Lifestyle

LuxEco Lifestyle is an ongoing conversation about the convictions, philosophy, challenges, choices, attitudes and spirituality that create the framework through which we view the world and define our lifestyle.

HYPNO-tize yourself to sleep without having to count sheep

People spend an average of 8 hours 21 minutes sleeping a day – but spend an average of 8 hours 41 minutes on media...

Retaking our Green Wedding Vows at the Hotel Bel-Air

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World In a historic setting which rekindles Hollywoods Golden but now...

Whole Foods To Ensure Organic Claims Of Non-Food Products

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant For those who spend the extra dough to shop organically, it is fair to expect that a market touting the sale of only organic goods should supply consumers with fodder and non-fodder products on an even keel. One such market, the well-known and widely shopped Whole Foods, is making sure those expectations are met. As of June 1, 2011, the organic grocery chain will require that all personal care products and cosmetics making an “organic” claim can prove it.

It’s Hair Raising! We Want To Stop The Spill!

By Nancy Chuda, Founder of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World As citizens, we are cut out when it comes to our voices and...

New China Bus Drives Over Cars

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Designers and scientists have been working on different approaches to transportation issues as they become a greater concern with the ever-growing population. China has begun to address their own issues of overcrowding and transportation with their new concept busses that will drive above cars. Imagine driving through a tunnel that is moving above you!

Eco-Fashion Trends Over the Years

by Jessica Borges, LuxEco Editorial Assistant As you’re staring blankly into your “so last year” closet full of drab clothing that you just can’t bear to...

In Defense of Plastic Bags? Say What?

by Linsley Oaks, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Green is in and it is here to stay.  Eco-friendly products have blossomed on the fashion scene and are...

Save Electricity at Home

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant (originally published on eHow.com) In the month of April 2010, the United States spent $25.5 billion on electricity, using a total of 266.3 billion kilowatthours. While those numbers include retail sales to residential, industrial and commercial sectors, household owners have the power to drastically decrease electricity use overall by dropping the residential portion. Home dwellers have many options for reducing their monthly electric bill while simultaneously helping the environment.

Seasonal Eating: The Best Nature Has to Offer

By Kerin Van Hoosear, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of Seasonal Cooking with Kerin Before the advent of refrigeration, seasonal living wasn’t an aspiration,...

Cameron And The “Nature Deficit Disorder”

Last month James Cameron was invited to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) fundraiser at FOX studios to discuss the meaning, the message and...

The Thief Oslo Norway: LuxEcoLiving’s Best Hotels in the World 2016

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Oslo Norway, The Chuda's  for LuxEcoLiving What could be better. Two nights at...

The Rangeland Trust: Protecting the future of land and western heritage

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World There are reasons why you should care and support the California Rangeland...

The Bloom Box- A Personal Power Grid

Silicone Valley start up, Bloom Energy, endeavors to make personal power plant boxes available for every household. Founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, inventor and...

Bacon Barrels Babes and Bushwacker Oh My!

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of  LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Los Olivos California Saarloos and Sons Field   Forget the BLT and hold the...

Chemical Creepers: Toxic Textiles

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant These days, any given suited politician, uniformed worker, outfitted student, or swaddled infant wears a garment no far cry from that of Iron Man. Synthesized and industrialized just like the incredible transforming suit, our clothing comes with all sorts of modern finishes. We purchase the wrinkle-free, stain resistant, flame retardant, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-static, odor-resistant, permanent-press, non-shrink fabric, smoothed-to-boot with softening agents. But the irony in this is that these resistant retardant protectants end up doing more harm than good. Every anti-fill-in-the-blank means more chemicals in your clothing.

Jewelry Paris style: La Suite 240 has it all

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Luxury for Less. The most beautiful authentic jewelry, custom designed, one...

Blackberry: Is Green The Next Move In Their Playbook?

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant At the March 2010 CeBIT, the world’s leading tradeshow in the digital industry, Global eSustainability Initiative (GESI) announced an important new member. Research in Motion, which makes Blackberry, will be joining the organization. That’s right, Blackberry is changing its color…to Green. The widely popular smart-phone maker has come under recent scrutiny for its practices, or lack thereof, regarding sustainability. One Greenpeace report stated, “the Blackberry Pearl, which lost a lot of points in the life cycle criteria and for poor energy efficiency, and did not even meet the Energy Star standard.”

Organic Produce, Sustainable Farming and Earthbound Cooking: Myra Goodman

Leader in the organic produce business and in sustainable farming practices, Myra Goodman inspires us with eco-tips and organic recipes with her new book The Earthbound Cook. organic produce sustainable farm earthbound cooking By Sahar Ghaffari, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Sustainable farming business woman, Myra Goodman is a popular cookbook author and co-founder of the organic Earthbound Farm, which she started in 1984 with her husband Drew. Her passion for organic foods has catapulted Earthbound Farm into the country's largest grower of organic produce. Myra and Drew's organic and sustainability initiatives have garnered them numerous awards and honors including Global Green USA’s Corporate Environmental Leadership Award and the Organic Trade Association’s Organic Leadership Award. As the author of two successful cookbooks, Food to Live By, and now The Earthbound Cook, Myra is spreading the message that fresh organic foods and produce are not only healthy and delicious, but vital to the sustainability of the environment.

“One Today” Richard Blanco is the youngest inaugural poet in our countries history

"One Today" One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes, spreading...

