Category Archives: Opinion

this and that from the weekend

By Alice | Published: August 8, 2011


Coincidentally I was back in the Ashmolean for the second time this weekend to see Cultural Revolution: State Graphics in China in the 1960s and 1970s which contains recent acquisitions of posters, prints, and so on. It’s in a small space tucked away (gallery 29) but well worth checking out if you are passing.


Edamame lunch. They are shutting for their usual summer break soon. Very tasty.


Cup of tea in the pub. Red wine later ;)


Chance to play some music.


Took my personal stuff home from work. Surprising how much there was! I think because I’m always cycling back and forth the bigger less transportable stuff built up under my desk, things like cake tins and my bicycle pump :)

Also posted in Oxford, Travel & Places, Yum | Comments closed

My favourite Sodium Laureth Sulphate (SLS) free products

By Alice | Published: August 5, 2011

This might seem a bit out of leftfield but it occurred to me that I might be sitting on useful information that I should put out in case anyone else is looking for it as I had been years ago. My hands are very intolerant to Sodium Laureth Sulphate which is a very common foaming agent found in everything from washing-up liquid to shampoo. I don’t know why I’m intolerant, I suspect that it may be to do with having washed my hair every day all my life, with being an art student with hands in all sorts of chemicals, and generally being fairly workman-like with my hands – not bothering to wear gloves for painting, gardening, fixing bikes and so on.

SLS seems to be one of those indicator chemicals where if you see it listed on the bottle you know that the manufacturer has just gone for the cheapest chemical and so the product may have other nasties too. In fact I’d avoid the whole range of a company that uses SLS. Even some seemingly posh products try to sneak it in, it is very educational studying those bottles!

If you are reading this and think you might be allergic to SLS but aren’t sure I’d encourage you to go to your doctor and ask to be referred to a dermatologist. They will also probably give you a steroid cream which is good for emergencies, I carry around a small pot of this just in case I accidentally touch something with the chemical on it.

There are quite a lot of SLS free products now, the problem that I found with most of them is that they can be a bit weird or ineffective. It is of course possible to make all your own products but I found that a bit messy. These are my favourite off-the-shelf SLS free products:

Aveda Shampure Shampoo and Conditioner
A SLS free shampoo that can actually get your hair feeling really clean and no build-up. Most conditioners are SLS free anyway as they don’t foam but I like this one. It is expensive, once a year I buy these huge salon sized bottles as it works out more economical.

Burt’s Bees Peppermint and Rosemary Body Wash
Burt’s Bees are no longer the small company that they were but this bodywash is still good. I also use this as bubble bath.

Burt’s Bees Orange Essence Facial Cleanser
I’ve tried so many others but keep coming back to this as it’s fairly gentle and combined with a hot cloth works well.

Kiehl’s Supremely Gentle Eye Make-up Remover
A total indulgence as it is hellishly expensive, each year I get a few things for myself for my birthday that I wouldn’t justify at other times of the year. There are possibly cheaper things that would do the same job.

Jason Sea Fresh Toothpaste
Yippee, a SLS free toothpaste that makes your mouth feel clean. I found too many others are muddy feeling, this one is great. I haven’t sourced a supplier in Oxford so my sister kindly posts it to me from the Organic Supermarket in Bristol.

The only thing that I have never found a good bad-things free version of is deodorant. I have tried loads but none of them are good enough if you are really active, so if anyone knows of a good one do let me know :)

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just this and that

By Alice | Published: July 27, 2011


I noticed when skimming the pictures I had taken recently that whenever I sit down I always have my bracelet in front of me and my sunglasses. The sunglasses I lost in Seattle were no longer available so a few months back I bought the Rayban Honey New Wayfarers.


See :) We were discussing taking the train to Berlin next year sometime and looking at maps. My suggestion of cycling didn’t go down well.


Went to this poetry / music / visuals event yesterday as a friend who is also a talented video guy was showing some work he’d made for this, his stuff is really cool. It was an interesting evening and I was also very impressed by the poet Caroline Bird.

I’m getting a huge backlog of photographs lately so I might have to post a little bit more than my usual 3x a week for a short bit.

