BabyGanic’s Face Wipes

April 11, 2013 By Anne

I kinda thought once my babies weren’t babies anymore I wouldn’t need wipes. Boy was I wrong!

My “babies” are 12 and 5 and we use them all the time. Whether it’s after dinner or snack time or cleaning after an hour of crafts, wipes are a necessity!

We are very eco-friendly, so when asked to review an eco-friendly wipe, I was on board!

BabyGanics, one of the United States’ leading manufacturers of baby-safe products sent me a package of Fine & Handy Hand and Face Wipes try out.

Pediatrician and dermatologist tested, their fragrance-free formula not only cleans your baby’s sensitive skin, but moisturizes and hydrates with special skin conditioners found in each of these unique wipes. Fine & Handy wipes are specially formulated with natural plant-based ingredients and are non-toxic, as well as gluten free. Unlike other leading brands in the industry, BabyGanics ensures that none of their wipes are made with chlorine, bleach, parabens, sulfates, or phthalates. Ideal for your on-the-go needs, this conveniently packaged product contains 30 wipes and can easily be tossed in your purse, diaper bag, stroller, or car and thrown away after use without guilt due to its biodegradable properties! BabyGanics’ Fine & Handy Hand and Face Wipes retail for $4.99 and can be purchased at Babies R Us, Buy Buy Baby, Amazon.com, Diapers.com and Vine.com

Cookies and milk for snack make for a messy face!

But one swipe with a wipe and it’s all gone!

I love knowing that the wipes I am using are non toxic and eco-friendly!!

I received the above product to try. Opinions are my own.

Anne

I'm a mother of 2 who likes to get involved in too much! Besides writing here I started a non-profit, I'm on the PTO board, very active in my community and volunteer in the school. I enjoy music, reading, cooking, traveling and spending time with my family. We just adopted our 3rd cat and love them all!

Quadra-Fire Stoves are Eco-Friendly

February 19, 2013 By Anne

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of QuadraFire for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Our old home had a wonderful fireplace. While we did not use that often it was a wonderful fireplace and it was great to use on those cold Florida nights. When we were building our new home we opted to not go with a fireplace. But now that winter is here there are times when it would be nice to build a fire.

Have you seen the QuadraFire Pellet Stoves? Quadra-Fire’s stoves and inserts are the quietest, easiest to operate and most durable products on the market. These stoves look great and we could easily add one if we decided to in the future. Quadra-Fire® is built on a strong legacy and they create products with proven performance, durability and control in mind. Quadra-Fire Pellet Stoves are a popular heating alternative and have many benefits to your home? Using a pellet stove costs 44% less than oil, 47% less than electric, and 53% less than propane heat. Plus it’s very eco-friendly! Biomass fuels are composed of renewable, carbon-neutral products.

If you do decide to get a biomass-burning stove, you could qualify for a tax credit. The federal tax credit on 75 percent efficient biomass heating appliances, which expired on Dec. 31, 2011, was reinstated on Jan. 2, 2013. The extender provides a 10 percent tax credit of up to $300 on a qualifying biomass heating appliance purchased between Jan. 1, 2012 and De. 31, 2013!

The Quadra-Fire Company starting in 1985 revealed their patented Quadra-Burn system as an eco-conscious replacement for traditional wood-burning stoves. These are perfect heating your home and I love that they are eco-friendly.

Would you like a Quadra-Fire notebook? Leave a comment on why you like Quadra-Fire and you could win a notebook made from recycled materials that has a pen with it. Check out Quadra-Fire on Facebook and Twitter,

Anne

Going Green in Baby Steps

January 28, 2013 By Anne

This is a partnered guest post.

Haste makes waste, and with the current state of our environment, we can’t afford to be much more wasteful. Climate change has blanketed its harmful ramifications from the polar ice caps to mountainous inlands. While behavioral change is an urgent matter for our society, going green isn’t as easy as flicking a switch.

Green practices take a real, concerted effort in order to make them valuable. If you’re interested in making an earth friendly shift, start small and work your way up. There’s no need for a massive, all-or-nothing overhaul. Here are four simple steps to get you going:

Wash in full loads. This one’s about as easy as it gets; make your laundry cycles count. Washers and dryers use up a boatload of electricity and water every time they’re run. In fact, it’s said that the typical American family of four does about 540 loads per year, which adds up to about 1,500 gallons of water. By avoiding half loads and long rinse cycles, you’ll be able to relax your strain on the environment pretty handily. And plus, you won’t be doing laundry as often!
Stop the junk mail. Even in the midst of the digital age, junk mail still seems to pile up in our mailboxes faster than ever. It’s annoying, it’s cumbersome and it’s an environmental plague considering all those envelopes and papers that get tossed directly into the garbage. Check out the FTCs website and see how you can stop junk mail from showing up at your door.
Try a green energy plan. Many U.S. consumers now have the ability to include green provisions into their natural gas and electricity services. If you live in a deregulated area, it’s particularly easy to make the switch. Just call up an electric supplier and you can get moved over to green energy plan without any lapse in service.
Switch your light bulbs. As you probably know already, incandescent bulbs use a lot of electricity. Plus, they don’t even last that long. The answer is to switch over to CFLs or LEDs. Both of these types of light bulbs are efficient and relatively inexpensive. The tiny extra you’ll pay for them will be easily accounted for and then some once you see the savings that show up on your energy bill.

See? It’s as easy as these four steps. None of them are going to throw you off your routine, but in combination, all of them could help you ease off your environmental impact. And don’t be afraid to expand your horizons! There are all sorts of ways to go green without sacrificing your comfort.