±2°C: A Far Eastern Inconvenient Truth

By Lush Huxley, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant Move over Al Gore and make room for the ladies. The Western world isn’t the only hemisphere freaking out...

The Hemingways Nairobi:LuxEcoLiving’s #1 Choice for Luxury and Cuisine

There is only one place in Nairobi... The Hemingways is historic. The grounds are magnificent and the view of Ngong Hills from your terrace translates the love and passion that Karen Blixen held for the land she so dearly loved.

Come Out … Come Out … Whoever You Are!

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series To honor and celebrate National Coming Out Day on October 11th, Gay.com is encouraging people who feel like it to write a letter from their older and wiser self to their younger self, way before they understood the word “gay” and all that it means in their respective lives as adults. This endeavor is called “Writes of Passage" and it's proving to be a way of healing for both writer and reader.

The Hotel Plaza Athenee in New York is one of the Best Hotels in...

  "New York is the quintessential city for every imaginable pleasure " Step inside the chic Hotel Plaza Athenee and your first impression is a perfunctory,...

Travels with Journey to San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel: A Sweet Spot Stay In The...

Journey left his heart in San Francisco and was thrilled to be invited back to the one and only Fairmont Hotel. This time our boy wonder got to stay in the Tower Suite named after the Spreckels family. What a treat!

As TSCA Collapses, Penelope Jagessar Chaffer and Her “Toxic Baby” Fight Back

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant "Isn't it wonderful that none of us need wait a moment before starting to change the world," Penelope Jagessar Chaffer quoted from the Diary of Anne Frank after Nancy Chuda (Healthy Child Healthy World and LuxEco co-founder) presented her with the HCHW Moms-on-a-Mission honor for inspiration Wednesday night. Penelope is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the first black female director to receive a BAFTA award nomination. Above all, however, she is a mother, proven by her dedication to complete her most recent documentary, Toxic Baby, despite the adversity that arose in the process. In accord with Anne Frank’s legacy, she waited not a moment before embarking on her five-year journey to make this film and thus start to change the world, one mother at a time.

Ethanol and Biomass Synthesis Could Make a New Fuel Standard

The Advent of Lignocellulosic Ethanol is a Biomass Boon By Derin Richardson, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant There are a myriad of alternative fuel breakthroughs that been discovered this century--hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol, biodiesel, etc.--but there is one, recently discovered energy source that you either may not have heard or know little of. Enter leaf biofuel. As it is scientifically labeled, lignocellulosic ethanol is the progeny of refining biomasses such as wood, grasses and/or any non-edible parts of a plant. It is a potentially sustainable and renewable biofuel, like using vegetable oil to produce biodiesel, however the insubordinate and resillient nature of this biomass make it problematic for industrial applications.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

By: Linsley Oaks, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant Modern Western man (and woman) has evolved into a very private creature.  We no longer roam large territories...

Write a Novel, Lose Weight, Win at Work, and Prevent Disease…With A Lifespan Treadmill...

By Alanna Rosette Brown, a writer/filmmaker, LuxEcoLiving Advocate, and author of Moonpennies. Follow her blog at alannarosette.com Make a New Years Resolution: Stand-Up and Walk...

Reflecting on The Home Within Us

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate As I wind down for the year I find myself thinking about a book called The Home Within Us and how much that says about my design philosophy. Everything I approach as a designer lies first and foremost in the feeling of comfort, well being, creating a place of safety and sanctuary. Problem solving, space planning, furniture and color selection comes later but it is driven by these things.

Bed Bugs on the Rise; Protect Your Home and Family Without Pesticides

When I was a little girl, I remember my mother saying to me, “Nighty, night, don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Fortunately for me, I had no idea what she was talking about, as I had never encountered a bed bug. But that may not be the case for millions of people the world over, as more and more bed bug infestations are currently being reported

Billboards to Travel With

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate. I’ve never given much thought to where billboards went after they are taken down but luckily a product design and manufacturing team called Artecnica created The Billboard Project with 3 great looking and sustainable products. Impressed by Artecnica’s Designing With Conscious program, Media Arts Lab (MAL) part of TBWA Advertising Agency, requested the designers to recycle their large format billboards.

Whatever Baby Wants…

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. It all started when I updated my Facebook status this past week. Bernadette Bowman thinks that children should be carded at Starbucks. This bold statement after witnessing an nine-year old boy, who I honestly mistook as a “little person” speaking in tongues, spouting the following in rapid-fire speed: “Venti half-white-mocha-half-caff-vanilla, easy ice, with 3 shots, pour affogato (this means: to drown) with extra whip, and caramel drizzle frappuccino.” Parents, it’s three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon: DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE??

George Clooney Travels to Southern Sudan

Actor, director, producer, and social activist George Clooney has been journeying throughout Southern Sudan this past week in an attempt to bring attention to the war-torn area. The region is three months away from an independence vote which could possibly see the largest country in Africa split into two sovereign nations.

Olympic Dressage Winner “Monsieur” Leaves A Historic Legacy Behind For Charlotte Bredahl

American Olympian Charlotte Bredahl had to euthanize her 1992 Olympic dressage partner Monsieur on Saturday 17 October 2015. The chestnut gelding was 34 years...

August

By: Florence Ross, author, poet and LuxEcoLiving contributor August August ends the summer season But we celebrate it for another reason We have a more important view It...

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