

2. Muffin Top

No matter your size, given the tightness of your pants band, muffin tops are sometimes an unavoidable predicament. No need to squeeze into a full body spandex to avoid it. Instead, tie a sweater or long-sleeve shirt casually around your waste. It’ll give you a relaxed vibe whilst covering up the overflow. Another solution can go two ways, depending on your body shape: Try to pop open the buttons of your pants and fold down the top band, so that it rests further away from the muffin top region and clings more to the bone closer to your thighs. If this doesn’t work, pull your pants over your muffin top so that the top band almost reaches the curve that goes inward toward your rib-cage. Regardless, stand proud and work those curves!

3. Broken Heel

A night out on the town can quickly go downwards, literally, as you lose 3-4 inches of lopsided height after your heel snaps from under you. No need to curse the cobblestone and toss your shoes. Instead, be prepared. Apply E6000 adhesive glue or rubber cement to attach the heel back to the base of the shoe, and you save yourself money and a very uncomfortable situation.

4. Stocking Runs

Nothing can turn classy into trashy as quickly as a stocking run. Now there is a convenient and quick solution. Use clear nail polish to dry the threads in place so they don’t snag any further. This method will conceal the stocking run and prevent it from going any further.

5. Makeup Stains

Baby wipes are tender on a baby’s bottom and tough on make-up stains. Gently rub away lipstick, eyeliner, or concealer stains away and let dry. You could also carry around a Tide-to-Go stick, which is super light, affordable, and effective.

6. Falling Shoulder Straps

It’s such a pain to constantly pull up a tank-top strap that falls down your shoulders. Not only does it expose your bra and make your style look off-kilter but also is annoying to tend to. Hollywood Fashion Tape to the rescue! Carry around this double-sided tape, which adheres to both fabric and skin, in your purse and you’ll always be ready to save the day.

7. Pilling Sweater

Pilling occurs over time, when washing and wearing of fabric causes the fibersto loosen and push to the surface. If a lint roller isn’t enough, try using a small-tooth comb to brush along the garment where the pills are, being careful not to snag or tear it. A sweater stone is also extremely effective and can be found for under $10.

Photo Credit: Oneras

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The best of the week at EcoSalon, hand-picked for your clicking pleasure.

As sea levels rise, so does the level of human suffering. Photojournalist Gideon Mendel’s series of films and photos, Drowning World, provides a powerful glimpse of the faces behind the statistics.

Let’s play a game. I say “music festival”, and you say? A fair few of you (primarily Europeans) probably just said “rain” – as would those currently attending the Isle of Wight festival. How many rainclouds can you spot in these 30 photos of musical festivals worldwide?

We’re not shy about telling the world about our loathing of bottled water – or rather, the way that water comes in “throwaway” PET plastic bottles derived from non-renewable source – so we were delighted to hear this week that the Coca-Cola Company is taking PET in a whole new direction…

This week, it officially became offensive to name all the parts of a women in medically correct terms – in the House of Representatives, that is. In response, the rest of America says this: VAGINA.

Finally, on the cusp of midsummer, Johanna Kindvall recommends you sink your teeth into this traditional Swedish midsummer recipe. God hälsa!

The post The Friday 5: That Sinking Feeling Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

SeriesEnvironmental cleanup in the wake of Japan’s twin disasters. Part 4 in a special series.

A surreal and compelling mix of headlines (read: Royal weddings, Osama bin Laden) may be dominating this week’s news, but the unfolding events in Japan after the March earthquake and tsunami – compounded further by nuclear plant instability – continue. Among the many significant issues: all that garbage.

Nothing illustrates the growing glut of plastic in the ocean from land-based sources like a natural disaster. All of those bleach bottles, all of those candy wrappers, all ending up somewhere. Whether littered or properly disposed of, it doesn’t actually matter when natural forces manifesting in the ocean overcome the borders of sea and land. And rather than death by a thousands cuts (plastic litter and watershed trash from land), Japan’s tsunami unleashed a vast amount of debris virtually overnight into the Pacific. (To see how the theoretical path of the debris works over time, click on this link to view an animation.)

This figure exhibits the projected pathway of flotsam that entered the ocean after waves hit Japan on March 11, 2011.  The model is based on historical data from drift buoys pinging GPS locations in The North Pacific over several years. Image Credit: Nikolai Maximenko, International Pacific Research Center.

The garbage is coming.

Within about a year, garbage will start hitting Hawaii’s shores and the coast of California within three, before circulating back out again to Hawaii and adding to The North Pacific Garbage Patch where it will circulate in the gyre.

