Impossible!

For the last two or three weeks I have needed a haircut - badly! I am very disorganised when it comes to arranging to have my hair cut, there are always lots of other things to do instead ... anyway, Wednesday was the absolute pits, I couldn't make it do anything nice, it looked so bad, I finally rang my stylist and made an appointment, she can't fit me in til Monday afternoon.

If you're fond of orangutans, you've probably seen some very extreme looking hair on some of them; imagine that on a middle-aged brunette female and you're pretty much getting the look that I was going with for most of the past month!

Most of the time it doesn't matter if my hair looks bad, I work alone in my home studio, there's me and the dog most the time (she loves me no matter what), my tortoise when it's sunny (he pretty much doesn't notice) and my husband joins us in the evenings (ditto! bless him!) But I have to face my customers on my market stall on Saturday, oh well, never mind, hopefully they won't notice me; they'll be too busy looking at my jewellery.

However, the shampoo and conditioner I got from Elemis (the brand name is Steiner) has worked absolute magic this morning, for some reason my hair has gone right ... that's weird isn't it??! I'm sure I didn't do anything different with hairdryer, in fact I wasn't hopeful at all as the shampoo made my hair feel like it was being stripped (like the Little Satsuma stuff did) and I just hoped that the conditioner would be able to fix that and whether it's the combination of the two or what, I don't care - I'm having my first good hair day for weeks and it feels great!

Now I'm wondering whether to cancel my appointment ... nah! Better not push it :-)

Excllent news and a disappointment

Excellent response from Elemis who say:
I can confirm that we do not use Palm Oil or any Palm Oil derivatives in our products. This includes the ingredients you have mentioned below. These ingredients are derived from alternative sources such like Coconut Oil.

I've already used the bathroom this morning but I will start using the shampoo and conditioner tomorrow and let you know what I think

There's been a bit of a blow on the chilled soups front. I got all the ingredients I need to make the carrot, ginger and lime chilled soup yesterday. However, I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon powder to make my stock with. I'm happy to spend the time making the soup but making vegetable stock as well is just a time commitment too far I'm afraid. However, Palm Oil is listed as an ingredient of the Vegetable Bouillon powder, along with an asterisk saying that it's sourced from sustainable plantations. 10 out of 10 for adopting an honest labelling policy but ...

As you know, I'm adopting a zero tolerance on palm oil, it's too easy to say it's sustainable and when you hear anecdotal evidence from people working in the field with the wildlife say there's no such thing as sustainable palm oil, plus the fact that a WWF report states that
only 1 percent of the sustainable palm oil available on the market has been bought,
I'm disinclined to believe companies that say they are currently buying from sustainable sources. I'm writing to Marigold Health Foods to tell them how disappointed I am.

So I'm now on the hunt for an alternative. The reason I like the Marigold Bouillon powder is that it has no preservatives, colouring or artificial flavouring. Oxo beef stock cubes don't have palm oil but the flavour is a bit strong and it's packed with E-numbers and MSG.

Here we go again (but I hope not)

On the strength of Elemis's assertion that they don't use Palm Oil or Palm Oil derivatives in any of their products I ordered five items from their website and they have arrived safely this morning.

The very first ingredient listed on the hand and body wash is sodium laureth sulfate and is also listed on some of the other products. Additionally, isopropyl myristate is also listed as being contained in the hair conditioner. I know from my research that these products can be derived from either coconut or palm oil (which is why they're on my list of suspect ingredients). I'm really hoping their SLS and IM are derived from coconut oil and have written for reassurance accordingly.

The items all look lovely ... I really hope I don't have to send them back!

We have bread at last

On Saturday, the Cambridge Cheese company had some of the Poilane French bread I was telling you about a couple of weeks ago. Here's what half a loaf looks like. I'm hoping it will last us all week. We had some with our dinner on Saturday and I also enjoyed it yesterday with some liver and port pate (again from the Cambridge Cheese company), very tasty!

Today's lunch will be leftovers from last night's dinner of pasta bake. I'm beginning to realise that on our tea/dinner meals, we're actually already pretty much palm oil free. We eat very few processed/pre-packaged meals. Mostly we cook fresh, but I will shortly start scrutinising the list of ingredients of all the things that we cook with for our evening meals.

