Art | Resources
Vita Clay
Vita Clay slow cookers are the only brand that I know for sure does not have lead in the glaze of their pots. Their pots have no glaze at all and they work very hard to ensure their products are made from chemical-free natural clay. I called Vita Clay and talked with them about the clay they use. Their pots are made from zisha clay, which is a famous Chinese clay, known for its purity. It has been used for centuries to make teapots because zisha teapots are treasured for their ability to enhance the flavor, aroma and texture of tea. Zisha clay is also structurally strong without glazing and does not crack when subjected to large and sudden temperature differences. Vita Clay pots are certified lead-free by SGS and are also tested by the FDA.
Is This Zero VOC Paint Toxic?
Question from Jamie
I recently painted my entire house with Zero VOC paint from Kelly Moore? Do you know how dangerous that paint is?
Debra’s Answer
On the Kelly Moore Zero VOC Enviro Coat website it says the paints “are formulated with a 100% acrylic resin, and are Zero VOC for safe and virtually odorless application.” It also says it has “antimicrobial properties.” And these paints have zero VOC colorants, which is not the case with all zero VOC paints.
Let’s look at the MSDS. There are no hazardous materials reported.
But I just have to note that some chemicals I consider to be hazardous are not required to be reported.
As paints go, this is much less toxic than many, but it’s still a plastic paint made from petroleum. There are safer paints available. See Debra’s List: Interior Decorating: Paint.
How Long Do Pesticides Last?
Question from Bonnie Johnson
If pesticide was used in an apartment before you moved in how long would it take to go away and no longer be harmful. Are there any pesticides that are lower in toxins?
Debra’s Answer
Different pesticides persist for different lengths of time and if you can find out the name of the pesticide, you can look it up online and find out how long it persists before it biodegrades.
The length of time a pesticide persists is measured in “half life,” which is “the time when the expected value of the number of entities that have decayed is equal to half the original number.” It’s a probability, not an absolute. So minimum time before it will be gone is the half life number.
LCD TV or LED TV best for MCS?
Question from Alyce
I’m so confused about whether LCD TV or an LED TV is best for MCS. I seem to find conflicting information. Appreciate opinions!
Debra’s Answer
Readers? Any opinions to share?
Is a Plastic Laundry Sink Toxic?
Question from Cecilia
Dear Debra, I need to install a new laundry sink. I wanted to avoid plastic, but since the difference in price is so big (4 times more for stainless steel), I will appreciate your opinion about this one: http://www.mustee.com/product-lines/laundry-utility-tubs/index.html Thanks!
Debra’s Answer
According to their website, it’s made from fiberglass. Fiberglass is molten glass spun into fibers, but then plastic resins of various types are added. Nothing wrong with the glass fibers, but unless you know the type of resin used, we can’t evaluate the toxicity.
I suggest giving the manufacturer a call and then writing again with the answer. Then I can tell you if it is toxic or not.
Let it Shine: The History and Possibilites of Solar Energy
My guest is John Perlin, author of Let it Shine: The 6,000-year story of Solar Energy. I still have on my shelf an autographed copy of his previous book A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology, published in 1980 (now out-of-print). It’s actually 
one of my favorite books of all time and can’t wait to read the new one. John’s work, to me, is an inspiration for solar energy. John is an international expert on solar energy and has lectured around the world on the subject. We’ll be talking about the history of solar energy and the possibilities of using solar energy as a less toxic energy source now and in the future. www.john-perlin.com
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Let it Shine: the History and Possibilities of Solar Energy
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: John Perlin
Date of Broadcast: September 26, 2013
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. And even though there are many, many toxic chemicals out there, there are also a lot of things that we can do to remove toxic chemicals from our home, remove toxic chemicals from our bodies, remove toxic chemicals from our community. And my personal goal is to have a completely toxic-free world. And that’s possible because all the technology exists. It just is a matter of education and choice.
And that’s why I’m here, to let you know what’s possible so that you can make those choices.
Today, we’re going to talk about solar energy, and I have probably the best person in the world that I can think of to have here as a guest to talk about this subject.
My guest is John Perlin. He’s the author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy.
Now, the reason why we’re talking about solar energy today is because it’s a less toxic alternative to using fossil fuels which create toxic waste in their mining. I’m not sure if that’s the right word. But when they remove it from the earth, there’s toxic waste. When it gets processed, there’s toxic waste. And when it gets burned for energy, there’s toxic waste.
So, we can eliminate a lot of toxics in the environment by using solar energy.
I actually met John Perlin many years ago—we’ll find out if he remembers—when he had written a book called A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology. He was a co-author of that book. And now, his new book, Let It Shine, he talks about the 6000-year story of solar energy.
So, a lot has happened. He’s obviously learned a lot more about solar energy. And when I read A Golden Thread, I couldn’t put it down. I just read it from cover to cover. I was so excited and so inspired because solar energy is a lot more than putting solar panels on your house.
And the thing that I immediately thought of was to use a solar oven. And I now live in Florida. And we have so much sunshine.
We could be using so much solar energy in so many ways, and we aren’t.
And so, this is why it’s important for us to talk about this, so that more people can hear about it.
Hi, John. Thanks for being on the show today.
JOHN PERLIN: Hi! And I do remember you.
DEBRA: Oh, good! I remember you. And when I saw your book I thought, “Oh, yes. Let’s have John on.”
JOHN PERLIN: Well, I hope you find Let It Shine as hard to put down as A Golden Thread.
DEBRA: Well, I actually haven’t started reading it yet. I glanced through it to see where you’re going with it. But I’m taking it with me. I’m going to the Natural Products Expo this afternoon, getting on a plane to Baltimore. And I’m taking it with me so I can read it on the plane, and in between doing other things.
I’m so glad that you have an updated book because your perspective is so unique and empowering. And we’re going to talk about all of these things today.
JOHN PERLIN: First of all, maybe we can do a second show after you read the book.
DEBRA: Well, we could! We absolutely could. And I’ll probably have more questions to ask you. But let’s start out with how did you get so interested in solar energy?
JOHN PERLIN: Well, it’s a long story, but to make it very short, when I was living in Jerusalem, I decided I wanted to be a writer, but I had no idea what I was going to write.
And then, what happened when I came back to America, I got involved in a debate in Santa Barbara, California whether oil, natural gas, was the only way we can fuel the world.
So, I spent—
DEBRA: Let me interrupt you for minute because I’m from California. In fact, I think I met you when I was in Santa Barbara.
So, for those of you who don’t know, Santa Barbara is an extremely beautiful place right on the Pacific Ocean. And off shore, there are oil wells. And there’s a lot of controversy about having those oil wells there. But they’re just unsightly if nothing else.
And they’re probably causing some pollution. And I don’t even know what all the issues are, but there are oil wells off the coast of Santa Barbara. You can just see them in a line.
JOHN PERLIN: Well, the thing was, is they wanted to bring it on shore and build a large refining plant using the argument there was no other choice to fuel America.
So, I went to the library, and explored the literature at the time, and found that solar was viable. And so, what I did was I testified at the supervisors’ meeting. And they liked my talk so much that the leading radio station said if I make a little book on that, they will give me all the air time possible.
So, I did that. And I had only 10 books that I made. And that sold out really quickly.
So then the librarian at Santa Barbara said he liked the book so much. It was a little book called “Solar Energy Fact Sheet.” I just sent it to a group that reviews such innovative, new literature. It was called a book legger. And they gave it a great review.
And suddenly, I was selling books all over the world.
And then, I got invited to a conference on solar energy and someone said, “If you think you guys are doing something new, back in the turn of the century, we had solar water heaters in Southern California.”
So, I thought, “Wow! What a story. No one knows about this. I’ll write a book on solar water heating in California.”
And then, I talked to an architect that had been around for longer than anyone else. And he said, “If you think this is new, when I was in architectural school, I learned that the Romans heated their baths with solar energy.”
And then, I went to University of California Santa Barbara to the Classics Department to find out where I could find information on this. And suddenly, one of the professors said, “Oh, if you think that’s new, you should explore the excavations at Olympus which talk about the Greeks using solar energy to heat all their houses and building all their cities so every house could use the heat of the sun.”
So, that’s how I began my foray into solar history.
DEBRA: And at the time, nobody else was writing about that. Wasn’t yours one of the first books that really discussed solar energy in the way that you discuss it?
JOHN PERLIN: It was the only book.
DEBRA: It was the only book.
JOHN PERLIN: Actually, that’s one of the interesting things about my work is that it’s primarily original archival research.
DEBRA: Yes. And you and I have a parallel in that about the same time I was starting to write about toxics. My book was the only book. I was in libraries looking up what kind of chemicals were in products in books that nobody ever read—medical books and poison control books and things like that.
And mine was the first book that somebody wrote about toxic chemicals in consumer products.
So, we both started within five years of each other, writing on subjects that nobody had written on before.
JOHN PERLIN: So, in this book, it’s twice as big—twice as long, I should say, twice as many pages of A Golden Thread because, once again, I don’t know, I just had my eyes out in the last 20 years for these historical materials.
For example, there were these Chinese scholars at the university. And their wives, although they have PhDs, they had no work. And I asked them a question and said, “Was solar architecture big in China?”
And they said, “Are you kidding? Today, when a house has a south-facing exposure, it’s 20% or 30% more valuable on the market.”
And so then I asked them do they know any historical antecedents?” And they said, “We all know about the literature.”
And so they went to all these books that were written 3000 years ago that no one in the US has ever seen. They translated them for me.
DEBRA: We need to take a break. And then we’ll be back, and we’ll talk more about this very fascinating subject.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And I am here with John Perlin, author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is John Perlin, and we’re talking about solar energy. He’s the author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy.
John, before we go any further, could you tell our listening audience what would be the savings of toxic chemical exposure by using solar energy? What is it replacing that we’re not going to have pollution of?
JOHN PERLIN: Well, first of all, greenhouse gases, all the solar technologies, lessen dramatically the amount of greenhouse gasses in the air. Second of all, in China, the pollution is so terrible. And they see photovoltaics as the only way of stopping the burning of coal, which is terribly, terribly toxic for humans, for everyone.
Also, the dream actually is that photovotaics can produce photovoltaics. In other words, have a breeder type of a plant where you have solar-producing solar.
So basically, I think wires are toxic also. And one of the things that solar does is allow everyone in the world to use their local energy source that’s been on our portfolio for 6000 years—but actually, has been on our portfolio for billions of years—the sun.
And most people believe that its abundancy will last at least another I think 14 billion years.
DEBRA: Yes, I think that’s a good and renewable enough resource. Is it called a renewable resource? Is it renewing itself? Is the sun renewing itself by continuing to burn or is it just a perpetual resource?
JOHN PERLIN: That’s a funny thing that you should mention. In astrophysics, it says it’s not renewable because it’s constantly burning fuel. It’s like a nuclear reaction that’s safely sited 93 million miles away.
So, it is using fuel. It’s not a perpetual motion machine, but the amount of fuel available will last about 16 billion years.
DEBRA: Okay, that’s enough. That is enough.
JOHN PERLIN: So, I guess when you consider coal or oil, the supplies will be only in the hundreds of years, possibly even less. When you look at the sun, it’s renewable in the sense that we don’t have to use any energy except to produce the panels themselves.
What’s interesting about that too is you can look at a solar electrical panel as basically a little mini electrical generator. And in about a year, it produces enough electricity to pay for all the electricity that went into making it.
DEBRA: And then how long does a photovoltaic last?
JOHN PERLIN: If built properly with proper back sheet, proper packaging, they should last 50 or 60 years at least. I mean, there are solar cells that were built in 1980 that are still producing as much electricity as they did 30, 40 years ago, which is amazing when you consider that it’s the only electronic material that’s exposed to night and day, snow and rain, and hot sun.
DEBRA: So, what kind of materials are solar cells made from?
JOHN PERLIN: Solar cells are made of—well, the primary solar cell used today is the silicon solar cell. And it’s made up of silicon which is one of the most abundant materials on the earth.
DEBRA: Is there anything toxic about it?
JOHN PERLIN: There are a few toxic elements. But if they are recycled, it is a very clean technology.
But I’d like to get into what the book covers. The book covers all the solar technologies. People don’t realize that there are various ways of using the sun. One is using the heat of the sun.
DEBRA: Actually, this is what I want to talk about the most because I think that people know that photovoltaic exists. But I want everybody to see that there are so many other ways. So just go ahead because that was what excited me the most.
JOHN PERLIN: First of all, just siting a building can really change the way a structure uses energy. For example, if you site your house just like the Chinese did 4000 years ago or 6000 years ago, or how the Greeks did, in the same fashion, or as the Romans did, or as in succeeding chapters, how the Europeans did in the 19th century, you can cover—depending on the climate you’re in—at least 60% of your energy needs.
