I’m surprised at how hard it is to find nonleather hiking boots. You’d think vegetarians and hiking enthusiasts are two groups that would have a lot of overlaps. But when I went into the North Face on Newbury Street, the salesguy actually laughed at me. (The Eastern Mountain Sports salesman was much nicer, but still [...]

I’ve had three different types of shower curtains in my life—vinyl, glass doors, and cloth—and the cloth is my favorite by far. It’s also a more environmentally friendly choice. I couldn’t use vinyl curtains anymore because Ask Umbra’s mantra—no vinyl, that’s final—runs through my mind whenever the word comes up. The reason for it is [...]

On Tuesday I talked about some places to find vegan shoes, but there aren’t many completely vegan shoe stores around. Most of the time I’m stuck searching through racks and racks of shoes for the one or two styles that aren’t leather. Sometimes it can be hard to tell which is which. (Jason swears he [...]

For almost 14 years now, one of the first things that people have said when they find out I’m a vegetarian is, “But you wear leather shoes, don’t you?” Even though it’s an irritating knee-jerk question, I can see why they ask it. Finding comfortable, attractive, durable non-leather shoes can be a lot harder than [...]

You may remember that back in June I begged for moisturizer recommendations. After six months of trial and error I still haven’t found anything ideal. I may have to revise my expectations. Even the moisturizers advertised as paraben free generally contained oxybenzone, a chemical that’s classified by the Environmental Working Group as worse than parabens. Of [...]