What are all these clothes?

I have too much stuff. My inner nomadic soul is suffering from owning this much stuff. But I just love all of my stuff. I haven't figured out how to get rid of it all, but I just dream of owning little enough so that it wouldn't tie my down so much to where I'm living at the moment.

I'm doing my second load of washing today, but I don't understand where I am going to put it after it's clean. My laundry basket is so full I can't fit any more clothes in it. My wardrobe is full. My chest of drawers won't even close. I have a clothes horse up, covered in pyjamas I washed yesterday. And guess what? The cliché: "I have nothing to wear", quite often describes the thoughts that are going through my mind when I'm trying to get dressed.

This is where I lived and how I dried my laundry in first year.

Why is that? Do I really have nothing to wear or is everything I'd like to wear in that overflowing laundry basket? What is all that stuff that is making my wardrobe full? Do I ever wear them? How do I find out? Should I literally just wash everything and start taking notes of what I am actually wearing? How many clothes does a person like me actually need anyway? Do I want to become a person who wears the same clothes everyday? Am I already that person without realising and am just trying to hide that truth from myself by owning all of those other clothes? When was the last time I bought new clothes anyway? When was the last time I donated some clothes to charity?

Home sweet home and all of my lovely clothes. In 2008.

Okay, the last time I bought new clothes was last week. I bought two new vests from Primark because the ones I wear all the time are so worn I'm worried they will fall apart soon. And the other week I took a couple of jackets I never wear to a swap shop at uni. So I am trying. 

But maybe I should do more. Should I really start taking notes of what I like to wear? And create statistics? And renew my wardrobe so that it looks like a wardrobe that belongs to a 25 year-old (me). I'm worried there's a big "backlog" of my teenage years; clothes I am now keeping there just in case I decide not to do laundry for 6 months. Completely good clothes that I could definitely wear so that I wouldn't have to walk around naked.

Definitely not naked.

According to Jenna Marbles it's just embarrassing to keep wearing the same clothes all the time. I don't entirely follow that ideology but as a girl living in this society I am still probably affected by that. And also alarmingly I can recognise some similarities in my behaviour and this video:

My wardrobe is a lot smaller than hers though, you can see it in her "How Guys Get Dressed" -video. And I am planning to move house at some point in the not so distant future and I really need to get rid of a lot of it before that. I need to go through my sock drawer so that I could at least occasionally find matching socks. But I am sad to throw out all of those odd socks. But I honestly don't know what I could ever do with them. I am not a crafty person. And I don't like wearing matching socks anymore. I've done it. It was great, but sadly I have now moved on. I also need to get rid of my old clothes that I am saving as a backup. Perhaps, I should organise my clothes into categories when I take them down. Primary clothes and secondary clothes? And then I can donate all of those secondary clothes when it's time to move on with my life. That could potentially work.

Do you ever experience these problems? And how do you manage to throw out your old clothes?

Golden Hair!

Hi!

Surprises, I got bored with my hair again! I dyed it earlier with some non-permanent hair dye, which gave my hair a nicer shade, but after about a week I decided I wanted to try something different and decided to try a permanent hair dye.

I wanted to try and get my hair a bit lighter. I could have of course bleached my hair. I've heard that Jerome Russell Bblonde -line is good, but I decided to be a rebel and experiment something that I thought would be a bit gentler. I did a little bit of online research and watched some convincing YouTube-videos and decided to try out a brand called Naturtint. They have a very good colour chart and it had clear instructions how to mix the colours to get a shade you might want. I'm not sure if most self-use hair dyes do that because I'm very new to this hair-dying business. But for me it made it a lot easier and I was more confident about trying out this hair dye.

When I started my hair was maybe a bit an ashy light brown colour, with some lighter highlights? This was mostly due to my previous hair-dying experiment. Naturtint recommended to choose a colour which is 2 shades lighter than my starting colour, so I actually should have probably chosen the colour 9N. But of course I was a rebel and didn't follow the recommendations. I chose the lightest colour: 10N. But I wanted to believe that 10N would be more effective. I have no way of testing this theory, but I'm just going to show you what happened to my hair and make some sort of a review of this product.

