The Succulent Wives are taking a little (very little) time off this summer. While we are still actively working on bringing you new content and ideas every week, we have also decided to bring back some of our favorite posts from the archives, those that are still timely, relevant, useful and that deserve to be revisited. Thanks for allowing us to recharge. We promise that we will be coming back with more new ideas and recommendations for cool stuff than you’ll know what to do with…
 
By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
With summer time here it never hurts to mention protection for our [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
When a company’s motto is “Nothing wasted. Everything gained“, you know that they take a serious stand on green living.
Preserve makes stylish, high performance, eco-friendly products for the home – from personal care to tableware to kitchen products – all at a reasonable price. All their products have innovative designs, bold colors, are eco-chic AND 100% recycled.
Preserve only uses #5 plastics for recycling. Many communities do not recycle #5 plastics so Preserve partnered with Whole Food Markets to create a Gimme 5 bin (#5 plastic containers) at each of their stores making it easier to [...]

Much to my chagrin, we are now in that time of year when days are getting noticeably shorter (I almost feel the vitamin D leaving my body as I type…). The lights in the house will indubitably get turned on earlier in the morning and earlier in the evening. I never used to think about how much energy a light bulb consumed but now, in trying to conserve resources, I do think about it every time I turn on a light.
It’s a good time of year to let you know about a product that I just learned about: a dimmer [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
I will admit that I do not have much use for an eco-friendly leaf pick up and biodegradable bag as I live in Southern California, but I do remember that while growing up in Canada, raking the leaves before the first snowfall was a task for the entire family.
Dsolv bags makes this chore a little bit easier and far more eco-friendly than the traditional paper leaf bags. The compostable dsolv lawn bags are easy to fill, can hold more leaves and debris than paper bags and are more cost efficient. The dsolv bags are made [...]

Remember the days when our mothers and grandmothers pinned up the laundry on the clothesline outside? Ours was a reel line that spanned the yard and went from the patio to the nearby wooden phone pole. I remember handing the clothespins to my mom, picking out the colorful plastic ones over the too-old-fashioned wood pegs (of course, today, I think that the wooden ones are way more charming!).
And then, with the switch-over to electric clothes dryers, air drying became a thing of the past, a blight on the urban landscape even. Until very recently, there was a definite stigma attached [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
Solar power is definitely an important part of the future for electronics. It’s cheap, green, renewable, and universal. With modern devices consuming less and less power, the efficiency of solar cells is increasing. And, as we get increasingly mobile ourselves, we expect our electronic devices to keep up with us, no matter where we are and where we go. Here are few solar products that are well worth your attention. You may even find something here for Father’s Day and new grads…

Laptop Case: This Solar Laptop Case by Voltaic comes with the most powerful battery [...]

It seems that we have a thing for water… I know that we’re sounding like a broken record, with all our water talk  (Tapped the Movie, causes and editorial reviews), and reviews of reusable water bottles (The KOR water bottle, the Good Life Gear bottle, the Vapur Anti-Bottle), but really, you know that the use of reusable bottles (along with reusable bags) is the easiest, most effortless way for anyone to feel a little more green.
And we care, not just because there are over 30 billion plastic bottles filling our landfills EVERY YEAR in the U.S. alone, but it’s also [...]

In honor of Earth Day (tomorrow!) we thought that we would highlight a green company that – to us – exemplifies what an environmentally-friendly consumer product manufacturing company should be.
That would be Full Circle, a company that produces green lifestyle tools that are stylishly designed, functional and made from sustainable, recycled and renewable resources (bamboo, cellulose, organic cotton….). Full Circle lives up to its name, operating under the premise that a product’s lifecycle should be cyclical: “products make from materials that come from the earth can have long, functional lives, and then return from where they come, rather than collection [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
I am a huge fan of Fresh Wave odor eliminators. Not only are they eco-friendly, but they have no strong perfumes or fragrances to mask odors (which give me a serious headache). They are made of natural ingredients such as lime, pine needles, aniseed, clove, soy and cedar wood. This blend of ingredients, somehow, allows the products to neutralize strong smells without being overbearing in their scent. In fact, you can barely smell Fresh Wave. But work, it does.
Designed to get rid of strong odors in places like solid waste facilities, rubber manufacturing plants and asphalt [...]

This pick of fantastic gift ideas features contemporary & appealing designs, handmade with eco-friendliness and Fair Trade as the top agendas. Dig deeper into these websites to see a bounty of treasures. And by treasure, we mean not only the product, but also the stories, the inspiration and the passion behind each company or organization that bring you these products.
Our ideas give you but a glimpse… Have fun exploring & getting inspired as a master gift-giver.

Urukundo Earrings handcrafted by women in Rwanda. Urukundo means love in Kinyarwanda, one of the indigenous languages spoken in Rwanda. These earrings, along [...]