Got milk? You don’t have to just drink it. 

Love it or hate it, milk has a place not only in your diet but also in your tool box and cleaning closet as well as among your toiletries. Raw goat milk, in its unadulterated and probiotic-heavy state, is the best to use. But seeing that unpasteurized milk is outlawed for sale almost everywhere in the U.S., pasteurized goat milk is second best. While not all milks are created equally, you can use any animal milk to successfully benefit from these tips. From curing a hangover to tending to those stained linens, milk has got your back.

Appetite Suppressant

To prevent overeating at mealtime, drink a glass of milk 15 minutes beforehand. Milk fills you up and gives you enough protein – 1 cup of non-fat milk contains 8.26 grams of protein – to keep you feeling fuller and less inclined to go overboard when food is served.

Hair Conditioner and Mask

With its vitamin and mineral content, milk works great on smoothing and shining your hair. Rinse your hair with fresh milk and let it sit wet for a few minutes before rinsing with water. You could also mix powdered milk with water to form a paste and then comb through hair, letting it to sit for at least 5 minutes before washing out.

Hangover Cure

Milk helps to settle the stomach, rehydrate the system, and raise blood sugar levels. These make it a great morning-after hangover cure. Additionally, milk contains the amino acid cysteine, which is known to neutralize a lethal dose of acetaldehyde, which is an alcohol metabolite.

Fish Freshener

Place frozen fish in a milk bath and let sit until the fish thaws. The milk makes the fish taste fresher.

Make-Up Remover

Mix powdered milk with water until a paste forms. Apply the paste to skin to remove make up. Rinse thoroughly.

Crack Eliminator

Before you toss Grandma’s beloved china, enlist milk to the rescue! The protein in milk reacts with the mineral kaolin in china to close cracks. All you have to do is place china in a pan, cover it with milk, and bring the mixture to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer for up to an hour.

Silverware Polisher

For glistening silverware, take advantage of milk gone sour. Simply soak silverware in sour milk, cover it completely, and let it soak over night. The next day, wash the silverware as you normally would. If the milk isn’t sour already and you want to make your own, for every cup of milk, mix in one tablespoon of lemon juice and one tablespoon of vinegar and let it sit for five minutes before use.

Bug Bite Soother

Mix milk powder with enough water until it resembles a paste. Apply the paste to the area affected by the insect bite to relieve pain. The enzymes in the milk will neutralize the venom.

Facial Cleanser and Mask

Milk is a natural cleanser. It contains vitamin A, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamins B6 and B12. The alpha-hydroxy acids in milk exfoliate the skin, reducing the appearance of wrinkles and discoloration. Use a cotton ball to dab milk all across your face. Let it sit for a few minutes and then wash with water before moisturizing. For a mask, take 1/4 cup powdered milk and add enough water until it becomes a paste. Mix thoroughly and apply to the face. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before rinsing.

Ink Remover

To remove ink from clothing, take the affected garment and soak it in a milk bath overnight. The next day, wash the garment as usual. The stain should be gone. To boost the milk’s effectiveness, mix two parts milk with one part vinegar as the soaking solution.

Body Skin Moisturizer

The butterfat in milk moisturizes the skin. And because the pH of milk is close to the skin’s natural pH, the skin is more receptive to the moisturizing effects of the milk. Pour a few cups of fresh milk or 1/2 cup powdered milk into your bathtub, Cleopatra style.

Dry Hands Softener

To relieve dry and chafed hands, rinse them in milk a few times a day. Over the course of a week or two, your hands will begin to feel softer and less Winter rough.

Leather Cleaner

Dab worn or dirty leather with milk and buff until clean. The milk removes debris and leaves the leather shiny and looking brand new.

Corn on the Cob Flavor Booster

Boil corn with some milk in the water – about 1/2 cup – and the corn’s sweetness will heighten and its flavors will become more developed.

Shaving Cream Replacement

Run out of shaving cream? Nothing powdered milk and water can’t fix. Mix enough water with powdered sugar to produce a paste. Apply the paste to your face, underarms, and legs and shave. This simple concoction is smooth enough to resemble the real thing.

Poison Ivy Soother

To reduce the itch from an unintended stroll through a poison ivy bush, dab fresh milk or a powdered milk and water paste on the affected area. The milk will reduce the itchiness, redness, and irritation.

Sunburn Soother

Delicately pat sunburned skin with fresh milk. The milk cools the burn and the enzymes in the milk help to offset the pain.

Fertilizer

A tip from farmers and seasoned gardeners themselves – use milk as a fertilizer. Milk has been used as an organic fungicide and fertilizer without harming the plant.

Furniture Polisher

Sour milk makes for a great furniture polisher. Apply sour milk to furniture surfaces through a disposable spray bottle and wipe clean. You can also make your own sour milk, outlined above.

