Can't we just live with pet hair?

I have a cat. A black cat. She's little and has fairly short hair, but she sheds. I don't care. I have a cat. That means cat hair on stuff. If I minded, I wouldn't have a cat. There's the vacuum for the floor and couch and the washing machine for other things. These are enough. When people visit, they are in the home where my cat lives. If they have a problem with cat hair, respectfully, they can stay away. If they are allergic, I will happily clean really well before they arrive, and make sure my cat is comfortable elsewhere while they are present. But this is her home, and her hair here is fine.

Apparently, I am in the minority. Apparently, it is unseemly to have pet hair anywhere in your home. (My cleaning standards are more lax than others, I guess!) Lint rollers are everywhere. BUT WAIT!!! SC Johnson thinks lint rollers are wasteful, not so green, bad plastic, not cost-efficient, whatever. (Oh, yeah, right, they just want you to buy THEIR product instead of Scotch 3M's.) No more rollers! We have THIS! Their description on their site: "Quickly and effectively removes pet hair from upholstered furniture / You love your pets but not the pet hair they leave behind. With sticky roller sheets, you can go through a lot of sheets. And vacuum cleaners are not designed to clean up messy pet hair. Fortunately, there's a fast and easy way."

OH PRAISE THE HEAVENS!!! I needed a faster and easier way to prove I'm not a terrible housekeeper! What do you have for me, Pledge? Well, what they have is a handy-dandy cool gizmo that traps the hair in so you never even have to touch it or deal with it at all!! Cool! When the chamber-thing is full-ish or the rollers aren't so picky-uppy anymore, simply toss the thing in the ocean. OK, OK, you aren't really throwing it in the ocean. It'll live in a landfill. Or maybe end up in the ocean anyway. This thing is nowhere near recyclable. And, it's full of hair. (which actually has many GOOD uses instead of plastic-trapped landfill filler.) When I first saw this product, I automatically assumed you could empty the chamber and keep using the rollers. See, I assumed that because it was a logical assumption. WRONG. SC Johnson even states right on the webpage: "Do not wash or rinse rollers. Do not try to empty or disassemble disposable sweeper." Nope. Don'tchoo worry yer purty lil' head. Just throw it away! I saw a loved one get around this a little by cutting a door in the top of the thing to empty it, thus extending its life a little longer... but in the end, I cannot get behind this thing. Is it because I'm fine with pet hair in my home? Is it because I don't mind lugging out the vacuum instead? Do I love my pet more than people who need to clean up the hair? (Of COURSE NOT on that last one.) Are we trying to be "too" clean in our hermetically-sealed homes? If  your couch is so precious, put a blanket down for the pet in question. Blankets get washed. No hair. If you are so terribly upset by so much hair, why do you have a dog or cat? I understand, Pledge/SC Johnson are preying on some serious fears and phobias out there, but I stand up to say, "NO. I am OK with pet hair. I do not need a plastic disposable solution to pet hair. I REJECT your product, Mr. SC Johnson, A Family Company."

I do respect that people want to keep their homes cleaner than do I. I simply feel we need to open our eyes to alternatives, because "fast and easy" has gotten us into a bad, bad mess. 

And I don't see SC Johnson cleaning up any of THAT mess... just see them contributing to it. 

Going to the Dogs

Sunday paper coupons are a great source of my product-consternation. This week, I came across a new great healthy product... for dogs. I don't have a dog, I have a cat, and she can be darn picky with her food. She's small and doesn't eat much, so I have to be careful that her food doesn't get stale before she can finish the bag.

No such fears for your dog! Beneful to the rescue! (Oh look, and I didn't even realize it was a Nestle company when I started this! Brilliant!!!! Yes, Nestle, the Big Bad, owns Purina now.) Beneful introduces IncrediBites, real wholesome ingredients packaged in stay-fresh pouches. Yes, you can now buy a box of dried dog food, full of 14 smaller PLASTIC 6-ounce pouches of convenience.

IS it convenient? Perhaps. Is it necessary? Not at all. I have never but never heard a dog complain that his food was going stale. I have never heard a dog lament that his food wasn't out-of-the-bag fresh. I HAVE seem dogs eat cat poo right out of the litter box. (well, I guess that IS an argument for freshness...)  I have seen dog food kept in big old cans with a scoop in it, and the dog happily wolf down whatever. This leads me to wonder who this new packaging is for? It isn't for the dog; of that, I am certain. It has to be for the owners who think that their dog is really a little person and needs to be treated as such. (It is not.) I might be lenient if there weren't a slew of other ways to keep the dog food fresh, were a person so inclined as to believe their dog needs hermetically sealed freshness (it does not). You can buy containers anywhere that will keep the food fresh after you have opened the bag. Heck, I think I saw one lisenced by The Dog Whisperer in Petco (where the pets go) the other day. Get one of those, but by all means, REJECT this wasteful plastic.

