Organic Peanut Butter Is Such A Swell Idea

We G Spotters dig peanut butter. Really dig peanut butter. We like it on bread, bananas, a spoon (with or without Nutella), on apples, whatever. And sometimes we feel guilty for eating such a high fat food, even though it is also high protein.

So, how awesome was it for us to come across this NY Times article about a more righteous peanut butter. The article from last year states that more acres are devoted to growing peanuts than any other fruits, vegetable or nut, according to the U.S.D.A. About 99 percent of peanut farms use conventional farming practices, including the use of fungicide to treat mold, a common problem in peanut crops.

So, switching to organic peanut butter like Arrowhead Mills or Peanut Better allows us to be support farms doing the right thing for our personal health and our planet's health. Pass the spoon; we'll dig in the jar for movement.

Check The Sprig Article

This Sprig.com article interview Solar City CEO and alternative energy kingpin Lyndon Rive from one of our GSpotters, Margaret.

NY Times Magazine Does Green Fashion; But Who Will Wear It?

Giambattista Valli’s biopolymer (corn based) dress $10,000 at Barneys

Yesterday's (April 27th, 2008) NY Times Magazine published this article on eco fashion. The article itself was interesting enough. Although at one point, they quote Earth Pledge founder Leslie Hoffman as saying that ' line-drying clothes is a forgotten luxury'. Uggh, as if!

Doo.ri's abaca (Phillipine banana leaf) cocktail dress $1,395 at Barneys

Unfortunately, the accompanying images of green style from traditional designers looked, well.... dirty. Contrary to what this photo shoot might lead readers to believe, sustainable fashion doesn't mean your hair is perpetually mussed, that you can't wear shoes, or that all of the looks must cost over $900 bucks.

Behnaz Sarafpour organic cotton shirt dress $1,200 by request at Barneys

Right on to the NY Times for having stylistic panache and eco-foresight to put this shoot together. But, next time call us GSpotters first! We will hook ya'll up with more affordable and sassy clothes, give your models sweet footwear and hairstyles, and make going green look so much less painful then your photos did.

Project Earth Day Follow Up

Here are some of the highlights from last week's Project Earth Day.

Efficient, energy saving, bad a** stage lighting

Sassy model rocking an organic cotton T-Luxe Undie Set

Green silk dress by Joshi (Has a peacock feel to it, right?)

And last but not least, the third place winning design by student designer, Judy Lee.

Nahui Ollin Bags Are The Jump-Off

At the fabulous Barneys/Sundance party for Rogan Gregory few days back, we GSpotted a fabulous fashionista from a far, carrying the most over the top- hott handbag. We went up to her, thinking it was and Ecoist bag, only to find out it was a Nahui Ollin.

"Nahui Ollin, what's that about?" was our question.

These outrageous bags are made from candy wrappers, gum wrappers and soda bottle labels that are factory rejects from independent manufactures and have never been used. When weaved together using a Mayan technique (for real) they transform would be litter into sleek, stylish, and durable fashion accessories.

Nahui Ollin was at the Go Green Expo this weekend here at the Hilton in midtown NYC, along with our buddies from Ride Amigos and over 200 other vendors. The Go Green Expo is a trade show featuring the latest eco-friendly products & services going down in LA and New York.

Green In The Mainstream

In a perfect green world, we could all buy organic caffeinated beverages in mall food courts and green beauty products in chain drug stores.

But that's not the case... or is it?

Walking down 6th Avenue in NYC, a sign in the window of Bed Bath and Beyond's Cafe Beyond caught our eye: organic coffee. Cafe Beyond is run by Blue Radish, a company that owns 5 cafes located throughout Manhattan, and it offers some organic foods including coffee! Fair trade organic coffee is actually a big deal, considering traditionally grown coffee usually involves truly crap labor standards and clear cutting harvesting techniques.

Earlier in the day down in the Lower East Side on Delancey Street and Essex, we stopped by the Duane Reade for BandAids, and were blown away to see a section with green beauty products from Avalon Organics, Alba, and Burts Bees. Unfortunately, the DuaneReade.com website doesn't list all of these green brands available for online purchase, but we GSpotted them with our own eyes. Right there on the shelf.

Between Bed Bath and Beyond and Duane Reade, what was previously a weird green trend thing is starting to feel more and more accessible and awesome. Salud to that!

Project Earth Day, Here We Come

The GSpotters are off to Project Earth Day in downtown, NYC to see what they can see. Hopefully that will be badass fashion, up and coming designers, US Green Building Council members (they are co-sponsoring the event and are mad cool and smart people) and delicious cocktails!

Gotta love Earth Week... It's like Oscar Week for the eco community.

Gossip Girl Goes Green? OMG That Would Rock!

