Don’t you just love when a good thing gets even better? If you like Target (and who doesn’t?), you are going to love the expanded Target Subscriptions.

Did you know Target has a subscription service? Well, yes they do. And, as with all things Target, it’s a dandy. Think Amazon, but only the stuff you shop in person on the regular.

The best part of Target’s subscription program is that it includes beauty products. And Targ carries some quality beauty that is also pure and safe. Yep, products free from harmful ingredients, from one of your favorite stores, sent directly to your home, on a regular basis. Definitely a better-your-life trick to add to your beauty resolutions list this year.

We’re all busy. How convenient to get your most used items delivered? The upshot is not just that you will never find yourself out of your special stash, but it will even save you some green.

How does that happen? Aside from the impulse buying you will not be taking part in by frequenting the actual store less often, Target offers some pretty special savings to its subscription members. You’ll get 5% off all orders, free shipping, plus an additional 5% off when you use your REDcard. You pick your items and set the delivery schedule.

Now, let’s get back to shopping those healthy products. Add these to your Target Subscriptions.

Burt’s Bees Mama Bee Nourishing Body Oil // The perfect skin conditioner, pregnant or not. Made with sweet almond and lemon oils, and vitamin E to support and hydrate skin.

Burt’s Bees Lip Balm // These beeswax based balms are smooth, super conditioning, and taste great. Stock up and stash them in desks, drawers, gym bags, purses, backpacks…

SheaMoisture Raw Shea Butter infused with Frankincense & Myrrh // Perfect for calming and repairing dry skin. Use on body, hands, and feet for the whole family.

SheaMoisture Lemongrass & Ginger Hand & Body Scrub // Exfoliate, moisturize, and soothe with this invigorating sugar scrub. Use on hands and feet too.

Honest Organic Belly Balm // Formulated for pregnant bellies, but this gentle balm is suitable for anyone. Use to soften and heal skin.

Honest All Natural Hand Sanitizer Gel with Aloe // Keep one in the car and another near sinks to keep hands (little and big) clean and germ free. Mild scent.

Honest Mandarin Foaming Hand Soap // Lightly scented citrus soap that gets hands clean sans the harsh chemicals.

Check out all of our recommendations here: 

Related on EcoSalon:

Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter: Anti-Aging Superstar or Average Diaper Cream?

20 Funny Shopping Quotes that are Oh-So-True

Delivery, Please! Why Online Shopping May be Better for the Environment

Image of woman receiving delivery via Shutterstock

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ColumnOh the thigh gap. Controversial. #Thinspirational. A stop on the way to bikini bridge on the body dysmorphia journey. But, in many cases, the thigh gap is total bullshit.

So, rather than push Target to tell us what we already know—it was trying to make a thin girl even smaller—let’s focus on helping our girls stop starving themselves to meet beauty standards that are not only unattainable, they aren’t even real.

That Happened is Libby Lowe’s weekly column for EcoSalon analyzing media, news and pop culture through a feminist lens. Keep in touch with Libby @LibbyLowe.

Related on EcoSalon:

Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign: That Happened

Why You Should Not Diet in 2014

The Competitive Advantage: Girls and Sports

Image: Target

The post Target’s Thigh Gap Fail: That Happened appeared first on EcoSalon.

Is supporting gay rights the new retail advertising trend?

Move over, JC Penney — you’re not the only major retailer to feature same-sex couples in your advertisements. Another major retail chain is showing its support for marriage equality, as Target released its new same-sex ad last week.

It’s possible that the splashy new ads are an attempt to shore up Target’s shaky history on same-sex marriage. In 2010, Target incited grassroots outrage with the news that they had made large donations to organizations and politicians that were pro-business, but anti-gay marriage. In 2011, Lady Gaga, a prominent gay rights activist, very publicly ended her partnership with Target over their donations history.

More recently, Target caused another controversy earlier this year when they announced that they would no longer carry Frank Ocean’s critically acclaimed new album, Channel Orange. Target stated that they would no longer carry the album because Ocean’s label, Def Jam, had decided to release it exclusively on iTunes for a week before it would be available to retailers. Still, many speculated that the retailer decided to drop the album because Ocean had very recently come out as gay.