I ordered this dye online, but you can also find it at Holland & Barrett and maybe at some other health shops. I'm not sure if this product is any healthier than most box hair dyes, but it doesn't contain ammonia, parabens, silicones, paraffin, mineral oils, heavy metals, artificial fragrances, SLS or formaldehyde derivates. I guess it's good that some of these are not included. I don't really need my hair dye to be fragranced. But I'm sure ammonia for instance has been replaced by some other chemical that does the same job. You can dye your hair darker with henna and coffee* but if you want to go lighter like me, you need some peroxide and other stuff.

The boxed contained the usual things: colourant, developer and gloves. So I put the gloves on and mixed the colourant and the developer. Unfortunately, I was a bit useless and run out of dye. But I combed my hair to get a more even spread and it was all OK after that.  One box is actually enough for shoulder length hair if you know how to spread it. So if you are new to hair dying and use this hair dye I recommend that you mix the dye in a bowl so that you can see how much dye you have left.

Apparently I'm just asking for rude anonymous comments by adding these unflattering photos here.... I don't know if all hair dyes are like this, but I found it really easy to comb my hair like this. Then I just hang out for 40 minutes before I went back to bathroom to wash my hair.

First, I tried to rinse all the dye out of my hair, but it was a bit difficult because my hair was so dry it just felt like one big knot. But I did that until the water seemed clear and then I decided to shampoo it.

The box provided samples of shampoo and Naturtint Nutrideep Multiplier Protective Cream which is a conditioner/hair mask. I guess the shampoo is a toning shampoo. It foamed a lot and left my hair feeling even more like knot. But at least it no longer felt like there was hair dye left. Then I tried the Nutrideep Multiplier and it smoothed all the knots straight away. I left it on for 2 minutes as instructed and then rinsed it out. It was fantastic! I actually ordered two tubes of it so that I could keep using it. Best conditioner I have ever tried! My hair has never really needed a conditioner though, so I've just used whatever, so I am not the most experienced person in this field. But for me it was amazing.

Under my living room light the colour looked very golden. Naturtint actually has dyes that have a more golden shade. I had chosen a more natural shade, but the result still looked more golden. I feel that if I look at their colour chart, I went from 7N to 8G with their hair dye 10N. But it's okay, I really liked the result. And it didn't look as brassy as some other blonding attempts I've seen.

It's entirely possible that my hair doesn't even look that golden outside. But I rarely realise to take selfies outside, and unfortunately, I don't have anyone who would just spontaneously take photos of me. It would be useful in this sort of situations. 

But I'm curious and wanted to try and see what silver shampoo would do to my hair, even if I wasn't trying to go platinum. So I went and bought Pro:voke's silver shampoo.

I found that it worked well, although the result might be more noticeable if my hair was lighter. I apologise for random drunken bathroom photos, but the Hilton just had better lighting than my flat does. Apparently the lighting makes a big difference here which I maybe should have realised before. Maybe in the future I'll try to be awake and alert while the sun is up. After that I can provide you with some proper before and after photos.

But I found this dye very good and I can recommend it! As long as you're prepared for it to go a bit more golden than what the picture suggests. The company actually does mention that on their website as well, and suggests that you mix the neutral dye with their ashy dye (10N + 10A in my case), but I didn't want to do that this time because I was curious to see how the dye would work on its own. I'm really happy with the result. And this range has good colour choices and their dyes don't stink as awful as some other ones I've encountered before.

Have you tried any particularly good hair dyes? What do you think of this result?

Year 2014 - spring!

Happy new year, guys!

... Okay, I admit that my plan was to do this post last month. But better late than never, eh?

I did a similar post last year and found it really therapeutic to say goodbye to the year 2013. So I think it's worth it to review what happened in my life in 2014 as well. Maybe it will remind me of my mistakes so that I can learn from then? And more importantly I can see what I've achieved last year so that I can be proud of it. And maybe after this it will be easier to focus on this year and the future.

This has potential to be a bit long, so I'm going to do this in two parts.

So what happened in spring 2014?

January

I welcomed the year 2014 in a small Finnish town with my friends. We stood on a muddy field with sparklers. I had bought myself a fancy new camera with objectives and everything for a Christmas present and had great intentions to learn to use it. 

We sailed to Stockholm with my friends and had a great day out in rainy and wintery Stockholm. When Reseda and Anna would sail back to Finland, Mayumi and I were supposed to catch an evening flight to London. But of course there were problems. We had locked our suitcases, passports and plane tickets into a locker at the ferry terminal. But we hadn't realised to check what time the ferry terminal would close and of course the place was empty and the doors were locked when we returned there to collect our luggage just before our train would leave to the airport. Fortunately, we managed to catch the security guard before he went home. It was his first day! Thankfully, he was lovely and helped us to get back into the building to get our stuff, and we made it back to UK in one piece.

