I hate Prius cars and vegans, and sometimes I don't recycle on purpose. I definitely don't check out what chemicals are in my facial creams! I wear fur occasionally, and eat steaks, love trucks and ride horses. Don't get me wrong... I am not totally evil, I just enjoy not being completely pious and PC -- because, let's face it, sometimes it just feels like overkill, and slightly like, "what's the point."
Just as Woody Allen so brilliantly illustrated in a scene in Annie Hall, where the small boy is in the shrink's office and his mother is screaming "he wont do his homework..." and the boy's brilliant response... "What's the point?... the world's expanding."
I sort of feel like this. Nevertheless, I still dutifully use cloth shopping bags and fill my canister of water, instead of using plastic bottles and read the ingredients of my food before I buy it... most of the time... But really, "what's the point?" We are all going to die of something horrid at the end of the day. So here I am, happily getting my nails painted, dyeing my hair, probably using the wrong laundry detergent, and yes, plying whatever expensive face creams I can get my hands on.
Tata Harper
Then I met Tata Harper, who basically ruined all this for me! She is an extremely healthy-looking beauty from Colombia who makes super-pure facial products, and has spent the last 5 years engineering nature in its purest form into bottles for the likes of me! All her products are totally natural, and ingredients mostly come from her organic farm in Vermont. Tata is wonderful and interesting; other than actually succeeding in her quest to making a good line of all natural products, her passion for pureness has led her in the direction of actually making a difference. She proudly tells me to check out Skin Deep, a cosmetic safety database. Type any product in your bathroom cabinet and check out the level of toxicity, if you dare! She scores almost all zeros, which means there is nothing but goodness in her stuff. She is very involved in campaigning for safe cosmetics and banning the use of known toxic materials found in many skin care lines, just as they have done already in Europe. So here is one more thing to make you crazy! Not only do we have to read all the labels in the grocery store, now you will have the overwhelming urge, as I did, to test every skin care and hair product in your bathroom on this web site. Or you can skip the torture and just buy some stuff from Tata.
And when you just plain old feel that rebellious streak coming on, you can always pile on the Nivia, chuck a tin can in the trash, leave the bath water running, get toxic manicures, grow a lawn, play golf and smoke a cigarette.
