Survey comment to Maidenform

Just made another purchase of bras from Maidenform - I've written about this before, in my quest for American-made products; unfortunately this isn't the case with Maidenform, but I took the opportunity to put this quote in a survey they asked me to take after my online purchase was complete:

I really like the fact that I'm buying products that have a long history in the United States, and specifically in the Northeast, where I grew up.  However, I would like to see Maidenform bring its manufacturing back to the United States where I can buy worker-friendly (possibly even union-made) bras and undergarments.  Thank you.

My general rule is that I don't do surveys for companies unless I get a freebie of some kind, but the payoff here is that I was able to give the beancounters something to think about; if enough people do this every time they buy goods that aren't Made in America but used to be (like Maidenform) there might be some change in manufacturing down the road.  Who knows!

Got the old advertisement (for this post and the last one about Maidenform) from Found in Mom's Basement blog.

BOROUGH FURNACE replies!

Just wanted to quickly update that BOROUGH FURNACE (I feel like I have to bold their name everytime I use it, now, to get rid of the mistake I made the other day calling Borough ______ [I don't want search engines to get this confused!]).

Anyway, very nice exchange with these folks:


I need a cast iron skillet where my eggs won't stick (phooey Lodge) - when can I buy one of your pans?

Sincerely,
Michele

Info Info info@boroughfurnace.com
Dec 19 (2 days ago) 
to me

Michele,
we should be up and running early in the new year. If you haven't
already, sign up for the notifications on our contact page. We'll be
letting everyone know as soon as orders open up. We'll get you cooking
eggs ASAP. Happy holidays!

Jason Connelly


Dec 19 (2 days ago) 
to Info 

Yay! Thanks for getting back in touch! Happy holidays to you and everyone :)

God bless us, everyone!

So this is, I believe, going to be my birthday gift that the fam can get for me - all I want for my birthday are fried eggs that don't stick to the pan!  Yahoo!

Borough Forge

My new skillet.  Eventually.

I think it's called Borough Forge - wait, let me check (I actually bookmarked it)...Nope, sorry, it's called BOROUGH FURNACE!  Ignore the title (no, I am not changing it I am feeling extra lazy...it is hard enough to lift my fingers from each key in succession).  Anyway, even though I should be sleeping off the rest of this cold I am writing about Borough Furnace because they are going to start producing cast iron skillets.  I sent them an email minutes ago.  I said, "I need a cast iron skillet where my eggs won't stick (phooey Lodge) - when can I buy one of your pans?  Sincerely, Michele."  Nice and succinct.  You know these artisans, though - they'll write back when "they're in the mood," or when "the muse calls," or whatever.  I just want a cast iron skillit, demmit!  I saw a review of the skillet on Serious Eats - apparently they were doing a Kickstarter campaign and raised 130%, prolly because of the review - and followed the link to the website.  The cool thing about Borough Furnace, besides the fact that it is made in America and by craftspeople who hopefully know their stuff, but the pans are made from "upcycled scrap iron."  That's pretty awesome.

Swiped the photos of the skillet and the logo from Borough Furnace; the photo of the pan because I figured people wanted to see what my new pan will look like, and the gif logo because it is cool and annoying at the same time.

Year of Living Dangerously Slow

Haha, I like that title!  Anyway, was looking for a recipe for slow cooker black beans (which I found here - yes, I even need a recipe to cook black beans) but while I was lingering on the page I noticed the author put a link to a chart for the energy consumption of different household appliances, and thought it would be a handy thing for the blog.

We've gone for almost a year without a microwave oven.  I miss having one (our old one finally broke and after taking it to the hazardous waste dump decided not to get a new one).  At first there were good reasons not to have one - we were eating too much convenience food, facilitated by having a microwave, so getting rid of the microwave solved a lot of over-eating and wasteful package consumption.  The other reason was maybe not so good - microwave ovens have always seemed kind of creepy to me, so I thought I was somehow being more environmental by not having one.  But, after substituting the microwave with a small toaster oven, I'm starting to see that maybe microwaves are more eco-friendly in that they use less energy to heat food, they're convenient for re-heating coffee, and they kill bacteria on scrubbies, giving them a longer use life (I did an Accidentally Environmental Experiment where I boiled the scrubbies and it was a complete mess and really yucky).  So, I think we're going to get another microwave oven and I learned a valuable lesson that eco-friendly does not always mean giving up something that is weird like a microwave oven.  The end.

GoodGuide's Transparency Toolbar

Don't know if I'll get around to testing this toolbar (a rigid set of very serious, scientific tests!)  but thought I'd do a quick thing about it.  The GoodGuide is an online concern that helps people purchase items they use everyday without the guilt of being "greenwashed" - if someone can explain this term to me I would be very appreciative, but apparently some of the common, everyday items you buy everyday can come from pollution factories and shady manufacturing practices.  Now, Goodguide has come out with a Transparency Toolbar for all your online shopping; it allows you to place a series of filters based on what you don't want in your products (animal testing, unsafe workplace) and then lets you know if a manufacturer fits within this scope.  Here's a link to the video explaining the toolbar on the You Tubes.

I get that people want to carry living ethically to the extremes and try to keep the bad karma away by using things like the Goodguide Toolbar.  And I think it is probably a very useful tool, my problem with it is that the alternative is simple yet does not make sense in our very consumer-centric society.  DO NOT BUY ANYTHING.  That is the alternative.  Okay, that's extreme, too.  How about only buying what you need and not buying every stick deodorant on the planet?  (I don't know if there are people who do this, I'm just using this as an example).

Or buying products second hand - you don't need sterile floor wax, for instance.  If you can buy a half-used bottle of it at a garage sale, why is that bad?  The same goes with shampoo and conditioner.  I regularly get this stuff from friends who end up not liking the hair products they buy, for whatever reason.  Instead of chucking it, they pass it along.  Of course, I'm still washing my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar so I've got a bit of a backlog, right now.  But I can take this stuff to my workplace and put it all on a table in the break room with a "for free" sign and it would all be gone by the end of the day.

There is no reason why we can't use things like the Goodguide Toolbar to help us make consumption decisions (I seem to remember AdBusters was developing a scanner not too long ago, before there were "apps," to scan barcodes on products and tell you if there were any environmental or ethical flags).  The thing is, we've got to break this cycle of using the simplest common denominator to make our decisions.  We are, by nature and instinct, hunters and gatherers.  We may have to work a little harder to be less consumptive while at the same time being ethical, but working harder to acquire is in our blood.  We just have to see the utility in it - if it saves money and does the least amount of harm to others, it is a good thing, right?  These are new things to think about!

Okay, I can't wind down from this so I'm going to say that I will bring that second-hand shampoo to work and see if there are any takers.

No Black Friday Post this Year

Last night I was having trouble falling asleep and to add to this tossing and turning I realized that I had forgotten to do my annual Black Friday post about this awful tradition in America where citizens fight one another for two-dollar waffle irons and pepper spray their fellow Americans (no, I will not link to these items because they are old and everyone's probably read them already, anyway).

So, just thought I'd acknowledge that there was no Black Friday post this year because it seems like there are enough people on the Internet scorning this practice, now, that it makes my contribution seem mundane.  Here are some links, though, to my previous screeds.