Before travelling back up to Scotland I spent a couple of days in my favourite city, Oxford. I visited J.R.R. Tolkien's grave and just wandered around the familiar streets and felt nostalgic.

When we got back to Aberdeen, Mayumi and I decided to compare whether differently priced Jaffa cakes actually tasted any different. They did. The medium priced were the best ones.

February

In February the sun started shining and Aberdeen didn't seem quite as miserable anymore. I decided that I needed to do something with my life and to start living again. I started yoga. I applied for jobs. I got contact lenses. I travelled to a job interview in Glasgow — and for the first time in my life it was successful job interview! My favourite shop, Lush, was campaigning for equal love. We also had a lovely candlelit Valentine's double date night. Also, our flatmate's Japanese boyfriend was visiting and we organised a road trip to visit some Scottish castles.

March

In March, Satu and I visited Manchester, bought some Lush bath bombs and may have ended up having a bath wearing our party dresses after a wee exploration trip to Canal Street. 

I also went to another job interview, got offered another job and started working in Aberdeen. And that's how the era of riding buses began.

April

In April, I had a lot of early mornings which involved getting up at 3am and running out of the door to catch a my bus to work. Those mornings were made a lot better by our neighbourhood bunnies who ran down the street with me. I really loved living there! Working was exciting but commuting for 3 hours everyday was tiring and I started drinking a lot of coffee.

I had a wee holiday too! I travelled to London to go to #rosweglyn -event, to meet "role models for the next generation of gay girls", also known as, "One venue, a handful of YouTubers and 600 screaming lesbians". I was quite excited to go to this thing! I got to meet Kaelyn and Lucy, who I had been following for a long time! And it certainly didn't make it less exciting that two other lesbian youtuber couples: Wegan (Megan and Whitney) and The Roses (Rose and Rosie) were going to be there too. Because Youtube has become sort of like my best friend, I obviously have been watching their videos too. Unfortunately,  Rose ended up in hospital that morning and wasn't able to be there.

May

This was fairly work-orientated month. I took photos of animals I met on my way to work each morning. It was dark, so I'm sure you understand that my phone wasn't able to produce high-quality photos. But I was so happy about meeting these animals! In May, I also finally got paid and celebrated that by buying a new hand bag and eating some fancy Japanese-style food. I also moved to a new flat, and then back to the old flat because the new one sucked. I also got myself a pool and sauna membership to the new aquatics centre. It was so good for me to dip into a pool after a long day of work and then to relax in the sauna. It made such a difference! And afterwards I liked to go to the pub to get a glass of cheap champagne.

June

I enjoyed summer in my favourite neighbourhood and admired our local Pictish standing stones. Then I received some bad news from Finland and travelled to see my poorly cat. Jonna happened to be hosting a breastfeeding celebration party so I travelled to her village to spend time with her and my goddaughter and some friends. We also got a chance to explore my hometown's dangerous nightlife... The same night, there was someone trying to get into a nightclub with a scythe. I don't know why my mum thinks the rest of the world is dangerous, when this sort of thing happens when I visit home.

So that was the first half. Here's the second half.

Do you enjoy looking back to see what you have done last year? I think I've seen some apps on Facebook that do that for you without you needing to dig through your photo albums like I did for this post. Oh, and if you have written similar posts yourself, feel free to link them to me!

I dyed my hair!

It's spring time* and I needed some change...

*by which I mean: I finally took the Christmas tree down and the sun is shining!

... so I decided to change my hair.

I've never dyed my hair myself before, but I actually really dislike going to the hairdressers because it makes me feel so vulnerable. There was a phase in my life when I would actually cut my hair myself because I didn't trust the hairdresser to do it properly. Thankfully, after many disappointing and expensive trips to various hair salons, I have finally found a fantastic Polish salon where I've always got good service and they have managed to make my very difficult hair look great. But those disappointing salon experiences have taught me to be really nervous about other people touching my hair, so I wanted to learn to dye my own hair.

