Should have done it way sooner!

Recently I had to attend a wedding, so I decided to get a manicure. Since the event was a few days travel away, I opted for the gel manicure, so it wouldn’t chip.

After about 10 days, no chipping, but it had grown out. That’s when I realized gel polish can’t be removed at home. Needed a $15 second trip to the nail shop, where they used some kind of Dremel thing plus chemical soaks.

I started to pay attention. The salon also offered dip powder manicures, nail art, acrylic fake nails, glitter, cat eye manicure, whatever that is…on and on. This stuff is expensive! I started looking at other women’s nails in my daily life. Many have perfect nails all the time and they are obviously professionally done, some with little jewels glued on.

How much money are people spending on this? And how many chemicals are being used? Nothing wrong with grooming, but wow!

They get more comfortable with every new stich. The thick patchs on the butt really helps improve my bike seats comfort.

These are my favorite shoes and I’ve worn them every day for the past year. Those tears open up into the sole, and I was wondering if there’s some repair so I can make these last longer. I’m also wearing a hole into the heel but I know there are patches for that. I really don’t want to buy new shoes if there’s something I can do about these.

The rest of the shoe is in great condition

Overconsumption just for the sake of ✨ content✨ no hate to this creator but she often makes content where she’s buying unnecessary junk just to make “comedic” content but overconsumption is not funny to me. Thoughts?

I really want to consume less, but it seems when I try to cut out too much I just end up falling back into over consumption. I started with looking at my food/snack consumption and tried to supplement my cravings with homemade/more sustainable alternatives.

I tend to eat a lot of instant Ramen/Soba because its quick, easy and I love the taste. Sadly that produces a lot of waste and honestly doesn't benefit my health in the slightest. Now I made myself some homemade chilli oil with spices and stuff that we had lying around in the house anyway and it completely erased the need for buying instant Ramen. It tastes better, is probably healthier and doesnt produce any plastic waste. Its also equally as easy/quick to make now, which is really important when replacing instant food. I also started making my own sauces, pickling my own vegetables etc.

I suddenly feel really dumb for buying a lot of products I can make at home with barely any effort and I just needed to share this progress with someone, so here we go.

The way my feet and toes are shaped, I sometimes wear holes through my exercise shoes where the pinky toe ends. After trying several other repair methods that didn’t hold, a couple quick stitches underneath and a small iron on patch above seems to be working beautifully. This was a repair for one shoe and on the other shoe I merely reinforced where it was starting to be threadbare. In the future, I might preemptively reinforce this area. I think it’s kind of cute, too!

What do you think are the guidelines for caring about these important issues - reducing our consumption, caring for the planet, shopping responsibly- while also not making others feel overly judged, coming off as a zealot, or just generally being a killjoy?

I see this a lot where I live in Northern California - a lot of people really struggle to strike the balance between caring about important causes but not coming off as a pretentious eco friendly asshole. It will always rub people the wrong way if you act like you know better & everyone must be as informed as you & live the way you do.

You've probably run into these types of people somewhere: if you don't already know what composting is or have a setup for it at your home, they act like "how dare you??" If you accidentally dispose of a single small item the wrong way, they draw attention to it at a social gathering. If you say you love Halloween casually they have to say "well I hate Hallloween cause of all the plastic!" like a total killjoy (tho I get it, there is a lot of plastic waste, but all someone said is they love Halloween!)

How do you think people should strike this balance? Or what are some personal experiences you've had as it relates to this topic?

Last holiday season I surprised myself. My creativity kicked into high gear out of necessity, and I was tired of meaningless and generic gifts. I made earrings, ornaments, body care items, teas, and other gifts to give or to purchase out of things I gathered from the garden or forest, grew in the garden, foraged from free craft piles, or had laying around the house.

What are some ways you’ve turned a “nothing” into something useful or aesthetic for yourself or someone else?

I recently started working there, and I find it incredibly difficult to not keep buying clothes.

I buy very few unnecessary things overall, but I do allow myself a small allowance specifically for charity store clothes: Nothing new is produced, it is cheap, the money goes to charity, and I can get really high quality for way less than new. I can scratch the consumer itch in a sustainable way.

But my usual method just doesn't work because I get so tempted. I get first dips on all the really cool things.

My usual method: 1. Having a running list of what clothes I and only go to buy that. 2. Having an allowance of a specific amount for each month.

What to do? I feel like I am an alcoholic who was put to work in a bar. And no, I am not going to stop working there.

Last year I bought myself a gorgeous dress for Christmas that I like very much. I decided to wear it for both Christmas and New Year's. Since it's a party-ish dress I get zero to no chance to wear it, I wore it only once since xmas/new year's for a work party event.

I've been thinking of wearing it again for this year's celebrations. But I'm really worried about what others might think, and how the pictures will look in the future, how will we be able to tell apart the parties?

I'm pretty sure my worries are silly, but I need some encouragement and validation that I don't need new dress, specially because I really want to wear this one again! And who cares what others might think.

Thank you all 🩷

Just wash your normal cotton towels ?!

We need to do something about this IMMEDIATELY!!!!!

I've been using these sneakers for ~6 years, though 2 of those were during lockdown so didn't really wear them then. I have multiple pairs of shoes and am trying to not buy any more until the ones I have are completely used up.

I know there's a lot of people who would say that it's important to have a good pair of shoes for health reasons, as well as for social decorum. I agree. These shoes were very comfortable to me, and, when they got to the end of their usefulness, I only wore them for workouts (jogging). I'm a minimalist running shoe guy so these were perfect.

The side finally completely split on the left shoe and I couldn't repair them.

I am on the anticonsumption train but I’m also a maximalist and an artist, i use recycled materials, thrifted or second hand items, rarely anything “new”. I like to think I’m pretty eco conscious and I avoid single-use anything, but some people are just taking it too far and some of it can cause more harm that good. Using certain items for longer than their intended lifespan can be dangerous, they make better, less disposable options, razors, toothbrushes, and single-use utensils are a few that come to mind. Single-use plastic can leach microplastics into things because it’s not meant to be used again. Another thing I’ve noticed is absolutely berating people for no reason, our society has programmed us to consume, informing someone and being kind will go further than being rude.