My Non Leather Life T-Shirts and Visions of a Vegan Lifestyle Brand

A dream I have is to have my own vegan lifestyle brand. A la Martha Stewart.

Of course, everything would be animal cruelty free. There would be no leather, wool, suede, rich calfskin linings, fur trimmings etc. Everything would be fake.

One thing I love is the aesthetics of different companies. Some companies want to be all high fashion, and others are inspired by things like old movies.

Some companies are loud and proudly vegan, preferring to shout the truth about what is happening to animals from the rooftops (OlsenHaus comes to mind). Others prefer to simply present a non leather option with a more subtle animal rights message (Good Guys Don’t Wear Leather comes to mind).

What would my imagined company do? I think I would try to make a brand centered around the fabulous lifestyle of the most well equipped vegan ever–by that I mean, a vegan who never needs to hunt on the internet for cool shoes and what not. Oh no, she has it all already. She has every non leather item you could ever want.

What kind of girl is she? She is a very old fashioned, romantic soul. She lives alone, or perhaps she is married, or perhaps she has several BEAUX, who bring her fresh flowers.

She has a vintage car, and she lives on a farm, a vegan farm though. Maybe this farm grows sprouts or micro greens. She has a big greenhouse full of tropical plants which she collects on fabulous plant hunting and preservation vacations. She has a lavish bed full of DOWN-FREE comforters and pillows. A pair of tan non leather driving gloves lies by her bed side table.

She has a closet of non leather shoes. She has a cool fake leather jacket that looks like she found it in a thrift store. She has faux leather pants for when she needs to impress say, Prince.

She has hats, many hats–but with no wool in them. She has floral couches, with no leather trim. Even her car–the seats are upholstered with faux blue leather.

She likes to fashion herself after a gibson girl, lucy honeychurch from a Room With a View,

a pre-raphelite painting. She wears a golden circlet and flowers clipped to all her shoes.

She LIVES…MY NON LEATHER LIFE.

A little fantasy for today.

Oh, and I made t-shirts!! Comment below if you would like to acquire one.

The Best Vegan Gift Guide You Will Read This Year– Happy Holidays!

Come gather ye readers round the yuletide log, and open your presents I wrapped for you in leaves and twine.

In other words, it is time for the Holiday Gift Guide!

Now you have all been very naughty. Since none of my lovely readers suggested any vegan gifts via my fascinating facebook page, I guess this gift guide is going to be all about ME.

As a recent vegan, (I used to be just vegetarian) these are the items I truly WOULD want for X-Mas. I know I have probably written about most of them before, but sometimes I get a “collect them all” mentality. I fixate on the same things…and the longer you want something, the more you know you want it, right?

My list, if you please….

1.

These awesome Jcrew-esque vegan mens boots. I have them in black. I splurged, but they are so great I want them in tan. Be warned, these are very UNfunctional boots sadly. They have literally NO traction and if you wear them in the snow you are truly living dangerously, but they look so cool…..HA. Available at Mooshoes.

Worker Boot in tan from Brave Gentleman X Novacas $250

2.

I do not yet own a shoe from the inimitable GOOD GUYS. After doing my Interview with them, I feel like I just want a piece of the company. I now know so much that went into the company, how nice and cool the people behind it are, and the adorable vision for the brand. I like these red desert boots the best. They are so cute.

ayita red desert boots from The Good Guys

3.

I have written about these before as well, but I still want them.  Once I saw this girl wearing a mini dress with over the knee boots, probably not an uncommon occurrence, but I thought it looked amazing. These are from vegan company Cri de Coeur.

Olivia Tall Boot $180

4.

Ok, Allison’s vegan gourmet chocolates look really good. This is a necessity since I’m dying for chocolate. Every time I’m in the store, I look at labels of chocolate hoping to find vegan chocolates–haven’t found any yet! I want the toffee from here.

Vegan Toffee from Allison’s Gourmet.   I can’t look at this anymore…..it looks too good!

5.

A weekend getaway at the Bed and Breakfast Guesthouse at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary. So…I read The Lucky Ones, the creator of the Farm Sanctuary’s Book. I found parts of it quite hilarious, and although the farm is closed to visitors for the winter, if you stay at their cabin, you can spend time with all the animals. I’d love to see for myself what it is like to spend time with rescued farm animals. I’ve always wondered what farm animals are like…never having been lucky enough to get to know one.

A place where you can count sheep to go to sleep? VERY dreamy.

6.

Well, this pink bag is still on my wishlist… I wish I knew the exact shade of pink as screens can be deceiving.