Milk Carton Bird Feeder

No, we didn’t forget about offering you a way to re-use the milk carton! Here is a tutorial on how to turn the carton into a bird feeder.

Images: Muffet, Striatic, Sshreeves, Jenny Downing, Gagstreet, Markusram, Robert Benner, The Living Room

The post 20 Unusual Ways to Use Milk appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s a goal of the green movement: Everyday access to healthier elements we can incorporate into our lives. Health and beauty is no exception, and you are officially out of excuses for not buying alternative pure and natural products over poison-filled cosmetics when you have the chance.

Here’s the glowing skinny on some easy stops – even your neighborhood drugstore  – where you can evolve into that easy, breezy, and synthetic-free, cover girl of your dreams.

CVS Pharmacy

Getting that prescription filled? Shop cosmetics and skincare while you are at it through the Beauty 360 assortment at this large drug emporium. Many of the products included meet a growing customer demand for healthier ingredients without phthalates and other dangerous chemicals to add scent or other agents. Among the featured goodies: 100 percent Pure body scrubs;  Plant Love eye pencils and bamboo shadows; and Marina Cosmetics Hydrating Lip Gloss.

2. Whole Foods

If you aren’t buying the benefits of mineral cosmetics, listen to this Whole Foods podcast. It explains how synthetics interfere with the immune system and preventing nasty skin reactions. I love the selection of natural make-ups, creams and elixirs at this marketplace – an obvious natural source for everything wholesome. You can get it all here, from baby balms to pure shampoos.

3. Walgreens

There used to be two of these drugstores on the avenue near my home. That’s how ubiquitous Walgreens has become! And oftentimes, I have picked up a Neutrogena mascara or an Almay eyeliner in a pinch, knowing the hypoallergenic brands are better than the alternative for people like me with sensitive skin. The drug outlet has also introduced pure creams like the Noah’s Naturals line, free of sulfates, parabens, propylene glycol, petrolatum, phthalates or animal by-products (and made without animal testing). It also sells some mineral shadows, although since they are made in China I’m wary of the purity.

4. Pharmaca

Located in various cities in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico, the  Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy functions like the typical pharmacy, only it fills holistic and alternative prescriptions alongside the traditional ones. But when it comes to cosmetics and body care, you will only find the cleanest brands made with natural herbs and minerals – like Jane Iredale blushes and Dr. Hauschka ultra-fine bronzer with jojoba oil and carrot extract. Find locations here.

5. Shop Online

An obvious choice for consumers who find it hard to get unplugged, there are sites like Tartecosmetics which offer one-stop surfing for everything from natural lip stains to anti-wrinkle foundation, eyeliners, mineral powder, bronzers, self-tanners and eye shadows. Company founder, Maureen Kelly, says she started out peddling natural products in her one bedroom apartment in 1999 when she couldn’t access nourishing cosmetics sans the synthetic formulas. Her motto: Be green, be smart, be tarte. Apparently, she has a Hollywood following among those hip to the healthy. There are tons of other brands out there you can locate with your search engine.

Image: hattiesburgmemory

The post 5 Convenient Places to Pick Up Healthy Cosmetics appeared first on EcoSalon.

Just because you can appreciate a natural approach to beauty doesn’t mean you have to stop wearing makeup. Planet Green’s interview with model-turned-natural-cosmetics-saleswoman Josie Maran gives you the scoop on the latest in eco-friendly beauty products. Instead of going back for that two-dollar drugstore eyeliner (you know who you are), why not buy something that’s not riddled with phthalates and other kidney-pulverizing compounds?

Model Josie Maran has spent plenty of time in makeup chairs – which is experience that came in handy when she started her own line, Josie Maran Cosmetics. Organic and natural ingredients in the moisturizers, mascara, blush, lip gloss, liner, and other beauty must-haves make for non-toxic products-many of which have more than one use, so you can condense your supply (and your morning routine). Now, Maran has partnered with Kelly Ripa for the Green Idea Swap: Along with Ripa, Zem Joaquin, and Anna Getty, Maran posts daily green tips on Ripa’s website, Kelly Confidential, and for every tip you share, Electrolux appliances donates $1 to Global Green’s sustainable building projects.

Planet Green: What’s one cosmetics ingredient we should absolutely avoid?

Josie Maran: I avoid synthetic fragrances. Synthetic fragrances contain phthalates which are added to many cosmetics and beauty aids to increase flexibility and break down other ingredients, but studies have shown that phthalates can cause damage to the lungs, liver and kidneys, and to harm the developing testes of offspring!

JM: Look for natural products that contain few ingredients. Less is more. Using products with the least amount of ingredients and additives ensures its natural purity. Josie Maran Argan Oil is 100 percent pure organic Argan Oil – nothing else. It’s my “beauty secret”, and the best lightweight all-natural moisturizer. And it’s a great product to try when you first decide to go natural!

Check out more of Maran’s beauty tips at Planet Green.

