Locally-made, fair trade products in Cebu City!

Heads up, Cebuanos! Taga Cebu City ba ka? Adto na mo sa People’s Fair Trade Shop sa Osmeña Avenue!

This is a piece of good news that I found through a colleague’s Facebook—Cebu City has a store devoted to selling exclusively fair trade products.

What are fair trade products? To be honest, there is no single universally-accepted definition of fair trade but according to the Southern Partners and Fair Trade Corporation (SPFTC), which runs the store, a fair trade product is one that meets the following criteria:

• it is made by workers who receive fair wages, in safe, human working conditions
• it is made from raw materials bought at fair prices, using a process which cares for the environment,
• by a company, cooperative, or people’s organization that operates on the pricinciples transparency and accountability, capacity building, and gender equity, and the creation of opportunities for marginalized members of society.

I’m very jealous of Cebuanos now—because the principles of this fair trade store are basically the principles that drove me to start this blog in the first place.

Have you been to the store yet? What’s it like? What kind of products do they sell? I’d love to hear from Cebuanos what they think of the store.

You can read the news item here.

Product Review: Victoria Natural Herbal Laundry Powder

Victoria Laundry Powder has been around for several years—maybe more than a decade, even—and in the last couple of years, has been readily available in the major supermarket chains. It’s actually something I intentionally seek out in a supermarket, even though I won’t be buying it, just to see if the supermarket has it in stock.

This fascination I have with Victoria Laundry Powder dates back to several years ago. For a time when I was younger, my mother and I developed a reaction to regular, commercial detergents. A family friend recommended Victoria to us, and we started using it on our clothes—and our rashes quickly left. It’s really great for people who have sensitive skin because, since it doesn’t use any harsh detergents, and is made from completely natural ingredients, it doesn’t leave a residue on your clothes that can cause rashes and irriations. This also means that it’s gentle on the hands, and it won’t cause wounds for those who do a lot of hand washing.

Victoria also claims to be completely biodegradable. I unfortunately don’t have the resources to test if this claim is true, but taking them at their word, this is a good thing—this means that it won’t release chemical contaminants into the soil and into our groundwater.

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Product Review: Human Nature Moisturizing Shampoo (Aloe Vera, Egg Whites, Guava)

I first heard of the Human Nature line from my friend and colleague  R., who blogs at PinoyBaby.com. As you can probably tell from the title of her blog, she’s a mother to a wonderful 5 month old baby boy, and she blogs about her experiences as a first-time mom. She had only good things to say about using Human Nature’s baby shampoo on her son, and I thought of giving it a try as well. I selected this particular variant of the many Human Nature shampoos because my hair tends to get dry easily, and because I get dandruff easily as well.

 (please excuse the crappy lighting in this photo)

 
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