Vegan Pink Bag from Modcloth $54

7.

The last time I went to mooshoes in NYC I was really impressed with the look and quality of this bag from vegan company Matt and Nat. It was beautiful! Better in person.

Matt and Nat Malone bag $135

8.

You can never go wrong with anything from Lush. After reading the incredibl, thrilling and eye opening book Free The Animals by Ingrid Newkirk this year, I realized that it is just as important not to support testing on animals, as it is to not buy leather or wool etc. Animal testing, especially and without a doubt for things like cosmetics, is horrific. Lush is amazing in that they do not even work with any suppliers who support animal testing. So much of their stuff is vegan, and I feel like they were one of the first companies to bring veganism into the mainstream with things like their bestselling VEGANESE conditioner. They also do animal rights demonstrations. They are a really unique cool company. Ok, how about some bath bombs. You can’t go wrong.

Lush Bath bombs. $ 4-10

9.

Ok guys, this one is for the edgier among you. I forget if I posted this on this blog, or my other one, but I think Harnesses are a really cool look to add to your outfits!! Yes, I am talking about wearing these out in public over t-shirts and evening wear… They are very edgy. 1 time I wore one out over a grey worn t-shirt and not only did I feel like the coolest person in the room, and everyone asked me about it…I was the coolest person in the room because of my AUDACITY to wear one of these babies in day. These became pretty mainstream a while ago. Topshop was selling them…but of course in LEATHER. I searched for non leather options….buying mine from the pole dancing wear shop Body Binds. I love mine! However I found these on etsy today–Vegan Harnesses!

Sorry for the nudity in this photo! I think these are mannequins anyway. I recommend wearing over clothes for a XENA warrior princess/Anjelina Jolie in Tomb raider kind of look.

Miss Malwia’s Etsy Store

Also check out Body Binds (made from elastic so definitely vegan).

10.

For the 10th day of Christmas….I would like a print of a photograph by the amazing Jo-Anne McArthur. Her photographs are so beautiful, moving and meaningful. They express so much that can only be felt. She is going to be the subject of a film, The Ghost in Our Machine, that I think is going to possibly change the world.

I will soon be talking more about this as I have an exclusive tell-all interview with the DIRECTOR of the film….hehehehe. You will love it.

Anyway, this is the print I would choose.

This says EVERYTHING about our relationship to animals. “an animal” and a “human” gently touching hands. It is like they understand in this instant how similar they are, and yet their lives are so different–two different fates. One can help the other. Both can help the other. I think animals are one of the most beautiful and mysterious things on earth. It is a gift we get to know them and spend time with them.

That’s what all this gifting and being vegan is about anyway…trying to do what we can for animals. They do so much for us by inspiring wildness and magic in us.

True art.

Jo-Anne McArthur’s prints start at $125 dollars and can be purchased here.

Merry HoLIDAYS, HAppy Chanukah, Festive Solstice to you….

And please, any other gift ideas I have missed…comment below!

A Review of a Highly Vegan Material for Vegan Cuts and some info about the Material Known as Cork

Yay for me!

Today I received a package containing an item that the highly intriguing company Vegan Cuts asked me to review.

If you don’t know about Vegan Cuts, they are a great site. They  are a handpicked selection of cool vegan items that are all moderately to heavily discounted. Check them out! Very cool.

They kindly sent me a very fascinating item. A cork bag from the company CoolCorc.

First of all….. a question arises. Why is it that everybody likes cork?

cork on cork

Cork boards.

Wine cork collecting.

It is such a fun material to touch.

Am I right?

I found out from the website of coolcorc that it is also one of the most environmentally friendly materials in the world.

Unlike natural sponges, which are also so fun to touch, but are killed for their amazing texture….

Cork is the bark of the cork oak tree, and incredibly no cork trees were cut down or harmed in the making of these cork products. The bark is simply harvested from the outside of the tree, and the company says this harvesting, kind of like pruning I imagine, allows the cork tree to live an unusually long life for a cork oak tree of around 200 years. They never cut down a single tree. When cork trees die naturally, their website says they are used for the cultivation of edible mushrooms.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5098/5477145008_a4763d59b9.jpg” height=”333″ width=”500″ />

How nice.

This cork tree land that the company owns actually allows the company to preserve and protect a incredible forest sanctuary that houses many endangered species including Lynx,

the Golden Takin  (an animal I just learned about, probably the origin of the Greek Myth about the Golden Fleece, a winged golden ram)

and Golden Monkey.

On to the purse.