Gossip Girls Serena "S" and Blair "B"

It is official, Gossip Girl, is the most amazing show ever. This beautifully written New York Magazine article proves it, once and for all.

If only the show's stylist Eric Daman, formerly an assistant stylist for Sex and the City, would call us G Spotters to do some eco-fashion consulting for Blair, Serena, Dan (so dreamy) and the gang. We'd trick S out in a sparkly yet bohemian Elsom Sequin Kimono Dress and an Emily Katz Recycled Denim "Perfect" Trench and then put B in an edgy yet classic Julia Smith bronze "Grace Couture" strapless dress.

Emily Katz Perfect Trench

Elsom Sequined Kimono Dress

Julia Smith "Grace Couture" hemp silk dress

Why not be your own fabulous Eco Gossip Girl and get the above styles at Fashion Conscience and The Green Loop

Loomstate and Sundance Party at Barney's: One Too Many Organic Cocktails?

For Earth Day yesterday, unfortunately we didn't plant trees. Instead, we partied.

Rogan Gregory, head designer of Loomstate, collaborated yesterda with the Sundance Channel and Barney's (where both his Rogan and Loomstate collections are sold) to celebrate his Target collection and Earth Day.

Best Earth Day ever! Picture the scene: Barney's 8th floor lit up (hopefuly LED bulbs) in pink, organic Vodka 360 cocktails (the official spirit of the Sundance Film Festival this year), Kate Nash rocking hard(so small yet mighty-voiced), great food, and tons of celebs. Not only was green hunk Josh Dorfman there in a fashionable Nau get-up, we also G Spotted Tracee Ellis Ross from our second favorite CW channel show, Girlfriends. Gossip Girl will forever and always be number one!

This GSpotter, outfitted in a black Beau Soliel halter dress, was impressed with the whole vibe, through and through. Local organic hors devours, great music, beautiful people giving a s**t; what could be more perfect? Perhaps when I went up to the man of the hour, Mr. Rogan Gregory and shaking his hand saying, "What you are doing with Target is so awesome, man. Really, dude. You are so important to this whole... thing!" *One too many organic cocktails, young GSpotter.



*The same thing happened when we met Mos Def in the East Village, but that is another story for another blog entry...

Teen Eco Ambassadors From The Weather Channel

Aspiring Young Climate Expert

Forecast Earth held a climate conference in early December and invited teenage Eco Ambassadors from around the country to attend. Forecast Earth is the Weather Channel's green arm replete with a blog, green lifestyle articles, and videos.
Charles S Ferrer

From the teen ambassadors' profiles, there are a few earth advocates and rising environmentalist, but also just some plain ol' weather junkies. For instance, this student, Charles S Ferrer from NJ attends weather conferences, provides storm reports to the local newspaper, and is being certified with the National Weather Service as an Advance SKYWARN spotter.

As a child, this G Spotter's dear friend and neighbor Dana would endlessly watch hours of the Weather Channel with her dad Howie. It's great to see kids breaking through the reality TV lull and apathy most folks associate their generation with, and taking a stand on one of the biggest challenges our earth has ever faced. It is also just great to see young weather-aholics are still on the prowl to track (and one day curb) extreme weather events.

Goodbye Gorgeous Pearls? Global Warming Curbs Jewelry Production

Yesterday, Gulf News reported that a gorgeous natural pearl necklace belonging to iconic Arab singer Umm Kalthoum, was up for sale at Christies for between $80,000 and $120,000. This necklace is astoundingly detailed with over 1800 pearls strung in multiple strands. Exceptional jewelry sourced from the sea begs the question, as global temperature increases and sea level rises, what will happen to oysters and pearls?

Warmer water means harmful barnacles flourish and attack the pearl producing oysters. In Mynmar, the Andaman Pearl Company lost about 90,000 oysters in 2006 as a result of the warmer water.

Myanmar possesses about 15,907 square miles of pearl-producing waters. The country produced more than 400,000 South Sea pearls in the 2006-07 financial year. The Andaman Sea temperature off the coast of Myanmar has risen to 87.7 degrees Fahrenheit in April 2007 from 84.2 degrees Fahreneheit at around the same time in 2006, according to Myanmar Atlantic figures.

Eco Fashion: Tonic Generation Is Smarter Than Your Average Tee

Faintly and distantly we heard rumors that one of our favorite t-shirt companies, Tonic Generation, was collaborating with British fashion superhero Luella. So imagine the rush of excitement to read in this month's Teen Vogue that not only is this rumor true, but these t-shirts are out-of-control awesome.

And here we thought that this company that uses bamboo, responsible manufacturing techniques, and donates survival essentials to developing countries with each product purchase, couldn't get any cooler. Wrong indeed.

Depending on which of the four Luella t-shirts are purchased, a quarter acre of endangered coral reef near Palau, Micronesia is protected; two kids get dental checkups in Columbia; soccer balls are donated through an HIV education program in Africa; or shoes are donated to a child in Abricots, Haiti.