I started getting my hair dyed when I was 12, because it was the thing to do in the small Finnish town that I come from. "No one" had natural hair there. And I didn't want to stick out that much — I was already getting bullied enough for other reasons. But after I moved out of Finland I've let my natural highway grey, maantien harmaa, hair colour grow back and I've been pretty content with it.

My natural hair colour.

So this time, instead of being ashamed of my natural hair colour, I decided to dye my hair out of curiosity. I wanted to try what I would look like with another hair colour.

I meant to buy a permanent colour and checked what they were selling on Boots.com. They appeared to have some serious problems with their website and Boots Botanics Non-Permanent Hair Dye came up when I looked for a permanent hair-dye. I really liked the colour Palest Oatmeal Light Blonde and I didn't find this colour in the permanent section. Because it was cheap, I figured that I could just go and buy that one as a practice hair-dye. After all, I had no idea whether I would even manage to get it on my head. Maybe it was a mistake to choose the cheapest hair dye in found... But this is what I went with.

Batiste dry shampoo bottle did not come with the box.

I bought two boxes because I had read that sometimes you may need two boxes to dye longer hair. Each box contained conditioning hair colour, developing lotion, enriching after colour conditioner and gloves. To me all of those things sounded awfully similar and it took me a while to identify which ones I was supposed to mix together. Why could they not just call them "developer", "colourant" and "conditioner"?

I did my best at following instructions but actually made a mistake when I was trying to test whether I'm allergic to this hair dye or not. I was supposed to mix one teaspoon of the colourant with one teaspoon of the developing lotion, but I opened the whole cap of the colourant instead of the tiny tip of the cap. I poured too much out, freaked out and posted a Facebook status about it. My Facebook friends provided me with some great advice and moral support and I managed to mix the hair dye and got it all over my hair and nowhere else. 

Although, I had bought two boxes, I only used one. There was enough dye for covering my hair. The dye didn't smell too bad or make my head itch or eyes hurt. The box had some serious claims for a non-permanent hair dye though. It promised to make even brown hair blonde. I was feeling fairly sceptical about these claims, but since I figured that my hair was probably closer to "dark blonde", I gave it a chance.

I let it develop for 20 minutes as instructed before I rinsed it off and used the conditioner that came in the box. 

... Then I spent quite a lot of time analysing whether my hair colour actually even changed.

... Maybe it somehow looked more even? It seemed maybe a little bit more brown? Not darker or lighter, but just a little bit less grey. I guess non-permanent hair dye just can't do much to my hair. People did tell me that it's impossible to make your hair more blonde without just bleaching it, but of course I was rebellious and way too curious not to test the box's claims anyway.

When the sun came up the next day I analysed my hair in my kitchen where I had taken the photos of my hair before I had dyed it. Do you think it looks even a little bit different from what it was? 

 

I was a bit too excited about my little experiment and hair dying experience to even be disappointed that the dye didn't do more than that. The dye was quite conditioning, but if anyone wants to use the same one I advice you only to use it if your hair already is lighter than what you want to dye it to. The Botanics line has some other shades as well, all of them look like natural hair colours.

Result?

When I compared my hair against the sun, I could see that it did actually give my hair the tint it promised on the box, but because it didn't actually change my hair colour it was hard to see whether it had even done anything. But I guess you need a stronger dye to do more than this. The box says that it will wash off in 24 washes, so if it had done more, maybe it wouldn't wash off?

I've been analysing my hair colour a lot know and I feel that I like it more now  — not because it changed, but because now it's an "approved" colour because it came out of a box. No one would be able to sell a lame hair colour. So maybe next time someone asks what my natural hair colour is, I can describe it as pale oatmeal blonde instead of highway grey as they call it back in Finland.

I've already ordered another hair dye to see if permanent hair dyes are able to do my hair a bit more than this. I really like my hair now, but maybe I will be bored again in a couple of weeks time.

What do you think — do you think the colour changed? Do you dye your hair yourself? Any tips to this complete newbie?

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..."

You better watch out, you better not cry,

"...he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake!"

Sorry. That was probably too creepy.

But basically I just wanted to tell you that I have a new Christmas CD!

This is the first Christmas I have a Christmas CD! Before I've always listened to death metal or Emilie Autumn's joyous songs such as this one:

But it's not a particularly Christmassy song.

But I'm very into Mindy Gledhill's music and when I discovered that she has a Christmas song CD, I felt that it was important for my Christmas spirit to order it all the way from California! It arrived this week and I've been listening to it everyday.

