Tuesday Tips

For living more sustainable!

Today's Tip: Start timing your showers (MAX 10-12 min.)

We know that this morning (or evening) ritual is sacred for some and we're not saying you're a bad person for taking long showers (there is no universal shower time schedule...yet lol), this is simply a more sustainable approach to an important part of our lives.

Did you know that the average person showers around 8 minutes everyday? Women shower around 9 minutes on average and men are around 7 minutes. There are a bunch of pros and cons to both hot and cold showers but for this quick blurb I'm going to focus primarily on the time factor. 

There are typically two types of shower-takers - those who love to lather up chill and those who don't. I'm part of the latter as my showers last anywhere from 2 to 7 minutes and are usually cold unless I'm fighting symptoms of a cold or need to relax achy muscles. It's still one of the best ways to wake up (or slow down depending on the time of day) 

Remember: the longer and hotter the shower (beyond 10-12 min), the more of those precious essential skin oils we start losing!

3 Pros To Limiting The Time Of Our Daily (or semi-daily) Showers:

1.  Conserves fresh water*********************** (hopefully the amount of stars used here is enough to highlight the importance) TIME FOR SOME MATH. As previously mentioned, the average person showers for around 8 to 10 minutes at one time. In this time the amount of water used is around 17 gallons. This is based on 2 gallons of water being used each minute. One gallon is equal to 3.785 liters of water. Let's round that out: 10 minutes of shower time x 2 gallons per minute = 20 gallons (around 75 liters) of water in ten minutes. Now multiply that by the amount of people showering in the world today. In other words, that's...a lot. #showerthoughts 
2. Prevents skin damage. Daily, long, hot showers open up your pores and can dry out your skin, leave it cracked, irritated and can damage the natural skin barrier - especially in the winter months. Our immune systems need a certain amount of stimulation by normal microorganisms, dirt, and other environmental exposures in order to create protective antibodies and “immune memory.” Daily, long showers can impede this from happening.
3. Depending on your shower products, you limit the amount of harmful chemicals being absorbed through the most absorbent parts of our body.

> Here's a small list of chemicals you should avoid when choosing and using soaps and shampoo:

1. Sodium lauryl sulfate
2. Sodium laureth sulfate
3. Parabens
4. Formaldehyde
5. Diethanolamine
6. Coal tar
7. Synthetic fragrances
8. Triclosan
9. Colour   

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed this one and maybe a learned a thing or two! Please consider subscribing to the newsletter for updates on new blog posts, new arrivals and the latest promo's!