Still, the ads are among a number of baby steps that Target has taken towards the correct side of social history. In June of 2012, the company  started a line of LGBT Pride T-shirts, as well as congratulatory same-sex wedding cards, even though same-sex marriage is still illegal in many states. And gay rights activists like David Badash have praised their efforts. If private citizens can change their minds, so can large corporations. Here’s hoping that Target’s new ads will result in many changed minds in the near future.

The post Target Ad Promotes Gay Marriage: Supporting Equal Rights or Just Marketing? appeared first on EcoSalon.

What are “fashion haul” videos saying about today’s teenager’s attitude toward consumerism, and what’s on the other side of the spectrum.

In case you haven’t heard the term, “fashion hauling” refers to an internet phenomenon that has young (mostly) girls showing off their latest shopping finds to thousands of viewers in “haul videos” on YouTube. To be able to afford a constant stream of new stuff, haulers usually shop at fast fashion chains like Forever 21, H&M, Charlotte Russe and Target, or discount retailers like Marshalls, JC Penney or TJ Maxx.

Though this may seem like an innocent way for young girls to express themselves and share shopping finds with online peers, it’s becoming a serious issue because it promotes rampant, mindless consumerism. Haulers love fast fashion retailers because everything is cheap and they can afford a lot. They buy buy buy without putting any thought in how their clothing was made and where it comes from. If you consider the entire supply chain – from the raw materials and the labor required to the shipping and marketing – it is simply not possible to make a T-shirt that costs $7.

This video, a fashion haul by bodyrock.tv has over 3,6 million views on Youtube.

Fast fashion retailers, of course, do not want you to think about this stuff, they just want you to buy it. So naturally most of them have embraced the fashion hauling phenomenon with open arms, some of them even sponsoring popular haulers by offering gift cards, video contests and other incentives. Haulers seemingly live in a world where happiness can be bought, for a single-digit price tag at Forever 21, and everything is just “OMG, so cute!” To those of us far removed from it, these girls seem to be motivated by a desperate search for meaning.

The girls in this video, which has over 2 million views, just went on a serious shopping spree at Forever 21.

While it’s troubling to watch this trend develop and grow, there is also another side to the story. At the other end of the spectrum, many of today’s youth are distancing themselves entirely from the idea of ownership, looking for simplicity and alternative solutions to things they see not working in society. Instead of buying cars, they get Zipcar memberships, instead of buying CDs and DVDs they use Spotify, Hulu and other cloud-based streaming services, and instead of seeing the purchase of a home as the ultimate achievement they appreciate the freedom of renting. The less stuff you have, the more you stick it to the man.

This one has over 900,000 views and close to 12,000 comments.

Perhaps both of these extremes are reactions to coming of age in a time of economic uncertainty and political upheaval, but what does this polarization say about our society? And, more importantly, what effect will it have on the future of consumption? Does slow, considered fashion stand a chance against this escalating fashion hauling trend? Only time will tell, but perhaps it’s time to popularize “vintage hauling” or “stuff-I-already-have-in-my-closet hauling”?

Lead image, still from this video

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Do little girls need an annual National Princess Week?

April 22, 2012 marked the start of the first annual National Princess Week, as declared by Julie Andrews, Target, and, of course, Disney. Target and Disney have teamed up to push their princess-related marketing items even harder this week and Mary Poppins is blessing it with her sweet smile and graceful benevolence. Andrews even lists 30 ways to celebrate princess week, including learning to wave properly, curtsy and exit a vehicle with grace.

What Could Anyone Have Against Pink?

In 2000, Disney stumbled onto the idea of marketing its princesses with all manner of gear (dresses, tiaras, makeup, etc.) and after a decade, the total has reached over 26,000 items and is a $4 billion a year business. But all that pink frothiness has sparked a princess war amongst parents.

Many parents see the Disney stories as harmless fairy tales that ultimately see good triumph over evil, celebrate romance and spotlight the moral goodness in the heroine. Others point out the beauty stereotype, where the heroine is impossibly beautiful and thin and many times battles an older woman who is wrinkled and mean (age = horror). Rapunzel’s mother/kidnapper was so jealous and obsessed with beauty that she held Rapunzel prisoner all her life, Snow White’s stepmother wanted her killed just because she was prettier, Ursula the sea witch (a demented, overweight character) wanted power over the ocean, Cinderella’s stepmother wanted her daughters to be admired rather than Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty was cursed by a snubbed fairy.