And using glass, which was invented by the Romans, you can trap solar heat, so you can even get more heat inside the house.
What people don’t realize is one of the beauties of solar—they say, “Well, solar is too [diffuse].” Well, that’s the beauty of it because it fits the temperature that you want in your room, in your house, in your interior.
So, that’s one way. An interesting example is the proofreader was reading my book, and she said, “Now, I know why my house is so uncomfortable because it’s sited east west.” And east west, you get tremendous amounts of sun heat into the house during the summer time and almost no solar energy in the winter time.
While if you face your house south—I was in Turkey. They still build like they did 2500 years ago in Ancient Turkey. And even in 96 degree weather, in the hottest time of the day, if you go in the house, it’s comfortable.
DEBRA: Yes, I totally, totally agree with this. We need to take another break. We’ll be right back. And we’ll talk more about this.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is John Perlin, author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy. And we’ll be right back with more about the history of how solar energy has been used.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is John Perlin, author of the book Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy.
John, what proof do you have that solar power has been used for 6000 years?
JOHN PERLIN: Well, we have the archeological evidence from [unintelligible 18:30], which is a Neolithic community. Every house had a thatched roof. It was like wearing a hat. So it kept the high summer sun off the house and allow the low summer sun to go into the windows that were all faced south. And so, we have archeological proof.
And then 4000 years ago, we have, again, archeological proof that the big, big city called Erlitou not only had its buildings with, once again, a big hat, and on the north side of a south-facing courtyard where all the sun could come in during the winter months when it’s low. And the hat, you might say, of the building, kept the high summer sun off.
You might say it’s almost like God’s plan because, by having a building that’s stationary, we can design it so it could keep the hot summer sun off and allow the winter sun to enter.
I would like to get back to the different technologies that we have so people can know.
The next technology we have is called mirrors or concentrators. They’re called burning mirrors. And one of the real great science of the new book was that, 3000 years ago, the Chinese were using what they called solar igniters or thick mirrors that would focus the rays of the sun to a point, and they would ignite combustibles.
You have to understand. It was really difficult back in the old days to light a fire because you had to use friction. There were no matches. So, about 3000 years ago, the Chinese started using the sun to alleviate that problem. And they found molds for those mirrors—actually 30,000 molds to make. And they also found [caches] of the mirrors themselves.
And a very bright archeologist, he restored one of the mirrors, and then he shined it up. He had a fire going in maybe 15 or 16 seconds.
So there are solar mirrors that have also been with us for 3000 years that can provide power. And it also provide cooking.
Your stove that you talked about is a combination, I think, of glass that traps solar heat and also in the interior is like a mirror which then focuses more solar heat onto what you’re cooking. Isn’t that what it is?
DEBRA: Yes. I actually don’t have one. I was looking at building one. And I think it was lined with aluminum foil, so the foil acted as a reflector. And then you would put the food in a pot or a glass baking dish. And then it would create and it would bake.
I’m still very interested in doing that. I just need to do it.
I think that the first step is to be inspired and get the information to know what the different technologies are, and have the inspiration to do it. But then there’s also—I looked into putting solar panels on my roof, and it was some tens of thousands of dollars. And so that didn’t happen.
But I really want to see—especially here in Florida, I’d like to see a lot more solar just right here in my community, and in the State of Florida, because we have such a huge resource. And I’m looking at what’s an entry level thing that people could do and afford to do. And I think that solar ovens might be it.
JOHN PERLIN: Well, let me tell you what Florida did in the past. I actually was in Coral Gables.
DEBRA: I love Coral Gables!
JOHN PERLIN: And Coral Gables, if you look, they have these false chimneys that are made out of—I believe, it’s aluminum.
And what they are are storage tanks that either connect or used to connect to solar water heaters that were built during the ‘30s and the ‘20s and the ‘40s. And I had the luck to climb up to an apartment building roof, and see a solar water heater that was built in 1923 in Coral Gables that was still producing such heat that I could only keep my finger on the output pipe for a second.
So, that’s the amazing thing about the technology. That’s 90 years ago and still working.
DEBRA: Well, why do you think, since we had all these technologies—our modern method of heating and electricity and all of that is very industrial and only about 200 years old. Why do you think that all these old technologies are not in use? And do you think that we’re going to be able to bring them back?
JOHN PERLIN: Actually, first of all, it’s not true that they’re not in use. I was, for example, in Western Turkey, and every building, every house, had a solar water heater. In China, they have 60 million solar water heaters.
DEBRA: Well, I meant in America.
JOHN PERLIN: America is a special case. And that’s what my book does—it thinks internationally. And so the solar water heater which was developed in America has traveled or migrated throughout the world in places like Cyprus, places like Israel, places like China, places like Barbados. They’re producing the majority of the hot water for those countries.
Now, what it’s based on is glass as a solar heat trap, which the Romans discovered, and then in the 1700s, they tried to see how much glass could trap solar heat. And actually, you can build a very good oven that way—and they did—by just using insulation in a box, that has two or three glass covers.
DEBRA: I really, really want to do that. But we need to take another break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest is John Perlin, author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy.
And if you want to go to his website, it’s John-Perlin, P-E-R-L-I-N, dot com. And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is John Perlin, author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy. And if you’re interested in getting a copy of his book, you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and click on the title or click on the book cover that’s there, and it will take you right to a place where you can order it.
John, I wanted to just also mention we’ve been talking about using the sun, but I want to also say that, here in Florida, instead of needing heat, what we need is to not have sun because it’s too hot here. And so, I know that one of the challenges I’m facing on my property is how can I keep my house cooler and be shielding my house from the sun instead of bringing the sun in?
And so I think that, in considering the sun, we can be considering how we can use the sun, but then also, how we can block the sun when it’s necessary in order to control temperature.
JOHN PERLIN: Actually, that’s what all the ancient cultures did. As I’ve said, they built a house—first of all, you have to face your house correctly.
DEBRA: Yes. I was thinking about that while you were thinking. I was thinking, “Well, let me just pick up my house and turn it around.”
JOHN PERLIN: Is your house facing east west?
DEBRA: The windows are all on the east and west side.
JOHN PERLIN: So, what you want to do is possibly look at the new windows that have thermal control in the glass. Secondly, what you want to do is insulate. And third of all, what you want to do is possibly build eaves, very long eaves, that will keep out the summer sun because you’re not going to get any winter sun anyway.
DEBRA: No, we don’t have much winter sun. But in the summer sun—I mean, my desk actually, where I’m sitting right now, faces east. And I have 17 feet of windows that look out into the garden. It’s very nice. But every morning, the sun shines right in, and I have to put a shade down or I can’t sit here.
And a friend of mine who’s an architect and is familiar with all these natural flows, she actually suggested that I put up some lattice, so that I can build a blind on it.
JOHN PERLIN: Exactly! I was just going to say that. What you can do is plant diurnal plants that have leaves during the summer time and shed those leaves during the winter time.
DEBRA: That would be great. Yes, I like that idea a lot.
JOHN PERLIN: So just getting back into the books so people know what it contains, one of the really massive uses of solar energy that remains today and no one thinks of it is making salt. What you do is you take very shallow [troughs] or you just allow the sea water to come into channels, and then you allow the sun to evaporate the water. And you have salt. That’s probably the biggest use of solar energy over the millennia.
And still, in San Francisco Bay, you see this pink area, and it’s producing solar salt.
DEBRA: Yes, especially when you fly into the airport. Everybody can see that when you fly into San Francisco.
JOHN PERLIN: That’s actually a solar salt plant. And the opposite or the inverse is producing fresh water. Instead of evaporating—when you evaporate the water, you collect it on the surface, and allow it to trickle down, and allow the salt to collect in the middle of your solar still. That saved thousands of air men in World War II and is still a standard fair for everyone in the air force. So, there you have solar saving, saving lots of lives.
And to get to solar cells, the first solar cells were actually discovered in the 1870s.
DEBRA: I didn’t know that.
JOHN PERLIN: Actually, in the book, there’s a picture of the first solar module. The problem was, because they didn’t have the science, they didn’t realize that their solar cells were very inefficient.
And then in the ‘50s, with silicon, they discovered how to make very efficient solar cells and they became the power house of the satellites. And what people don’t realize is that all modern light is run by satellites, and all satellites are run by solar cells.
DEBRA: Wow! So we’re using it in many, many more ways than I think that the average person even realizes.
JOHN PERLIN: For example, when you do a bank transaction, or when you pump gas, all that is run by satellite. If you look at the top at the roof of the building, there’s a little microwave fixture. And the microwave repeater sends the transaction to a satellite. The satellite sends it to a hub or its central company. And then the transaction is done in milliseconds.
And also, cell phones, for example, would have never existed without satellites, of course—GPS, I could go on and on, CNN.
All those that we take for granted are products of satellites run by solar cells.
DEBRA: Well, so it really is in our culture even though we don’t know it. How can people who are not using solar in their homes get started?
JOHN PERLIN: Well, first of all, your house, try to make the house as best a solar collector during the winter time and as a solar avoider during the summer. You’d save lots of money. You probably could coat your glass, for example, with a tint, a material that would keep a lot of the sunlight out for example.
DEBRA: That’s something people do here actually.
JOHN PERLIN: And now, like I said, they’re developing smart glass which can actually not only keep the heat in during winter time, the heat out during the summer time, but also can produce electricity. So, by replacing glass, that’s another way.
Also, they can do what they did in Florida in the 1920s and 1930s, if they can do it then, they certainly can do it today, is have a solar water heater.
I don’t know when you were quoted […]?
DEBRA: It was several years ago. Are the prices coming down?
JOHN PERLIN: That’s the big secret that no one knows. The price of solar cells has dropped below a dollar a watt—and so, by a factor of four. And that’s why photovoltaics where every house can become its own producer is actually seen now by many utilities as a threat to their existence because, rather than being powered from a distant central generating plant, your rooftop can become a power source.
And the beauty of that is transmission losses are about 30% and all of that is avoided because you’re using the electricity that’s produced on your roof in your home.
DEBRA: I could really see that every house could have solar cells on them. So are there programs that help people finance them and things like that?
JOHN PERLIN: There are several companies like Solar City that actually lease photovoltaics. And what happens is they charge you less than your utility bill, and then they get all the subsidies and benefits that are available. And so that’s how they make money.
I don’t know how it is in Florida, but in California, solar actually is the least expensive way of producing electricity at this moment.
DEBRA: I’m going to look into that. I wish we could talk about it more, but we’ve only got about one minute left in the show. So I want to give you the opportunity to say whatever you’d like to say in closing that we haven’t yet covered.
JOHN PERLIN: I think the book provides the background story behind today’s worldwide solar revolution which is really, really happening. Everywhere, we have gone from maybe 360 kilowatts in 1977 to 100 gigawatts today in photovoltaics.
But also, in solar water heating, we have gone from about 60 or 70 gigawatts equivalent to about 300 today.
So now, the essentials are covered by solar energy like I said on the satellites. But also, solar energy is the fastest growing energy source in the world. And this is what Amory Lovins says. “Let It Shine show how today’s renewable revolution builds on the tenacious efforts of countless generations of innovators whose vision we may finally be privileged enough to bring into full flower.”
DEBRA: And I have to interrupt you because we’re at the end and the music is going to come on. Thank you so much, John Perlin.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
Getting to Know Alpacas
My guest is Steve Putney from Safe Haven Alpaca Farm, one of the largest breeders of both Suri and Huacaya alpaca in the northeast United States. We’ll be talking about alpaca as a toxic-free renewable and sustainable material for clothing, bedding, and other products.. Steve grew up in Iowa in a rural community. Following graduation from high school he entered into radio broadcasting, and spent the next 17 years working in all aspects of media. His experience in business and marketing took him to Houston, Texas in 1995 where he began a career in telecommunications In 2005 Steve moved to Connecticut to over-see operations of Safe Haven Alpaca Farm, a family business that began in 2001 with six alpaca. The addition of a large retail store featuring alpaca clothing, gifts and accessories, a bed and breakfast and growing the herd from twenty alpaca to over 100 have been accomplished since he joined the business. Steve Putney on the Board of Directors of the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association. www.safehavenalpaca.com
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Getting to Know Alpacas
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Steve Putney
Date of Broadcast: September 25, 2013
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world.
Today is Wednesday, September 25, 2013. And I’m here in Clearwater, Florida on a beautiful autumn day. It’s just gray and drizzling and quiet. Very nice!
So today, we’re going to talk about alpacas. And the reason we’re talking about alpacas today is because this weekend, it is National Alpaca Farm Days. There are many alpaca farms all over the United States that will be open, and you can go and take your family and visit and meet the alpacas.
