Day 4 - Shampoo Bars and the Morrisons Mishap

 Day 4

So my day started with my raw milk again.. I realised why it was sooo creamy yesterday.. Look closely at the photo, there's a huge amount of cream that has just settled on top of the milk! So with my stomach not being overly ready for the cream, i tipped the top part into a glass and then used the bit underneath, then poured it back in. I'll make something with the creamier milk later when i'm more ready for the richness. Still lovely! So whilst making breakfast i noticed I was low on cereal - and that's all I tend to eat for breakfast (mostly because i'm too brain dead in the morning to navigate my way around the kitchen enough to make anything else) unless someone makes me something, then that's fine. Whilst out on Monday I bought some large jars to start storing cereal and pasta in. So I took these with me this morning and headed to Planet Organic straight after work to go fill them up from their Unpackaged section that I mentioned on Day 1. I decided to go for Bran Flakes (organic apparently ooo), lucky I love bran flakes too being given them all my childhood by my grandparents, so this was great. Would like to have seen cornflakes in there too, or some form of granola - but I can make my own granola as they sell porridge oats loose too (although they were out of them today, so i'll have to go back). So I bought 350g of bran flakes for £1.84, 548g of conchiglie pasta for £3.84 and 662g Penne Pasta for £4.63 (which thinking about it is quite a bit of money for pasta) but from looking at it, it's not the same as just the dried pasta you buy, so i'll try it out and see what it is like.

 A bit of news I had today was that the shop that inspired me years ago to buy refillable foods in Brighton, called  Ecostream has closed down. While this is deeply upsetting for me, as this was an incredible shop, I found out it was because the company was owned by Sodastream, who were involved in terrible human right issues in Palestine.. So I mourn the loss of the good the shop could have done, and not the company itself. They had a very good slogan which was "Buy the product, not the plastic" - great words and very apt right now!

I also took a trip to Lush to buy some non-plastic hygiene products, such as a shampoo bar, conditioner bar, deoderant bar and a sugar scrub shower block. In light of not finding anything else toothpaste wise, I decided to bite the bullet and go for their Tooth Tabs and the Tooth Powder too to try them out (and I will give them the pots back for them to send for recycling afterwards - not ideal I know!). I must say that I have always gone past Lush wondering what the big hoo haa was about them, but actually after trially a few of the products I'm very much impressed. The shampoo bar I bought (the yellow one in the picture) was great! You have to wet it, rub it between your hands to create a lather and then put it in your hair. I think it's great because it bubbles up nicely, and turns into a thick foam when on the hair which makes it feel rather silky whilst it's in. Once you wash it away your hair is a bit dry, but that's where the conditioner comes in. Apparently these bars are supposed to last for up to 80 washes, so if they do, i'm completely sold on them! The conditioner bar confused me at first.. You have to wet it, wet your hair and then rub the bar on your hair. It was a little weird at first, and might take some getting used to, but once you feel it starting to slip over your hair it actually feels good. And your hair is pretty silky after you've washed it out and dried it, so I'm impressed. The sugar scrub was good, it resembled a tougher bath bomb. It has the same fizzyness about it, but it's designed to last longer, and feels/smells nice. The deoderant bar is weird though, i'll have to say.. And I can see it leaving white marks on black tops, but i'll have to trial that to see if i'm right. The bar is very powdery, but feels and smells nice. Not sure how it would do after a long work day at the zoo, but i'll be trialing that too! Now the toothpaste products. I thought I would like the powder more, which is a strawberry like flavour, but i'm actually more impressed with the tablets. The tablets you take one, crush it between your teeth and then start brushing. Once you start brushing, it mixes with your saliva to create the foamy paste, and is quite nice and refreshing. The taste was very powerful to begin with, it felt like it was burning my tongue, but it dissipates very quickly into a nice flavour. The strawberry powder you dip your brush in and then start brushing, which was still nice, but not as refreshing as the tablets.

Another thing that happened today, which i'm rather peeved about, is I went especially to a large Morrisons shop today, with the aim of purchasing some fresh fish and fresh meat off of their open counters. My aim was for me to give them my own container, they put the food in it, put the label on the lid, and then I go pay for it at the till. However, I went to the fish counter and asked if I could use my own container and I was rather rudely refused the right to do so. I was offered a thin plastic bag, or a bigger thicker plastic bag to put them in. I was told I wasn't allowed to use my own containers. I asked why, and the guy shrugged and walked away. So I must point out that i wasn't in the best of moods, and was really looking forward to buying some fish to have for dinner, so when he refused me, i took the few things I'd already put in my trolley out onto a shelf and walked out. I have tweeted Morrisons about this, and a lovely man called Joe apologised and said he would look into the matter. I'm hoping they will say that actually you can use your own containers, but that is yet to be decided, so when I hear anything, i'll update you on the situation. So this incident has left me fish/meatless (not that I eat a lot of either, but i sort of fancied it!). I will try my local butcher, as that's a family business and I might get further there, and I will try find somewhere else for fish. But it shouldn't be this hard! Society has gone mad is all i'm going to say. I'll sign a form to say I take a risk or whatever taking it home in my own container, i don't care.

So, that was my rollercoaster of a day today. Until tomorrow!

Thanks for reading :).