Many have heard of Marie Kondo and her teachings on tidying. Her method is very helpful and inspirational. I particularly loved her folding and storage tips. However, when I read her books and saw her Netflix show, the huge amounts of discarding was a bit extreme to my perspective. I think that if an item brings some negative memory or you just intuitively feel some sort of a repulsion to an item, definitely donate or throw it out. However, I don’t feel like throwing away items that I feel neutral about. For example, I have multiples of glassware, some that I do not use. But glassware tends to break, and it is nice to have extra if that happens. I believe that instead of throwing out everything you are not using, organize it really well and don’t buy more. Use what you have and know what you have. If you have a collection of those little hotel shampoo and body washes, use them to clean the sink, bathtub, hand wash some clothes with it. You know you can also use shampoo as soap, it doesn’t always have to be some special cleaner designed especially for the bathtub, sink, etc.

Buying less is also not about hoarding money. With our current economic situation and the value of money plummeting, it may actually be a good idea to buy stuff, but they should be stuff you truly love and need, and always wanted. For example, go ahead and buy yourself that beautiful Rose, Melissa, and/or Neroli essential oil. If I am buying something, it has to be good quality. I recently started to pay attention to fabrics. It is pretty weird that so much of our clothing, bedding, etc is made of polyester. Just like I read the labels on food items, I also started reading labels on clothes. It has to be 100% cotton if I am to buy new sox or any other clothing. I also love mulberry silk, cashmere, and linen. It is also important to support ethical and humane practices if any item is made from an animal. I would not buy fur, but cashmere is when they give the sheep a haircut, so that seems pretty humane to me. The most important part about humane is how the animals live. They need to be treated kindly and live naturally, not in captivity. It is so hard to know these days where our products come from, but some companies make an effort to tell you, so do your research and always use your intuition. Plants are living things too, so farming needs to be ethical also. Our soil needs to be respected and not depleted with harmful chemicals. It is still pretty rare to find clothing that says “made from organic cotton” but hopefully in the near future this will become more common. No matter how beautiful a piece of clothing is or how good a price is for it, if it is not made of natural fabrics, I am going to pass on it. It is important to wear natural fabrics to let your skin breathe. Your skin is a very important organ and it needs to be taken care of by avoiding chemicals and synthetics. Only apply truly natural products.