If you go to NationalAlpacaFarmDays.com, about halfway down the page, there’s a menu item that says “find a farm,” just click on that, and you can find a farm near you and go visit the alpacas. It’s a wonderful thing to do.
I’ve met many alpacas. And I just think they are wonderful animals. And it will be a great outing for your family and your kids.
You’ll like the alpacas.
And we’re going to learn all about alpacas today.
One of the reasons why I wanted to have a show about alpacas is because when we’re looking at toxic chemicals—and if you’ve been listening to this show, you know there are many, many toxic chemicals all over the place in all kinds of consumer products.
If you’re wanting to move away from toxic chemical exposure, there’s actually a scale with different degrees, a gradient, where, at the worst, would be to use an industrial product made from toxic chemicals. And then, the next better thing would be to use an industrial product made from petroleum products that are not toxic.
And then, the next better thing would be to use an industrial product made from ingredients that have natural renewable sources like coconut oil is one that we’ve been talking about a lot on this show recently. But there are many natural ingredients that start with a natural, renewable material, and then they put it through an industrial process. And what comes out at the other end is an industrial ingredient, some of which are toxic.
For example, salt, in its natural state, is vital to health and very good for you. It has many natural minerals. But when they put salt through industrial processing, you get something called refined salt, which is, when you just see salt on the label, that’s what it is, refined salt. And it’s virtually in every processed food that’s on the market. You get symptoms. It affects your health.
You get high blood pressure and all kinds of other—wreaking havoc in your body because salt now has become an industrial chemical.
And then, the very best is to just get out of that industrial model entirely and use things that are produced by nature outside of the industrial system. And alpaca is one of those things where they’re out in nature, they’re eating grass, or whatever. We’ll find out what they eat. And they’re sheared, and then they’re made into products that we can us. And it’s all natural.
So my guest today is Steve Putney from Safe Haven Alpaca Farm. And he’s on the board of directors of the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association.
Thanks for being with us, Steve.
STEVE PUTNEY: Thank you for having me.
DEBRA: So, tell us your story about how you got to be raising alpacas.
STEVE PUTNEY: Well, the Safe Haven began back in 2001. My mother-in-law had a large piece of property and wanted to do something with it. I saw an ad in the magazine toward a few farms, fell in love with the animals, and decided to purchase a package of animals and began the alpaca farm.
I came up in 2005 to help her run the operation, and grow the operation, and try to get more involved in the industry itself, which we have done. And I’ve been doing it since 2005. It’s what I do full time. And I love what I do.
DEBRA: Don’t you think that most people [unintelligible 04:29].
STEVE PUTNEY: Well, I think a lot of people, that’s where they start. For anybody that hasn’t been exposed to the alpaca, they’re often confused with the llama. But they’re much smaller. The llama has more of a guard-type mentality, a territorial mentality. The alpaca is a very soft, very gentle animal to be around.
And animals that have been exposed to people are desensitized. You can come up, you can touch them, you can interact with them. And they’re like no other animal you’ve ever been around before.
And so, I think that experience captures a lot of people’s imagination to say, “Hey, this is something that I would like to walk out my back door and be able to do every day as well.”
DEBRA: So, tell us, what’s the process of raising an alpaca? What do they eat? Do you treat them with pesticides? What’s it like in the life of an alpaca?
STEVE PUTNEY: Well, the life of a single alpaca, they’re going to eat about four to five pounds of either hay, grass, some sort of porridge every day. There is a processed grain, if you will. It’s made differently. There isn’t a national company that’s doing it like Purina or anything like that. So, it’s local companies that are making these recipes.
It’s fairly standardized all over. They’re pretty close to being the same thing. And they get about a pound of that a day. A 50-pound bag, it varies a little bit from one end of the country, but $15 to $20. And they eat about a pound of that a day. So obviously, a bag of feed lasts you a long time.
And again, hay cost varies a lot from coast to coast and border to border. And so […] as well.
So, you will have people that have large pasture areas where they’re grazing animals, they’re not necessarily feeding [unintelligible 06:28]. You have other people that are using what we refer to as “dry lot,” which means there isn’t any grass growing, and they’re feeding out hay.
And they don’t require a lot of medical care. They’re pretty hardy animals. They can stand up to all kinds of different weather-type conditions. And so, there’s not a lot of veterinarian costs associated with the animal as well.
DEBRA: So, when it’s time to shear the alpaca—and I’m asking this question because I know there’s a lot of people who are concerned about animal rights and not wanting to kill animals, so they don’t wear wools from sheep that have been killed for meat. But you’re not killing the alpacas for meat, are you? You’re just shearing them because who eats alpaca meats? Does anybody eat alpaca meat?
STEVE PUTNEY: There are some farms in the United States that are raising alpacas and to cull the herd. And for people who don’t understand what that is, you have animals that, for whatever reason, are not going to be breeding animals. They are non-productive animals. They are producing a meat product from those, and are harvesting the hide. There are some farms out there that are doing that.
For the most part, everybody in the industry were raising them primarily for the fleece. And we shear them once a year. And the shearing process is actually—it’s an interesting process because the alpaca, as long as it feels confined, it doesn’t really try to fight you very much. But if it feels like it can get away, it will try.
So, we do actually tie them down, which sounds really bad. But it protects the animal from hurting itself and the people who are doing the shearing from getting hurt as well.
And there are three cuts to the alpaca fleece versus a sheep fleece which comes off as a solid piece. There are three separate cuts—the blanket, which is the finest alpaca; the seconds, which is still very, very usable in garments (you just wouldn’t want to have it right up against your skin as it’s going to have some guard hairs and things); and then the thirds, which work really well for things like stuffing quilts, pillows and things like that.
And so, it’s a little bit different than what people would see with shearing a sheep. But it’s not harmful to the animal in any way, shape or form. And the shearers across the United States are very, very careful to take exceptionally good care of the animals.
So shearing, it’s probably more traumatic to the people doing it because [unintelligible 09:11] animal themselves.
DEBRA: We need to take a break, but we’ll be back. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio.
We’re talking about alpacas today because this weekend is National Alpaca Farm Days. You can go to NationalAlpacaFarmDays.com and find out where you can go to a local farm and meet an alpaca. And we’ll be right back after this.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And today, we’re talking about alpacas with Steve Putney from Safe Haven Alpaca Farm. This weekend, you can go visit an alpaca at a local farm and just go to NationalAlpacaFarmDays.com, and you can find a farm near you.
So Steve, tell us more about—I understand that alpacas are considered a green animal.
STEVE PUTNEY: They are probably the greenest animal I have ever met in my entire life. We were talking about them grazing. In the front of their mouth, they don’t have teeth on the top. The bottom teeth mesh up to the gum. And when the alpaca bites that on the grass, it shakes its head just a little bit—it’s almost imperceptible—and actually cuts the grass off versus other animals that will grab it and tear it.
And so, the alpaca actually encourages pasture growth which is hard to find. It’s like having an organic lawn mower. It’s amazing.
So, it begins there. They are a modified [unintelligible 10:57]. They process the stuff they take in, and they get all of the nutrients they can possibly get out of it. And then, when you get down to what goes in must come out, the manure that they produce is actually not real high in ammonia. And it’s not what you would consider to be a hot manure. So, it can actually be put on plants and vegetables and stuff fresh without harming them in any way, shape or form. And it has slow release of the nitrogen and phosphorous and stuff that’s in it, so it lasts a long time when you put it on your plants.
Along with that as well—again, kind of unique for a livestock animal—they don’t have a hoof. They have a soft pad like a dog has and a nail. And that means that when it’s rainy and stuff, and they’re walking across the ground, they’re not digging in and tearing up the ground.
That’s the beginning of it. Then you start breaking down the fiber itself. It doesn’t have any lanolin in it. It has a natural resin that makes it water-resistant. But it’s hypoallergenic.
And so, when it’s time to do the scrubbing which they refer to—for example, if you have wool, it has to be scrubbed, it has to be cleaned before it’s processed and turned into something. With alpaca, they don’t have to use any kind of harsh cleaning agents, and you don’t have to send it to special facilities for the scrubbing.
And so, you can use a very normal, gentle wash to begin the process of processing it into yarn or thread that then becomes clothing that you can wear right against your skin.
DEBRA: I didn’t know that about alpacas. So is it called alpaca wool or alpaca fleece or alpaca hair?
STEVE PUTNEY: They refer to it as fiber.
DEBRA: Fiber, alpaca fiber, okay.
STEVE PUTNEY: Yes, they refer to it as fiber. And you can look at it as wool. It’s the same process, but it actually has more hair-like qualities than it does wool-type qualities.
DEBRA: So when you shear the alpaca, then you clean it, and then how do you process that into a yarn or a thread? What is that process? I’m trying to visualize what happens between the hair being on the alpaca, and then turning into something you can make something from.
STEVE PUTNEY: Let me walk you through the process. We begin with the shearing. And as I mentioned, you have three different cuts on the alpaca. So we’ll focus on the blanket because that’s the finest and that’s the stuff that you’re going to wear against your skin.
So, the blanket, if the blanket is taken off, and it’s put in a bag, most people weigh it. And then it goes on a skirting table. You pick out the [unintelligible 14:01] so that it’s clean. It goes into a gentle wash.
A lot of people who are doing this at home will use just a little bit of Dawn dishwashing liquid and do it in the sink because all you’re really trying to do is release the dirt because there is no oil or anything associated with the fleece.
It’s then dried, and it goes into a carter. And what a carter does is it lines up all the fibers in the same direction.
From there, if you’re doing it in a machine, which most people will, it goes in and it gets spun into what is referred to as a roving, which is a very, very loose, I guess you would call it “rope” of the alpaca fiber, but it’s then spun together, so that it adheres to itself.
And this is the same process that’s used for wool, for cotton, and anything like that.
DEBRA: It sounds very familiar like wool.
STEVE PUTNEY: And then, from there, it will go into either for hand spinners. They’re going to take that roving, and they’re going to do their hand spinning with it in a more commercial environment—the cottage industry, for example. They have small machines that they put it in. And depending upon what the end product you’re looking for, you’re going to have certain weights and things, the number of plies that you’re going to do, but it gets basically woven into a thin string. And then, that thin string is either doubled or tripled or quadrupled in order to make the weight of yarn that you’re looking for.
DEBRA: So, is this basically a cottage industry? There are not big industrial factories that are processing this, right?
STEVE PUTNEY: Here in the United States, no. It is most definitely a cottage industry. A lot of people that have alpacas, they have farm [stores]. We were talking about National Alpaca Farm Days. They have farm stores. So what they’ll do is they’ll take a portion, if not all of their fleece production, and they’ll turn that into yarn, roving, and some things like that.
And so, when people are going out for National Alpaca Farm Days, they actually have an opportunity to lay their hand on some of the end products, and feel the incredible softness of it, and in some cases, if they so chose, purchase those products as well.
DEBRA: It is incredibly soft. And we’re coming up on another break, so after the break, I’ll talk about my alpaca pillow, which I totally love, and how it’s different from a wool pillow.
My name is Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. My guest today is Steve Putney from Safe Haven Alpaca Farm.
And we’re talking about alpacas and the National Alpaca Farm Days. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And today, we’re talking about alpacas because this weekend is National Alpaca Farm Days. And you can just go to NationalAlpacaFarmDays.com, and find an alpaca farm near you, and go visit the alpacas, which are very friendly animals. It’s a great thing for you to do as a family outing on a nice autumn day.
My guest today is Steve Putney from Safe Haven Alpaca Farm. And he’s at SafeHavenAlpaca.com.
I was going to talk about my alpaca pillow. My alpaca pillow is the best pillow I have ever slept on. And it is very different. I’ve slept on many natural fibers. And I know that my listeners are interested in pillows with natural fibers inside because we don’t want to be sleeping on polyester or polyurethane foam with fire retardant or any of those kinds of things.
And so, I’ve slept on a cotton pillow. I’ve slept on a feather pillow. I’ve slept on a buckwheat hull pillow. I’ve slept on a wool pillow, sheep wool pillow. And now, I’m sleeping on an alpaca pillow. And I’ve had my alpaca pillow for about a year now, and it’s still like the day I bought it. It’s still resilient and puffy. And I can just puff it up really easily, and it just goes right back to being this big, puffy pillow.
And so, that really shows me the difference between sheep wool and alpaca.
STEVE PUTNEY: Do you have a cover for it? Is it made out of alpaca as well?
DEBRA: No, I don’t. It’s cotton. It’s got a cotton cover.
STEVE PUTNEY: You need to get the alpaca cover because alpaca, when we were talking about the blanket, it is as soft as cashmere. It is incredibly soft to the feel. And so against your face and your neck and stuff, it has no itchiness, no scratchiness to it. It has an incredible feel. And so, you need to go to the next level now, Debra, and get the exterior part as well.
