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Can living green make you look gorgeous? Ask Gorgeously Green author Sophie Uliano, and she'll say yes -- and you'll save green too. The trim and energetic 45-year-old environmentalist is out with a new book -- Do It Gorgeously: How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products -- a can-do girly guide to green DIY tips that'll save you money and make you more self-sufficient -- all while looking good and doing good for the planet.
In this interview, Sophie shares why DIY-ing means upscale eco-beauty on the cheap, when upcycling can keep your chic boots looking new and how toilet fix-it skills can instill a sense of pride.
The Interview with Sophie Uliano
I have to say, you look healthy and vibrant, like a living model for your "gorgeous" books. Would you say there's a connection between living green and looking good?
I think there probably is. At a certain age, as a girl, you decide to go one of two ways. You either decide you're going to really do everything as naturally as you possibly can, or you're going to go down the route -- the full-on artificial route.
I've always been drawn towards a very holistic and very natural way of living and taking care of myself -- And that's pretty much what I've done for the last 20 years of my life. So everything that I do, whether it's the food that I eat, what I put on my skin, the air quality in my home -- pretty much every aspect of my life is geared towards a holistic understanding.
And I really believe that everything is interrelated and everything works together. So there's absolutely no point in me really taking care of one area of my life -- if it's diet for instance -- and then in another area of my life, I'm plastering potentially toxic chemicals on my skin or spraying fresheners in my home that are full of phthalates and other toxic chemicals. It just all works together. I don't think you can do the one without affecting the other.
Do It Gorgeously's full of DIY recipes for beauty products, from lotions to serums to makeup removers. Since you're able to make so many of these on the cheap yourself, are there any beauty products you still buy?
I make whatever I can make. So, for instance, I will make things that are really easy to make -- things like scrubs and exfoliators and alpha hydroxy masks and serums. There's an incredible amount of stuff that you can make very very easily -- and very very inexpensively. So you can make these tremendous serums that are very very powerful -- literally for pennies instead of dollars. I absolutely will not spend my hard-earned cash on something that I can make. I've taken a lot of those expensive products apart. I know exactly what's in them and I know that they are absolutely no more effective than what I can make myself.
What do I buy? Makeup. I could make my own makeup. I've tried to make some. It's actually very easy to make mineral makeup. But I draw the line, because I'm not one of these women who'll spend hours in my kitchen. I'm extremely busy. I'm a mother. I have a full time job, running a website and writing books and whatnot. So, cosmetics I buy. And then if I find the odd, sort of interesting, yummy, gorgeous potion, I may buy the odd thing. But for the most part, it's just cosmetics for me -- and sunscreen.
I know you did a lot of personal experimentation for this book, concocting and discovering new recipes and DIY techniques. Are there any specific discoveries you made during the book-writing process that have changed your life permanently?
There are two or three recipes I discovered in the process [of writing my book] that now, I absolutely can't live without, that I make weekly. I make my mouthwash weekly, because I used to buy the very expensive mouthwashes -- the eco, non-toxic ones. So $7 - $8 bucks for a very small bottle, between my husband and I, would last us a week. It was really pricey.
I always find with the green way of living, it's all abut the details. It's all about the little details of your everyday life that are life-changing so often, rather than the
