How to Hand Wash a Backpack - For Backpacking or Baby!

You may want to wash your backpack for several reasons. Maybe it's been well used and just needs a little TLC after too many days on the trail. Or, like my current situation, maybe you got it second hand and you just want it to seem a little more new. Whatever the reason, washing your pack can be done with ease! 

I got this awesome, used, Kelty baby carrier backpack for my brother and his fiancé, who are expecting.

So firstly, I have to say that before getting any baby stuff used, make sure this is ok with the parents! I got approval from the fiancé to buy used baby equipment, and found out exactly what sorts of items were OK. She said that as long as it was washable and in good condition she was totally fine with it, and a baby-backpack was one of the things she rattled off! 

I found a used Kelty Tour, which normally retails for $190, for $50 on Nextdoor.  I scooped it up, and it's in great condition! It was definitely well loved, though, and I want to give it to them fully cleaned!

The Deep Clean

You should look up the care instructions for your specific make of pack. This is a combination of suggestions from Kelty and REI on how to deep clean packs.

1. Empty your pack
2. Gently vacuum pockets, seams, crevices, and way down inside the main body of the pack to remove any crumbs, sand or loose dirt
3. If your pack allows, you should remove the hip-belt and shoulder straps and wash them separately with a sponge and gentle soap. Rinse well under running water.
4. If your pack has a removable metal frame, take that out and set aside.
5. Fill a bathtub or large sink with about 6 inches of cold - lukewarm water and gentle, non-detergent soap. I used Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds Biodegradable Cleaner. Submerge and swish your pack in the water, use a rag to gently scrub the interior and exterior. Pay attention to any places that come in contact with skin like straps. Be gentle with mesh pockets.
6. Drain. Fill with 6 inches of clean cool water, rinse well. Rinse twice if necessary to remove all soap residue. I also let a cool shower run over mine for a few minutes.
7. Allow to dry overnight. I just left mine in the tub since we didn't need to shower that night, and the following morning it was dry, and so clean! I was incredibly happy with how the pack turned out. You almost wouldn't know it got it used!

The Man Who Wasted Nothing

Me at 6 months, going off with Grandpy for a morning stroll. June, 1992.

This Thanksgiving I unfortunately had to say goodbye to my amazing grandfather.  

Needless to say, it wasn't the most lighthearted, or celebratory holiday for my family. 

My grandfather was an amazing man, he was an intelligent, patient, level headed, and an incredibly loving person. But if I try to write a post about what a superlative he was, it will go on forever. 

So, instead, I want to write about one aspect of him that I didn't really start to appreciate until recently: my grandfather's refusal to waste.

My grandfather, or Grandpy as he was known, was an engineering professor at UCONN for many years, and had an aptitude for numbers, logic, and practicality. He didn't waste time, or things. 

In many ways, Grandpy was an old school zero waster, he just used some different reasoning and justification for his practices. He and my grandmother were "depression babies," as she would say, they grew up in a time where you had very little, so you did not waste.

This philosophy was driven first by need, then by practicality as our country recovered and the two of them took a few steps up the economic ladder. 

Going through his old books I learned that he used to home-make wine. My grandmother also informed me that they kept all their used coffee tins and stacked them as a make-shift wine holder. 

They arranged for reclaimed wood to be used in the building of their house. The beautiful, exposed support beams came from an old barn in Maine, while the wood paneling in their living room came from an old tobacco farm.

He grew a variety of vegetables in his garden during the spring, summer, and autumn months to help feed the family.

He home-made speakers for all of his kids in his workshop, using wood, glass tubes, and canvas covering. 

He and my grandmother always saved wrapping materials like boxes and tissue papers to reuse for different gift giving events. 

Over the course of his life he would plant approximately 6,000 trees in and around his property, most of which are still standing today.

He utilized his clothing to it's full extent. One of my favorite examples of this came to light in the days before his passing.

The Fleece

We, his children and grandchildren, spent his final days siting at his bedside, often with photo albums laid across our laps.  It was during one of these reminiscing sessions that one of my uncles commented on the printed fleece that was draped over his bed.