DEBRA: I guess I do! Well, I didn’t even know. Tell us about some different types of products that are made from alpaca because I didn’t know there was an alpaca pillow cover.
STEVE PUTNEY: There are, yes. They’re pretty much anything that is made from cotton, that’s made from wool, and any of the natural fibers that are out there. You can find alpaca everything from the stuff that you would expect to see, such as sweaters, hats, mittens, gloves, those types of things.
The industry is now producing fabric from alpaca as well, and so—
DEBRA: I didn’t know that.
STEVE PUTNEY: Yes, so there are pillow covers and there are shirts. I know there is, I believe, in Italy, someone that’s actually making suits from alpaca.
And so, pretty much any kind of product that you would expect to find from any other sort of natural fiber, even, unfortunately, polyester and things like that, you’re going to be able to find in alpaca as well.
Most of the products that you find out there now are being imported from Peru. Peru still has the most alpacas. And they also, at the same time, have the manufacturing infrastructure there. The cottage industry and some of the industries here in the United States is starting to make more things out of alpaca.
Pendleton Wools, which is known for their blankets and woolen products, they actually do a run of alpaca blankets every year. And so there are alpaca blankets that are being made out there that are American-made as well now.
DEBRA: I think you said earlier that people who are allergic to wool are not allergic to alpaca. Did I get that right?
STEVE PUTNEY: For the most part, the people that are allergic to the wool, their problem is they’re actually allergic to the lanolin that’s in the wool. And so since alpaca doesn’t have that lanolin, they don’t have any allergic reaction to it.
The other thing with alpaca versus wool, I should say, is wool has a little barb, a little hook at the end of it. That scratchy feeling that you have when you have wool against your skin, alpaca doesn’t have that. It’s a straight fiber. And so against your skin, it feels incredibly, incredibly soft against your skin. And so, you don’t have the itchiness, you don’t have the problems with allergies as well.
DEBRA: I’m thinking about this pillow case. I live here in Florida. And even though it’s hot all the time, even in the winter, but especially in the summer time, it’s hot and humid, but I sleep on cotton flannel—and I have cotton flannel pillow cases not because I need to keep warm, that’s why they do it in the north. But here, I find that cotton flannel is more absorptive. So it absorbs the perspiration better than just regular cotton sheets in the [inaudible 00:22:12].
So, how does alpaca stand up to that? Does it absorb moisture?
STEVE PUTNEY: What you’re talking about is referred to as wicking, and that’s the ability of a fabric to pull moisture from the body, and then allow air in to cool the body. Alpaca is exceptional at wicking. It has that ability to pull the moisture from your body.
Now, depending upon the weave of the garment, if you get a tightly-weaved garment, it’s not going to let a lot of air through. So as you are shopping, you want to be aware.
And there are different garments made for different times of the year. I wear alpaca socks all year long in the summer time and stuff to help keep my feet cool, and in the winter time, to help keep my feet warm. And so, as you’re shopping, you want to be aware that a garment that is tightly knitted together and thicker is going to be a warm weather garment, or something that is thinner and has a looser weave to it is going to have that natural wicking and actually help you keep cool.
DEBRA: Wow! This is all new to me. It’s time for another break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And we’re talking about alpacas. My guest is Steve Putney from Safe Haven Alpaca Farm. And he is inviting you and your family to visit an alpaca this weekend with National Alpaca Farm Days. That’s NationalAlpacaFarmDays.com. And we’ll be right back with more about alpacas.
No, we won’t. We’re not going yet because I looked at the clock incorrectly. We still have another 45 seconds.
So, let’s see, what can we talk about for 45 seconds?
STEVE PUTNEY: For 45 seconds, we can tell everybody that if they go to the website, literally, coast to coast, border to border, there are farms near you that are participating. And if you go to that website, click “find a farm,” you can enter your zip code in it. It will bring you to a farm near you.
DEBRA: I’m on the website right now, and I’m clicking on “find a farm.” I’m going to enter my zip code, and see, 33755. Oh, you can also pick how many miles away you are. I have an alpaca farm just right near where I live. Wow! So now, I’m clicking on the little thing.
Oh, now, we’re going to break.
This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And we’ll be right back talking about alpacas.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Steve Putney from Safe Haven Alpaca Farm. That’s
And he’s here to talk about National Alpaca Farm Days. And that’s coming up this weekend. And you can go to their website, you can click on “find a farm” which I did, and over the break, I took a look at it.
I want to ask you a question, Steve, but I don’t know if you know the answer. But when I put in my zip code, it gave me a map, a Google Map, with a little indicator of where the farm was. But when I click on it, it didn’t tell me where the farm was. Is it supposed to?
Hello?
STEVE PUTNEY: I’m sorry. Yes, it should have been hyperlinked to take you to the farm’s information, so that you know what hours they’re open, and if they have events and things like that going on. We’ll check on that and make sure it’s operating correctly.
DEBRA: Why don’t you check on it? It might be my computer didn’t do it, but I think that’s what’s supposed to be happening.
So you might check on that. But if some of our listeners go there, and it’s not working for them, I could locate my local alpaca farm because I could see on the map where it was. And then, I just typed in “alpaca farm” and the name of the city, and I got information about it.
And it turns out that there’s an actual alpaca farm less than four miles from where I live. And they’ll be open this weekend. And they not only have alpacas that I can go visit, but they have their own shop. I didn’t even know it was there. And even beyond Alpaca Farm Days, because I’m going to be out of town on Saturday, but I could maybe go on Sunday. Even beyond that, I could go to the store because they’ve got alpaca items that they make themselves. They have some that are imported from Peru. And they also are having classes in knitting, crocheting and felting—how to knit, crochet and felt alpaca—you told me what the word was.
STEVE PUTNEY: Fiber. Fiber is the magic word.
DEBRA: Fiber. Alpaca fiber. I’m really looking forward to those. I’m just so excited about alpacas.
So tell us what’s happening on your farm this weekend. If someone would come to your farm, what will they see?
STEVE PUTNEY: We’ve done National Alpaca Farm Days every year. And every year, we change it up a little bit. We always have free food here for people. We have a pretty good-sized store here on the property that’s open. So we’ve got just about anything you could possibly want in alpaca available.
In past years, people have come in and actually hand-carded and turned the alpaca into yarn in front of people’s eyes, which is amazing for me to watch. I can’t do that. I don’t know that I even want to try. So those people who do hand spinning, it’s amazing to watch.
We’ve had people here that have done knitting, and have done weaving, those types of things.
This year, we’re going to focus on doing felting. And we’re going to have actually the ability for people to come here, and do their own felting, and actually create something from felt if they choose to stay that long and do it.
We always have free food. Most of the farms have snacks and refreshments and stuff available. And it really is an opportunity for people to get out and not just find out about the animal, but the business associated with the animal, the industry, the products.
And then, what we’re doing this year here—which we partnered with a farm that’s very near us—we’re actually going to be taking our animals to the local tractor supply as well. And that’s an opportunity to take the animal to the people versus having the people come to an animal.
So, we’re looking forward to that as an opportunity to really, kind of a more urban-type setting versus the rural setting that most alpaca farms are in to bring the animal there and introduce people that wouldn’t normally be introduced to the animal, to the alpaca.
DEBRA: That sounds like so much fun. I just love going to farm days, and to the county fair, and to the state fair, and to historic sites that recreate how life was in the past and all those things because I think that there are so much that we still rely on our industrial products going to the store and buying things that I think that so many people have lost touch with where things come from out of nature.
I once knew somebody. I met him as an adult. And he didn’t know that bread was made from wheat. And I think that that’s not unusual. It shocked me, but I think that that’s not unusual. And I think that to be able to see the connection between the animal and the farm and the product that comes from that and be able to actually make something out of the fiber, and then have a product at the other end that you get to see from the animal in nature, to the product in your hand, and it’s all right there, I think everybody should have those kinds of experiences so that you have that connection with nature. You can see that something doesn’t need to come from a factory. It can come from your own hands and the materials at hand, literally.
It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing. And I’m glad that the alpaca farms are going to be open this weekend. It’s the greatest thing—
STEVE PUTNEY: There has been a huge resurgence in people that have taken up knitting, crocheting, spinning, those types of things. And it’s neat to see that happen because of the fact that there are all of these natural fibers out there. And a lot of the smaller mills, we were talking about the cottage industry, are starting to experiment with different types of blends.
The local mill near me has started blending alpaca with bamboo which makes an incredibly soft end product.
DEBRA: Talk about soft. That would be incredibly soft.
STEVE PUTNEY: Exactly! And the neat thing is that alpaca has the ability to, they’re refer to it as “bloom” around other things.
So if you’ve got a blend of alpaca at about 50% to 60%, and you’re using a different natural fiber for some reason for more strength or whatever your purpose is, when you wash it, the alpaca tends to bloom around, so you feel more of the alpaca and less of the other fiber.
And so, there’s a lot of neat stuff happening with alpaca. It’s just a very unique—you know, you were talking about your pillow, the fact that you had it for a year and it’s still fluffed up, and it still feels good. When archeologists were digging up in Peru, they found—well, I should explain it.
At one point, alpaca was reserved for royalty. They were the only ones that were allowed to wear it for the Incans. And when they have opened up some of these tombs, and they found this royalty, they were buried in alpaca, and the garments are still intact today. And so, it’s an incredibly durable fiber as well.
DEBRA: I’m on your page on your website where you’re selling socks, and I noticed that you have them for men and women and also diabetic socks. And diabetics, as I think a lot of people know, have a problem in their feet. They have a lot of pain because the circulation stops. So, if diabetics are wearing these socks, they’ve got to be really soft. This is just amazing.
STEVE PUTNEY: The best example—and hopefully, if people will go out and they visit a farm, other people will have this type of demonstration. I have a blend here of Merino, which is one of the softest wools that you can lay your hands on. It’s a 50/50 blend of Merino and alpaca that’s sitting there. And I have 100% alpaca. And I tell people, “Rub on either side of your cheek,” one being the alpaca, the other being the blend. “Tell me which is which.” And nobody ever guesses wrong. It is so much softer than what other natural fibers are. And it feels so good against the skin. It is truly an amazing natural product.
DEBRA: Why do you think that it hasn’t been known as much? I’ve been writing about natural products and fibers for more than 30 years. And I knew that alpaca existed, but I didn’t know all these qualities about it. Why is it becoming more popular and more known now and not before?
STEVE PUTNEY: It’s an education factor. It’s also the growth of the industry and the size of our natural herd. When you get a national herd at one point (that was basically 10,000 animals), you really weren’t producing enough end products to get anybody’s attention.
And so now, we’ve got enough farms. And we still need to grow a lot. I don’t want to make it sound like we’re there. We’re not.
We’re still very much a growing industry. But we’re starting to get the attention of some of the fashion designers and stuff are starting to include alpaca.
And so, we’ve gotten big enough now that we’re getting people’s attention. And there is practical application where, at one point, there wasn’t a consistent supply of the product, so it was hard for people to say, “I’m going to make a product from this every year.” Now, we can meet that demand.
DEBRA: Well, I am so happy that this is growing. And thank you so much for coming on today to tell us more about alpacas and to tell us about the National Alpaca Farm Days which, again, they’re coming up this weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
And you can go to NationalAlpacaFarmDays.com, and find a farm, and go find out about those alpacas, and find out what your local alpaca farmers are doing, and meet an alpaca. It will be the best meet-an-animal experience you ever had.
I just love alpacas. They’re my favorite animal and they are so friendly and warm and just wonderful.
So, that’s it for today. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
How To Detox Your Hair, Yes, Your Hair
My guest is Ellen Eves, Social Media Director from Morocco Method, makers of all-natural. raw, vegan hair care products, “designed to both detoxify and nourish” your hair. We’ll be talking about how standard hair care products—even “natural” brands—strip and damage your hair, requiring additional hair care products for care, and how you can remove these toxic chemicals from your hair to restore it’s natural body and luster. Founder Anthony Morrocco’s quest to find a naturally-based treatment for hair and scalp problems began with his apprenticeship at world famous Kenneth’s, a posh New York salon, where his clients included Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Mrs. Vincent Astor, Mia Farrow, Lauren Bacall, Joan Rivers, Faye Dunaway, Liza Minnelli, and numerous other celebrities. Now, after more than four decades of travel, research and experimentation, including his study of Chinese herbalism and acupressure under Bruce Lee’s master, Mr. Fung Yi of Peking and Dr. Cecilia Lu of Shanghai, Anthony has perfected a holistic program for women and men determined to make positive changes for healthier, more vibrant hair. All Morrocco Method products contain only the finest natural derived minerals and botanicals harvested from around the world. and selected for maximum potency. They have followed the principles of Old World farmers who understood that planting, harvesting and storing foods according to the lunar cycle maximizes the energetic potency of the plants. www.debralynndadd.com/debras-list/morocco-method
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
How to Detox Your Hair, Yes, Your Hair
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Ellen Eves
Date of Broadcast: September 24, 2013
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. And we do need to talk about that because there are a lot of toxic chemicals out in the world. But the good news is that we, as consumers, can make wise choices to eliminate many of those toxic exposures. We can remove toxic chemicals from our bodies, so they don’t build up and make us sick. And yes, we do have what’s called a body burden of toxic chemicals in our bodies. And every day, Monday through Friday, at mid-eastern time, we talk about how we can live in a less toxic way.