Ring the Alarm: My First Terra Plana Shoes!!

I did it. This G Spotter bit the sticker price bullet and bought her first pair of grown-up shoes. Nude, versatile, pumps!

Terra Plana has an uncanny ability to make locally sourced, vegetable tanned leather, recycled rubber sole shoes look hot and hotter.


Although I ended up buying the shorter nude pair, there was quite a lot of deliberation over these over the top Jessica Rabbit sexy black pumps.

Major thanks to Sabra and crew for their help and devotion to fabulous shoes.

Fashion Week Daily: Target to Carry Green Fashion

If Vogue is the mother of fashion magazines reminding you to do your homework, then Fashion Week Daily is that cool older cousin who comes through on the clutch to buy you and your friends alcohol (shout out Nola W for keeping us all in the know).

Bearing that quasi successful metaphor in mind, our cool older cousin is reporting that Rogan Gregory, demigod designer for Edun, Loomstate, and eponymous label Rogan, will be feting his latest collection for Target, to be pre-released at Barneys next Tuesday night.

Green goes mainstream when it is available at Target, that is for sure. But pre-released at Barneys? Fear not, G Spotting will be at the release party to see what that is all about.

C&C Organic Cotton Tanks, Tees, and Tunics; Oh My!

Basking in the newly arrived spring warmth, I have been garnering a lot of attention. Folks just can't stop staring at this GSpotter's chest! But it's not my anatomy that has them mesmerized. It's my organic cotton C&C tank top emboldened with the phrase, "change your habit" written on the front.

Any Fashion Head knows that C&C has the best fit, most flattering length, and shizzam color t for basic cotton seperates. And apparently, they also got the memo that traditional cotton farming techniques waste hella water and use a grip of pesticides (shout out to Travis for being my Cali Thesaurus and teaching me that hella is synonymous for grip). So, they came out with a wide variety of tops of all styles, with phrases and without, to make this summer as sassy/conscious as possible.

Check out this article from InStyle Magazine to see a few samples.

Top 100 Toxic Companies

The Political Economy Research Institute released its list of the Top 100 Toxic Companies, which is awesome. Who doesn't love a good Erin Brockovich story replete with sick children due to poisoned water and air from a nearby chemical plant.

Paul Hawken's latest book and NY Times best seller, Blessed Unrest, talks extensively about the public reception of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. When Silent Spring was released in 1962, the toxic companies tried to discredit Carson's findings regarding their dangerous and often times fatal environmental impact on the surrounding communities, and the entire world. It is interesting to see that over 46 years later, these same companies are doing such a good job covering up their mistakes and then creating positive PR that they are still able to perpetrate truly heinous eco-crimes upon the most socio-economically vulnerable members of society.

I thought GE was all about eco-innovation, and Nissan was working on all this hybrid technology. So how come they are among the top 5 worst companies?

Nokia Eco-Sense Phone

Word has it that Nokia has a green phone in the works. The Eco-Sense cell phone will be made from plant based plastics and recycled steel. The phone will have an OLED screen (organic light-emitting diode that uses less energy) and have a solar powered battery inside.

So take that, iPhone. No more monopoly on cool after the Eco-Sense is released.

Banana Republic Green Collection

We finally got the chance to pop by the Rockefeller Center Banana Republic on 5th Avenue, NYC to peep the Green Collection. G Spotter Margaret is seen here trying on her favorite looks.


Organic cotton print sun dress
Silk blend tunic top and organic cotton white jean

Organic cotton blouse with embroidered detailing and organic cotton denim shorts.
Men's collection with organic cotton graphic tees, organic cotton jeans, and organic cotton button down shirts.

If there is a downside to be mentioned, it is that the vast majority of the employees are not aware of the collection. We asked over 9 employees where the Green Collection, or Eco Collection, or Sustainable Collection (literally going through any trigger phrase we could think of) and not only did they no know where in the store it was, they didn't even know it existed.

Along with such progressive fashion comes the opportunity for Banana Republic, and their mothership Gap Inc. to educate their employees. We're thinking eco seminars would be a great accessory to compliment the green in these clothes.

All in all, major cool points to Banana Republic for this great collection. Also, shout out to Suanny, a super-helpful sales associate who assisted in styling and photography.

Elle Mag UK is HOT on that Eco Trail

What a fancy surprise to stumble upon at Elle Magazine UK's website : an Eco Shopping Guide. The foresight that the British Elle demonstrates in compiling such a good list of Spring/Summer 08 looks, is hella noteworthy. G Spot will definitely be keeping an eye on Elle UK. Why doesn't Elle in the US give as much sincere thought to covering more superb green fashion?