I also realised yesterday that there's another option for lunches, I often have a bowl of soup in the winter, don't really feel like eating soup in the summer, especially when it's as hot as it has been recently but there are some great recipes for chilled soups in my New Covent Garden Soup Company's Book of Soups. Chilled soup will be lovely for the summer and means I can use the Poilane loaf to make croutons (I'll just toast it and cut it into squares) so when it's getting dry at the end of the week, I can still eat it. I've had the book several years and a quick check on Amazon shows it's still in print. I'm going to have a go at making ginger and carrot soup with lime first but iced cucumber and yoghurt plus acocado and cucumber are both of my list to try.

I've heard back from Reckitt Benckiser, the makers of E45 cream, who say "Our laboratories have looked at the formulation for E45 Cream and commented that it is unlikely that anything related to palm oil is in the formulation". It's not really an unequivocal statement (which is what I asked for) but as the list of ingredients doesn't contain any of the usual palm oil "suspects", I'm going to believe them.

It's a similar story from Dermal Laboratories who say "We can confirm that palm oil is not one of the ingredients in Dermol Cream (or any of our other products), and to the best of our knowledge none of the ingredients are derived directly from it." Ditto regarding their ingredients list.

I'm waiting for a delivery from Elemis of their shampoo and conditioner, it's a 3-5 day delivery service so it should be here any time.

Another donation

I sold a pair of my red mist earrings from my jewellery stall on Saturday (thanks Sue and Lucie) so there's another £6 to send to the Orangutan Foundation. I got the receipt for the first donation this morning so I'll scan it in and post that later in the week when it's hopefully cooled down.

Long-winded e-mails and to-ing and fro-ing with the Co-Op (I won't bore you with the details) has finally established that their Fairtrade milk chocolate is palm oil free. Plus the Co-Op tell me they have an honest labelling policy and so if there is palm oil in their own-brand products, it is listed as that and NOT disguised as something else - hurray for them! So I'm glad I don't have to give up chocolate altogether though I am missing Mars Bars. I always used to get myself one on a Saturday as a treat. :-(

I got a Money Sense magazine recently sent to me by my bank which gave a promotional code to obtain 15% off Elemis products who do beauty and skin care stuff. I wrote to them and they have confirmed back that their products are all palm oil free and (as far as they are aware), the ingredients are not derived from palm oil. I've ordered some things from them including shampoo and conditioner but I'm reserving judgement til I've scrutinised their ingredients list and checked euphemisms etc. It's not very good to say "as far as we're aware"; I think they should know personally plus they're a bit expensive again like Weleda (boo hiss!) Weleda have refunded me my money after I complained about their ingredients list, but not the full amount. What's all that about then??! At least Morning Foods sent me a full refund.

Hovis have replied that their bread is not palm oil free but they have set themselves a target to be 100% Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified ‘sustainable’ palm oil by 2011. They point out that palm oil comprises only 0.5% of a loaf so I'm wondering why have it at all and why nothing else will do but at least they replied which is more than I can say for Kingsmill and Warburtons so far.

For lunches at the moment, I am currently eating four slices of Ryvita (which from the ingredients list can't possibly contain palm oil). I'm experimenting with different toppings and having some fruit afterwards. Some toppings (such as cheese either sliced or grated) fall off too easily when you're biting it and so it needs something to "wet" the ingredients together so they stick to the crispbread. Plus they have a tin offer on their website! I like tins! :-)

My favourite topping so far has been line caught tuna (from the Co-Op) mashed up with black pepper and a dollop of salad cream. I'm thinking this will also be nice with finely chopped spring onions. Further suggestions are welcome!

I'm thinking lunches in winter can be Heinz Tomato or Vegetable soup with croutons made with toasted French bread from the Cambridge Cheese Company. Might consider making my own bread as well but it's always a question of time really. I don't have a bread maker but I've added The Definitive Guide to Making Bread by Hand or Machine (Pyramid Paperbacks) to my Amazon wish list just to show willing!