Today, we’re going to talk about how to detox your hair. Yes, how to detox your hair. If you’re having a bad hair day—and some people have a bad hair day every day—if you have a bad hair day, then you’re going to want to listen to this because this is some new information you probably haven’t ever heard before about toxic chemicals in hair products and what they can do to your hair.
So, we’re just going to get started right now with my guest, Ellen Eves. She’s the social media director from Morocco Method.
And Morocco Method makes all-natural, raw, vegan hair care products that are designed to both detoxify and nourish your hair.
Hi Ellen. Thanks for being here.
ELLEN EVES: Hi, Debra. How are you?
DEBRA: I’m good. How are you?
ELLEN EVES: I’m doing quite well.
DEBRA: Good! So I’ll just tell you that Ellen sent me some Morocco Method products, and I’ve been using them for about a month—no, longer than that. I used them for about 30 days. And then she was on vacation and I ran out, and then she came back. She got some more.
She’s going to tell you about why these are special products. But first, I want to tell you my experience with them.
They’re very different from any hair care products you ever heard of before. They don’t lather, and they’re made out of all-natural, as I said, raw, vegan ingredients. And so, it looks like a little paste when you put it in your hand. And you mix it with water, and you put it on your hair, and you just massage your scalp. And then, on the first day that you use it, your hair looks awful. And that’s not just my experience. This is the process.
And what’s going on is that your hair is starting to detox. Well, I should probably let Ellen tell you the story. But I just want to say that I’m not even sure that I’m really at the end, but here’s the difference. Prior to using these products, I have very thin, fine hair. And it’s been that way my whole life. And it would never stay in place, and I can barely do anything with it.
But then I started using these products, the Morocco products, and I got to a point where my hair started staying in place. I could brush my hair, and I could put somewhere, and it would stay. And one day, I noticed that my hair had a sheen to it. It glowed in the light. And it wasn’t because I put something on my hair. My hair just had this sheen to it. It was this soft luster.
And so, I see this big change.
But what happened was there were a couple of days where I just used my regular shampoo, my regular, organic shampoo, and my hair just totally fell flat. And then I would, next day, go back to the Morocco Method, and I have that same body to it that I never had or anything else.
And in fact, yesterday, I just went “Let me just try this again.” I used that whole organic shampoo, and still, my hair fell flat. And today, it was beautiful again.
So, there really is something to this. And Ellen is going to tell you all about it.
So Ellen, before you talk about the products themselves, and what they do, and how they do it, just tell our listening audience, how these products came to be developed.
ELLEN EVES: Absolutely. So basically, this has been Anthony Morocco’s brain child for over 40 years. He’s carefully studied and practiced this holistic hair care. His quest originally started, he was working at [unintelligible 04:49], which is a very posh salon in New York. It was the where to go. He worked with clients like Jackie O. He worked with Mia Farrow, Lauren Bacall, Joan Rivers, Faye Dunaway, as well as numerous other celebrities.
And for years, he just watched these rich and famous walk in with these hair care problems and left with the same problems, only to be covered up with perms and styles and blow drying, gels, mousses, chemicals. They are really leaving with the same problems that they were coming in with. The problems were just being covered.
And so, he realized that regardless of the money being spent on traditional hair care, these problems just weren’t going away.
And these are problems with the scalp, problems with the hair, as an actual thing as opposed to a style.
So, this really inspired him to create this new system of hair and scalp treatment that would have really successful long-term results as opposed to just coming in and getting a style and covering up the problem. He really wanted to solve them.
So, he traveled for more than four decades, researching and experimenting. He studied Chinese herbalism, acupuncture under Bruce Lee’s master. He studied pretty much all over the world to learn about a new way to make a positive change for healthy, more vibrant hair naturally.
So, what he has really done is he’s created a system that really is nothing else. Morocco Method products contain only the finest, naturally-derived minerals, botanicals, and they’re harvested from all around the world.
We also harvest them in order to get the maximum potency. We also have used old world farmers who understood that planting and harvesting and as well as storing foods according to the lunar cycle that really maximizes the potency. So, our products are created around this lunar cycle basically.
Anthony has also created this lunar chart for haircutting, which is going even a step farther, and it indicates different days that might help you with a particular goal and where you want to be by cutting on that specific day.
But I did want to mention about detox. So it does sound crazy that we detox our hair like we detox our body. But in fact, build-up of chemical products are constantly clogging the pores of the scalp and the shafts of the hair. And they have to be removed before you can really start on a healthy hair journey—the same as with your body with any detox that you’re going to go through.
So, as your hair begins to let go of these plastics and cones and chemicals, this is the change. This is what Debra was talking about when she noticed, “Oh, no! My hair doesn’t look as great as it has.” This is actually your hair letting go of these chemicals and learning to regulate its own oil production.
DEBRA: I just want to interrupt you for a minute. We have plenty of time. Let’s have a conversation. I also wanted to mention that I’ve noticed that my hair was thinning in the front which, of course, none of the women—and men either—they don’t want to have this happen.
And as I was using these products, I noticed that, suddenly, I have this new growth of little hairs right in the area where it had been thinning. And so I just want to emphasize this part that Ellen is saying about how the pores get clogged and the hair follicles get clogged. And then the nutrients don’t get to your hair. And this is what all these chemical hair care products do.
And there’s a certain type of shampoo called the clarifying shampoo. And somebody had suggested that I use a natural, organic clarifying shampoo to get a step out of my hair. Now, I had only been using organic products for many years. You can buy organic shampoo in any natural food store or online made out of organic ingredients. But they’re still the same ingredients that are in regular shampoos except that they’re natural.
ELLEN EVES: Exactly.
DEBRA: And what we’re talking about here with the Morocco Method is a completely different kind of products that is not just another organic shampoo. It has a completely different function.
And so, I used organic shampoo, and then I use this organic clarifying shampoo, and it really didn’t do anything dramatic for me. But when I started using the Morocco Method products, there was a very clear difference in my hair.
I had to go through the process. And then there was one day where I noticed, “Oh, my hair looks beautiful, and it’s soft.” And it was just like all of a sudden like that.
We need to take a break, Ellen. But we’ll come back very soon and hear more about Morocco Method products. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And today, we’re talking about detoxing your hair, so there will be no more bad hair days. My guest today is Ellen Eves, social media director from Morocco Method.
Ellen, tell us about some of the toxic chemicals that are used in hair care products, and how they damage your hair.
ELLEN EVES: There are a lot of different things. There are also just environmental issues. But the main issue happens to be really with the scalp. A lot of people neglect the scalp just because they think of their hair, and a lot of people have the misconception that your hair is just dead. But Anthony really comes through the perspective that your hair is alive, and you should be feeding it this raw nutrition just like you would with your body.
There are a lot of different chemicals. One common chemical that I would like to touch on because it’s used in so many of these organic and “natural” shampoos—and I think we even had an experience with it—is some of these different cocamides and these sulfated “coconut products.”
But in fact, these products are made in a lab and they’re completely chemical. And then what they do is they basically affect the way that your scalp products sebaceous oil, which is the oil that keeps your hair happy. It keeps your scalp happy, it keeps you producing good, healthy hair.
And what happens is with these chemicals, a lot of times, they’ll dry up your scalp. They’ll strip your scalp of all the oils that it needs that it naturally produces. And when it does that, a lot of people experience an oily scalp but dry hair. And this is a very common side effect of chemicals that they use in common shampoos, different sulfates and things like that.
What’s happening is they’re stripping all the oils in your hair, and so then your hair looks great for maybe 24 hours. But then your scalp basically goes into overdrive, and overproduces all this oil because it’s been so stripped. And then you’re looking at you’re showering every single day to make sure that your scalp doesn’t look oily. That’s a pretty common occurrence, especially with chemical shampoos.
DEBRA: And of course then you’re buying much, much more shampoo than you actually need. And that’s a profit center for that company.
And I’m not against people making money. But I think people wouldn’t be surprised to hear me say that, often times, we can just see many examples of companies making products that require consumers to buy more or have repeat purchases because that makes sense economically for them. But it doesn’t necessarily make sense for our health or the environment, or our hair, or anything.
I’ve been a firm believer that what we should be doing is looking at the natural process that our bodies go through or the environment goes through, and then see what it is that’s needed in order to work with that natural process, and allow our hair to look as it would look naturally, instead of what I would call industrial hair.
What you’re saying reminds me of how, when they make processed food, they take out all the nutrients, and then they put back in industrial nutrients.
ELLEN EVES: Exactly!
DEBRA: And so they advertise that there’s always vitamin and minerals in this white bread, but there was more vitamins and minerals in the wheat bread before they took them all out. And our hair has the ability to look great on its own if we’re not stripping it.
I remember many years ago, I washed my skin with coconut oil-based soap. And it’s so dried my skin out. And we can’t see our scalp because it’s under the hair, but if we’re using coconut-based products, they’re doing the same thing.
ELLEN EVES: Natural coconut oil, of course, is going to be good for your hair. But mostly, it’s cocamide MEA and DEA. And these are two of the products that contain these high levels. And they can be really bad for you. I believe it was the Center for Environmental Health, there’s actually been a current lawsuit going on because these shampoos, such as Palmolive—I know Paul Mitchell was one of them. There are many of them, if you were to check it out. They’re selling these products, and they’re mislabeling them as natural because they’re saying that they’re these coconut-based products. And they’re actually really not because there are these cocamides that are made in factories and made in labs.
And this is one of the classic ways that a lot of companies now are “brainwashing” people and convincing them that they’re buying natural when, in fact, they’re buying the same chemicals just with a different name.
DEBRA: That’s exactly right. And I just want to confirm that Ellen isn’t just saying this because she works for a natural company that uses all-natural ingredients that are really natural, in their natural state. This is common, common, common.
When I first started doing my consumer advocacy work more than 30 years ago, I looked at those labels and I said, “Oh, this is made from coconut, so it must be okay. It must be natural.”
But what I learned was when I started studying what those ingredients are, I learned that yes, sure. It might start as coconut oil, but then it goes through just the same kind of industrial process as if you were starting a petroleum, and they, in fact, add a lot of petroleum ingredients as part of the process.
And so, if you have something like a cocamide, it’s not natural, and that people, for a long time, didn’t even look at this, but they’re looking at it now.
And if you want something that’s natural, it needs to be made from natural, whole ingredients as they exist in nature. And anything else is an industrial product. It doesn’t matter if it starts as petroleum or coconut oil or beets. It’s still an industrial product if it goes through that industrial process.
ELLEN EVES: That’s exactly right. As you mentioned, we are a raw company. And this really means that we don’t pasteurize, we don’t sterilize with harsh chemicals with heat. These are, just as you’ve said, whole ingredients.
We’re talking about whole leaves. We’re talking about real marine proteins as opposed to things that have been genetically altered in a lab in order to look natural.
DEBRA: Yes, exactly. Well, we need to come on another break really soon. And you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Ellen Eves, social media director from Morocco Method. And when we come back, we’re going to hear all about the Morocco Method products, and how they work, and what to do with them.
So we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and today, we’re talking about hair, how to have more beautiful, natural hair with my guest, Ellen Eves, social media director for Morocco Method.
Actually, I’ve had Morocco Method on my list of recommended websites, DebrasList.com, for many years. And I chose them because of their purity of ingredients. And I didn’t know until recently all these other things that we’re talking about today about how much it can help your hair.
But Ellen, they could also just go straight to MoroccoMethod.com.
ELLEN EVES: Yes, that’s it.
DEBRA: Okay, good. So tell us about the products.
ELLEN EVES: So we really come from a five-step method really. The Morocco Method is five steps.
Step #1 is shampooing and going natural and stopping your chemical abuse. This is the most important part like we were talking about. This comes with the detox. And we do have a product that really does help with detox. And that’s our Zen Detox Hair & Scalp Therapy.
And what that does, it’s a clay masque, and you basically mix it with water, and you put it on your head. And it starts to really pull out those impurities, those heavy metals, those toxins.
And like Debra mentioned earlier, most likely, these are from your “natural shampoo” or your commercial shampoo really.
But they can also be from the environment, so we still recommend detoxing, even if you’re fully on Morocco Method, once every season or so, just to make sure that you’re really pulling everything out.
