Sometimes, making stuff is an experiment. So many people write posts claiming they've created the best recipe for toothpaste, or shampoo, or cake - and you try the recipe and wonder why they made such crazy claims. Why can't we all just settle down and say: 'Hey, I've been experimenting - it kinda worked, so I thought I'd share with you in the hope you had some better ideas?'. I think we're reluctant to put ourselves out there in public spaces as failures. But here's the thing - failing is just success in disguise.

The Ecotrain/Natural Medicine challenge has raised some really interesting discussions about why we need to be alternative consumers, and various ways to go about it. All week, my husband and I have been looking at products we use and the consumer habits we have and wondering: "How can we do better? Why do we do things this way'. Because we're not perfect. Sometimes we buy things in too much plastic. Sometimes we buy things that we could easily make. And sometimes we just get lazy, or get all consumed in the 'busy' myth, and choose convenience over the environment. And I'm going to admit that, because sometimes I fail at the whole 'I'm a perfect eco warrior' thing. We're not all shiny happy eco warriors, all of the time.

But we try our best.

This steem quest has even got my husband thinking. This afternoon he came home and said he was at the shops with a shoe polish in his hand at the counter, and decided to put it down and come home and get cooking instead. Surely there was a better alternative to the shoe polish he had in his hand? Because if that product was warning him to wear gloves and could be an eye irritant, then it was damn well gonna be toxic enough to worry about. And wasn't shoe polish inherently, and traditionally, just fats and oils? How hard could it be?

And so, this afternoon we opened up the kitchen cupboards and looked for what we could logically make a shoe polish out of. I had a left over bottle of almond oil and the remnants of a jar of coconut butter, as well as some suspect looking coconut oil I'd forgotten about (was that a smear of turmeric in there?) and some olive oil. Ah, olive oil - that's what I used to shine my boots with, I say to hubby, who's suprised I even used to wear shoes at all, let alone polish them. He has a point there.

And so it melted in a jar beautifully, and smelt nice too, because he searched through my essential oils and liked the smell of patchouli, which reminds him of his good old hippie days with hippie girlfriends wearing patchouli. Which is why I don't wear it as a perfume, because I don't want him to sniff me and think of his good old hippie days and be reminded of hippie ex girlfriends wearing patchouli.

Did it work?

Well, his shoes are shiny. The cracks aren't filled, he says, but the shoes look okay. They're likely conditioned, too, surely - because if those oils are good for our skin, I'm sure they'll be good for leather, which is animal skin (sorry, purist vegans - actually, now I'm feeling grossed out as I open up a whole other can of ethical worms for myself).

Whilst the whole venture hasn't been an utter success, it hasn't been an utter failure either. We've made a natural product that works okay, and avoided spending money on product that uses questionable ingredients and likely has a whole heap of environmental costs associated with it's production, transport and sale. And that's a win for us.

Do you make your own shoe polish? Do tell me your tricks!

Do you experiment with making products that replace ones with nasty chemicals, morally questionable business practices, or that create more waste than you can live with?

There's 24 more hours or so in the Ecotrain/Natural Medicine challenge - and you can win some steem too! Check it out here. Entries close midday June 15 AEST.

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