"Isn't there a picture of Grandpy teaching Julia to walk in that?"  

Julia being the beautiful 22 year old woman standing alongside us. With a little digging through the albums, we indeed found a picture of 1 year old Julia, tightly gripping Grandpy in an effort to hold herself up, the printed fleece zipped up snugly around Grandpy. 

The fleece in question is an L.L. Bean creation. It's at least 22 years old, but we all suspect it's even older. It had been an item that caught my eye when I was in college, mostly because of how fashionable I thought it was. It has a very similar Peruvian style print to my own recently purchased Patagonia fleece. And looking at Grandpy's fleece, though it was very well used, you would never have know that it was probably made about the same time that I was. 

Julia learning to walk with Grandpy wearing his fleece.

Grandpy, though he cared deeply about our natural world, was not driven to use reclaimed wood, hold onto his clothing, or upcycle his coffee tins by a fear of plastic pollution or overuse of our environment, he was driven by pure practicality. He was the embodyment of the belief that one doesn't need to live in excess to have a wonderful life, filled to the brim with love and happiness. 

He treated everything, and everyone in his life with patience and love. 

That's one of the many lessons he taught me during our time together, and I feel it's a good way to move through life, whether you are striving for a zero waste lifestyle or not. 

I hope you are all having a happy holiday season, and that you are treating everyone and everything in your life with patience and love. 

Choosing Between doTERRA and Young Living Essential Oils

a little disclaimer:

When I first started looking into this, it felt like such a charged subject. I saw a lot of hateful things being said about both companies and their founders; much of it baseless speculation and assumption.

So if you're looking for a breakdown w/o any emotional charge, you're in the right place!

This is just how I made my own personal choice between these two companies. Both brands offer incredibly high quality oils, unlike those that you find at most health and grocery stores. I think they are both excellent choices if you are interested in making essential oils a regular part of your wellness routine!

Why does this decision feel so confusing?

My answer: lack of third party testing and certifications. 

As ethical consumers, we rely on third party testing to know that the companies we buy from are operating correctly. However, neither YL nor dT is Fair Trade Certified, FDA Certified Organic, or a B-Corporation. 

What this means is that we as consumers need to put a lot of trust into these companies that they are doing what they claim, which is not necessarily a position I like being in. 

My Breakdown:

I started to feel overwhelmed with all of the information, both negative and positive, I was hearing and reading about both brands. It's challenging to get objective data since both companies rely on their customers as sellers. I am really hoping that in years to come one (or both!) of them will apply to become B Corps. But until then, I'm going to have to rely on my own investigative abilities.

 So I took a page out of my grandfathers book and made a spreadsheet to break down the data that could be verified.