Step #2 comes with conditioning. So step #1 is really focused on the scalp, whereas step #2 is focused on the hair.
So the hair often is often the poorest thing, so we really have to give it that condition and that extra oil. So that comes along with step #3, which is brushing and massaging.
So our scalp creates has these pores with all the sebaceous oil inside of it. And as these sebaceous oils come out of the scalp, they need to be brushed down to the ends of the hair which is really what needs that good oil.
So we recommend a boar bristle brush, and massaging, and brushing every day. Massaging is more about the scalp and really, getting it invigorated and excited, getting the blood flowing through there, so that your hair is more excited about growing […].
DEBRA: I think it does need that. People go and get massages, but they don’t always get their scalp massaged, and I always like it. When I go to salon, they really massage your scalp while you’re getting your shampoo.
We don’t do that at home. We don’t do that at home. And now, I do. I know when I’m putting the shampoo—I don’t even want to call it shampoo because it’s not like a shampoo out of a bottle.
But when I’m using it, I really massage my scalp every morning.
ELLEN EVES: And that’s a very important part of it. We do offer a scalp massager that Anthony has created that’s natural rubber. But massaging your scalp is really important because you need to get the blood flowing. It’s the same as if you sit at a desk all day, you’ve got to make sure you’re moving around and keeping your blood flowing.
So then step #4 is going to be styling and henna hair coloring. We do offer hair coloring using henna. We have a variety of types. And something I did want to touch on as well is that most people think that henna means red. And that’s just not actually true. We use different parts of the henna leaf, the henna bark, the henna root.
We also add things like cinnamon or marigold flower to give you exactly the variation of brown, blonde, red or black that you’re really looking for. And this is a great way of continuing to color, especially if there’s a couple of greys are starting to pop out, and you maybe don’t want everyone to see them.
This is a great way to naturally color your hair.
Along with this in step #4 is cutting. And something that a lot of people’s common misconception is they think, “Oh, I want to grow my hair long, so I just won’t ever cut it.”
But actually, you do need to cut your hair in order to grow it because basically, it will start splitting from the bottom, and as it splits up, up, and up, you’re going to have even more damage and more splitting, and you’re never going to get that really healthy thick hair that you want.
And then step #5 is more of a—it’s for our advanced members, you could say. After you’ve been on Morocco Method for a while, if you’re really looking for hair rejuvenation, if you’re looking for growth in particular, we do have a variety of different elixirs, is what we call them. And they’re the finest oils and the finest minerals and herbs that you can basically find from around the world, put into these little bottles that you can massage into your hair and scalp.
We have seen a lot of success on people, just like what you were saying, Debra, after using the shampoo, with seeing those little baby hairs start to pop up when you thought you were thinning.
DEBRA: Yes, it was really amazing when I looked in the mirror and I thought, “Oh, there’s all these little hairs, this soft little line of hairs just right around the edge of my forehead.” And it was quite encouraging because I could tell that—what I was about to say was I could tell that my hair and scalp have turned into an ecosystem. And I’m not quite sure that’s the right analogy.
But I’m feeling like that instead of just shampooing and just letting my hair do whatever it’s doing, I feel like I’m actually paying attention and interacting with my hair as a natural thing.
ELLEN EVES: Absolutely. You’re feeding it live nutrition. And that’s the whole thing, this whole idea that we come from, is that you’re feeding it in the same way. These raw ingredients, they supply living nourishment to your hair the same way that raw fresh foods are going to provide wholesome nourishment within your body.
So it is very similar.
It’s funny that you compared it to an ecosystem because we very much come from the idea that your scalp is like soil and your hair is like a plant. And you’re never going to be able to grow a healthy plant out of terrible soils, so you have to start with the detox and start with the soil and start with the scalp, and then from there, you have to trim the dead off, that kind of thing.
So it’s interesting. I find it funny that you said that because that is very much the idea that we’re coming from as well.
DEBRA: Well, I must have picked it up because that’s what I thought so clearly. And I know enough about nature to know that there is a pattern to everything, and that everything has their optimum way of existing. And that if you can find out—if you’re growing tomatoes, if you can find out what tomato plants like, and then do that, then you’re going to have a great crop of tomatoes.
But each plant is different, and even each scalp is different. Each body is different. And so you have more than one type of shampoo, and you only have just that one Zen treatment, but you have several different shampoos for different hair types.
And let’s talk about that some more after the next break.
This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and we’re having a very interesting discussion about how to detox your hair, and the difference between what you find on the shelf in the hair care products and what’s really natural about caring for your hair.
We’ll be right back just after this.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Ellen Eves, social media director from Morocco Method, and we’re learning all about their all-natural, raw, vegan hair care products, designed to both detoxify and nourish your hair.
So Ellen, tell us more about the process. How would somebody start out? What would they order when they go to your site? I know that there are three different shampoos, I think, or maybe more. How do you tell which one to get?
Because I know that you sent me samples of different ones, and that some of them were much better for my hair than others.
And I finally settled on the one that seemed to be right for my hair and use that over and over again.
So tell the listeners more about the process.
ELLEN EVES: Absolutely. So we have five shampoos and six different conditioners. And what we actually recommend is we recommend rotating all five, especially when you start in detox, sometimes it can be more difficult, and one shampoo is definitely going to be better for you than another.
But as you continue your process […], I hope you’ll re-try some of the shampoos that maybe weren’t the best for your hair at the time. We recommend rotating all five just because that way, you’re getting really the nutrients from each individual shampoo, and it’s really giving your scalp exactly what it needs.
DEBRA: That makes sense to me. That makes sense.
ELLEN EVES: Another reason that we recommend rotating all five is because this way, your scalp and your hair don’t get used to the product. Our scalp and our hair, like the rest of our body, if you just keep putting the same thing in it all the time, it’s going to start to get used to it, and we almost have to trick ourselves into continuing to feed your hair exactly what it needs without it giving you any reluctance.
So what we recommend to start with is actually in the packages section, it’s called the Healthy Hair Starter Package. And what this includes is it includes two-ounce samples of all five of our shampoos and all six of our conditioners, and then it also comes with a scalp massager.
So with our shampoos, each of our shampoo is based on an element. It’s air, ether, water, fire and earth. And then basically, we rotate all five of those. And then with our conditioners, we have two rinse out conditioners, which are just like any conditioner you’d use in the shower. And then we also have two spray conditioners. These are great especially for detox with people that are dealing with a more oily hair type during their detox, we recommend just using these spray conditioners.
And then we also have our Euro oil, which is an oil that you can use for deep conditioning. Some people like to use it for styling. There’s a lot of really good uses for this oil. And then lastly, there’s Zen Detox Hair & Scalp Therapy which I mentioned before is a great masque for detoxing your hair and scalp.
DEBRA: One thing that I would just give as a tip from having used these products is that I had an idea of how much to use from how much shampoo I used to put in my hand. And I really found that using a smaller amount works better than using a large amount because it was sometimes hard to rinse it all out if I use a lot. I’d have to rinse and rinse and rinse.
But just using a smaller amount—I found the right balance for myself, and I think that that’s part of the process here.
Can you talk about—does the type of water that you use make any difference, like hard water or soft water?
ELLEN EVES: We do recommend getting some kind of a filter. I’m not sure if I could even really speak to hard water versus soft water. But we do sell a shower filter on our website, and we do recommend getting a filter because it will help get rid of some of those impurities before they get put into the scalp.
One thing to mention too just about shampooing, because I know we work together for a while finding exactly the right way, and what was best for you, and you brought up a little important point, which is listening to your hair.
A lot of people, they have a lot of questions on exactly how to use it, but I think part of it is finding out for yourself. Like you side, everyone is going to be different. Every one’s scalp is going to be different.
And because the different things we put in our hair, and the different places that we live, we’re all going to have different kinds of toxins in our bodies and in our hair.
So one thing that you brought up before that I want to bring up again is diluting the shampoo. Not only is this a great way to save some money on your shampoo, but we actually suggest is taking a smaller bottle and mixing about 50% shampoo and 50% water, and then pouring that mixture all over your head and really massaging it into your scalp.
As Debra mentioned, these shampoos, they don’t foam. So getting them through your hair and your scalp can sometimes seem like a bit of a struggle, and this is one way we—
DEBRA: I would totally agree with that. I don’t mix it in a separate bottle, but I take a little bit like about the size of a dime, and I put it in my hand, and then I cup my hand and put water in it and I mix it up. And then I put that on my hair, and it makes it a lot easier to get all the nutrients through the hair. And it makes it a lot easier to rinse it out, if you just take that paste and put it in your hair. It’s much more difficult.
But I really like what you’re saying about listening to your hair because I find that what makes natural methods effective is to get to know yourself, and to get to know your own body, and to get to know the nature of the natural materials, and what they can do, and how your body responds to them.
And that’s much more self-awareness, which I think is always good. And I also found that in considering the environment, that we live in this world where everything is cookie cutter exactly the same. And that’s what the industrial world is about.
Yet, the world of nature, which we are all born of, we’re all natural beings, the world of nature, everything is different.
Everything is unique from place to place to body to body. And when you embark on a program like this, you’re really going into a journey and an adventure of restoring your hair to its natural state. But it’s your hair. It’s not the model’s hair. It’s not the lab rat’s hair.
It’s your hair. It’s your hair. And it will come back its natural beauty given a chance.
ELLEN EVES: And we’ve seen that. We have more testimonials than I can count on people who maybe they had great hair when they were a kid, and maybe they never had that amazing hair that they always wanted. And through Morocco Method, and through their ability to listen to their hair, really listen to their body, and allow for this journey, which is exactly what you’re saying, this healthy hair journey, allowing for that has really helped quite a few people to regain their hair, and I think self-confidence as well.
DEBRA: One thing I forgot to tell you, Ellen, is that my hair has started to curl. If I were to show you a picture of me as a child, I had like Shirley Temple curly hair. That’s my natural state, is to have curly hair. And over the years, it’s gotten straight, straight, straight. And now, it’s starting to curl.
After I take a shower, and I wash my hair, I just puff it up with my fingers, and it curls. And I haven’t seen that in decades.
ELLEN EVES: There you go. That’s a perfect example. We actually even have a girl in the office who went through something similar. Her hair was a wave, very, very curly, and then just through the use of chemicals and products and things like that, it had started to become this in-between straight and curly. And now, through use of Morocco Method, she’s also been able to restore the hair that she had when she was a kid.
And I think that that’s a huge thing, and especially to be able to do that naturally and without chemicals is pretty cool.
DEBRA: Well, chemicals nourish nothing.
ELLEN EVES: Exactly.
DEBRA: They really are not nutrients. And although some people like to pretend that they are, but they aren’t. And if you want something—we all have living bodies. And if we want them to be alive and vibrant, we need to take other living things, and use them to nourish our bodies, whether we’re eating them or putting them on our skin, or putting then on our hair.
We just have a few minutes left. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you want to say?
ELLEN EVES: I don’t think so. I do want to just ask the essential question that basically our company, that Morocco Method was founded on. I do want to just pose it to the audience. Why compromise your health and the health of your scalp and your hair with chemical products when you can achieve radiant beauty with safe all-natural hair care?
DEBRA: Excellent question. Well, I appreciate your contacting me, and letting me try the products because it certainly changed how I think about hair, and how I think about hair products, and the way I evaluate them because my hair certainly is different, and I certainly can see that what I’m doing is supporting my hair instead of just washing it and stripping it and all those kinds of things.
So thank you so much, Ellen, for being with me.
ELLEN EVES: Thank you so much.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. And if you enjoyed this show, please tell your friends, tell your family, tell everybody you work with. What we want to do here is we want everybody on the planet to live toxic free, so that we can just walk into any store, and know that the products on the shelves are safe, that we can protect our own bodies and the health of our loved ones.
And you can listen to this show again. Everything is recorded, so you can go back and listen to yesterday’s show, and the day before, in the archives. Lots of information.
So we are going to be creating a toxic-free world. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio.
Saladmaster Cookware
Question from Lisa Ausley
What is your opinion of Saladmaster cookware? It is supposed to be surgical grade stainless steel and titanium. Also, is it true lead is used in making glass products?
Debra’s Answer
According to the Saladmaster website, the interior of the pots and pans are lined with a combination of 316 stainless steel and titanium. They are the only cooking system to use 316Ti made from stell mills in the US and Switzerland.
316 “surgical stainless steel” is better than the 304 stainless steel used to make most stainless steel objects. In addition to chromium and nickel, surgical stainless steel also contains molybdenum to prevent specific forms of corrosion and help maintain the cutting edge. Three hundred sixteen surgical steel is used in the manufacture and handling of food and pharmaceutical products where it is often required in order to minimize metallic contamination.