Initially, it is difficult to determine how much we’re talking about, but think of it this way: Imagine taking all the plastic for a couple of miles or more from several cities situated on a coastline, and sucking it into the ocean. Think about taking thousands of grocery stores full of plastic products, all those single-use yogurt cups and half and half containers, lifting them all at once, and throwing them into the ocean. Think about all the dumpsters. The reycling bins. The storage facilities. The freight containers. Interesting, if disheartening, California beach-combing is on the way.

University of Hawaii at Manoa‘s Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner created the model. (Full disclosure: Maximenko advises the non-profit I work for on our gyre expeditions to search for plastic pollution.) Modeling, as a science, is still a very difficult enterprise as so many vectors affect how flotsam will actually travel when at sea. But judging by the vast amounts of debris pulled out to sea by Japan’s tsunami, the ultimate impact will be significant.

Finding remnants of the waste three to five years from now, after it has traveled thousands and thousands of miles at sea, will remind us as a society that although the 24/7 news cycle might forget past tragedies, plastic is forever. And it will remind us of the legacy of our culture. 24/7.

Editor’s note: This is part 4 in a special series on plastic. Read part 3, part 2 and part 1.

Images: Official U.S. Navy photographs

The post Plastic Surgery: Where Will Japan’s Tsunami Garbage Go? appeared first on EcoSalon.

From the Hill…

Our friends at the Heritage Foundation (who think Jack Bauer is a real person) have deployed multiple teams of energy, environment, homeland security and response experts to the Gulf to study the federal response to the oil spill. They have visited the areas hit hardest by the crisis. They’ve spoken with response workers, affected oil crews, fishermen, elected leaders and BP representatives. Their finding? President Obama has turned the spill an oil and water equivalent to making a mountain out of a molehill. And you know what? They’re not far off.

From a recent article issued by the foundation’s Web site:

BP is (very) slowly taking accountability for its creation of this crisis. Tony Hayward was finally dismissed as CEO, and they have promised full financial restitution for direct and indirect victims. On Day 100 of the spill, it’s time the Obama administration followed suit.

And what exactly does the administration have to be held accountable for? An environmental disaster made worse by federal incompetence. An unnecessary drilling moratorium that has pulled the plug on a Gulf economy already on life support. A claims process that was negotiated in secret, leaving few answers to why claims aren’t being processed and transparency is lost. A slow response that wasted clear weather days as hurricane season fast approaches, and a decision-making structure led by politics rather than duty.

Environmentally, the President and his eco-left echo chamber consciously chose to ignore the damage caused by the oil in favor of focusing on future tax increases that would expand government largess. The President’s initial push for cap-and-trade taxes as a response to an oil spill was so disconnected and oblivious that it was quickly brushed off by the Democrat-controlled Senate. Even so, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday cap-and-trade taxes were still possible this year if any energy legislation passes the Senate and the bill goes to conference.

Here are some details that are difficult to ignore: the administration assured us that we would not be paying for BP’s mistake at the gas pump, but the recent Reid-Boxer bill moving through the Senate indicates that increased taxes are inevitable and there will be a “drastic increase” in the price of oil per barrel.

Says Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Carol Browner, President Obama’s White House Energy and Climate Czar, recently said she thinks only Big Oil, which would include BP and a few others, should be drilling in the Gulf. With the Reid-Boxer oil spill bill, that’s exactly what will happen. And with this legislation, President Obama’s Gulf energy moratorium will become a permanent moratorium that will destroy thousands of good-paying jobs, restrict America’s ability to produce energy, and make America more dependent on foreign oil.”

BP is claiming a tax deduction worth roughly $9.9 billion. Congressman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) went on record stating this development was “reprehensible.”

This backlash is taking on the kind of viral reach that seems rivaled only by the widespread push for Hope just two years ago, when we as a nation took a look at the current state of things and paved a new path with a presidential candidate named Barack Obama. That kind of credit can never last. Someone has to pay for it when it comes due. It was unrealistic, juvenile and cockeyed to posit that one man – a good, fair and excellent communicator – would be able to Fix Problems Now.

Has President Obama failed us in the Gulf? Not really, but his and First Lady Michelle’s glamorous, nearly placating photo-ops on the beach haven’t helped.

But that doesn’t mean things are going well there, either. On the Louisiana coastline, barriers were delivered but wouldn’t get installed until permits were drafted, agreed upon and issued – that’s a legislative issue that would have benefited from an executive call to action.

The Heritage Foundation would have us believe there’s a superhero who can help in our definite time of need, much the way that progressives did in 2008. Our Hope has warped and exaggerated the candidate Obama’s cure-all promises for actual change. Inspiring, but potentially empty, rhetoric during election season cannot translate into action on the scale that we assumed it would. This isn’t a TV show; there isn’t a quick fix.

But if you’re out there, Jack, we’d really, really appreciate it.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: John Griffiths

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