Skip the Eco-Fakers: Purge Green Imposters from Our Homes

Earth Day is this month and many consumers hope to do their spring cleaning with ''green'' or nontoxic products. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the environmentally friendly goods from the eco-pretenders.

Terms such as ''all natural'' and ''organic'' are often misused on labels for household cleansers, shampoos, conditioners and other personal care products.

Consumer watchdogs actively scrutinize labels and test products for accuracy and safety.


In mid-March the Organic Consumers Association and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps jointly issued cease-and-desist letters to a number of companies using ''organic'' labels on merchandise made with nonorganic or petrochemical ingredients linked to cancer.

'We've grown increasingly frustrated with the companies in our industry who seem to feed off each others' misleading practices and show no inclination to clean up their formulations and live up to their organic branding claims,'' wrote David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner's.
Dr. Bronner's, a personal care company, is certified through the USDA's National Organic Program. To be certified, the product cannot contain petro-chemicals and at least 95 percent of the ingredients must be organic.

If a personal care or household product company is not certified under that optional program, a consumer should be wary of organic claims, says Adam Eidinger of the Organic Consumers Association.

Here are some tips:

• Avoid products with chemicals that end with the suffix: ''eth,'' such as laureth or myreth sulfate. Also avoid labels that mention PEG, a harmful chemical compound, said David Steinman, author of The Safe Shopper's Bible.


• Phrases like ''made from organic products'' and ''all-natural'' should be backed up by independent tests.


• The Organic Consumers Association posts information about products with harmful ingredients at http://www.organic/consumers.org/bodycare/index.cfm.

This is from my latest column in the home & design section of the Miami Herald.

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Cheap & Easy Ways to Organize the Garage

The family garage is probably the most used and abused room in a home.

''The average two-car garage has basically become a no-car garage because it's crammed full of so much clutter,'' says Barry Izsak, author of Organize Your Garage In No Time (Que Publishing, $11.50).

Fortunately, it doesn't cost much to organize the family garage, says Izsak, who is also the past president of the National Association of Professional Organizers. Here are a few low-cost solutions:

• Think. How is the garage used (workroom, storage, extra kitchen)? Do you want or need to change its use? Are you effectively using the floor and walls?
• Pick easy targets. Toss out the rusty wheelbarrow and the 10-year-old magazines.
• Learn from the kitchen. Kitchens have built-in organizational systems such as the refrigerator, cabinets and drawers. Create a system for organizing your garage.
• Create zones. Use a hardware store model to solve the turf war among craft materials, sports equipment and lawn supplies. ''Keep similar things together,'' says Suzy Wilkoff, owner of Tasks Unlimited, a professional organizational service in Miami.
• Find a new purpose for the old furniture in your garage, Izsak says. A discarded entertainment center can be recycled as a work bench. Compartments in baby furniture or old desks can be used to store items.
• Organize a garage sale or donate unwanted items to charity. The family garage should be purged and organized once or twice a year, Wilkoff says.

And finally, ''Save room in your garage for at least one car,'' Wilkoff says. ``That's what it was built for.''

This is from my latest column in the home & design section of the Miami Herald.


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Saving Money with Home Brewed Coffee

From breakfast through dessert, a good cup of coffee plays a major role in South Florida and other parts of the country. For many of us, that means buying a good coffee maker.

I like the Moka stove-top brewer -- a double-chamber metal coffee pot from Italy that brews a cup of espresso that rivals the best Cuban coffee shops in Miami. I learned about this $30 pot in The Joy of Coffee by Corby Kummer. (The smaller version of the Moka stove-top brewer is about $20 or less.) We've also used inexpensive French press pots. Here's a related story: A Coffee Recipe That Saves Me Thousands

Stephen Treffinger, the resident tester and contributing editor at Domino Magazine, sampled coffee from about 30 coffee pots and espresso machines for the February issue. I recently spoke to Treffinger and was impressed with his selection, which includes inexpensive or time-saving coffee makers. Here are a few of his top picks:

• The plug-in. Farberware makes an affordable old-school percolator for $40. Sold at Bed Bath & Beyond, this coffee maker plugs into any outlet. ''That's what I grew up seeing,'' Treffinger said. ''It's not going to win over a coffee snob.'' But nevertheless, this Farberware coffee maker provides "a surprisingly smooth, cup of coffee." It's perfect, Treffinger said, if you want to quickly brew hot coffee after a meal. Danger: the liquid is very hot.

• The crowd pleaser: If you've been to a diner, you've probably been served coffee brewed from a commercial Bunn coffee maker. For the home, the company has a 10-cup coffee maker sold at Target for $130. Treffinger gives this machine high marks for brewing 10 cups of coffee in three minutes. Beyond speed, this coffee maker has a spray action that soaks the coffee and produces a rich taste, Treffinger says. The downside: the machine is large and will eat up counter space.

• The no-brainer. Some espresso and coffee makers use pods -- pre-packaged circular filters stuffed with coffee. (You've seen them in hotel rooms.) Often the coffee flavor is lacking. One exception is Francis Francis, a 13-inch espresso machine from illyusa.com. Equipped with a milk frothing attachment, this espresso machine costs $900, but favorably compares to ones for $3,000. The pre-packaged pods make it easy to brew a tasty cup of espresso.

This is from my latest column in the home & design section of the Miami Herald.

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How to Get More Value From Your Home

There's a simple mathematical formula that will help you calculate the hidden value in your home. Divide your mortgage or annual lease by the total square footage in your home and use that value to calculate the cost of your living room, dining room or other underutilized rooms.

''You may be spending thousands of dollars for space that you use only twice a year,'' says Standolyn Robertson, president of the National Association of Professional Organizers and owner/founder of Things In Place, an organizing consulting company in Massachusetts. You can increase the value of each room by finding new uses for the space.

Myscha Theriault, a personal finance and home-living blogger at http://www.wisebread.com/, knows the value of space. After relocating from Arizona, Theriault and her husband David -- a retired military man -- moved into a small New England cottage, a temporary home until their permanent house is built. Faced with limited space, Theriault developed several tricks for expanding her living quarters.

• Use the restaurant model. Vertical wire shelves and racks popular in industrial kitchens can serve several functions in homes. In her cottage, Theriault uses vertical shelves in the kitchen, entertainment area, bathroom and on a porch.

• Experiment with lofts. Medium-density fiberboard, plywood and other affordable materials can be used to build a platform, stage or bilevel lofts in an attic, bedroom or garage. Raised platforms can create a teen hangout, entertainment zone, craft work space or storage for sports equipment.

• Forget room titles. ''If you're stuck on labels, you're losing a lot of available space,'' Robertson says. A formal living room, for example, can double as a home library or rehearsal room for family musicians. Likewise, a buffet credenza in a dining room can serve as a work space for a home office during non-meal hours. When it's time to set the table, tuck office supplies into decorative baskets.

This is from my latest column in the home & design section of the Miami Herald.
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Kiplinger’s: Tips for Retiring Rich: A Guest Post

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Sharon Harvey Rosenberg is the author of The Frugal Duchess of South Beach: How to Live Well and Save Money... Anywhere! , which will be published in the Spring of 2008 by DPL Press.

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