We’ve all got one – a little tube in the nightstand drawer, ready for those moments when our bodies seem to be failing at what they’re supposed to do naturally. At the risk of sounding like a commercial, I’m just going to say it: vaginal dryness happens.

Maybe you’re on birth control pills, or maybe your man isn’t spending enough – ahem – quality time before the act itself takes place. But if you find yourself reaching for lubrication, stop and read those ingredients! You might be filling one of the most delicate parts of your body with a bunch of scary chemicals, and even affecting your fertility.

It’s all too easy to just grab whatever the most promising-looking plastic tube on the drugstore shelf. The labels on products like KY Jelly, Astroglide and Durex Play focus on adjectives like “sensual” and “warming”, not safety – and sometimes, ingredients aren’t even disclosed.

Here’s the thing about most conventional sex lubes:

Many contain parabens. KY brand lubricants – aside from the ‘sensitive’ version – contain parabens, a class of chemicals used as preservatives. Even the relatively natural-sounding brand ‘Phyto Soya’ is packed with practically every paraben in existence. Parabens are estrogen mimickers and have been linked to breast cancer. Chemicals like parabens are easily absorbed through the skin, and mucous membranes – like vaginal tissue – are even more susceptible.

They’re often petroleum-based. Any lubricant that lists mineral oil in its ingredient list is made from petrochemicals. An obvious offender is plain old petroleum jelly. If you like putting fossil fuels in your vagina, raise your hand! Yeah, that’s what I thought.

They can cause infection. Whenever you see glycerin or a word starting with “glycol” in the ingredients, you’ve got potential problems. These ingredients – common in lubes like Astroglide – are closely related to glucose, which means they’re a sugary feast for yeast. Not exactly sexy.

They affect fertility. If you’re trying to conceive, think twice about using any old lube. Studies show that lubricants like KY, Astroglide and FemGlide affect both sperm quality and motility, meaning they slow ’em down and damage their DNA. While a product called “Pre-Seed” proved to be the most sperm-friendly, it does contain parabens, so it’s best not to use artificial lube at all if possible.

That doesn’t mean that just because you’re breastfeeding, going through menopause or taking antidepressants, you have to resign yourself to uncomfortable sex. Check out some of these alternatives:

Firefly Organics – Though not made for use with latex condoms (polyurethane is okay), Firefly Organics is a 100 percent natural, paraben-free personal lubricant made with sunflower seed extract, cocoa butter and shea butter.

Yes Lubricant – Yes brand lubricants come in both water- and oil-based varieties for latex condom compatibility. The oil-based product contains shea butter, sweet almond oil, sunflower oil, beeswax, cocoa butter and vitamin E while the water-based product is made with aloe, guar gum, locust bean gum and flax extract.

Good Clean Love – Totally natural, organic and vegan, Good Clean Love lubricants come in naturally scented versions like lavender rose, almost naked with a touch of lemon and vanilla, and cinnamon vanilla – a spicy scent reminiscent of pumpkin pie, a scent that most men find sexy.

Coconut Oil – Some ladies swear by plain old virgin organic coconut oil as a sex lube, and though no studies have been done on its safety, it seems like a great choice. Coconut oil is naturally fungicidal, so nothing funky will grow in it (which is a common problem in any kind of lube). It’s also antibacterial and silky smooth, but avoiding it in conjunction with latex condoms is probably a good idea.

Image: Zawezome

The post Sex Lube: Your Own Personal Oil Slick appeared first on EcoSalon.

Last week I wrote about about my friend Mary Osborne’s trip to the Gulf. Writing it hit me a hard emotionally, as I’m preparing to tour the area with a delegation of people from my hometown of Portland, Oregon in the next few weeks. Right now, we’re doing logistics, fundraisers, etc., readying ourselves for time on the ground interviewing, hearing stories and communing with the gulf residents.

Reading the headlines, we typically hear only about BP crap this, or Obama crap that, but we don’t hear much from the voices being affected; the people who can’t wake up from the nightmare. One journalist, Mac McClelland, a humanitarian writer for Mother Jones has been detailing the crisis in the gulf from an authentic, human perspective – talking to residents and getting involved in the community where this horror is taking place. Her stories are hard to hear at times – finally, this spring, residents were hoping for a big boom in tourism dollars after years of residue from Katrina. Well, we all know what happened.