Editor’s note: Article by Blythe Copeland. Originally published by our friends at Planet Green. Planet Green is an offshoot of Discovery that covers every aspect of green living, from tofu to tattoos. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Planet Green on Twitter, too!

Image: Josie Maran

The post Josie Maran Shares Her Favorite Tips for Flawless Beauty appeared first on EcoSalon.

The album title is Fearless but the message is be flawless. So what if you can sing. Are you drop-dead gorgeous, model thin and loved by the camera?

When young female vocalists are over-styled to sell, something serious gets lost in the packaging: Raw talent.

I remember back in the day when that talent came in a very simple, green package. Contained within, the songstress: Joan Baez, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Roberta Flack, Holly Near, Cris Williamson, Jennifer Warnes and  Carol King.

These icons of my generation were sensual, real women, clad in ribbed sweaters and peasant blouses. When they sang Tapestry, Heart Like a Wheel and Blue, we focused entirely on their voices, instruments, lyrics and message – in other words, the music.

Does anyone else out there miss the music? As I kid, I wanted to emulate these women, so I learned to play the guitar and focused on being a natural woman. Isn’t that the thrust of our evolution to eco?

Cut to Taylor Swift’s ubiquitous Romeo and Juliet Love Story video, in which the singer is cast as the skinny blond Disney princess – sewn into a fitted, medieval gown, tresses swept into an updo of ringlets, face airbrushed like a porcelain doll’s. Who notices the voice when the supermodel image is so captivating?

The message is clear: This is the fairy tale love story that can come with perfection. Not fight the war, protect the migrant worker, sit in a park in Paris, France, read the news and find yourself.

Not to single out Swift. Other popular videos bundle the entire hot Barbie brand: The boyish bod, the doll face, the air-brushed make-up, the expert hip hop dance moves, the skanky get-up, the seductive rubbing up against the back-up dancers, the mediocre voice.

And you better have it all, baby, if you want to go far – you know, selling product lines of phat made-in-China clothes, cruel platform shoes and your very own sickly-sweet scent at Macy’s. Ka-ching!

Of course the package sells but sadly the takers are young, impressionable teens, who croon about their lovely lady humps the same way we harmonized to Leaving on a Jet Plane.

My own over-exposed, naturally beautiful 13-year-old daughter won’t leave the house until she has molded her likeness to the popular culture ideal: Hair flat-ironed, blemishes concealed, skinny jeans tight and hitting the Converse high-tops just right, Lash Blast and eye liner caking the wide-eyed peepers and all body hair erased.

Recently, a shallow girl who was visiting our home played dress-up with my daughter on a weekday afternoon and opined, “You look super gorgeous, Sydney, except for your freckles, which are really ugly.”

After the put down, my daughter suggested she have her adorable freckles removed by laser. Teen fans are not conditioned to see freckles or other imperfections on those 20-something, supermodel pop stars. It might make them look, well, real.

My daughter is convinced flaws aren’t part of the package. She never sampled Carol King’s unruly hair or Joni Mitchell’s sexy overbite. She doesn’t know from icons who can actually sing, write, compose and perform without the bells and whistles, smoke and mirrors, butt pads, hair extensions and boob jobs.

Recently, Fabsugar asked readers to vote which pop star would they like to be, emphasizing which look appeals most to wanna-be singers (glamor of Christina, punk style of Pink, sleek R&B or Indie)?

I love one of the 55 responses: “I like to live a bit of a glam life but not too much…Christina’s way too much for me (plus the hair, the make-up and constant need of showing some cleavage, no really). I went with Natasha Bedingfield without hesitating: fresh, young and stylish. All I’m missing is that small detail: talent. Hmmm, where I can get some of that?”

Fergie and Christina certainly have talent but all that plastic and glitter conceals the woman behind the microphone.

The men behind the music, same as the Hollywood suits behind films, play down the talent and play up the packaging because it fools the audience in a plasticized society trained to see the fabulous sugar coating rather than the true ingredients.

Honestly, would a Linda Ronstadt even make it today? Can you picture a young Bonnie Raitt strumming those slide blues guitar licks on American Idol? Misogynistic Simon Cowell wouldn’t know what to make of little Bonnie’s intense, bottleneck style of jamming. Run, run, run, run, run away.

For the sake of my own daughters, I wish we could keep the great dance music but return to a day when female vocalists ruled with a good set of pipes and an inspirational message. Even if the message is the universal notion that love hurts, it is vastly more believable when sung by a flag burning, guitar strumming, globally-connected messenger with unruly hair, an overbite, and yes, even freckles.

This is the fifth in Luanne’s lifestyle column, Life in the Green Lane.

Images One and Two: Joni Mitchell

Image Three: Amazon

Image Four: Fabsugar

The post Warning: Female Vocalists Have Too Much Plastic Packaging appeared first on EcoSalon.