Well….. I love the fabric. It is so very smooth. Cork is great. It is smaller than I expected. Not really sure how I will wear it, but I will try to incorporate it one of these days into my attire.

In retrospect, I wish I had gotten the clutch. It looks very chic and magnifique. I like the minimalist design.

http://www.fashionhound.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CoolCorC___Vegan-Cork-clutch-1.jpg” height=”496″ width=”599″ />

Well…to sum up….

I love what CoolCorc, this company, is doing.

I love entrepreneurs and these people are really doing a lot of good in the world…not only by putting out very unique and interesting products, but by inventing a sustainable way to create jobs for cork cutters in Asia, protecting an old if not ancient cork forest which houses endangered species, and making a stand for cool vegan products and vegan materials…and not cutting down a single tree in the process.

Vegan Cuts is offering a site wide discount for the next 3 days (till November 10th) of 10% off anything on their site. Enter the code

BLOGFRIEND

Thank you so much Vegan Cuts and CoolCorc for asking me to review your product. That was a lot of fun and is the culmination of a kind of blogg-ish dream I had of getting sent a free gift/product to review.

Amazing work, to both companies.

Oh BTW LIKE MyNoneatherLife on Facebook if you want to stay in touch.

Your thoughts?

-V-toria

Vegan Lush Products

I am usually very distrustful of beauty claims ever since trying to find a good facial routine that would solve my problem skin. I tried everything, and nothing helped until I found acne.org, but that’s another story.

I have recently found the most amazing smelling hair care routine, from an amazing ethical company that puts an emphasis on veganism: Lush.

Lush is an amazing company. Ever since the beginning of their company far before veganism, organic, and eco-friendly things were trendy they have made an effort to cater to vegans, and were organic and eco friendly. If you go to their website you can see they have clearly marked which of their products are totally vegan, and most of their products are…

Best of all, their products are really effective. At least the ones I’ve tried. I love their soaps. They make me excited to take a shower. They smell really good–way better than any other soaps I’ve used. The soaps have fun qualities to them too–I have two right now. One is called Sandstone–which smells like lemon and has sand in it. It makes me feel like I am being scrubbed in the undertow in the waves at the beach, and one called porridge–which smells like honey and vanilla and has tons of abrasive seeds in it that exfoliate.

porridge

I love their bath bombs. They turn your bath different colors, some fizz and pop and make a sound that reminds me of a bath that Roald Dahl would imagine (any one know what I mean–whizzing and banging and fizzing haha), and they all make your bath smell delish.

This one’s called Sex Bomb.

Their hair products really work too. Not only has everything I’ve used made my hair smell amazing (and the smell lasts all day and will even perfume your pillow) but also does do some work on your hair. Like this conditioner I got called Rehab made my hair soft, flat, with no fly aways– truly different looking!! That is truly saying something. I use 4 of their products regularly: Cynthia Sylvia Stout Shampoo which is vegan, and contains beer and some sort of whiskey like smell–an altogether amazing smell.

American Cream conditioner which has a vanilla and strawberries smell

Big asan alternate shampoo–I was really skeptical this thing would work but it does.

And R & B  as a leave in conditioner for the ends of my hair:

I love it when a product works. There is no guessing and hemming and hawing and wondering “Hmmm can I really see any difference” You see a difference within one use! That’s how you know something truly works.

I highly reccomend going to a Lush store, and checking out their website. They have this awesome thing called the Lushopedia, where you can click on a list of ingredients in every product and see a high quality picture of every ingredient in what you’re using. And that includes things like Elderflower Vinegar and Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. All those things you see on the back of shampoo bottles and wonder–what the hell is this?–the Lushopedia answers for you. It is like a wikipedia or cookbook for beauty products. Fascinating reading.

I also love Lush’s core values which they put up in all their stores and print on the back of their bags. My favorite one is “We believe words like fresh and organic have honest meaning beyond marketing.”

I love that.

I also learned that Lush has a long history of lobbying against animal testing and refuses not only to use animals in their tests but “prohibits buying any ingredient from any supplier that tests any materials on any animals for any purpose. This policy is unique in the cosmetics world and is pioneering a new way to stop animal tests for cosmetics.” Read more about their inspiring business practices here.

I really think this is probably one of my all time favorite companies if not my favorite. Their story is fascinating. I wish there was a book about them, but since there isn’t, some articles and interviews with Mark Constantine, the founder, have to suffice. Wish I had invented Lush.

Veganese, a best selling conditioner.

What do you think about Lush? Know of them? Love them? Did you know about how committed they are to having an ethical and honest business? So inspiring.