Beneful's catch-phrase is "Healthful. Flavorful. Beneful. (R)" I ask, "Healthful for whom?" Because these plastic pouches are NOT healthful for the planet. Reject this latest attempt at a grab of a market share. Don't buy this food, buy some other food for your pooch, and put it in another container to keep it fresh... as fresh as that litter-box treat your dog was eyeing earlier.

But guess who owns them?

My husband says I should start praising some positive products. I thought about it, and he's right, but there are just so darn many bad ones out there.

Today's come-on-do-we-really-need-that waste-of-plastic product is from Garnier, under their "Nutritioniste" line. Now, Garnier at first glace seems to want us to think that they are all natural and healthy... or something. They use pretty green bottles and always have green leaves or some kind of fruit around in their ads... I don't think I'm falling for it. They tout their haircolor named "Herbashine" as having bamboo extract, as though the word "bamboo" will make us forget all the other chemicals in there... But I digress.

 Garnier Skin Renew Brusher Gel-Cleanser, "clinically proven" to have "deep pore cleansing action", is a convenient bottle with a built-in scrubbing brush. Again... every time... new bottle, new chunk o' plastic stuck on the top. Plus an extra-large cap to cover it.

I applaud their innovation to try to get women to buy this product, something special to set it apart from all the other skin cleansers out there --- wait. No, I do not. This is unnecessary. Just more plastic for the landfill and the ocean. In researching it, I even found a review of someone who tried it, but then liked the gel but not the brush, so just squeezed out the gel onto her fingers anyway. Sigh.

REJECT. Just buy a much healthier naturally-made bar soap. Gently use a loofah. Those are completely natural and mightily compostable/biodegradable.

Oh... and to answer the question in the heading: L'Oreal. Of course.

It's just too easy.

I Swear, I'm not TRYING to pick on them...

...but Boo-Scary Thing of the Day, The Cackle-Worthy Product today, is once again brought to you courtesy of L'OREAL.

We all know make-up isn't the most Earth-friendly stuff to be found, for sure, and cosmetic companies have MORE than their fair share of polluting, animal-testing, etc. I really have no problem with L'OREAL, they have some nice products, but they do seem to be guilty of some mis-steps in their quest to rise above. Their newest bestest brightest coolest foundation comes with a nifty little roller. It's like a paint-roller. Seriously. They say we need it for flawless coverage. They say it gives us the air-brushed look we so desperately "need". They say we can't possibly be trusted with our own fingers. Our fingers might (*gasp!*) gives us streaks. Because, you know, we're just not that talented to smear make-up on after having done it for umpteen million years. Don't even THINK about mentioning a sponge. Horrors.

Nope. Now we need yet another little piece of plastic that took resources to produce, and that will float off to join the Plastic Patch in the oceans once we are finished with it. Like the Scrublet (tm) on their facial scrub, this little doodad is meant to be used only so long as the make-up lasts, then discarded. Extra-super-special bonus: each case this comes in must be bigger so that it can hold the little roller. More plastic.

L’Oréal’s new True Match Roller™ Perfecting Roll On Makeup: REJECT.

"Flexible applicator adapts to all the curves of your face for even coverage"... I find my fingers are rather flexible and also able to handle the contours of my face. "It’s a whole new way to apply your foundation." Um... pretty sure the "old" way works just fine. Considering, once we hit our morning coffee or even lunch, we're messing it up anyway.... I'm OK with a little imperfection. How about you?

Again, I swear i'm not trying to pick on them. They are just making it way too easy...

"Scrublet"???

Now we're just makin' stuff up.

L'OREAL Paris wants us to "Go beyond clean." Their brand-spankin'-new product, "go 360 Clean (tm)" Deep Facial Cleansers come with "The Scrublet (tm)". The Super Soft Scrublet (tm) conveniently pops right on out of the bottle. Each and every bottle. New bottle, new Scrublet (tm). Because, really, you need a new little piece of plastic with each new bottle; that last one might have too many yuckies on it after a few weeks. The completely disposable Scrublet (tm) alarmed me enough at first glance, but then thinking about it more alarmed me more. LOOK at it. It's so hip and cool in its design... so fresh, so now, so fun... they obviously put a lot of thought into it. Best of all, if you notice, it cuts down on the amount of product IN the bottle. BRILLIANT! But you don't even think of that when you look at it because it's so darn cool and hip and convenient.

Soooo... not only are we tossing out all these little (completely unnecessary) Scrublets (tm), we're buying that many more bottles of the stuff because less comes in each bottle.

This is a clear case of a product to REJECT. Of course, all the un-sold bottles and cases etc will end up in a landfill anyway (the Good Green Witch has been in a bit of a "glass-half-empty" place lately, sorry), but perhaps we can show these companies that we do not want these kinds of things, and they'll stop making them in the first place. The product motto, "Pop Out * Pour On * Go Clean" needs one more phrase at the end: Go Waste. 

Y'know, I am trying to come up with an alternate use for the Scrublet (tm), but L'Oreal has really done a good job of making it amazingly short-lived. Bravo, L'Oreal. Apparently, "go beyond clean" does not extend to the planet. Got it.