Travel tips and a massive footprint

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit my friend Lauren in her newish hometown of New York. Blog-wise, this was a great opportunity to try out some of my new eco-friendly items. For the first time, my little see-through plastic bag wasn't stretched out of all proportion by my toiletries as I went through security. 

Instead of taking a bottle of shampoo, I took Lush's blue 'Seanik' shampoo bar, chosen for its apparent ability to add volume to my sometimes flat hair. It works like a dream and is so easy to travel with. The bar and its travel tin set me back £10.50 and my hair loves it. You just lather it up either in your hands or straight onto your head. Fun fact: a shampoo bar of this size will last for 80 to 100 washes (as long as you don't leave it soaking in a pool at the bottom your shower). So it's good value for money, too.

Clockwise from top left: deodorant, shampoo, face cloth,
Face Halo. What time is it? Eco'clock! (Sorry.) 

Instead of taking my usual trio of cleanser, toner and make-up remover, I took one little bottle of micellar water. And instead of taking throwaway cotton wool pads, I took one of those face cloths you already know about, along with a new thing: a Face Halo. My housemate Eve discovered these. They boldly claim to remove make-up with water alone. Say what?! I was sceptical. But it works! The only slight drawback is that both Eve and I have reported increased eye-lash loss when we use it... so I’ll be saving my Face Halo for my travels as it is a great suitcase space-saver. I'm sure I can sacrifice a few eyelashes for three weeks or so each year.

The real experiment on this holiday was deodorant. I bought a white powdery block artfully decorated with bits of lavender. It goes by the name of T'eo and cost me £7. As well as sifting out one more piece of single-use plastic from my life, and saving space in my bulging bag of airport liquids, this also has the benefit of being aluminium-free. While there doesn't seem to be conclusive evidence that the aluminium in regular deodorant causes breast cancer, there has been talk of it for years, so that seems like another good reason to make the switch.

I warned Lauren that I was trying an eco-friendly deodorant and that I might smell a bit funky for the duration of the trip. But the deodorant block worked and I didn’t feel smelly at all! The main difference between this and my roll-on antiperspirant is that I did actually sweat a bit, but after reading more about it, it's apparently normal to sweat a bit for the first week, but then that stops.

And I put the new deodorant through the ultimate test: a hot yoga class. No antiperspirant would have helped anyone in that room. But you know what? I don’t think I smelt too horrific afterwards, so the deodorant block is a winner in my eyes. Not to be sniffed at. 

And now for an over-excited picture of me with my brand-new refillable water bottle. I took it to the beach on a scorching hot day and the water inside stayed as cool as ice. Having this cheerful yellow gem also meant that I didn’t have to join the hordes of travellers throwing away plastic bottles before going through security. I just emptied it before I went through, filled it up at the other end, and felt smug.

The glorious Peter's Pond on Long Island.
Barely another soul in sight.

I found some rubbish on the beach! I took
it away and deposited it in the nearest bin.
My first beach clean-up.

An atmospheric picture of the sunset over Sag Harbour to
make up for the picture of rubbish above. 

Now let's address the elephant in the room: the carbon footprint. I took a total of three flights – one out, and two back. I found a carbon footprint calculator on the WWF website. As well as looking at your transport, it asks questions about your home, your diet and your stuff. Being a renter, I'm not at the stage in life where I can tell you about my cavity insulation with confidence, so the home section was a bit of a guess for me. 

But having had three holidays this year – it's been a good year for trips – my travel footprint was large. It took up 43% of my pie chart, and my carbon footprint for the last 12 months is 12.3 tonnes. That's 123% of what it should be, according to UK government targets. So I have work to do there. I might quiz my landlord on that cavity insulation, which I'm sure he'll love, and I'll give next year's holidays some thought. 

Let me know if you calculate your carbon footprint too! The friend with the lowest carbon footprint gets a prize.