Fashion & Beauty

Welcome to SustainStyle, a weekly digest from the writers at 1plus1, a blog dedicated to eco-friendly fashion. SustainStyle runs every Wednesday.

The Greenloop launches a "reshirt cutting contest" to help create awareness of making whats old new again.

Hat Attack offers us stylish organic and sustainable alternatives to block out the sun.

Lip Gloss goes from pretty to ugly when not mixed with SPF.

Organic Style Magazine, a new favorite read, is full of stories from people we like and paperless!

Vegan Queen makes us drooling over the new must have bag of the season.

Eco- luxury gift ideas to spoil your mom with!

Neu Aura's collection of animal-free shoes are comfortable enough for work and cute enough for cocktail hour.

xo.

Fashion & Beauty

Oooooh, Marie Claire magazine has gone green this month--Eco chic goes glam--and it's fun. It's packaged in a brown paper bag (with the tag line "This is not a plastic bag") and included is a free pot of Body Shop Coconut Body Butter along with oodles of articles about "the hottest fashion and beauty buys that are green and gorgeous". Lots of the info is familiar to Treehugger readers--label of the month is Ciel, they love Stella McCartney, Kiehls and jewellery by Made. But lots was new too. Fashion-conscience.com is an ethical and luxurious online store which features the newest of the new in every great eco-label. Coolaworld.com is an online shopping site that lets the consumer earn "cool credits" which are used to fund "Cool Projects" such as Solar Aid, Tusk (sustainable conservation in Africa), Staro (Amazon rainforest preservation), Waste Watch and Waterwise(reduced water consumption).

There are several good articles geared towards women who are feeling guilty about not buying green clothing but don't quite know where to start. Fear of the expense and that old sterotype of hemp clothing is a big barrier and the magazine challenges (and dresses) 3 cynics in new, vintage and casual wear. Interviews with Cate Blanchett and Joaquin Phoenix, as well as Gwyneth, Orlando Bloom and Julia Roberts tick the requisite celebrity boxes.

Fashion & Beauty

Nau is closing down
TreeHugger is very sad to report that Nau is closing its doors and winding down its business, effective immediately. One of our favorite brands, Nau combined high performance apparel with sleek design and thoughtful, green materials; their collections included everything from rain gear to shorts and organic cotton denim to polo shirts.

You can get your last piece of Nau, both at their five brick 'n mortar stores and online, at 50% off; it looks like the stores will only be open through tomorrow -- Saturday, May 3 -- and Nau is in the process of determining how long the website will remain open. Shop now and you'll be buying a piece of history.

Fashion & Beauty

Last year we got a good response from readers and colleagues when Mike Indursky of Burt's Bees talked in a TreeHugger interview about developing The Natural Standard - an attempt to specify exactly what is, and is not, meant when a company describes its products as "all natural". At TreeHugger we get inundated every day with press releases for products that use terms like all natural or sustainable, yet in reality there can be a huge disparity between what is meant by such definitions (you only have to look at the recent Dr Bronner's law suit to see how controversial this stuff can get!). On the one hand, many companies are working hard to produce the most natural, sustainable and transparent personal care products they possibly can, yet other companies are continuing to make the same-old-same-old - formulations that are made up of 95% petrochemicals, with a good measure of parabens and other goodies thrown in, and then adding a few randomn herbs for the purposes of claiming them as an all natural product. And unfortunately there's been little in the way of regulation to discourage such behavior.

Fashion & Beauty

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing several popular cosmetic manufacturers of deceptive marketing. Filed in San Francisco Superior Court, the lawsuit targets brands such as Estee Lauder, Kiss My Face, Hain Celestial, and Stella McCartney America, several of which are members of OASIS, a new but controversial organic beauty label.

In the lawsuit, the good doctor charges the firms of false advertising by labeling their lotions and soaps "organic," even though they contain relatively little organic material, comprise synthetic chemicals, and use petrochemicals in processing.

"This is the corrosive marketing of the cosmetics industry that hollowed out the meaning of 'natural' and now is doing the same with 'organic'," David Bronner, president of the 60-year-old company, tells the San Francisco Chronicle. ::San Francisco Chronicle

Fashion & Beauty

All Sarah and Rose from Greenknickers are waiting for these days is sunny weather as there is no more sore bottom excuses not to get on your bike! The girls have designed special padded boxers and knickers that look as sexy as the rest of their collection (see here, here and here) to encourage their customers to cycle more. (more about these and lucky wedding lingerie after the jump)

books

Over the last year there has been a relative rush of books on eco and ethical fashion published in the UK. We think this is an excellent indicator of the public’s awareness of how, what, where and whom produced the clothes in our closets. First was Tamsin Blanchard’s Green is the New Black and Mathilda Lee’s Eco-Chic. Then most recently Kate Fletcher’s Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys and Sandy Black’s Eco-Chic: The Fashion Paradox (review coming soon).

For all students of new subjects it’s often sensible to start with the general overview and then, as knowledge and interest increase, start digging into the more complex layers. Fortunately the order in which these books have arrived on the shelves has enabled us to do just that. The clear and simple journalistic approach of Blanchard and Lee’s books got us off to a good start and now Kate Fletcher takes the reader into deeper waters with her wealth of experience and knowledge built up over the last 15 years working within the textiles and fashion industries.

Fashion & Beauty

In this video by the crafty geniuses at ThreadBanger, learn why the best way to find out what ingredients go into your cosmetics and skincare products is to put them in yourself. ::ThreadBanger