Parents who defend princess mania argue that it’s all make-believe, and the caricature of flawless women is part of it, as is the huge dividing line between the sexes, where the man usually plays rescuer. Can adults see past the imagery and pick out the positive message? Usually. Can young children? Some experts say no.

Peggy Orenstein is a nationally acclaimed writer about women and girls’ issues. When her previously un-media-tainted daughter went off to preschool in striped overalls carrying a Thomas the Tank Engine lunch box and transformed into a pink-obsessed princess inside of a month, she was stunned. Orenstein began seeing princess references everywhere – from the woman who gave her daughter a pink balloon (without asking if she wanted another color), to the dentist who told her to hop up into the “princess chair” so she could “sparkle her teeth.”

It’s Not About the Moral of the Story, But Who Looks the Prettiest

Orenstein’s investigation into princess mania was the basis for her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter. She visited Disney, Pottery Barn Kids and American Girl, and delved into the world of child beauty pageants and the international toy fair, and soon saw the peril behind the pink. She told The Daily Beast’s Jessica Bennett:

“’It’s not that princesses can’t expand girls’ imaginations,’ Orenstein explains. ‘But in today’s culture, princess starts to turn into something else. It’s not just being the fairest of them all, it’s being the hottest of them all, the most Paris Hilton of them all, the most Kim Kardashian of them all.’ Translation: shallow, narcissistic, slutty.”

Orenstein and others argue that the calculation-of-worth-based-on-appearance beast lurks underneath all those frills and the pop music track for preschoolers, and Disney starts the ball rolling way too early for young girls (and boys) to get the right message. Orenstein told NPR that an expert she consulted for her book told her that little brains are very malleable at those young ages, and soon, little gender differences become big gaps as they grow older.

Author Barbara Ehrenreich and educational consultant Lori Day have also excoriated princess marketing culture as the gateway to appearance becoming the dominant worry for girls at too young of an age, leading to depression and the skyrocketing rate of eating disorders in the U.S.

Miss Representation’s Jennifer Siebel Newsom points to early princess indoctrination as the start of media’s message to girls to value looks above substance and leads to media dismissal of women as people of worth. “Disney is now selling to kids as early as newborns.” Newsom adds, “your pink little onesie… reinforces gender.”

Most girls will outgrow the princess phase, but the worry is that after the princess dresses and tiaras, come more marketing products that send the same superficial message with more emphasis on body image and sexiness too early. Is Disney entirely to blame? Should parents ban Ariel from their homes? No, but Orenstein believes that awareness of the dangers will help parents strike a balance between tea parties and tee ball, between looking healthy and building confidence in abilities, not appearance. Day agrees, saying, “To all of the parents reading this who say, ‘My daughter loves to wear her Jasmine costume while she’s running around playing sports and collecting bugs,’ bravo! Moderation and balance are awesome.”

In her book, Orenstein writes,

“As with all of us, what I want for my daughter seems so simple: for her to grow up healthy, happy, and confident, with a clear sense of her own potential and the opportunity to fulfill it. Yet she lives in a world that tells her, whether she is three or thirty-three, that the surest way to get there is to look, well, like Cinderella.”

Image: Andrea Newell

The post National Princess Week: The Peril of Pink appeared first on EcoSalon.

Zig Zag Zig Zag.

If you watch the two lines of high voltage geometric color interact for long enough it can really get you going and – accounting for the recent thinking of Missoni’s executives –  send your mind a blowing. A design fueled euphoria being the only explanation for the Italian knitwear legend’s dodgy decision to sell out their signature stripe to mass retailer Target this year.

Known for its multitude of colorful kaleidoscope patterns including abstracts, florals and the eye-catching chevron stripe, the distinctive design created by Tai and Rosita Missoni in 1953 has certainly been copied before. Originally championed in the U.S. by Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue magazine, Missoni reach the peak of their influence in the fashion world in the early 1970’s. Run by the husband and wife team until handing over design duties to their daughter Angela in 1996, the house of Missoni was remarkable for staying above the many trends of the fashion world.

THEN:  Hitting their stride in the early 1970’s, Missoni started out as a small knitwear workshop in Gallarate, Italy, in 1953 opened by founders Rosita and Ottavio.

When Target’s low cost versions of Missoni products went on sale causing a stampede on stores (with lines up to 100 people long waiting for restocking, and Target’s website crashing repeatedly), everyone was tempted, even mass fashion boycotters like us. The line sold out within 24 hours. Many items appeared on eBay within hours, at two to three times markup.

