Selling earth-friendly fashions and spotlighting causes which are fashionable is the marketing gimmick behind a new niche boutique at Saks Fifth Avenue online store. You can get free shipping on your valentine's day order today for orders over $150; just enter the promotional code VALENTINE at www.saks.com green house. Saks has forayed into eco-design before, with individual fashion lines.

The TreeHugger scoop on the newest passenger to jump onto the green-train: the Green House fashions are simple and elegant, lending themselves to a low-consumption/high flexibility wardrobe. Fabrics made of organic cotton, bamboo and tensel (biodegradable eucalyptus fiber) as well as accents out of recycled material such as leather appear to fulfill the earth-friendly intentions of Green House. And spotlighting hip social causes can only do good...but TreeHugger is disappointed to see the well-intentioned but somewhat misdirected use of bottled water to promote the cause-of-the-day, charity:water.

Charity:water is linked directly from the Green House "learn" topic. Before we ream them for bottled water, we do want to give kudos for the transparency. For example, donors can choose to buy the hat "charity:" and see $14 cover the merchandise and $20 go to administrative costs, or select the cappie "water" to direct your $20 to those in need. And though the cause of clean water for all is close to TreeHugger's heart, we can only plead: ditch the bottled water! Or at least get water in an eco-efficient bulk package as an icon for your cause. For TH readers who want to contribute to charity:water, we recommend the Valentine's Day e-card. $20 sends love to your special one and spreads the love to those in need, without the ugly consumer merchandise in the middle.

Or buy a virtual bottle of water. For heaven's sake (for earth's sake), just don't pay to ship a plastic tube with a plastic bottle inside in the name of charity!

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