Earth Day: How you can contribute beautifully

Earth Day is right around the corner (Friday, April 22nd) and the mission is to motivate individuals to promote our planet's sustainability. Though you should REALLY be thinking about ways to help out every day, at least you can rally for me on Earth Day, eh?

So that being said, here are some beautiful ways to help out our planet.

The Body Shop Shower Gels for Earth Lovers:

As the title implies, this shower gel is as good to the planet as it is to you. You may not have thought about this before, but your shower gels are NOT biodegradable and you're basically flushing chemicals down the drain each time you shower. The Shower Gels for Earth Lovers ($12.00) are 100% biodegradable, free of sulfates, parabens, or colorants, and each bottle contains Community Fair Trade organic aloe vera from Guatemala. The Body Shop's Community Fair Trade programs benefits farmers and roughly 25,000 members of the world's most impoverished communities. Not to mention that this aloe vera is grown without pesticides or fertilizers, and has been known to have soothing properties and promote new skin cell growth.

Not convinced yet? You'd still buy these shower gels for the flavors if you didn't know any better. The 6 different flavors are: Lemon & Thyme, Watermelon & Eucalyptus, Mint & Cucumber, Pear & Lemongrass, Fig & Rosemary, and Apricot & Basil.
Go to http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200957873271957 to join The Body Shop Three-Minute Shower Challenge!

Tom's Shoes:I've long been a believer in Tom's Shoes. If you're not familiar with the concept, Tom's donates one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of their shoes that you buy. An amazing cause! Not only that, but you can find an amazing selection of Vegan footwear on their site if that's your thing. Everyone can help out the planet in their own little way.

Check out some of their adorable glitter footwear:

Lavanila:

As if the Lavanila brand wasn't awesome enough (with their all natural products that are great for sensitive skin, and their fabulous scent of vanilla from Madagascar) they are planting one tree for each new fan they get on their Facebook Page on Earth Day. Now how's that for giving back?

If you're not familiar with the brand, a great way to get acquainted is with their sun protection line. The Healthy Sunscreen SPF 40 for face ($28), SPF 30 for body ($38) and the SPF 30 Lip Sunscreen ($16) are all super sheer formulas that provide excellent sun protection and are free of a lot of the junky ingredients that make you break out.

Garnier Pure Clean hair care line:

I'm very excited to hear that Garnier's new Pure Clean hair care line is made from 98% natural ingredients, and they're maintaining their affordable pricing (everything in the Pure Clean line is under $10, including the shampoo, conditioner, styling gel, smoothing cream, and finishing paste). Not only have they introduced a shampoo and conditioner that are 94% and 92% biodegradable (respectively), but they have an entire styling line made of the natural products as well. Did you realize that your expensive shampoo and conditioner weren't biodegradable? I had no idea either...

Just as exciting as the product line, Garnier has formed an exclusive partnership with TerraCycle to recycle your used beauty product containers (any of your beauty products, not just empty Garnier containers!). You probably didn't know this (again, I had no idea) but your empty mascara tubes and lipstick tubes aren't recyclable. Some of your shampoo and conditioner bottles are recyclable, but sometimes THE CAPS are not! There are so many more items in your beauty closet that aren't recyclable, and I was in utter shock when I heard this. Fortunately TerraCycle has a system of taking those formerly un-recyclable goods and making them into eco-friendly playgrounds across the U.S. Garnier and TerraCycle are making it both easy and worth your while to turn in your old beauty products. Just go to TerraCycle.net and print out a pre-paid shipping label for your used beauty products, ship the goods, and then they will actually donate 2 cents per each unit of waste collected to a charity of your choice. Right now I have a box of old products sitting by my garbage can that has Susan G. Komen's name written all over it.

Origins:

Origins is doing a few fantastic things for their Earth Month. First, Origins will plant one tree for every purchase of their new Plantscription anti-aging serum (this whole week!).

You can also take an earth-saving pledge on their Facebook page. Will you take shorter showers? Turn off the lights when you leave the room? Take your pledge now to help the planet!

In addition, I will be live tweeting from the Origins Rocks Earth Month concert April 20th at 8:00 pm. Grammy awards winners, Train, will be performing, and there will be several live-streaming locations at Origins stores. If you can't make it to the in-store events, watch the live stream from the comfort of your couch at Origins.com/liveconcert.

So my beauties, what are you doing to make the planet a little more green?