Lifestyle

by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Approximately one billion Valentine cards are sent worldwide each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. One billion. How many trees does that represent? Perhaps you ought to reconsider. By LuxEco Editorial Assistant Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano

What the Frac?  Pollution from the use of thousands of chemicals to derive natural gas from shale is threatening the health of our children...

Meridith Baer is a storyteller. For the past 15 years, Meridith has designed interiors by imagining who might live in them and telling their...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World   Have you ever had a center stage moment when you...

By: Molly Cimikoski, Editorial Assistant Last week, LuxEco Living was lucky enough to be graced with a phone interview from New York Times bestselling author,...

By Stephanie Nickolson, Healthy Green Interior Designer and LuxEco Advocate Originally published at Natural Home & Garden Air pollution abounds in our homes and businesses, but many air purification systems are not safe to use. A Key to Healthy Green Design in your home starts with purifying indoor air quality with plants. Have you ever walked into a store, restaurant or other environment and couldn’t stand the heavily scented aroma that someone used to try and cover up another (worse) scent? Well, I have. It’s one of my favorite stores that I frequent and whenever I enter the washroom, I cannot wait to get out of there as the air is so heavily perfumed it makes me feel ill. This is not an effective remedy, nor is it healthy. Anything that exudes that much fragrance is certainly loaded with phthalates. Most commercial air fresheners mask odors but do nothing to remediate them.

By Lorri Ballance Laird, Luxeco Advocate The holidays are over, and for many people in many parts of the U.S., winter has set in with a vengeance. One way to beat the winter blahs might be to try adding some houseplants to your indoor landscape. According to a plantsforlife.org report, not only can plants help boost your mood, reduce stress, and speed recovery from illness, they can also help improve indoor air quality.

Forrest Gump may have been on to something when he compared life to chocolates. You really never know what you’re gonna get in a box of chocolates, do you? The truth behind chocolate is more bitter than sweet. The Ivory Coast produces 40% of the world's chocolate, and it just so happens to also be notorious for this little thing called child slavery. Children, both local and from other third world countries, are sold to farms in this area where they are physically abused while working in risky and inhumane conditions. Some children are sold into the trade by parents who are tricked into believing their children will have better lives at the farm. Others are trafficked, stolen from their families, lured by the promise of…chocolate. In these farms they are forced to work 60 hour weeks with little or no food (depending on their performance on the field). These children lose their fundamental human rights when they enter these farms and “modern” society turns a blind eye to the atrocities. Every time we buy a box of chocolate that is not fair trade stamped, we (often unknowingly) endorse child slavery.

By Bernadette Bowman, Comedienne and LuxEco Advocate who writes the LIFE GOES RETROGRADE series. This week marks the one-year mark of my being out of...

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

By Nancy Chuda and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and co-founders of Healthy Child Healthy World   Experience ultimate green luxury, fine dining, the spa...

By Zhenya Gershman, Artist, Educator and LuxEco Advocate 1. The true deadly sin is not to make art 2. The only taboo in art is bad art 3....

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder Healthy Child Healthy World "Architect James Chuda's Green Home has been called the "Fabergé egg" of...

By Rachel Sarnoff, Writer and Founder of EcoStiletto.com and MommyGreenest.com and LuxEco Advocate I’m a journalist by trade and I’d been writing about fashion and...

For 20 years, Lauren Vidal remains true to the uniqueness of its creations and gives the contemporary woman her own image, focusing on overlays creating purely light styles punctuated by unstructured volumes.

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.

By Lush Huxley, Editorial Assistant Beth Nielsen Chapman is one such songwriter who has succeeded in the competitive field of modern music. You may not have heard of her, but her resume is stacked (as they say). She’s written for the likes of Willie Nelson, Elton John, and Mary Carpenter, and performed with country crooners Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt. Remember the Faith Hill song “This Kiss?” Yeah, she wrote that too. Beth’s very well respected and established among the songwriting community in Nashville, TN, where she makes her home. Her story is an unconventional one. In the 70s, Beth was being lauded among record company big shots as one of the songwriting world’s up-and-comers. Around 1979, her song “If I’d Only Known” appeared next to Bob Dylan’s “Slow Train” in the “Singles to Watch” section of industry magazines across the country. However, when her record failed to meet the expectations of the label, the big money people pulled the plug on her publishing deal. Perceiving her musical career as virtually terminated, Chapman entered a new chapter of her life as domesticated mother and housewife. But the songwriting bug stayed with her.

Be Educated, Be Inspired by WOTGG - Celebrate The Green Generation, Saturday May 14. Don’t miss the inspirational feel-good event of the year! EDUCATE ...

Avatar's record smashing box office success has left a hungry fan base anxious for more of action, more Na'vi and more 3D.  Additionally, after...

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...

Hands on instruction in the garden transfers young students green learning at school to green living at home. Johnna Walker, the garden instructor, teaches the importance of sustainability. By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Larchmont Charter School, an alternative neighborhood school within LAUSD, takes green living to the future—to our children—with the implementation of green learning. Our precious earth is in their itty-bitty-but-quickly-growing hands, so best to start showing them how to take care of it, and themselves.

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

I have traveled the world. Met chefs in Paris, Provence, London, Milan, Venice, Gstaad, to mention only a few destinations and compared to some of those masters I found a brilliant culinary sympatico with John Cox.

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Skeptics would say that Darryl Carpenter and Otis Goodman of C.W. Roberts in Florida did not thoroughly think their...

By Florence “Flip” Ross, LuxEco Advocate We are all familiar with the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” but when I travel through Israel I can’t help but think “When in Israel, do as the Israelis do.” How remarkable they are at accomplishing the impossible. When they tried to build a harbor in Ashdod, they called in all the experts they could think of to help them do it. The experts from Holland (whom for sure they thought could accomplish this, since their country too was below sea level) told them it was impossible. Imagine their disappointment, but not to be deterred they said: “Okay, we’ll do it ourselves,” and do it themselves they did.

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...

By Bethany Colson, Managing Editor of LuxEcoLiving.com According to the US government, One third of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives; many others will face chronic obesity-related health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma. A recent study put the health care costs of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion per year. With rates having tripled over the last three decades and with millions effected and the percentage of obese or overweight children at or above 30% in 30 states, the childhood obesity epidemic shows no slowing in site... YET. Enter First Lady Michelle Obama. The Goal: Through nutrition education, healthy food alternatives, physical fitness and a coordinated effort between public, private and non-private sector, the challenge of childhood obesity will be solved within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight.

By Florence “Flip” Ross, LuxEco Advocate One day at work, I happened to mention that I found these hills so pleasant to look at every time I passed them, and I wondered how they had developed there in the midst of all the flatness, which looked like God had ironed the land. Everyone laughed and said: “Don’t you know what those hills are?

Admittedly, I am not very traditional. The concept of the "bride's day" makes me cringe and a large wedding honestly frightens me on many levels, particularly because of the excess and waste. What is particularly difficult is finding a location for an eco-friendly wedding, particularly if you have a large family.

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of HealthyChild Healthy World Santa Ynez California Courtesy of Jeremy Ball A Magical Night! Tales from...

By Janelle Sorensen, Chief Communications Officer, Healthy Child Healthy World Expert Opinion courtesy of Healthy Child Healthy World Healthy Child Healthy World receives a lot of...

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

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Health World Lead in her Lipstick? Not Meryl! Not in real life. But...

Some call her Liv, others Livvy, and if you're a close family friend and want to get her attention you say, OLIVIA. But to...

... And let's lead the way  by action for a better tomorrow. As the world is spinning madly out of control getting grounded is sometimes...