Oh look, I took a picture of it with my phone.

There are several classic Christmas songs and also a few of Mindy's own ones, including the song "Winter Moon" which the album is named after. 

The track list looks like this:

1. Santa Claus is coming to town

2. O Come All Ye Faithful

3. Christmas Waltz

4. Patapan / O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

5. Little Saint Nick

6. Toyland / White Christmas

7. Winter Moon

8. Little Soldier

9. The Christmas Song

10. Silent Night

This is my favourite Christmas music! 

Here, have a wee listen yourself:

This year I've actually been really early with Christmas. I resisted putting the Christmas tree up until 22nd November. I had then been dreaming of having a Christmas tree up for a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately that's almost all the decorating I got to do since we had forgotten to take some of our decorations down last year and they were already up. Has that ever happened to you?

But I'm so into Christmas this year! I haven't really even been excited about Christmas before, and this year I'm not even sure what I'm going to do for Christmas. But this year it hasn't been just about waiting for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This year it's been about all the songs and the smells and preparation. And the general good mood while waiting for Christmas.

What am I waiting for?

I'm waiting for some Finnish Christmas baked tasty things. Christmas stars (joulutorttu) and ginger bread biscuits (piparkakku). The links will take you to recipies in English. I haven't tried out this recipies but the pictures look accurate.

But yeah, mostly I just looking forward to eating good food and enjoying peacefulness. Candles and some good coffee. Maybe I'll even try to read a book.

O Sing, choirs of angels,

Sing in exultation,

Sing all that hear in heaven God's holy word!

My favourite cosmetic brands

Hi.

I was going to write this post before I got completely stressed out by consumerism and plastic and all that unnecessary waste that just ends up in landfills. But because it's almost Christmas and cosmetics have been my favourite thing for 2 years now, I thought I'd write this post anyway.

When I was really lonely and depressed I cheered up my life by going shopping for some cosmetics. I bought so many cream, lotions and make-up products. Trying them out really made me a lot happier and boosted my self-confidence!

Earlier this year, Brand Spark International listed the most trusted cosmetic brands in Canada, USA, China, Turkey and Mexico that were ranked by consumers. You can check all of them by following the link. I originally got the idea for this post from a Finnish cosmetics blog Ostolakossa where the blog's author Virve Vee compared the popularity of different brands in different countries and also told her own favourites. 

So today I'm going to tell me what my favourite cosmetic brands have been past these 2 years! With some thoughts on how I'm feeling about the future with them. If this isn't something you're interested in, feel free to skip this post.

For example, these are the winning brands in China:

Face cream:  Olay

Eye cream: Estée Lauder

Make-up foundation: Maybelline

Facial wash: L'oreal and Nivea

Shaving products: Gillette

Nail varnish: OPI

Body wash: Dove

Shampoo & Conditioner: Pantene

Hair styling: Vidal Sassoon

Toothpaste: Darlie

And these are the winners in Turkey:

Facial skincare: L'oreal and Nivea

Make-up foundation: L'oreal and Max Factor (Covergirl)

Facial wash: Neutrogena and Nivea

Lipstick: Avon

Mascara: L'oreal and Max Factor (Covergirl)

Deodorant/Antiperspirant: Nivea

Shaving products: Gillette

Body lotion: Nivea

Body wash: Palmoline

Shampoo & Conditioner: Elidor and Head&Shoulders

Hair styling: Hobby

Toothpaste: Ipana ja Colgate

Feel free to check out the other ones too, I'm sure they are all well known and popular brands.

I actually recently realised that many of the popular brands are owned by gigantic companies.

Have you ever heard of Unilever?

Maybe I'm just naïve but I was really shocked when I realised that so many brands are owned by this massive company. Unilever owns more than 400 brands!

Out of the brands listed earlier more are owned by them by not.

They own Lynx (Axe), Dove, Flora (Becel), Knorr, Lipton, Omo, Sure (Rexona), Surf and Sunsilk (Elidor), Ben & Jerry's, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Pot Noodle, Turun Sinappi, Simple, Pepsodent (Signal), TIGI, TRESemmé and many others!

And of course such a big company has a lot of money to put on marketing and buying self-space in order to make sure that the naïve consumers can easily see these products when they go shopping.