Some of the highlights are a Mociun Tie Front Dress available at Devidoll.com, a Sahara Maputo Sandal available at Fashion-Conscience.com, and a Dip Dry Dress by Noir available at Equaclothing.com.

Freaking ADIDAS Grun Collection

Stop whatever you are doing immediately and click over to Adidas.com to check out the Grun Collection. Recycled Cotton t-shirts at a great price point, bad (in the good way) hemp, chromium free leather, and jute skater shoes, and great recycled fabric tanks. This stuff is mind blowingly cool.

We Know, We Know, Stella McCartney is Green

Stella McCartney is upping the green ante by releasing a 20 piece sustainable collection. McCartney has been a fur-free, vegan designer for the longest, and is reasserting her self as the right-on thoughtful fashion maven that we know her to be. A couple questions persist, none the less:

Why only 20 pieces? For the price point her clothes fetch and her conscious/activist fashion mentality, why not an entire green collection? Heck, Spring 2008 in all its glory could have been entirely sourced with sustainable materials. Right?

Eco Hairdryer: Barbar Eco 8000

There are a few reasons why the Barbar Eco 8000 Hairdryer is the bomb.

1) It dries your hair in the half the time so you are done quicker and less energy is used.
2) The new eco friendly ceramic heating element negates radiation (although I'm not entirely sure what that means, but will go with it for the sake of argument) which results in a glossier finish with less hair folicle breakage.
3) It is featured in this month's Lucky Magazine, one of the best shopping mags out there.
3) Its name, the Eco 8000 reminds me of like Andre 3,000. Hello Outkast.

Eco-Shoes: If the Lord Had Feet, She'd Wear Charmone

I mean, how hot are these shoes? You've got to hand it to the ladies over at Charmone for creating vegan, fair trade, PVC free shoes that are as smoking as these heels. Can't you just see it: a white organic cotton sun dress that fits just right , some great big vintage sunglasses, and these shoes. My word!

Affordable Eco Fashion: Thank You H&M

Today while I was looking around the 59th street H&M, I was filled with admiration for this multi colored shift with POCKETS (awesome), surprisingly great fit, and in all its organic cotton splendor.

Ahhh H&M, you are truly a place where pure consumer dreams come true. Affordable, fashion forward, and with a broad size range to choose from. You bring high fashion to us limited budget fashionistas, most recently with a collaboration with Comme des Garcons, and now exponentially increasing your organic cotton collection.

The H&M design team used 1,500 tons of organic cotton for the spring line, which is more than the total amount used in all of 2007. The collection features mens, womens, and children's clothing and is based on a romantic or pared down style with clear references to the 60s and 70s.

The colour palette is neutral grey, soft brown, khaki, black and white, with accents in poppy red, yellow and rose. Dresses are folk inspired in mini, midi and maxi lengths with patterns, gathers, puffs and tiers, or refined and simple with color blocks and volume.

Tofu Ain't All Bad

Shout out to my sister Alice for sending me a link to this fantastic vegetarian blog Hezbollah Tofuwhich has great recipes, and pretty photos of the food.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the livestock sector creates 18 percent more CO2 emissions than the transportation sector. Chilling out with exorbitant meat consumption and supporting culinary advancements in tofu and veggie protein subsitututes sounds like a good idea.

Teens For Safe Cosmetics Turning Green Fashon Show

Tomorrow night, Friday April 4th's Turning Green event co-sponsored by Teens for Safe Cosmetics and Whole Foods should be a real smash. Not only will it feature highly motivated and enthusiastic eco-teens, sustainable fashion by the HOTTEST green designers in the biz, but the looks were co-styled with panache by G Spotter, Margaret.

Saab Creates Eco-Fashion Line

In a strange but exciting turn of events, Saab has created a sustainable clothing line. Yeah, Saab, the car company.

I remember my first crush on a Saab car. It was 1998 and my soccer coach, Candi Smith, had a red 1988 Saab hatchback and I thought it was the sweetest designed thing I had ever seen. Since then, my admiration for the unmistakable yet sleek Saab shape has endured.

The kick off of the clothing line compliments the 9-4x BioPower and 9-X BioHybrid concepts. The line is slated to include t-shirts, jerseys, button-down shirts, women's dresses and eventually will incorporate accessories like caps, scarves and bags.

If that specific but modest aesthetic can be maintained in the Saab clothing, all hands on deck these clothes are going to rock hard!

Rockstar Bahar: Bahar Shahpar at Saks Fifth Avenue

Quick fashion heads-up: Just as Roger Clemens is to performance enhancing drugs, so too is Saks to high-end retail.  With that simile in mind, how major league is it that Saks Fifth Avenue has picked up select Bahar Shahpar summer pieces... right?  Shahpar's clothes are green, glamorous, and they make you look 25 pounds lighter.  

Get over to Saks.com to grab these hotter than hot summer musts!