Oil is both a blessing and a curse for states like Louisiana. The oil and gas industry essentially changed this state from an agrarian society to an industrial player. Oil and gas accounts for some 320,000 jobs in this region, which is no small sum. What statistics like this tell me is that I have to ditch my presumptions, my preconceived notions of what story I want to tell. It’s going to be way more complex than I can imagine, and it’s going to hurt the heart.

The goal is to bring stories back to Portland, and share them with our community. I was in a meeting with our media team, talking to our videographer who was on the fence about going. I’ll be directing a lot of what we focus on, and his simple question to me was, “What is this film about?” I couldn’t answer. That’s the rub exactly. I’ve worked on documentaries before, and typically you go into the whole deal with a treatment or at least a shot list. But we’re going to be Dante searching for Virgil here, and I’m overwhelmed. I have no idea what we’re going to see down there. Sure, we’ll see oil, and we’ll see birds in pain, but what are the cacophony of thought bubbles drifting out from front stoops?  What are the permutations of fisherman who have lost their livelihoods? Their identity? There are so many questions.

I guess I’m going to listen to my heart as we wander and do my best. I’m going to listen for the quiet voices in the room and work on telling their stories. You’ll hear them all on EcoSalon in the coming weeks.

Here is a video from Louisiana resident and TED speaker Casey DeMoss Roberts, talking about the intricate relationship between two very different but interconnected ways of life – shrimp and petroleum.  We’re about to feel this, firsthand. Heavy.

Image: Shrimp Petrofest

The post Shrimp, Petroleum and a Hurricane Named Katrina appeared first on EcoSalon.

There aren’t a lot of ways to wean yourself off of oil (at least not until the solar-powered jetpacks I dream of nightly turn into a reality). In the meantime, Your Daily Thread has a few solid tips for replacing petroleum-based products with healthier alternatives.

It has been over 45 days (at an estimate of 504,000 gallons a day) since the B.P. oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. While we here at YDT have left the reporting of it to major news sources, we can’t help but think about it and all the devastation that has come.

For more tips, check out the full-length article at Your Daily Thread.

Editor’s note: Article by Tracy Hepler. Originally published by our friends at Your Daily Thread. Your Daily Thread has simple, everyday updates on living a green, active lifestyle. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Your Daily Thread on Twitter, too!

Image: uscgd8

The post Get Unnecessary Oil Out of Your Life appeared first on EcoSalon.

Before I started writing about natural beauty products, I never thought petroleum-based products were so bad. I mean, we all grew up with petroleum jelly soothing our diaper rashes and later, our chapped lips. Then I started reading labels like a Jane Austen novel, and label after label showed petroleum-based ingredients.

So I started talking about this with everyone I knew. “Did you know there is petroleum in your lipstick?” and “Sure, go ahead and wash your hair with a side of cancer” became common phrases I uttered to my friends. After realizing I was going to probably die alone, I decided to tone it down.

But not today! Treehugger just released a list of “50 Surprising Fashion and Beauty Products Made from Oil That You Probably Use Every Day (Even if you are Green).” They compiled four great lists of all the petroleum ingredients in your bathroom, closet, makeup bag, and purse. There is petroleum in your sneakers, bra and socks. There is petroleum in your shampoo, toothpaste and tampons. There is petroleum in your hairspray, eyeliner and eye shadow.

So be sure to check out this list and see if it looks like your bathroom, or makeup bag, or closet. I did – and yep, there’s petroleum!

Image: dcpassengerseat

The post Treehugger Points Out the Oil in Our Every Day appeared first on EcoSalon.

Imagine a TV ad featuring a loopy  Zooey Deschanel singing the praises of plastic. Not pretty, nor as comfy as the touch and feel of cotton – which carries its share of pitfalls as well. Still, ubiquitous plastic has functioned as the toxic fabric of our lives for the past sixty years.

Wake up and smell the polymers. Literally.

Synthetics play an inescapable role in our lives, unlike the cotton-coated world portrayed in Deschanel’s ad. Consider:

You awake, clad in polyester pajamas, squeeze toothpaste from a slick tube onto the polyamides nylon bristles of your toothbrush, wash your hair with phthalates-enhanced goo from colorful containers, and comb your tresses with a plastic comb that was (of course) hermetically sealed in plastic casing.