But anyway, back to the point of this post and my own list! Because of course you all really want to know what cosmetics I use (almost) daily.

Face cream:  Boots Botanics. Especially the 81% organic hydrating cream.

Eye cream: Lumene.

Make-up foundation: Skin79. I have now discovered Asian BB creams and don't want to mess with Western foundations anymore.

Facial wash: Lush.

Lipstick: Lush.

Mascara: Physician's Formula Organic Wear.

Deodorant/Antiperspirant: Lumene. But then I experienced an aluminium crisis and started making my own.

Shaving products: Gillette. Although I'm not sure how to feel about this ecologically or socially.

Body lotion: Soap & Glory.

Nail varnish: Lumene Natural Code.

Body wash: Lumene Angry Birds. I got obsessed with this one after I tried it at my friend's house.

Shampoo & Conditioner: Lush. I'm increasingly more and more obsessed with Lush, have you noticed?

Hair styling: Batiste. Dry shampoo is all I use at the moment. I've considered replacing it with just talcum powder though.

Toothpaste: Sarakan. I've had enough of fluoride.

I actually used to use a different toothpaste, but then I read about the dangers of fluoride and felt that I have been poisoning myself enough with it, and decided to switch to a more natural alternative and hope for the best. Then last week I bought a bamboo toothbrush and it works really well! I actually feel that my teeth are cleaner than they were when I used a plastic toothbrush.

I am a bit sad that many of these products contain so much unrecyclable plastic. I always use a Gilette razor where you only have to change the blade bit instead of needing to get a whole new razor! I wish everyone would do the same. Yes, they are a little bit more expensive, but they are also so much better than those awful ones you can buy in bulk. So much plastic ends up in landfill from them and you only use them a couple of times! If you need to shave, please buy a proper razor.

Lush is a fantastic company that makes bath and beauty products with environmental values in their mind. Their products are amazing and I am considering trying more of their products in the future. For instance, they have a mascara that comes in a glass bottle and it probably would be better for the environment if I used that one instead of ordering the one I currently use from America.

Also, in the field of soap and body lotion, I'm considering challenging myself and trying to make some of my own next year. It can't be that difficult, can it?

So, what are your favourite cosmetics? What sort of aspects do you think about when choosing these products?

You don't have to have a favourite to all categories but you can just copy-paste this template to comments and let me know! I'm a bit weird, but I'd love to hear what products you guys use! Oh, and this is a completely unisex questionnaire. Everyone is allowed to answer.

Face cream: 
Eye cream: 
Make-up foundation:
Facial wash: 
Lipstick:
Mascara: 
Deodorant/Antiperspirant:
Shaving products: 
Body lotion: 
Nail varnish:
Body wash: 
Shampoo & Conditioner: 
Hair styling: 
Toothpaste: 

Disgusting plastic

Wow,

I don't know what's happened to me but this Lyra is becoming an eco-Lyra. 

Maybe I've been working in a shop for too long and seen how much rubbish we produce and how many unnecessary things we try to sell to consumers. Or maybe I'm just getting increasingly disgusted with plastic. This plastic-disgust-thing has been going on for a few years now and I've tried to replace all of my plastic kitchen tools with silicone. It hasn't really happened yet apart from my spatula, stirring spoon and rolling pin though. I'm skint and always have been.

You maybe read in my last blog post that I was going to order a bamboo toothbrush. Well, I did order it and can't wait for it to arrive. Apparently toothbrushes are a really big waste problem and can't be recycled and last in landfills for about a 1,000 years. I haven't researched this info, but in my plastic-disgust I believe it to be true enough to invest in an beautiful wooden toothbrush.

The picture will take you to their online store.

It wasn't even a big investment, because many plastic toothbrushes are even more expensive than these ones, and hopefully my teeth will appreciate this. My student budget has normally encouraged me to buy a £1 pack of 5 toothbrushes, but I guess it's okay to feel like I'm saving the planet while brushing my teeth.

Scotland also recently passed a law where all the shops have to charge 5p for every plastic bag and give that money to charity. I can't believe how many people have moaned about that law. They say that the plastic bags are not worth the money and that it's ridiculous to make people to save the plastic bags and that it will just allow stores to charge more for things. I think they are missing the point. I feel that it will encourage the stores to give more money to charity and to make people think about the environment by bringing their own reusable bags. The shop where I work is actually exempt from this law, so we don't charge for the bags but I can see the difference in my customers. So many people say 'no, thanks' when I ask them if they need a bag and they happily pack their purchases in their backpack or reusable shopping bag. It makes me so happy! Most of the time those plastic bags are so unnecessary, you only use it for a number of minutes and then you throw it in the bin.