If you want to use stainless steel cookware, this one would be less likely to leach than most.
Lead is not typically an ingredient in glass cookware. When lead is used, such as to make sparkling lead crystal glasses, it’s generally in the name.
Personal Care Products Certified Organic To Food Standards
My guest is Narelle Chenery, who is joining us from Australia. She is the creator of Miessence, the world’s first certified organic skin care and personal care line. We’ll be talking about organic ingredients in personal care products, organic certifications, and the power consumers have to make change. Narelle is a passionate educator and activist for social and consumer change, speaking worldwide to business leaders, entrepreneurs, cosmetic industry professionals and government bodies. After completing her Applied Science degree in 1993, Narelle discovered that ‘natural’ cosmetics weren’t all they claimed to be and began making her own products in her kitchen. In 1998, 6 weeks after the birth of her third child, she launched her hand-made cosmetics as a mail order line. She quickly attracted a small and loyal band of customers, many of whom still use her products today. A year later she teamed up with her then husband Colin Chenery and business activist Alf Orpen and, after 18 months of research in 2001, Narelle revolutionised the beauty industry with the world’s first certified organic skin care products; Miessence. Seven years on, industry giants like Estee Lauder are following in her footsteps, launching their own certified organic products. Narelle is passionate about empowering and educating consumers on how to avoid harmful chemicals in their products. “We, as consumers, are incredibly powerful; we just need to own it! Most of the multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry turnover supports the use of toxic chemicals. If we tell those chemical-peddlers we will no longer put up with the toxins they put onto our bodies and the environment (by refusing to buy them) they will have no choice but to make the changes we wish to see!” Narelle is a member of the Australian Society of Cosmetic Chemists and continues to develop her Miessence products. www.debralynndadd.com/debras-list/miessence
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Personal Care Products Certified Organic to Food Standards
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Narelle Chenery
Date of Broadcast: September 19, 2013
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. And yes, it is a toxic world. There are many toxic chemicals in all kinds of consumer products. Even just walk outside your home, or even your home, the air is full of toxic chemicals. The water we drink is full of toxic chemicals. And we do live in a toxic world.
But there are many people who are doing things to change that. There are many people who are trying to change regulations, who are making less toxic products and completely non-toxic products that you can use in your homes so that you can have a toxic-free home like I do. You can also remove toxic chemicals from your body. And we talk about that too.
And so, there are all kinds of things that you can do that you don’t have to be a victim of toxic chemical exposure. You can be well and healthy and happy. It is possible. We can do it.
Today is Thursday, September 19th 2013. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. The sun is shining. We have a few clouds, so we might get a thunderstorm, but we’ll see. We haven’t had any hurricanes. I live here in Florida where there are hurricanes. And we haven’t had one all season. There hasn’t even been one anywhere near the state of Florida. So that’s a good thing. But hurricanes regulate the temperature, so it’s okay to have one every once in a while.
Today, we’re going to talk about organic personal care products. And I’ve had actually a number of guests on recently talking about personal care products. But what’s different today is that we’re going to be talking—these personal care products are actually the first body care products certified organic to food standards.
And my guest today is Narelle Chenery. She’s joining us from Australia where it’s two in the morning. She’s the creator of MiEssence. And it was the world’s first certified organic skin care and personal care line. We’re going to be talking about organic, organic certifications.
And she, like I, agree that we, as consumers, have a lot of power to make a change. So we’re going to be talking about that too.
Hi Narelle! Are you there in Australia?
NARELLE CHENERY: Hi Debra. How are you?
DEBRA: How are you?
NARELLE CHENERY: I’m well given it’s nine minutes past two in the morning.
DEBRA: Oh, good! Well, first, why don’t you start off just by telling us your story? You really have been a pioneer. And you did something creative and different at a time when nobody else was doing it. So tell us how you came to do this.
NARELLE CHENERY: Thank you. Like most massive life-changing things, I was inspired by an unfortunate event in my life which was—I don’t know whether you call them pap smears in the States.
DEBRA: Yes, we do.
NARELLE CHENERY: I was 23 years old, and I had a bad pap smear which scared the living daylights out of me. That meant I’m on my way to cervical cancer. So that inspired me to create huge changes in my life and clean up my diet and clean up my personal care and basically try and detox myself starting with getting on the path of natural hygiene and natural health and eating organic foods and detoxing my body.
And within a couple of years, I was actually pregnant with my first child. I was in my third year at university when I got pregnant. So I never actually—I completed my degree in Math. But soon after, I needed to get some kind of income. So I was doing part-time selling skin care products. And I’ve been introduced by girl friends to a company in the States that was proclaiming to have natural, non-toxic products.
So, I got involved with that company. And I couldn’t actually—the marketing was all around being natural and pure and safe. This is like 20+ years ago. But there was something I didn’t understand. The labels, I couldn’t pronounce the ingredients on the labels. Even though they were proclaiming to be natural, I couldn’t understand or pronounce the ingredients on the labels.
DEBRA: I understand. If something was natural, it would have an ingredient like lemons and not…
NARELLE CHENERY: That’s right! It’s not going to be sodium hydroxylate or… yeah! So that was challenging for me, or that, at least, raised questions in my mind.
And then, I actually found a book in a health food store that I was in by a pioneer in your country in the natural skincare arena called Aubrey Hampton. Have you heard of the brand Aubrey Organics?
DEBRA: Oh, yes! And in fact, they’re right here in Florida. I’ve known Aubrey Organics for 30 years.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah! Yeah. I mean, he’s a pioneer in the natural cosmetic industry, and also, his book, What’s in Your Cosmetics? in my early 20’s, I bought that book, and it absolutely inspired me and shocked me and disgusted me to think that the products that I’ve been using and selling that were proclaiming to be natural weren’t actually natural at all.
And in fact, some of the ingredients that they were talking about, “naturally derived surfactants” or “naturally derived sodium lauryl sulfate,” those ingredients from coconuts, and all these long-winded multi- or polysyllabic words, and then followed by “(coconut)”, I recognized or I realized that these companies that were claiming to be natural weren’t actually natural at all.
So, in reading this book by Aubrey Hampton, I was inspired to look for a brand that was absolutely pure and natural and safe in Australia. And when I couldn’t find it, I was having a whinge to my mother-in-law who worked in a bookstore, and she started giving me books about herbal medicine and how to make skin creams out of the ingredients in your kitchen cabinet. And it just started as a hobby.
And within a few years, I had a home-based business, like a direct sale business. And within five years of starting my hobby, I had cracked the world’s first certified organic skincare product. That was in 2001, January of 2001.
And i was still basically working from home at that stage. So, I met a man at a natural health festival who wanted to become my business partner. And fast forward 15 years, and we’re now selling our products online to 70 countries around the world.
DEBRA: That’s fabulous!
We’re going to need to go to a break in a moment. But I just want to comment on something that you said before we go. I want to explain because this was something that I was confused about for many years, but I finally figured it out.
When I first started, I thought if something was derived from a natural ingredient like coconut, that that was natural. And that is the definition of natural in most of the world and within the industry.
Next week, I’m going to the Natural Products Expo in Baltimore. And there’s going to be a lot of products like that. I know that there are going to be.
But the thing is that if you take coconut oil, and then you put it into a laboratory, and you mix it with petrochemicals, and then you change it a lot, then you end up with that ingredient that has in parenthesis after it “derived from coconut oil.” And it’s not the same as coconut. It’s not the same as actually putting coconut oil on your skin.
And this is where you can take a step out of the petroleum products kind of personal care products into those industrialized natural ingredients. And that’s a good step to take. But if you want something that’s truly natural where you have ingredients from nature in their natural state, then you have to take another step.
We’re going to talk more about that when we come back from the break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Narelle Chenery who is the creator of MiEssence, the world’s first certified organic skin care and personal care line. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Narelle Chenery who is joining us from Australia where it’s 2 a.m. in the morning. She’s the creator of MiEssence, the world’s first certified organic skin care and personal care line.
Narelle, when you first got certified back in 2001, wasn’t it…
NARELLE CHENERY: Yes.
DEBRA: …you were the first personal care line to be certified to organic food standards. Now, is there a different standard then for personal care products? Can you just kind of explain the world organic certification and what gets on the label and things as it applies to personal care products?
NARELLE CHENERY: Sure! Yeah, at the time, 2001, this is actually before the USDA National Organic Program launched their standards. We have dozens of certifiers in your country, but there was no overarching standard.
And at the time, they were only organic food standards on the planet. There were no organic cosmetic standards in existence.
So that was the only choice I had. I had to meet food standards.
That was what inspired me. Because I was so disappointed at the products that I had been selling and I’ve been involved with, I was inspired to create something that was absolutely pure, and no one could pick any bones with, and have it so that it wasn’t just me saying it. I’ve been fooled by the marketing and the green-washing, I wanted my products to be independently certified. And the only relevant certification for absolute purity at that time was organic foods.
So, organic food is a minimum of 95% organic content […], with very minimal allowance, that up to 5% allowance for natural, non-organic ingredients. And that’s a very similar standard here in Australia. Organic food standards around the world are, by and large, that 95%+ content standard.
DEBRA: I want to ask you before you go on about that because I’ve had many people ask me over the years, “I want 100% organic. Why did they allow that 5%?”
NARELLE CHENERY: Because we live in the real world.
DEBRA: Yes, okay.
NARELLE CHENERY: Not everything is available…
DEBRA: And there are some minor ingredients that may not be available organically that you still need to put in the product.
NARELLE CHENERY: And that 5% still has very stringent criteria that you must adhere to. It doesn’t mean that you can use toxic chemicals or preservatives or all sorts of nasty junk. There are still very stringent criteria for that 5%. It basically an allowance for natural ingredients that haven’t been grown organically. So there’s a small allowance.
This is the real world. Not everything is available in organic form.
DEBRA: Not yet, that’s correct, that’s correct.
Okay! So, what’s going on today about certifying? When you see on just like a natural product that you see, a personal care product in a natural food store say, and it’ll say it contains organic this and that, organic that, but they don’t all say “certified,” are there any regulations or certifications for organic for personal care. How is that working now? I know there’s been some talk and some changes. I’m not quite sure where it is at the moment.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yes. Well, to the best of my knowledge, in your country, the USDA has stated publicly that they don’t want to get involved with personal care, that they will allow personal care products that meets the organic standard to be certified USDA. So that’s great news. But it’s not like a state objective of theirs to incorporate personal care products into their standard.
DEBRA: I also heard in that regard that in textile products—like mattresses, for example, is where I’ve heard about this—what the USDA will do is they’ll certify an agricultural ingredient, an agricultural material. So they could certify say apples or something else that might be in your personal care product, like some essential oil or something, and they can also certify cotton, but they’re not certifying the product in the same way in other categories as they are in the category of food.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yes, yes. Well, they will certify products that meet the food standards even if the function isn’t food.
DEBRA: Okay, good. That’s good to know. So, it could say “certified organic,” if you see that “USDA certified organic” symbol on a product that’s not a food product, that means that it’s following the same rules as if you saw that USDA certified label on a food product like catsup, for example. It has to be 95% organic.
NARELLE CHENERY: Absolutely, yes.
DEBRA: So if you see it on a personal care product, then it will be 95% organic just like that catsup would be.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yes, that’s right.
There are actually three levels of certification with the USDA. They do have a 100% organic certification. If every single one of the ingredients in that product is certified organic, they do allow a 100% organic claim.
Then there’s the certified organic which is that 95%+ organic content. And then, they have a “made with organic” claim that you can make, but no logo is allowed to be used on the product. You can’t bear the USDA logo on the product. But you can make the claim “made with organic ingredients.” And that is a 70%+ organic content.
DEBRA: Good, good.
NARELLE CHENERY: That sounds tiny. But interesting, that’s only pertaining to food, that “made with organic.” So to the best of my knowledge, they don’t allow a “made with organic” claim for personal care products.
DEBRA: We need to take another break. We’ll come back right after this. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Narelle Chenery who is joining us from Australia at two in the morning there. And she’s the creator of MiEssence, the world’s first certified organic skincare and personal care line.
And MiEssence, you can go to my website, and type in MiEssence in the search box, and a local distributor will come up. It’s on Debra’s List. Or you can just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and there’s a link under Narelle’s shining, smiling face. And we’ll be right back after this.
DEBRA: Okay, let’s try this again. Here I was, announcing we were coming back, and there was no audio.
So, you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Narelle Chenery who is in Australia where it’s just past two in the morning. She’s the creator of MiEssence, the world’s first certified organic skincare and personal care line.
And if you’d like to go visit her website, you can just type in MiEssence on any search engine, or you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and look for the announcement of today’s show, you’ll see her picture there. And at the end of that, there’s a link to the MiEssence site that is on my website.