Ultimately, customers were disappointed. In line with Target’s price range, the fabrics used were not the luxuriously designed wools, cottons, rayon and silk typical of Missoni and customers complained widely about the 400-product collection’s cheap appearance, shoddy manufacturing and unprecedented anger at how Target handled the launch.

FUTURE: The Chevron stripe’s classic boldness is perfectly suited to fashion’s ongoing taste for imaginative contrasts and the eclectic.

With the Target collaboration, only time can tell whether Missoni has cheapened their name for good. One thing is for sure, the incident reawakened a desire for all things chevron striped. Seen everywhere from tights to menswear and DIY paint tutorials, the graphic stripes and chevron patterns have a classic yet modern boldness that never goes out of style, however we incorporate it into our lives.

Now & Then: The History Of The Cocktail Dress

Now & Then: The Trench Coat

Now & Then: The Bold Brow

Now & Then: The History of the Cuff

Now & Then: The History of Turtlenecks

Now & Then: The History of Tights

Now & Then: The History of Skinny Jeans

Now & Then: The History of the Chevron Stripe

Now & Then: The History of Penny Loafers

Now & Then: The History of Go-Go Boots

Now & Then: The History of the Poet Blouse

Now & Then: The History of Ladylike Gloves

The post Now & Then: The History of the Chevron Stripe appeared first on EcoSalon.

There are period panties, and then there are period panties.

Hello, my name is Jane, and I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman who still wears underwear from high school. Saying it publicly doesn’t make me feel better, but I’m told it’s the first stage in recognizing you have a problem. Although I never really thought it was a problem. As I type those words, I realize that’s exactly what people with problems say.

It all started Labor Day weekend, which began like every three-day weekend: with a Saturday hangover. And let’s be clear, by Saturday I mean day, because once you enter your 30s, hangovers are your biological clock’s sick way of reminding you what a loser you are because you’ve chosen drinking and fun over having babies.

I spend my day of repent (read: regret) in nothing but day-old underwear and my oversized terry cloth robe. I eat four ice cream sandwiches (they’re low-fat, so I can eat the whole box) and two bags of microwave butter popcorn (not low-fat, so I limit it), and watch five hours of a “Cheers” marathon. As I daydream that the stodgy waitresses at my neighborhood watering hole are more like Woody and Carla, I receive a text from a friend: twins! I order pizza to celebrate/cope. Luckily, my husband is away – he doesn’t need to see this.

Sunday, I manage to text my friend the obligatory “Yay! CONGRATS! LOVE the names Brooks and Dunn. Love you!” and start to clean at a frenetic pace. Maybe I think I can vacuum away my inability to have one or two glasses of wine like a “normal” person, or that I can vacuum an entire box of ice cream sandwiches out of my stomach via my belly button.

As the day approaches 5 p.m. – well past the hour I enjoy doing laundry – I open the dryer and gather up every last piece of clothing in one giant ball like I’m grabbing turkeys on “Supermarket Sweep” with twenty seconds left on the clock.  Successfully guilting my husband in to helping me fold, we both dive in, bobbing for clothes, me erratically and he with patience and purpose.  Then: “Are these…yours?” he asks. I look up to find my husband holding a pair of fraying fuchsia underwear with just the fingernails of his thumb and forefinger, as if he just found a strand of anal beads in our bed.

“Give me those! They’re my period panties,” I screech as I snatch them from him like a feral cat being fed from a human hand for the first time.  As the blood rushes up through my face, past my nose, behind my eyes, and up to my hairline, I curl the panties into a ball so tight in my hand that you can’t see them anymore. “Your what?” he asks, as he wipes the two fingers he held them with on his jean leg.

“God, they’re not dirty, they’re just the undies I wear during my period so I don’t ruin my pretty ones.”

His face transitions from disgust to that look men give when they hear something they don’t really care to know about (like when you try to explain the difference between tampons and pads).

As I shoo him out I begin to uncurl my hand, finger by finger by finger, to take a long look at them. If they were a person, they would be a 98-year-old dying of skin cancer…and bullet holes. They were one pair in a collection of eight ratty broken down pairs living in the back of the top drawer of my plastic 3-tier drawer tower that I purchased from Target for $19.99 in college. As I open the drawer to return the pair back to their hideaway in their low-income pantie housing, I feel like I’m trying to hide a stash of crack from the Feds. They might as well be stored under a loose floor board in tinfoil. Instead, I shove them in the back right corner, under the lacy thongs, and a pair of crotch-less panties I’ll never use.