Picture from Zero Waste Europe -website. Click to visit!

I prefer to carry my shopping home in a canvas bag anyway, because they fit my body better and are easier to carry. Maybe stronger people haven't had this problem, but I really appreciate my own bags. Of course people with cars don't have to carry their shopping very far anyway, so for them it's maybe even better that there is that 5p encouragement fee. Have you guys noticed a change in your behaviour after this fee was introduced?



I'm basically still discovering how I could reduce my ecological footprint. All of this is very new to me. I'll try and keep you posted about my experiences. 
I tried to make my own deodorant today. I'll tell you know how this experiment went once I have evaluated my smelliness levels.

P.S. My birthday and Christmas are approaching and if you're one of those few people who tend to buy me presents, here's some ideas for you! Maybe try and avoid small plastic things or synthetic sponges and stuff like that. These days I'm more into homemade things and "natural products".

For instance, Life Without Plastic -Website has many cool things that I wish I had. I mean, I don't want anyone to order this stuff from America, but please feel free to be inspired by these things!

Maybe I'm making it too difficult

Hello world,

It's been difficult to write. Mostly because I feel that I have too many thoughts and opinions and I'm not confident enough about them to post them here for the world to criticise about. But maybe I could take it as a learning exercise and we could learn from each other? This is not an educational platform where I am supposed to say how something should be done. This is supposed to be a place where I learn to share my opinions and thoughts.

So, what sort of thoughts have I had recently then?

At the moment I'm feeling a bit distressed about the consumer society we live in. The fact that I currently work in an industry which is highly dependant on people buying stuff isn't helping. It got worse after I read this article about how a 23-year New Yorker, Lauren Singer, has been living a "trash-free" life for 2 years.

Lauren Singer. Picture takes you to her blog.

Blogging about this is very scary because I'm not supposed to say anything about my work and because it seems to be a cool trend in blogs to show of new items that people have bought. I was going to write some shopping related posts about my favourite brands, but now I'm so stressed out of all the stuff and trash. I still have a month before I need to make any New Years resolutions, so maybe I really need to think about this.

In the meantime, let me tell you a story.

I went swimming again. This appears to be a reoccuring theme in my blog, but I'm okay with it. I went there straight from work and I had to buy some wash stuff because I had only taken a towel and a swimming costume with me in the morning.

I bought this:

It's colour-free and perfume-free. I wish it was also paraben-free, but apparently you can't get everything. I spent half an hour choosing this, so in the end I decided to go for this one instead of this Sanex one. It had so few ingredients that I decided to choose the Simple one because it had cucumber extract and citric acid. Do you people ever read the ingredients lists of the products you buy?

This turned out to be a decent buy for the £2 I spent on it. I didn't only wash my body with it, I also washed my make-up off with it — including my mascara! I don't understand people who go swimming without washing their make-up off first. It will end up in the pool? Some people also apparently put conditioner on their hair before they get into the pool. Why do they think it's okay? But anyway, this shower gel was okay on my face and it got my make-up of so I used it for washing my hair also. My hair got clean and I no longer understand why someone would need to buy normal shampoos. I actually compared the INCI of this shower gel to some basic shampoos and it looked the same. It seems to be just advertising so that people would buy more products.

My scalp is dry though and can't really even tolerate normal shampoos so I sprayed it with my scalp moisturising mixture that I used after my last traumatising trip to a hairdressers when they washed my hair 3-times with some awful hair dresser shampoos that made my scalp very itchy. I'm not sure what I put in the mixture anymore but judging it by it's scent: apparently a lot of cider vinegar. It helped.

Normally I wash my hair with either a shampoo bar or a budget solution: olive soap!

It's good for my hair and there's no need for conditioner. It's also cheap and "trash-free".

Now please excuse me, while I go and buy myself a bamboo toothbrush.

Trees and homes

Hi.

I've been doing nothing but looking for a new place to live closer to my bus route, so that I'll get more freetime and a shorter commuting time to work. Makes sense to spend my freetime worrying about that, right?

