Seriously Smooth, Seriously Sweet

It's almost summer time. Us girls have spent all winter battling dry skin and chapped lips and now that we're showing more skin as the sun starts to shine more, we desperately need beauty products to enhance our natural beauty.

Drum roll please... eos is coming to the rescue!

eos (which stands for evolution of smooth) makes lip balms, lotions, and shave creams that boast natural and organic ingredients, silky smoothness, and smiles all around. Literally, every product says it will make you smile.

The smooth sphere lip balms are my personal favorite.

Photo by Rachel Dawson

They're shaped like little balls, which is just way more fun than any ordinary stick or tube. They slide on super easily and they really do make you smile. It's a little ridiculous, honestly. Here I am in the middle of class just trying to put on some lip balm, and all of a sudden I'm grinning like a fool.

But anyway. They're 95% organic and 100% natural. They're gluten-free. Paraben-free. Petrolatum-free. Phthalate-free. They're not money-from-your-wallet-free though...hate to break it to you. These little egg shaped spheres are seriously worth the few bucks though.

Photo by Rachel Dawson

So, where can you find these lovely little lip balms? That's where the real fun comes in. They are sold at various retailers across the US and Canada, but not every flavor or product can be found at every store. Their website gives you a handy dandy map with a list of what stores sell which products, so check that out.

My friends and I have made it a sort of scavenger hunt to try to find all the flavors of the smooth spheres...we're that addicted. And just so you know (it will give you a leg-up on the competition from your friends), in Harrisonburg, VA, Walmart sells the sweet mint and strawberry sorbet flavors (check the lotion aisle) ...and even the summer fruit if you know where to look. (hint hint...try the lip products section).

CVS has the lemon drop (with spf 15, perfect for beach season) flavor, too. Rite Aid, Kroger, and Target also carry various products on the eos line as well.

If you can't get to these stores, there's always the online store!

Get hunting, get buying, and get happy.

Spring time, smooth legs, soft lips, silky skin, sunshine, smiles...seriously ladies, what more could we ask for? eos is just simply and naturally awesome, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

The Power is Yours.

Paper or plastic? How about neither.

Paper has to be made from our trees, uses four times more energy to produce than plastic bags and takes just as long to break down in landfills if not recycled. Plastic is made from non-renewable resources and only 3% are even recycled, those not recycled take anywhere from 20-1000 years to decompose. The moral of the story you may ask? Simple, bring in your own reusable bag when going shopping. Okay, so I know it seems a bit dorky, but there is nothing dorky about saving the planet! (Yes, I went there.)

Besides carrying around a reusable bag with you to every shopping establishment I’ve got some better  and less obvious alternatives to help save our world that even us small college students can do to help make a difference.

One: turn off your laptop at night. You’re not going to be skyping or writing thesis papers in your sleep so turn it off. You’ll save around 40 watt-hours per day and almost $15 dollars a year.

Two:  instead of buying a “disposable” lighter to light your candles, or god forbid your cancer fix, use cardboard matches. The cardboard is made from recycled paper whereas the lighter uses that awful plastic stuff we talked about earlier, as well as butane, which are both from non-renewable sources.

Three:  use cotton swabs made from paper, not plastic. Are you sensing a theme here? Plastic is never a good choice and in this case if only 10% of U.S. households switched the estimated petroleum energy saved each year would be equivalent 150,000 gallons of gasoline.

Four: ditch the plastic coffee stirrers and straws with your morning fix. Each year Americans throw away over 138 billion of the things. If you are a Starbucks fan they are smart enough to offer wooden stirrers but if not, get the coffee added in after the sugar and creamer to allow it to mix itself.

Five: Last but not least, use one less napkin a day. It sounds a bit basic I know, but if everyone in the U.S. used just one less paper square a day over one billion pounds can be kept out of our landfills each year.

Since we all can’t join Captain Planet and become a Planeteer take some of these ideas into consideration. “The power is yours.”

Looking for more ways to help save the world? Check it out.