The Merry Corgi

Hey all! I’ve been gone for a bit, but here are some updates:

1. After a long weekend of camping I realized just how wonderful baking soda cleans the grease and sweat out of your hair in a way vinegar can’t. I’m still using vinegar 6 days of the week, but when it’s really greasy and bad from exercise or what have you, baking soda literally makes my hair squeaky from lack of grease. 10/10.

2. I bought my normal box of Outshine Lemon bars from Target and not only noticed how absurdly expensive they are ($5 for a box of 6?!) but how much packaging I threw out with every one. Needless to say I bought some reusable popsicle moulds and will be experimenting with making my own lemon pops!

3. I have a good lead on a local business that wants my compostables, so if that’s the case I’m going to start collecting them more carefully and shuttling them over. Yay, waste reduction!

By now y’all should know miss Pebbles, the inspiration for this blog’s name and logo. In case you forgot, here she is with me on a recent camping adventure:

Yeah, she’s pretty cute, isn’t she? I agree. But between the harsh rains recently and us starting to take her running, her paw pads weren’t so cute. I went to buy Musher’s Secret, but not only was it expensive, they won’t let you know what’s in their ‘secret formula’. Like, I get it, but I’m not going to rub something into my dog’s feet and hope it’s good for her. That’s not how I roll.

So I found this recipe online from the blog frugally sustainable: https://frugallysustainable.com/protective-paw-wax/ and went on my merry way.

Once upon a time, I found out that my shampoo was full of carcinogens, and things that didn’t dissolve in the environment.

What? I was rubbing cancer on my head? Go figure.

So after a few quick google searches I found out that half-water half-apple cider vinegar was the way to go for hair conditioning, cleaning, what have you. 

I figured I’d give it a trial period and see how my hair did. And honestly, I have no complaints.

My shower REEKS of vinegar for the first few seconds after I pour it on my head and scrub it in, but it the smell dissipates, and my head no longer smells like salad dressing once my hair dries.

And it’s not going to give me cancer, which is great!

Here are my before and after (the before is months before, when my hair was still dyed red. After is five minutes ago.)

My hair, aside from being lighter in the second picture (my natural shade), I feel is less greasy and looks more natural in texture overall. My s/o also said my hair looked less dry and poofy, whatever that means. I think I’ve just been styling it better. (Short hair + THICK hair = poofy. End of story.)

Also, I’ve noticed that my absolutely awful dandruff is nearly gone! As gross as it is, I used to remind myself of that scene from the breakfast club where the girl is creating snow on her drawing by scratching her head... I tried to produce dandruff yesterday to see how my scalp was doing and had a damn hard time. 

https://wellnessmama.com/3615/stain-treatment-reference/All-natural Stain Removal Guide!

Links list below the jump!

And I grabbed a microfiber cloth off the my bathroom counter to mop the sweat off myself because the gym I go to isn’t air conditioned and I’m doing C25k

Anyway after I stop running I start wiping my face and feel a slight burn and realize that it smells like vinegar...

That was 100% the cloth I was using with my diluted vinegar mixture to clean the counter the day before.

Suddenly I was very grateful I didn’t use bleach or other cleaning products again because I can think of worse things than having vinegar on my face. 

I continued to use it, just avoided my eyes more carefully.

When I decided to trend towards an eco-friendly lifestyle, I realized a huge part of that would include my cleaning products. They were all chemicals and gels and I was about to run out of dishwasher detergent.. so what’s a girl to do?

So one of my passions is Scrapbooking. Which is, debatably, the opposite of low-waste. I know. There are bits and baubles and papers and glue and a lot of plastic.

But here are a few tips I have to help you reduce your waste while crafting!

That your city’s recycling program DOES recycle plastics #1-7, but you have to take non-hard plastic items to a separate facility.

The Merry Corgi is an eco-friendly blog dedicated to living a low-waste lifestyle and using sustainable, bio-degradable or recyclable alternatives to everyday products.