Too close for comfort?

Was at Red Hill and noticed how many condominiums have been built. This one's awfully close to the train viaduct, don't you think?

What I'm upcycling for the Handmade Movement!

I've been busy preparing for Singapore's inaugural Handmade Movement fair!  All my goods have been refashioned/upcycled from preloved items, 90% of which were purchased from my favourite thrift store, MINDS (Movement for the Intellectually Disabled Singapore). 

Crafting a Gift 2

Handmade Christmas Ornament

Lots of people are advocating making gifts, buying healthy foods or even baking a goodie for your friends.  I really enjoyed reading George Monbiot's article "On the 12th day of Christmas ... your gift will just be junk".  Makezine even has a section on Kid-made Gifts People Will Actually Want - take a look and you might find some inspiration.  

Christmas Decoration Workshop

Last Saturday I had a group of ladies and a few guys (yes, they can be crafty!) pop over to my home to have a Christmas decoration DIY session. They intended to make small gifts from plastic bottles and scrap material for their colleagues. We even made some of the Christmas stars from twigs. 

It was very encouraging to see that they were very keen on such crafts. Recently I've been getting a lot of negative emails from potential workshop venues.  Basically, some were saying that recycling was the last thing on their minds. Hmmmm.... not very encouraging, right?

Where are Asia's Sustainable Cosmetic Brands?

The past few days have been pretty bad; the whole family came down with the flu except for my kid.  Then, to make things worse, hubby had a bad reaction (severe nausea) to the antibiotics he was prescribed. It was rather strange because I wasn't prescribed the antibiotics - different strain of the flu virus? So, we were in bed most of the time, while junior had to be on his best behaviour. You don't want to be ticked off when you're in bad health!

Anyways, I was in bed wondering about green beauty products and why we don't see more or even any Asian beauty product brands that are green.  In fact, I was at the local pharmacist and their small section of green beauty products were all from either the UK, USA, Australia or New Zealand. Am I missing something? Or maybe I haven't looked hard enough....

The 2nd Asia-Pacific edition of the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit was held in Hong Kong just over a month ago, and there was much discussion on the Asian cosmetic industry needing to raise the bar for sustainability, and was lagging behind other regions. The topics covered included alternatives to animal testing methods, green ingredients, sustainable packaging, potential of Halal cosmetics, Traditional Chinese Medicine in cosmetics, and marketing organic skincare products.

As summed up by the organizer, Organic Monitor, “The region is lagging in many ethical and ecological areas, such as alternatives to animal testing, ecological packaging, green formulations, as well as consumer education” 

China is one market where cosmetics have to be tested on animals before they can be sold there.  According to Nick Palmer from Cruelty-Free International, the EU ban of animal-tested ingredients and cosmetic products in 2013 may put some pressure on China to change its stance.  I'm not sure about that. You may remember that some of the big beauty product companies have dropped cruelty-free animal testing in order to enter the China market!  Only time will tell.....