Also posted in Days and nights, Out and about, Oxford, Travel & Places | Tagged | Comments closed

Day In The Life Revisited

By Alice | Published: July 14, 2011

A million years ago some bloggy friends and I would do regular ‘Day In the Life’ posts together on the same day, so each documenting what they got up to on a particular day. There was a resurrection of this on Tuesday which I am joining in on. You can see the other posts here. Thanks for organising it Claire (Claire is the dynamo behind this excellent shop BTW).

It wasn’t a particularly exciting day so I am not sure how interesting this will be! It was however a nice quiet day, one of those happy days that fills the gaps between bigger adventures.

Something that might be unusual to others is that I don’t require much sleep, I’m not sure of I have mentioned that on here before? I am kind of known for it amongst my friends and I have always been like this since I was small. Unless I’m ill I feel awful if I try to get 8 hours sleep, but on 5-6 I feel great. I love it as it means some days I get twice the day that other people have. There is a whole world of early morning that is pretty cool if you are around to see it. I try to be considerate to all you sleepers though and be quiet. So my day starts at 5:30-5:40am every day, on this day I caught up on news, Twitter, emails etc. via my phone. The Japan time zone is ahead of us so there is usually quite a lot of interesting news from there that has happened overnight. I did the usual getting ready, shower and so on, and made lunch, the little guy in the top right is a sandwich pick. I played with the cats (who scrunch the rug up like that).

On my feet I used Butter London in Macbeth, it’s a great colour as it is not quite pink or red, and because it is Butter London it doesn’t contain Formaldehyde, Toluene, or Dibutyl phthalate. It’s always much slower getting ready when the cats are around as Ira follows me back and forth all the time and waves her paw at me to get my attention. I don’t know where Beep was while I was taking pictures, probably under the bed.

I left for work at about 7:30am, it was a warm but gloomy day. I arrived early, the first one in so the office was in darkness, I got some porridge and did inbox-to-zero, I am pretty fanatical about inbox-to-zero :) Then when my tea buddies were in at 8am we went for tea. Then work work work. Lunch was a quick sandwich and a walk into town to collect the results of two rolls from my Lomo LCA. The picture of the fountains is my favourite I think. I will post them on here soon. Then work work work. I actually ended up staying about an hour late to get something big done. I went to collect Gloria who was parked next to a tandem. Then off home.

I took a detour to cycle along the Thames, I’m not a huge fan of that route as there always seems to be quite a lot of dodgy business going on around there but it’s lovely to see the water and a change of route is always nice. To cross back over the water I have to wheel Gloria over Iffley Lock. Then it’s just a short ride to home through a park. Two days a week we try to really limit the amount of time we are working on projects in the evenings to only about an hour as otherwise it feels like endless working even if it is on fun stuff. This night was one of those nights so after dinner (sausage and veg) we hung out and watched Iron Man 2 which I thought was a bit rubbish, I also did my ironing which is a pretty rare occurrence. Then about 11:30pm-ish I went to bed. The end.

Now, wasn’t that exciting! :)

Also posted in Cats, Out and about | Comments closed

on my mind

By Alice | Published: March 13, 2011

These are some pictures from when we last visited Japan. I don’t consider myself a writer (as no doubt exhibited on this site!) but here are some jumbled thoughts:

If you wish to donate here are some English-language lists of how people can donate or get more information on Just Hungry, Surviving in Japan, and Google. In the UK the British Red Cross have a Japan Tsunami Appeal.

We’ve since heard properly from our family in Japan. My father told me today that way back my family are actually from the S≈çma, Fukushima area. My father grew up in Hayama near Tokyo and now most of my relations live in Tokyo. Some were on holiday in Hokkaido, they are stuck in Sapporo for now but are all fine. We feel very very fortunate. My thoughts are with those still looking for family.

Twitter has been an amazing resource for up-to-date news and checking in on people. When the quake struck it was just before 6am my time and I actually was on laying in bed looking at Twitter about to get up, suddenly all my Japanese friends and acquaintances started Tweeting that there was a huge quake occurring. This NYT piece is by one of these people. This was was truly news in real time. It was at least half an hour to an hour before the BBC radio I had on started announcing the earthquake had happened.

I am very glad to be properly learning Japanese at last, foreign media seems to have been slightly behind the Japanese media in reporting on the situation. English-language NHK World have an iPhone app and are streaming here.

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