---

	Young Living	doTerra
General
Price of Equivalent enrollment kits	- $160 (plus tax & shipping) : Premium Starter Kit: Diffuser, 55 mL oils ($2.90/mL)	- $150 (plus tax & shipping) : AromaTouch® Diffused Kit: Diffuser, 40 ml oils ($3.75/mL) - $275 (plus tax & shipping) : Home Essentials Kit: Diffuser, 140 mL oils ($1.96/mL) doTERRA has many more starter kit options than YL Note: I ended up paying $220 (plus tax & shipping) for doTERRA's Home Essentials Kit whcih comes to $1.57/mL
Product Testing	- Uses owned and third party labs for testing. - Self-regulated - Limited transparency, no release of GC-MS tests - Issues with adulterated oils	- Uses third party labs for Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) testing - Self regulated - CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade® - Extrememly transparent - Worked directly with FDA to develop standards
Environement
Environmental Reporting:	- As of Aug 2017, working with SCS Global Services to advance and improve their Seed to Seal® promise	- Source to You ® - No third party reporting
Distillation Methods	- Steam distillation - Cold pressing (citrises) - Resin Tapping (Frankinsense, Myhrr, copaiba) - Solvent / Chemical Extraction (Jasime, neroli)	- Steam distillation - Cold pressing (citrises) Note: Frankinsense is harvested via resin tapping but distilled via low temp steam distillation
Habitats & Resources:
People:
Human/ Workers Rights:	- Little transparency of workers locations and conditions, some OSHA violations	- Co-Impact Souring, not 3rd party regulated - No OSHA violations
Supply Chain Management:	- Has a company code of eithics and claims to follow DSA Code of Ethics - Seed to Seal ® (recent violations are problematic for this) - Following a Lacey compliance program (b/c of previous violations)	- Co-Impact Sourcing - not third party regulated - No OSHA violations
Irresponsible Marketing:	- Seed to Seal not necessarily guaruntee (see legal actions) - Gary Young is not a Doctor though advertised he was at some point (not confirmed w/ reliable source)	None that I could find
Giving Back	D. Gary Young Foundation	Healing Hands Foundation
Politics:
Company Ethos	- Some illegal actions in sourcing (rosewood) - OSHA Violations (only a few incidences) - One worker death (accident, not related to bad working conditions)	- No OSHA Violations - No Criminal Activity - Co-Impact Sourcing (not 3rd party certified)
Legal Actions	- illegal harvesting and importing of Rosewood (voluntarily reported) - Violation of Lacey, Puruvian law, and CITES	- As of June 2017, All charges against doTERRA and its defendants by YL have been dismissed
Organic Product	- Stringint product testing, meets organic standards, though not as transparent	- CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade® meets organic standards
Certified Fair Trade	No	No
Certified B-Corp	No	No

---

my final choice

In the end / for now, I chose doTERRA. Here's why:

1. Recent Legal Actions
   • The fact that YL recently was found to have been illegally sourcing Rosewood was a really big deal to me. And it's hard for me to believe that this is a one time incident. If nothing else, it shows that there are cracks in their Seed to Seal promise.
   • doTERRA also recently won the lawsuit that YL had taken against it.  This shows me that doTERRA did not do anything illegal when their founders broke away from YL to start the company.  
2. Sourcing
   • This was a hard thing to judge simply because neither company is Fair Trade Certified. I'm really hoping doTERRA will have a third party certification soon. 
3. Third Party GC-MS testing and reporting
   • YL does not release their GC-MS tests, and there shouldn't be any reason not to. I read a piece written by a long time YL user who had her oils tested only to find that they were indeed adulterated with synthetics (read her post here).
   • DT does use third party testing and reporting when it comes to GC-MS testing, and this means you can rest assured that your oils have not been adulterated with any synthetics

Honestly, if I had made this decision even 6 months ago it might have been different. But the recent releases about Young Living nudged me in doTERRAs direction.

Sources

1. https://static.youngliving.com/en-US/PDFS/yl_stringent_unyielding_quality.pdf
2. https://www.doterra.com/US/en/cptg-testing-process
3. http://holisticessentials.ca/the-day-young-living-broke-my-heart/
4. https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=15eeb032645db017198d0931b&id=97addd555b&e=1c4ef13115
5. https://www.youngliving.com/en_US/opportunity/products/starter-kits
6. https://www.doterra.com/US/en/pl/enrollment-kits
7. https://www.scsglobalservices.com/young-living-essential-oils-takes-sustainability-commitment-to-next-level
8. https://sourcetoyou.com/
9. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652604000654
10. https://www.doterra.com/US/en/brochures-magazines-living-winter-2013-2014-distilling-essential-oils
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z6Yp9AfufI
12. https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2016/05/25/doterra-reinvents-supply-chain-for-impact-on-poverty/#240927a85c43
13. https://www.doterra.com/US/en/difference-co-impact-sourcing
14. "https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/essential-oils-company-sentenced-lacey-act-and-endangered-species-act-violations-pay-760000
15. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=303609242"
16. https://www.doterra.com/US/en/about-fact-sheet
17. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/essential-oils-company-sentenced-lacey-act-and-endangered-species-act-violations-pay-760000
18. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=303609242