For the first time I’m realizing how wrong it is that I have them, and how embarrassed I would be if someone found out. Why am I choosing to keep pairs that knew me through puberty, that followed me through college sports, and that survived with me through my twenties? That’s a lot of wear and tear, not to mention DNA.

Sure, there are scarier skeletons in a person’s closet than 18-year-old underwear, yet these hot-mess panties all of a sudden have me questioning my entire existence as a normal human being. Is something wrong with me? Am I fit to be a mother? Am I one of those gross people you whisper about like the woman in my office who squeezes white heads on the back of her arms during meetings? We all have that stash of less-than-lovely undies that we keep around for that time of the month, but did you wear yours to prom?

And suddenly: the ding of a text. Another friend is bringing home another baby and I’m here with another fading hangover, lingering depression, plastic drawers that belong in a dorm room, and barely-legal underwear. Fabulous.

Deflated, and borderline suicidal (OK, I’m being a bit dramatic) I handle the situation the way I do every weird-to-bad choice. By justifying (read: making excuses for). I’ve never bought anything full price online and I frequent the kind of stores that are questioned for foreign child labor issues like H&M or Zara, so maybe I’m just economical? Or maybe I’m cheap, or lazy? But I have an answer for every excuse, leaving me to the only remaining option: maybe I really am gross.

But what defines gross? People don’t talk about picking their nose, but everyone’s done it. I think we each have our secret nasty moments, and as long as we aren’t hurting anyone we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over it. We are animals after all, and no amount of etiquette, money, technology, judging, or clothing is going to change that.

So join me in saying, “Hello my name is ____________, and I might have super old underwear.”  And as long as they stay in the shadow of my closet and the shroud of that time of the month (or until they disintegrate), my 18 year-old gross undies (aka grundies) are here to stay.  And kudos to you Ralph Lauren – you make one fine underwear product.

Image: Helga Weber

The post The Psychology of a Woman’s Underwear appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnEnglish doesn’t have the feminine case. Stop trying to add it to the rotation.

“These ‘Influence-Hers’ have considerably larger social networks — both online and offline…Besides having a larger social circle, they also tend to be more actively engaged with brands. The Influence-Hers are 38% more likely than typical women to ‘like’ brands on Facebook or to provide personal information to brands they like on Facebook.” – via AdvertisingAge

This morning, like many mornings, I was awakened by the sound of the coffee makeHer. I hopped into the showHer to freshen up before heading to work at EcoSalon headquartHers, where we create and distribute content for smart, stylish women who are early adoptHers and influenceHers. There, I scan the blogs by blogHers and also chat with photograpHers, social media marketHers (you know, like diggHers and redditHers) and a programmHer. Just kidding! Girls aren’t programmers.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of awkward insinuations of the feminine where it isn’t required, I will fear no condescension, for you, dear reader who does not need an “h” added, are with me. My pen and my words, they comfort me, and scare the shit out of idiots. I prepare a post in the presence of trolls; you anoint me with tweets; my inbox overflows.

But where was I.

Gendered nouns like actress and editrix have been around for eons/however long Urban Dictionary says they’ve been around. What I find useless is the her habit: that clever habit of marketers to conceive of terms like “influence-Her”, as seen in the above noted social media study that finds influential women are influential. (In seriousness, the study is actually quite interesting for this nugget: the more influential you are, the more likely you are to be influenced. Ahem, ladies. They are so on to us.)

Is the her habit in language used by media and marketers trivial or cynical? My personal reaction to the “Influence-Her” term was more amusement than bemusement, but I do wonder if calling out the girly, particularly by the types of people who are apt to describe women as targets and think in terms of segments, age and income demographics, widgets and sectors, is exactly benign.

I’m similarly perplexed by the Her that seems to have started it all, in the new media era at least, Blogher.com. Blogher claims to be “ the Web’s leading guide to the hottest news and trends among women in social media” and home of  “The best writing by women online” in a variety of categories. I can’t agree with any of that, but with millions of readers and bloggers (bloghers?), popular conferences and plenty of Pagerank, Blogher is indisputably popular and clearly wields considerable influence in its sphere. But that’s the problem: its sphere. Referring to oneself as a blogher feels awfully close to barefoot, pregnant and mommyblogging in the kitchen. In a word: marginalized. And primed for market. Why are we segregating suffixes?