To keep myself away from the websites with flat ads, I decided to finally answer the 11 questions I was challenged to answer in Meriannen blog. I've done the full challenge before, so this time I will just answer the new questions. They were very good questions.

1. What book has meant a lot to you, and why?

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It changed my life. I got it as a 10-year birthday present from my godmother, and it was the first Harry Potter book I ever read. It was the longest book I had ever read. I read the two previous books as well, and then waited for the next ones to get written and published. I grew up with Harry Potter, and I really do believe that my life would be completely different if I hadn't read those books. I might write a whole post about that one day when I'm brave enough to tell you the full story.

My bookself.

2. What makes a home home for you?

A home is a space where I can be myself. At home I don't have to be alone. There needs to be a sofa where I can sit down and watch Gilmore Girls and a kitchen where I can cook. At my current home, we have bunnies in the backyard and I will miss them if I end up moving somewhere where there aren't bunnies. They might not be necessary, as long as I still feel that I'm at home when I'm at home.

3. If you won in the lottery, how do you think the money would change your life?

I would probably worry less about affording things. I would be able to travel more and I would eat fancier food. My life would be more luxurious! And then I would buy houses and rent them out, so that I wouldn't have to work ever, and I could just do what I wanted to do without worrying about not having a job. It would be fantastic.

4. When you started blogging, what did you wish to achieve with your blog? Have your objectives changed since then?

When I moved to Scotland, I had a blog where I talked about my adventures here. That blog was directed to my friends in Finland. But then times changed and that blog got forgotten. 

In 2011, my flatmate moved into a caravan to look after baby ducks and started writing a blog how her water barrel is trying to grow a pet Rowan tree. I thought that it sounded cool, and wished I had something to blog about too. At the time though, I thought that nothing interesting was happening in my life. Moving to Scotland was old news and all I did was to hang around planning on my next backpacking holiday. But I thought that I'd start a blog anyway — maybe I could write about travelling sometimes. And offer valuable opinions on life. And so began my blog.

But things have changed. Of course they have. I've learned more about life and myself since 2011. Since the awful November 2012 I have tried to get back on my feet and to be happy again. During that time I've tried to use my blog as a therapy resource for myself. I had become really scared of the world and avoided speaking to people and telling them my thoughts. Raindeer Pants was a place where I could talk about things and express myself. It still is.

From Growingarowantree.blogspot.co.uk,

5. What is the best meal you can cook?

That's what Raindeer Fodder is for. Apparently so far only Spinach Pancakes. That'll do.

6. What's your dream holiday destination?

I'd love to go to Micronesia, Hawaii and New Zealand. I like my holidays far, far away.

7. Are you tidy or messy? Has it changed when you've got older?

I appear messy, but let me I assure you: I know where everything is.

8. Does your soul belong to a city or countryside?

I'm from Finland, and I miss the trees. I think as long as there are trees, it doesn't matter whether I'm in a city or in the countryside. I'll feel just as lost in treeless countryside as in a concrete, parkless city. But apart from the tree aspect I enjoy both. At the moment I prefer living in a city, but I have a feeling that when I start a family I'd like to live in a smaller town.

9. Who is your favourite actor? Why?

I really like Monni. She's awesome and inspiring. And I know a bunch of other inspiring actors too, but obviously if they don't have a blog I can't mention them here. I'm not sure if the aim of this question was to mention a Hollywood actor like Johnny Depp, but Johnny Depp doesn't really inspire me, even though I think that Jack Sparrow was the only reason Pirates of the Caribbean was so popular. He did a brilliant job with it.

But okay, if you're looking for film tips with this question, Laura and I have been watching films with Bill Nighy recently. He is a good actor.

I also really love the whole story line with Tess in Lip Service. Tess as a character is the kind of actor I can relate with. And Fiona Button is a good actor too. And very good looking. I really enjoyed watching Lip Service. They better do another season soon.

Lip Service (via Insidemediatrack.com).

10. What is the most important thing you've learned from your parents?

My dad taught me to always hold on with three sets of phalanges when climbing. I never fell down a tree.

11. Where do you hope to be in 20 years time?

At home! Where ever that will be. I hope I will be happy.

Lip Service (via Insidemediatrack.com).

Here, have another picture just to show you what I've been obsessed with recently. Also, the picture summarises actors, trees, flowers and homes. Everything I just wrote about! Perfect.

Feel free to answer the same questions in your blog if you want.