In retrospect this may be straying into TMI territory…

I have an extremely minor but niggling medical complaint which is too intimate to discuss in public; suffice to say, I have finished the course of treatment the doctor prescribed, it has had no effect and I am now going to abandon this and attempt some natural/alternative remedies* to see if they help. I don’t plan to announce this to anyone (it is, after all, unfit for public discussion), but I can imagine the general tenor of their response were I to do so.

I occasionally tell people I use cider vinegar as deodorant. The unenlightened generally recoil in horror from my hippified body and gasp, ‘Does it work? Don’t you smell?’ Well, yes, sometimes I do. But sometimes I did when I used commercial deodorant. Sometimes other people who use commercial deodorant are a bit whiffy. The difference is that when I used commercial deodorant, I assumed it would work and assumed I wouldn’t smell. When people who use commercial deodorant are unintentionally fragrant, the default position is that this is somehow the exception to their normally un-smelly state and not because their deodorant is ineffective. However, if someone using a natural deodorant (there are many options besides cider vinegar, and, if you regularly shave under your arms and are not blessed with a freakishly high pain threshold, you may wish to consider these) were to smell, this would not be attributed to, say, the fact that they had done a lot of exercise or sat all day in a stuffy centrally-heated office, but would be because their deodorant was ineffective, because they are a dirty hippy.

So I was going to write a post on how we automatically assume that shiny modern things are better than simple old-fashioned things and always give the former the benefit of the doubt, while being quick to denigrate the latter. And then I looked at my blog feed and realised Sharon had already said everything I wanted to say, much better than I could.

Here’s the link.

Enjoy.

——

* Neither of these terms seems ideal, but you know what I mean. Garlic ‘n herbs ‘n stuff.

Alpacas

I want an alpaca, and I defy anyone to fondle my sock yarn and not agree with me.

Aww, look at that face. Don’t you want one too?

I also have nice hair. Finally. It feels like my hair always used to feel when I used normal shampoo. Hurrah. I achieved this by actually rubbing the shampoo bar on my hair instead of trying to lather it up in my hands and using a weaker vinegar rinse. I don’t know which was responsible (bad science alert!) but it works and I’m soooo glad – everything else I’ve done to be greener has actually made me happier or healthier or in some way improved my life, but I have felt for a long time like a dirty hippy with greasy hair and like I am suffering in the name of some naive idealism. Yet the sheer efficiency of the Clairol (when I went back to using it) frightened me.

But now I have nice hair and nice food (and nice skin and 2/3 of a nice sock).