Kristina Ross

Blogger at http://www.saveonenergy.com

Anne

Things You Never Knew You Could Recycle

January 25, 2013 By Anne

I signed up for Earth911 a long time ago. They have some interesting stuff on there. Yesterday was 30+ Things You Didn’t Know You Could Recycle. It was broken down into categories. I picked a few out of those to share with you….

Plastic Baggies:

Now I knew I could take those plastic shopping bags to my local grocery store and recycle them, but I did not know I could take sandwich baggies too. According to Earth911 you can recycle all of those gallon bags, snack bags and sandwich bags all at the same place! You o need to make sure they are cleaned. I try not to use them, but with kids in school, I do end up using a few. I try to use containers instead.

There are over 15,000 drop-off locations around the country for plastic bags, which helps make recycling them much easier. Some stores take bread bags too!

Old or Unwanted Dishes:

You can always take old or wanted dished to the thrift store and donate them. Or even Freecycle them.

But broken dishes? Broken ceramic dishes can be donated or used for art projects such as mosaics. Check your local artists’ organizations to see if they’d like your dish pieces.

Another option is to check with local recycling facilities that accept concrete or brick. Some of these facilities may accept ceramic plates, National Geographic reports, in addition to broken construction materials. Often, ceramic materials are ground up and turned into gravel.

Old Pillows:

I wrote a post about this last year. I had some old pillows that I hated to throw a way, so I repurposed them to make pillows for my patio. I cut the pillow in half and placed in some pretty material I found at the store. perfect!!

Pillows are not something that you can just donate. You could turn one into a dog bed or use while gardening to pad your knees.

Glasses:

I worked at an eye doctor for many years and always had people calling in asking where they can take their old glasses. Lions clubs will accept glasses through their Lions Recycle for Sight program, which collects the glasses, sorts them by prescription and sends them to people who need them. Some optical stores will collect them, ours did not, but my son’s school would take and donate them to the Lions Club. So I always had a bag under my desk with glasses.

Shoes:

You can donate old shoes to a thrift store, but if they are too worn out, you can still donate them to a different cause.

For those athletic shoes that you’ve worn out, you can send them to Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program, which will actually shred the shoes and use the materials. The rubber, foam and fabric can be used in many ways and often find their way into athletic surfaces and playgrounds.

My son’s school used to have a donation box where you could drop off those old, unwanted shoes.

Hair:

Really? Yup! Human hair is compostable and recyclable. My son’s new roommate also says doggy hair can be used to put around your house to keep critters away. She is a groomer and saves her dogs fur for just that reason.

Donating your hair could help clean up future oil spills. San Francisco nonprofit Matter of Trust collects human and pet hair to create booms that soak up oil. Currently, warehouses are full, but you can be placed on the email alert list when the need arrives again.

Wine:

Another, really? But thin k about it. After you drink the wine, the glass is recyclable. The corks are recyclable. And any leftover wine can be tossed in the compost pile! Look for drop off locations for your corks at ReCORK America

Keys:

This is a great idea! We all have a drawer full of miscellaneous keys, but you don’t have to toss them in the trash. They’re made of valuable metal, after all. Keys For Kindness is a small, family-run program designed to raise money through metal key recycling for the Multiple Sclerosis society. The donor pays for shipping, but we’re sure karma points are said donor’s future.

Trophies:

We have lots of these! We even threw some out last week! I never knew I could donate them to be recycled. I will not throw another on away!

Total Awards & Promotions, Inc. has a trophy recycling program to benefit charities. Through a mail-in program, the company recycles your defunct awards or re-engraves and donates them to nonprofit organizations. One of many trophy recycling programs offered nationwide, the company also manufacturers its own awards made of recycled glass and newsprint.

Want more ideas? Check out Earth911.

Most pictures and information taken from Earth911. I added my own opinions and thoughts as I saw fit.

Anne

7th Generation Giveaway

January 21, 2013 By Anne

7th Generation has been a favorite of mine for a while now. Having children, I feel like I want to use products that are eco-friendly and not made from harsh products.

With flu season here and everyone worrying about germs, you’ve got to clean and clean to keep them at bay. So I feel better knowing I’m cleaning with products that won’t harm my pets or children and won’t cause harsh smells.

It’s super important to keep hands washed. I tell my children to wash their hands every time we come home form going out. Even if I use some disinfectant or wipes on them, I still like them to wash them the old fashioned way. What better way then to use 7th Generation Hand Wash in Fresh Citrus? The Hand Wash is a hypoallergenic formula that uses natural, plant-derived cleaners and is free of triclosan, dyes and synthetic fragrances.

I have the Citrus Scent in my kitchen and the Hand Wash in Lavender in my children’s bath. Lavender is such a wonderful soothing scent.

Tissues are super important to keep the germs at bay. My children are pretty good about covering up, but sometimes my daughter sneezes into her hands. So I have to remind her to go wash them. But at least she kept them from spreading! 7th Generation Tissues are made from 100% recycled paper with a minimum 50% post-consumer content.

Sanitizing!! Such an important thing to do all the time and more during flu season. 7th Generation Disinfecting Wipes are great! I used all mine up before I could get a picture!! These wipes kill over 99.99% of household germs, speciﬁcally: Influenza A viruses including H1N1, Rhinovirus (type 37, the Common Cold virus), Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa on hard, nonporous surfaces. I use them in the kitchen and bathroom.

My favorite 7th Generation by far is the All Purpose Cleaner. You can use this anywhere for anything! The All Purpose Cleaner removes grease, grime and all dirt without harsh fumes. It’s non-toxic, VOC-free and works on marble, granite, stainless steel and many other surfaces. I use this everywhere!

7th Generation would like to give one Mommy Has to Work reader all the above mentioned products, 5 total!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received the above products to review. All Opinions are my own.