Cleansing Blog

While green has definitely hit the mainstream, the carefully screened vendors at the Green Festival still generally skew to the hemp-and-earth-tones set. But I’m a hip, urban kind of girl. I like sass with my sustainability. So I was excited to discover some companies this year who both produce my kind of goods and meet Co-op America’s strict standards for social and environmental responsibility. Here were some of my favorites:

Knoend’s Lite2go

Packaging. If there was one thing I could get rid of, it’s all that plastic and styrofoam and even excess cardboard that envelops the things I buy. Knoend’s Lite2go solves that problem: The polypropylene package that the lamp comes in is actually the shade itself, which you unroll and snap together to create your brand-new light source. The only thing to toss is the wraparound paper label — and that can go into the recycling bin. The idea is so brilliant it won a Bronze International Design Excellence Award this year (co-sponsored by BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America). Watch this cute video demonstrating the difference in unpacking a traditional lamp and the Lite2go.

Earthlust

First there were the Nalgene water bottles everyone lugged around, as if we were all at one giant campground. Then came the stainless steel bottles with that admittedly cool industrial look. Now, thanks to Allison Tryk at Earthlust, we can get a little style with our agua. Tryk’s stainless steel bottles say goodbye to metallic and hello to a variety of fun colors, from robin’s egg blue, to a rich brick red, to moss green. Plus, they’re decorated with sweet images of birds, feathers, flowers, and (my favorite) artfully rendered trees.

Bionade

Nothing says “Europe” like those giant Cinzano umbrellas clustered along wide Parisian boulevards. Which is how the bold primary-color graphics on Bionade’s bottles caught my attention. Bionade is a Bavarian company which makes organic soft drinks, using a secret fermentation process to produce its elderberry, lychee, herbal, and ginger and orange flavors. The ten-year-old beverages are already a hit in Europe, where they’re served at trendy bars and restaurants as well as at coffee shops and fast-food joints. Bionade is only now starting to make its way into the U.S. Plans to build a first-of-its-kind green production facility in Iowa mean they intend to stay.

Lulu’s Raw Chocolate Alchemy

Stroll among the Green Festival halls, and it won’t take long before someone offers you a tasty chocolate sample. Theo, Green & Black’s, Alter Eco Fair Trade — I love them all (especially Alter Eco’s “Dark Velvet” — thank goodness I had the presence of mind to pick up a couple bars). But what I really loved this year was Lulu’s Raw Chocolate Alchemy. This is no ordinary bar. In fact, it’s not a bar at all. Lulu’s chocolate, which is made with coconut oil, maca root, and agave nectar, comes in a four-ounce jar. Lulu features six flavors: Vanilla Rose, Lavender Blueberry, Velvet, Maca Nib Crunch, Cayenne Kiss, and Western Red Cedar, a surprising flavor that tastes like a bit of the forest right in your chocolate. Move over Ben & Jerry’s. I’ve just met my new scooping pleasure.

Pangea Organics

The seven-year-old southern California maker of personal care products first gained notice for their all-natural ingredients. Then they wowed the green world with their earth-friendly packaging. The boxes the bottles and jars come in are embedded with seeds you can plant in your backyard to grow sweet basil or flowering amaranth. And now their holiday gift boxes will grow you a spruce tree, if you’ve got the room. Pangea scored another green coup when they eliminated an entire layer of waste by skipping the paper and printing product labels directly onto their bottles.

LuLii’s Handwoven Designs

Bags, bags, bags. Some women collect shoes. I collect bags. Bags at the Green Festival are usually of the batik or Guatemalan-weave variety. But I need something sleeker for business meetings and swank dinners. Enter LuLii’s stylish bags. Napa-based Vivian Lyman, who is half Thai, works with a family-owned business in Southeast Asia to produce the shoulder bags from woven rattan in a variety of colors, from cherry red, to mustard yellow, to kaboch-squash orange.

going green