So, Narelle, I’ve been looking at your website. And there’s a tab for ingredients. I’ve been looking at that over the break, and I see that every single ingredient is a plant that I recognize or a mineral like aloe vera, amber essence, apple cider vinegar, avocado oil. I mean, you really have taken those kitchen kind of ingredients and put them in very wonderful products.
NARELLE CHENERY: Thank you! I love what I do, that’s for sure.
DEBRA: Well, I can tell. I’ve used a lot of your products, and I think they’re great.
So, tell us about your products. I know now you have a lot of different things even more than basic personal care. So why don’t you tell us about them and what’s special about them.
NARELLE CHENERY: Well, yes. I started out with skincare. I really fell in love with the natural ingredients. Actually, these books that I was telling you about, the one from Aubrey Hampton, he listed the amazing properties of the likes of shea butter and rose essential oil and horse chestnut extract.
And the more research I did into the cornucopia of the amazing ingredients available in nature, and how healing and regenerative and soothing and nourishing they are to the skin, I just thought, “Oh, my God! How amazing would it be if I could create a range of skincare products that could utilize a whole range of organic essential oils and herbs and plant butters and root extracts, citrus extracts that all have amazing properties for the skin?”
So, we have a whole range of skincare. We have a 10-step facial. And we have bathrooms, toothpaste, deodorants, shampoos, body washes. And that extended into cleaning products, home cleaning products and essential oils and perfumes.
And in the last few years, I’ve focused on health and well-being and actually creating superfood-based products or nutritional products out of the purest and most potent plant-based ingredients on the planet that I can find that has the greatest benefit for the body.
So, we have from an organic probiotic, an organic antioxidant, and an alkalizing green chlorophyll-rich super food.
So, we’ve got about a hundred products in our range now.
DEBRA: That’s a lot of product.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah! I just love what I do, and I just love creating. And I get inspired by finding—basically, I want to solve problems. I want to solve problems, and I want to create products that people love to use and fall in love with and actually work and are good for them. So that’s what drives me.
DEBRA: Well, I think you’ve certainly accomplished exactly that.
I’m just looking at different things here on your website. And here, I’m looking at the make-up page, and you have a video.
NARELLE CHENERY: Oh, yeah, cosmetics, yeah. I forgot to say we have cosmetics as well, yeah.
DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. This is great. So we’re going to need to take another break in about a minute here. So tell us a little bit more about your mineral makeup. Can you just tell us about are all mineral make-up the same or are there things that we should be looking for?
NARELLE CHENERY: No, all mineral makeups are not the same. There are chemicals that are described in mineral makeups.
And one particular ingredient, titanium dioxide, for example, is a mineral that’s used in many cosmetic bases. And titanium dioxide actually has been found to be very unstable in the presence of UV light, in sunlight, and it degrades to form free radicals which actually damage the skin.
So, the most stable mineral is zinc oxide. And that’s the mineral that I use as a base of all of my cosmetic products as opposed to the titanium dioxide which can break down to form free radicals which causes oxidation and free radical damage and aging of the skin; whereas zinc oxide is a very stable mineral. It’s stable in the presence of UV light. And it actually acts as a natural sunscreen that reflects the sun’s rays and protects the skin. So that’s the ideal ingredients to look for in a mineral cosmetic as the base.
DEBRA: Good, that’s good to know. There’s all these mineral makeups, all these different brands, and they all advertise how natural they are and what are the standards. This is what I’m always looking for as a consumer advocate, what can I tell consumers so that they can tell the difference and find the best products both in terms of how well they work and also how natural or organic or non-toxic that they are, what to be looking for. So thank you for that.
So, your products are sold through multilevel marketing. Can you tell me why you decided to do that? And what are the benefits of doing that?
NARELLE CHENERY: Actually, we got involved with network marketing or multilevel marketing because, originally, I was just selling direct and selling into health food stores. And I had a friend of a friend who basically wanted to become a business partner or wanted us to contract manufacture for him. And he had a really significant history in corporate network marketing.
He’s been involved in some companies from the States. And he wanted to create his own network marketing company out of organic skincare.
And my experience with network marketing hadn’t been entirely positive in terms of over-promising and under-delivering and being very hype-based.
DEBRA: Why do people feel that way? This is why I’m asking you this question because a lot of people say, “Oh, I don’t want to have anything to do with MLM because of past experiences.” Yet there’s a lot of really great companies like yourself. So go on because I want people to hear this.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah, yeah. That’s right. It does have a bad name. There’s no doubt about it. And I absolutely didn’t like the idea, the hype around the promises, the get-rich-quick scheme. Actually, network marketing, for our purposes, especially because we create—
Our products are made fresh. One of our unique qualities is that we make our products monthly. We make fresh, and we ship direct to our consumers. So, the best way for us—I mean, it used to break my heart because I was originally selling in health food stores. And once it goes into a retail product, once your product goes into a retail store, there’s no guarantee how long it’s going to sit there for.
DEBRA: And you have to be concerned about shelf life. And when you have to be concerned about shelf life, you have to design the product differently. I mean, we’re talking about all these fabulous benefits of the natural ingredients, but if it sits on the shelf…
NARELLE CHENERY: it loses its vitality.
DEBRA: It loses its vitality, yeah.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yes. Our products are really unique in that they’re cold-formulated, high vitality, certified organic, raw, beneficial, active, no chemical emulsifiers and preservatives, and antioxidants. Nothing is synthetic in them. So the freshness is a really unique quality. And it’s actually highly beneficial to get the products fresh so you get the most benefit.
That’s one of my pillars, is that the products have to be good for you and actually make a difference.
So, network marketing is actually wonderful for us because it means that we can ship direct to the consumer, to the end user, directly from our factory. And it also enables us to share what would have been the marketing budget that goes to exporters and distributors and wholesalers and retailers…
DEBRA: And let me just say this about the fees. If you go into stores, retail stores, a lot of retail stores, you have to fees to be on the shelf.
NARELLE CHENERY: That’s right, yes. Not to mention that the margins that they need. So, we have to make a margin, the wholesalers need a margin, the distributors need a margin, the exporters need a margin. So there’s quite a significant chunk of money from the retail price down to what would be the manufacturing cost. There’s a significant chunk of money that is a valuable and is used up in that normal supply chain.
So, what we do is we put that chunk of money into our people who actually share our vision and mission and passion for the beautiful products that we make, and they share our story. It’s quite a unique story. The way our products are made were quite different.
So, our products work well with word-of-mouth and presenting, home presentations, and actually experiential moments in the home so you can actually try the products before you buy.
So, networking marketing is actually perfect for us because it means that we get to share our prosperity with people who love our products and want to talk about our products. And it also means we get to ship fresh directly to the consumer, so the end user gets the best, most potent, as pure as possible, freshest products that’s possible.
DEBRA: And also too, one of the things that I found with network marketing is that if you’re a user these products—as most people are who are wanting to then sell them—you can make enough commissions and more. You can make at least enough commissions to pay for your use of the product. Plus, more profit on top of that. And so, I think it’s a very good way for people who want to use a particular product to be able to earn at least a little extra income to be able to pay for it. It’s such a benefit of this marketing.
It really is, I think, a good marketing structure. It’s an excellent marketing structure that’s just has a bad reputation.
NARELLE CHENERY: It has a bad name.
DEBRA: It’s how it’s been used. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the structure. It’s just that it has a bad reputation.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah, yeah. And we have a monthly order that you can get your products monthly. And if you get three people doing the same thing, you actually get your products for free.
DEBRA: It’s only three people.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah, I know. It’s really cool.
DEBRA: Yeah. So, I said a little earlier—we’re needing to go to break, but I got a little note from my producer that we could skip the break because we had our little technical difficulty. So we just have to skip the break.
So, let’s just move on to talking about the power of consumers and how much difference we can make in the world. What do you want to say about that?
NARELLE CHENERY: Oh, I’d love to refer to the quote by Margaret Mead which is, “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.” And that speaks volumes to me.
So, from my perspective, being an informed consumer is the most powerful thing we can do, to not be fooled. Being informed means that you can look beyond. You have the capacity to look beyond the greenwashing and slick marketing that is rife in the world today. There’s very much rubbish that you have to sift through to get to the real deal.
So, being informed enables you to look beyond that greenwashing, protects your family from toxic ingredients disguised as natural ingredients. It’s what you mentioned before, Debra, the practice of listing toxic chemical ingredients, and then putting graphics of coconuts, is so deceptive. Those ingredients that are stated to be from coconuts, they always involve a chemical process, as you mentioned. And some of those…
DEBRA: They do!
NARELLE CHENERY: And there’s processing impurities in the chemicals in the manufacturing process that’s being linked to all sorts of health effects like learning disabilities and infertility, birth defects, asthma, cancer. It’s horrific that it is right there.
DEBRA: It is horrific. But you know, I just want to say that I don’t think that most manufacturers are being intentionally deceptive. There was a film some years ago called Absence of Malice. I think that’s maybe even a legal term. I think that it is more that we live in an industrial culture and that everything we do is informed by industrialism, and that people like you and I before we had our realizations…
NARELLE CHENERY: [inaudible 34:13]
DEBRA: Yeah! I mean, everybody, unless we have parents that had changed their minds about industrialism, we all start out in the industrial mindset. And so, we go to the store, and we buy whatever is on the shelf. We eat packaged food and all those kinds of things assuming that everything is fine. And then, we have something happen in our lives, and we see the folly of that, and that our lives could be much better if we weren’t exposed to all those chemicals.
Well, I think that a lot of the manufacturers who are still using those chemicals, I think that they put things like “sodium lauryl sodium (coconut)” on the label to make it look like it’s from coconut because that’s what the suppliers are telling them.
A chemist who’s only thinking in terms of the normal, industrial model, someone goes to them and says, “Well, we want to make a natural formula.” He doesn’t think like you do to use apple cider vinegar. He thinks, “Let’s put together this industrial chemical with this industrial chemical. And it’s from coconut, so it’s natural.”
When I started out 30 years ago, that was considered natural. And there were no products like yours at that time. And if you wanted to have something that was like yours, people had to do like I did…
NARELLE CHENERY: Make it themselves.
DEBRA: You have to make it yourself in your kitchen. I mean, the quality and purity of products has just increased tremendous in the right direction over the past 30 years. It’s a huge difference.
But I think that there are still people who aren’t with the program. They haven’t recognized what it is that we need to do. And so we still have—we now have this choice between the toxic chemical or the toxic natural chemical or pure ingredients like yours where you’re using the whole ingredient.
And I think that’s a context that we need to be thinking in now in terms of personal care, those three categories, which category does it fall in? And it certainly is a step in the right direction to get out of the toxic petroleum ingredients into the natural industrial ingredients. But where we really want to go is where your products are.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah, I agree. I agree, it’s not malicious. It’s just born of ignorance and not questioning and having the knowledge to question, not sort of not really even thinking about it, just assuming that it’s safe because it’s in existence. If it’s being made, it must be safe.
DEBRA: It’s in existence. The government isn’t telling us not to use it.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah.
DEBRA: The government is still allowing it on the shelf, so it must be safe.
NARELLE CHENERY: That’s right. If it’s on the market, it won’t hurt me.
DEBRA: Yeah, we live in interesting times.
Well, now we really do have only two minutes left. So, is there anything that you’d like to say that we haven’t covered? Any final words?
NARELLE CHENERY: Oh, my gosh!
DEBRA: It’s over! Isn’t that quick?
NARELLE CHENERY: That was really quick.
Well, from your listeners’ perspective, the best way as a tool for them—because they’re going to be now looking at their bathroom products and going, “Well, is this product natural? How do I know now?” So, the best way or, really, the only way to assess the integrity of a product—and it’s available these days, all the personal care products and the food products. The only way to guarantee the organic integrity of any product is to look for the logo.
Look for the logo of certification. And that guarantees the organic integrity of that products. It’s an independent third-party guarantee of the authenticity and integrity of every single ingredient. And only certified organic products can bear the certified logo.
So basically, if you have a product that’s claiming “made with organic”—
The big thing is there’s so much greenwashing in the personal care/skincare industry. And unfortunately, it is intentional. It’s intentionally misleading consumers, this greenwashing, by hiding those synthetic surfactants ingredients that we just talked about in the substantial water components of shampoos for example.
A shampoo is about 70% water from a formulation perspective. So what companies do to mislead consumers and give people the idea that their product is greener than it actually is, they list weak botanical extracts or “aqueous infusions,” they call it. So you’ll see things like…
DEBRA: I’m sorry. I have to interrupt you because, if I don’t, then the music is going to interrupt you.
NARELLE CHENERY: Yeah, sure.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Talk Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and find out more about my guest Narelle Chenery. Go to her website and see about Narelle’s products. Thanks for being with me!
