I have more than a little love for Blue Q. I like to buy products that help me be greener like reusable bags and bottles, that is a given, but Blue Q allows me to have a little fun and show a little personality while doing it. I adore my Boss Lady vintage cowgirl bag. It has become my fave. I ended up gifting my Boss Lady bottle to my mom (my boss lady) but I still have and use my Holy Water and Dick and Jane bottles.

Anyway, I see that Reuseit has two of their Blue Q bags on sale for 50% off which makes them an amazing deal at $5.98. 95% post-consumer recycled content yo! I love the India one. How about you?

One of the things I miss about living in the Southwest is the fact that we never, ever had to deal with things like mildew and stinky towels. As a child, bathing suits and towels could be tossed on the carpet all willy nilly and only an hour or two later they would be crunchy and bone dry. Mildew didn’t stand a chance. Later when I was cloth diapering my babes I had the luxury of being able to let the diapers sit in the diaper pail for a week or longer with no smell and no mildew. The first time I tried that after moving to Ohio…well let’s just say it didn’t end well. There was a noxious smell, there was mildew, and there were bugs. Argh!

We also learned that you don’t leave wet bathing suits and towels lay around and every so often your towels start to smell mildewy no matter if you wash and dry them on hot repeatedly. The first time this happened we ended up throwing them out because I thought it was hopeless without the use of something harsh like bleach. Well, we started to notice the same issue with our towels recently and since so many are organic and/or a super luxurious bamboo I did not want to throw them out. Didn’t want to bleach them either. Time to get creative!

With some tips from my Natural Living Facebook community I had a game plan, and it worked! Yay for clean smelling towels!! But why in the heck do they get stinky in the first place?? We do let our towels sit wet in the bathroom between showers/baths so that doesn’t help, even though they are on a hanging rack. I also think that they have a tendency to get stinky for the same reason cloth diapers do…a detergent buildup. Cloth diapers need to be “stripped” every so often to get rid of detergent scum/buildup and so do towels.

How to Get Rid of the Mildew Smell in Bath Towels

• Wash with hot water, 1/2 cup baking soda, and 10 drops tea tree oil
• Rinse with 1 cup vinegar
• Repeat wash/rinse (tea tree oil optional for the 2nd go round)
• Dry on hottest setting or dry outside in direct sunlight

This method worked wonders for me! Even after using the same towel over several days, no mildew smell. Now I just need to use this method every time I wash towels over the next 1-2 weeks to make sure I got them all.

Do you ever have this issue? How do you handle it?

Loving my shopping cart baskets from Reuseit.

Relying on reusable bags can be hit or miss because you may not remember to take them. If you keep them in your car that can be messy if you need a lot (like we do). These baskets, however, are easy to use at the store and don’t take up much room in the car. We just fit them inside the shopping cart and fill the cart up as we usually would. Then you, or the person bagging the groceries, just skips the whole bagging part and puts them back in the baskets after ringing them up. The full baskets sit nicely in the trunk or car seat and can be carried inside using the carrying handles. Empty them and return them to the car for next time. You can also store reusable produce bags in them so that you can bag your loose apples and lettuce and keep them separate. The baskets also have built in pockets for your shopping list, coupons, rewards cards, etc. They get an A++ from me.

I have been a LunchBots fan for quite awhile. I have the LunchBots Duo and have used it for years now. I use it to store kiddie snacks on the road, I use it for school lunches, and I use it for my own snacks and lunch on occasion. It was this particular lunchbox that I took with me to a seminar I attended recently in fact. So color me overjoyed to try one of their new lunchboxes. I have eyed the Trio and the Quad with much desire.

The folks at LunchBots kindly sent me the Trio and I have used it steadily this week for post workout snacking. I either take it with me so I can run errands directly after or I sit at my computer desk with it and snack while I work. Whereas some of the other LunchBot options make sense for lunches this box seems to be better for snacks or sides to accompany the main event. Since they are all the same size you can easily stack them and wrap them up in a reusable bag for lunch if just one won’t cut it for you.

I like that they are simple in design, plastic free, and easy to clean and care for. The bento style lunchbox is also what we prefer to use here. The compartments keep the food from touching! My original LunchBot still looks like brand new and I have no doubts this one will stay nice too. I also love the brighter colors they have now. This shade of blue/teal is my favorite!

If you want to try one out LunchBots is offering an exclusive code for my readers this week only. Use code NATURE for 10% off and free shipping. Enjoy!

Deal now closed. To see what today’s deal is go here!

The Deal of the Day at Reuseit is for these super practical produce bags. I have some bags like these myself (though I needed to get more!) because they are perfect for Farmer’s market season and shopping the bulk bins at natural grocery stores. Instead of your market vendor bagging those yummy green beans or cucumbers in a plastic bag you can just hand them one of these. You can also fill one up with bulk grains, nuts, or seeds from the bins at Whole Foods. These bags are polyester but I actually like them better than cotton bags because the latter tend to shrink and get holes. :(

I don’t know how many times these nifty bags have saved me from having to accept a plastic produce bag.  They are well worth the initial, small investment. Today only a five bag set is 30% off, making them $7.76. Use code FLIP30. Enjoy!