You use a plastic sealed tampon and head to breakfast, descending stairs carpeted in stain-resistant synthetic shag embedded with acid dye blockers to brew coffee through a plastic cone filter. You remove the foil crown from your yogurt container and the chunky green cap from your bottle of Simply Orange. You fry an egg in your non-stick, polytetrafluoroethylene treated pan. You climb into your car – the interior, carpet, dashboard and windshield fabricated with more of that plastic. You don your polycarbonate eye wear and apply a smudge of sunblock from that tube in the glove compartment, and you’re off.

You’re sipping your beverage from a plastic lid, ready to embrace a work milieu stocked with royal blue Papermate pens, a plastic keyboard, a double decker printer and mystery mesh task chairs with sturdy polyurethane arms.

You get the picture, and yes, it isn’t the hopeful one conveyed to college grad Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate in 1967. Plastics, considered king when petroleum was abundant, could become a thing of the past sooner than you think. Here’s another word for you Ben: Tanked!

“It’s not talked about on CNN, but informed people including the CIA and Defense Department know oil supplies are crashing rapidly,” observes conservationist Brad Hoyt about the looming crisis. “We stopped producing the oil we need in the ’70s and those we are exporting it from will stop because they don’t have enough to meet their own needs. What will we do then? We will either have to do without or go to war with Mexico and Saudi Arabia and take their oil.”

Mexico’s exports to the U.S. declined to 0.51 barrels per day from 2005-2008, and in 2010, supply is expected to fall to 2.5, nearly half a million barrels per day less than in 2009. In other words, a major source for manufacturing the fabric of our lives is seriously threatened.

“The possibility that Mexico’s oil and gas exports to the U.S could go to zero within seven years looks very real,” says investment analyst Chris Neddler of Energy & Capital.  “Rising domestic consumption with declining supply puts an ever-tightening squeeze on imports, yet I have found no evidence that policymakers are paying any attention to this critically important dynamic.”

Meanwhile, what many of us cannot ignore is the damage already done from petroleum-based products, especially the Pacific Ocean plastic islands which serve as graveyards of misguided consumption and evidence we are destroying places where we don’t even go.

Human beings have always manipulated materials for everyday objects. Reeds for baskets, clay for dishes, metal for tools and carts. The term plastic is derived from the Greek plastikos, which means fit for molding, something that can be pulled, cast or pressed into various shapes for tubes, bottles, boxes and fibers.

The commercial plastic or celluloid we have come to know and rely on, is largely derived from petroleum, which is a concern since it is basically toxic and something you don’t really want on your skin. Back in 1951, two research chemists discovered polypropylene polyethylene while greasing the wheels for a manufacturing process that begins with drilling and refining to form the powdery polymer compound. From there the compound is molded and cooled and divided into tiny pellets to be shipped to the makers who continue to mold it into almost everything you touch and feel.

Imagine a day without the touch and feel of plastics. If you can, you are way ahead of the pack, and most likely will fare better when the celluloid that engulfed your existence becomes a memory. But don’t  be alarmed. The vast stores of the stuff we have produced the past 10 years, alone, should get us through the hump until those helpful chemists come along with another brilliant idea.

Images: ringoblog, The Find,  Urban Boundaries, Richforth, Ancora

The post Wake Up and Smell the Polymers appeared first on EcoSalon.

“It’s time to change everything we know about paper,” is the mission statement of Sodra Pulp Labs.

And that’s what the Swedish architecture firms that partner with the labs are doing as they wrap their minds around 50 years of research on pulp-based materials.

“Could it be durable? Waterproof? Light and insulating? Hard as Kevlar? We don’t know the answers, but you’re welcome to join us as we find them out,” says the lab.

Well, one thing is for sure: it can be kid-proof, such as the Parapu kids’s chair by the architecture firm Claesson Koivisto Rune. Designed for the Milan Furniture Fair 2009, the chairs are stackable for extra play date seating and are seen as a great way to spare our forests and avoid petroleum-based plastics.

Made of compostable Durapulp (a combo of pulp and biodegradable resin from sugar cane), they are sturdy like their name indicates and a way to keep the well-designed nursery free of that oh- so-yucky chemical smell that can take weeks to air out.

Image via: Inhabitots

The post On the Paper Trail appeared first on EcoSalon.