To this I say: Nobody puts Baby in a cornHer.

I’ll take the wider sphere. The one where sometimes I am a woman, sometimes a boss, sometimes a friend, sometimes a lover, sometimes a daughter, sometimes a colleague. The one where I love children, animals and ruffles no more nor less than any man. (Possibly less on the ruffles.) The one where we all dwell, where we all have skin in it, where the grandest game is actually in play.

The one where I am just and always me, Sara Ost, at large, no if’s, and’s or her’s about it.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: Temari 09

The post The InsidHer’s Guide to Life: I’m So Over Her appeared first on EcoSalon.

Design loving bloggers and their latest low impact, low price projects.

The Twitterverse went wild Wednesday morning when Target announced Missoni as their latest designer collaboration. It’s set to launch September 13^th and promises to be one of their largest collections ever, featuring over 400 pieces, including clothing, dinnerwear and bedding.

Missoni for the masses? I have to confess I felt a pang of regret at the news, because while most shoppers are only too happy to get a look for less, and fashion retailers are keen to capitalize on a winning idea, I decided a couple of years ago that my wardrobe would be sourced as sustainably as possible. That means, for me, forgoing the temptations like Lanvin for H&M (a true test), and embracing the creativity and courage of my conscious convictions.

Perhaps you’re picturing a cheaply made, acrylic (shudder), knit Missoni top in your shopping cart and thinking the same. When you can’t stand another high-meets-low creation from a mass-market retailer, how are you going to get a designer concept look for less?

Allow me to introduce some of my favorite design loving bloggers and their latest low impact, low price projects. In the spirit of fashion’s new D.I.Y. ethos, their eye for a translatable idea is the perfect example of the web-obsessed world of fashion, concurrently serving eco interests.

Erica Domesek, the founder of P.S. – I Made This, describes her doable step-by-step guide DIY site as “A movement. It’s a call to action to reimagine, reuse & reinvent.” Her convincing replica of Burberry’s studded gabardine trench was truly resourceful, using chopsticks to recreate the studs. Chinese for dinner will never be the same again.

Runway DIY’s uncomplicated guide to updating a thrift-bought Baja Hoodie was in homage to Proenza Schouler’s hit-of-the-season: a beaded Baja Sweater. The site’s creative force, the mononymously named Arianna, presents fresh, straightforward projects that capture the latest trend’s coolest design detail or two.

For Virginie of Virginie Peny: Couture and DIY, enjoying fashion is a “self-made experience.” Her tutorials illustrate her unique take on exploring fashion media for personal inspiration. I loved her basic jersey tee interpretation of a slashed Maison Martin Margiela sweater from a recent edition of French Elle magazine. Too busy to slash your own? Every one of Peny’s DIY projects are available for purchase.

The post D.I.Y. Your Own Missoni, Burberry and Margiela appeared first on EcoSalon.

Cashmere has long been associated with luxury, but that’s not the case anymore with affordably priced cashmere currently saturating markets. While you might consider this a gift, mid-priced chain stores like Banana Republic and Target (who are buying the fiber) are part of a larger sock in the gut to the Mongolese people and the place they call home.

In addition to consumer’s demand for cashmere, the biggest culprit of the Mongolian countryside desertification are the goats themselves – eating roughly 400 square miles of grass a year (including the grass roots).

Ecotextile News reports that this over grazing of the high plains goats, in some instances has resulted in a “desertification of the land,” from nomadic herders looking to make a buck.

“The ever increasing demand in the west for cheap cashmere has encouraged such growth in the goat population so that there are real fears over the ecological balance of the region,” says Ecotextile News.

In the same article, China’s Ministry of Nature and Environment estimated that “grassland is thinning out across 75 percent of this vast country, two thirds the size of Western Europe, while 7 percent is already desert.”

With the Cashmere World Trade Fair taking place November 23-25, a Cashmere Sustainability Conference will encourage attendees on industry and environmental threats – from the fiber to the overgrazing, scouring and dyeing.

Image: Left-Hand

The post Move Over Steinbeck: Inner Mongolia Becomes a Modern Day Dust Bowl appeared first on EcoSalon.