It's slow fashion season!

"What is slow fashion season," you say? 

Well, every season should be slow fashion season really. 

But, each year you can put yourself to a challenge by ditching fast fashion and buying no new clothes for 90 days. 

>>> Click to read about why I am doing a #fashiondetox (link)

If you too like the sound of breaking your bad habit of going to clothing shops IRL or online when you want something new, I have made a list of alternatives for you to get your fashion fix!

1. The good ol' Op shop

   

At first glance, op shops seem to be filled with unflattering ganny clothes, but if get digging you can really find some gems! They are a collection of hundreds of people's pre-loved clothing so chances are each op shop has stuff you might like. Duck into op shops often to increase your chances of finding some nice stuff.

2. Pre-loved Fashion markets

   

I've found the best stuff at little stalls where people are selling...

We live in a disposable culture that when we are done with something, normally just throw it away.

We have all come to realise by now, that there is no such place as away. Well, there is. And it is normally a big hole in the earth. And we are filling them at exponentially destructive rates. If you are interested in empowering yourself to make some simple switches in your waste habits to reduce your negative impact, you have come to the right spot!

Here are 11 things you can stop putting in the bin from today:

# 1. Food Scraps

The erosion of top soil of the planet is one of the biggest problems humans face. The organic living elements in soil we grow our food in are disappearing and not being replaced. While we are also letting tonnes and tonnes of decomposing food waste rot in landfills. The loop of natural cycles of organic matter is broken and causing catasphic scale damage. The easiest and most powerful thing you can do to be part of the solution, instead of...

While we might know of how minimalism can benefit us grown-ups, you might be wondering how and if minimalism can benefit kids?

Some might argue that minimalism is the kind of thing that is a fully personal decision and you shouldn't 'force' that onto children.

If you understand what minimalism is truly about (having a home surrounded by only what adds to your life), then you will too agree that it makes for a beneficial element of a healthy home and lifestyle for children. Here are 5 reasons your kids could benefit from your family adopting a more minimalist life:

Reason #1- They get more of the real you

Having less clutter in your home will save you so much time in your home duties and your home will feel better, meaning that you will be less stressed and more available. When we are chasing our tail around an overwhelming messy house, we are less available for being the real version of ourselves that our kids love.

Reason #2- Sharing and community

With...

Yep.

Doing a detox... but not the kind you would think.

This is a detox from fast fashion... an addiction that most of us have in Western countries, no matter our income.

Even if you don’t have an addiction to fast fashion, you probably have at least a bad habit. A habit of needing o wanting a new piece of clothing and immediately going to buy it new from the shops or online, instead of getting something already in circulation.

So what's this #fashiondetox?

I didn't make it up. I am joining 20,000 other awesome humans in pledging to not buy any new clothing from July till September. 3 months. 90 days. It is part of a movement of promotion of slow fashion rather than fast fashion.

3 reasons I am doing it:

1. To reduce ecological damage that I purchase into existence

Even though I am an advocator for the environment, minimalism, and circular economy... I feel that in the last year or so clothes have been my downfall. With my changing body...

Most people have a cleaning cupboard full of many different products with most of them containing kind of toxic ingredients. Especially, when some ingredients are known for being carcinogens or endocrine disruptors, you might want to swap out mainstream cleaners for natural alternatives. 

You could replace all the different products with eco-products and pay sometimes double or triple the price... Or you can do what I do and have a minimalist collection of simple ingredients that you can use on pretty much anything.

So here are my 3 versatile minimalist cleaning ingredients: 

#1 Vinegar

I basically clean everything with vinegar. 

The acidic nature of vinegar can dissolve mineral deposits, dirt, grease, and grime and kill bacteria. It does smell like vinegar but the smell disappears not long after cleaning. It's really cheap and super accessible being found in every supermarket. There are a few things you should use Bi-carb on though like hardwood...

My platform is very much a merger of cross-promotion of both minimalism and sustainability. In many ways, the two practices overlap by default.  But there are also ways that they can contradict each other and that's what I am writing about today.

Here are some common battles between 'Minimalism' and 'sustainability':

Disposable Minimalism

Let's get the elephant in the room out the way first. Minimalism is very much associated with the idea of less. However, in the pursuit of less, some people will throw things away... ending up buried in the earth in toxic landfills. What is even worse is having a disposable rotation of stuff to maintain 'minimalist' living. This is not the kind of minimalism that I promote.

Not my stuff, Not my problem- Minimalism

This very much ties into the above point. We need to think of minimalism holistically, not just what we own. A flawed version of minimalism is not owning a few reusable coffee cups because it...

If you look at the dictionary definition of minimalism you will be met with the idea that minimalism is an art style rather than a lifestyle. The term is used to describe a lifestyle that has only been popularized in the last 10-15 years. But seriously dictionary companies... Get with the times, yeah?

There is also a lot of misconception about what minimalism is out there, which makes me not want to call myself a minimalist. So if you want to know what minimalism really is, then you have come to the right place!

What is minimalism?

My favourite definition of minimalism is a quote from one of the most well-known minimalist advocates Joshua Becker:

“Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.”

Basically, it's about creating a life that only includes what you actually value by actively letting go of what you don't.

Minimalism is not: Having as little belongings as possible...

If you do a big tidy in your home and 3 days later it feels cluttered again, you have come to the right spot. Some areas of our home feel like literal clutter magnets and I am going to identify 3 of the common spots that seem to have the magnetization problem, and I will tell you what to do about them.

First, we should look at the main causes of clutter.

Clutter #1 Cause

Your belongings do not actually belong. You own items that aren't actually loved and used. There are a bunch of reasons why we buy and hang onto such items. When we have lots of things we don't need, there's not much intentionality in what we keep so we disconnect from being able to properly manage clutter.

Even well-organized spaces can be filled with this kind of clutter. If the belongings shouldn't belong then you are just organizing clutter in with your loved belongings.

Clutter #2 Cause

Your belongings are not kept where they belong. In other words, you don't have a home for your stuff. The things you...

Many women stepping into motherhood feel pressure to start buying so many things filling their house to be a "proper family home." I am here to tell you that society's norms are not working and the 300,000 items in an average home (in the USA and I am sure Australia is similar) are slowly robbing women of feeling the best they can in their homes. And yes, there have been studies done that show women are more affected by clutter than men.

My journey into motherhood came at ease and while amazing support from those around me was a huge contributor, I do not think I would have had the same experience if my home was not set up to support me as well. So let me share some of the reasons that make minimalism motherhood's best friend.

More Stuff = More Time

Everything you own takes up a little bit of time by owning them. Some items we own take up a lot of time, like the dishes, for example. We spend a while each day washing them and putting them away. Other items take up only...

There are a lot of arguments against cloth nappies out there and I wanted to clear some misconceptions up around the topic. I've made this little article to share the truth about 6 common ideas people have about using reusable nappies. Let's get down to business and bust some myths!

Myth 1: They are gross

Do you know what's gross? Human waste trapped in synthetic material for hundreds of years inside a putrid landfill. About THREE THOUSAND of them a year for one baby!

With cloth nappies, the waste gets washed off (back to nature if your waster is directed to the garden and treated by council water treatment facilities if it just goes down the drain) and then the clean nappy is good to use again (and again for years).

Did you know it's estimated that 5% of our landfills are just dirty nappies... Pretty gross!

Myth 2: They are hard to make work

They are definitely not part of the mainstream culture so the norm is to think that maintaining nappies are a lot...