Today we have a few essential oil recipes to help keep your home sparkling clean and fresh smelling.

Toilet Deodoriser
Mix two drops each of rosemary, tea tree, eucalyptus and grapefruit essential oils and place on the inner ring of your toilet bowl. This will freshen your bathroom without harsh chemicals or using noticeable plastic freshners.

Carpet Cleaning
Blend one drop each of lavender, bergamot, lemon and grapefruit essential oils with talc powder. Sprinkle onto carpet and leave it on for ten minutes then vacuum up. This is a great carpet deodoriser.

Furniture Polish
Melt one cup of beeswax then add two cups of turpentine and two tablespoons of soap dissolved in two cups of boiling water. Finally add ten drops of your favourite essential oil to scent. This mix will protect and rejuvenate the tired looking wood on your furniture.

Draw Liner for Linen
Soak cupboard liner or paper strips with equal parts of lavender, chamomile, marjoram and rosemary and place amongst linen in storage space. This will keep your organic whites smelling fresh.

Besides the very valuable medicinal properties to heal the mind and body, essential oils can be very useful in other parts of our lives. Other blogs that we have done on essential oils have focused on the healing benefits for the individual but we thought it would be a good idea to offer other effective and ultra simple ways to take advantage of the ancient practice of aromatherapy.

Anyone can be an aromatherapist with a little bit of research. We have taken the study out of the research and have some gorgeous organic essential oil blends for you in a series of five blogs: Essential Oil Mixes for Home, Essential Oil Mixes for Garden, Essential Oil Mixes for Setting the Mood, Essential Oil Mixes for the Great Outdoors and Essential Oil Mixes for Your Pets.

If you do decide to start your own collection of essential oils make sure you keep them in a cool place, in dark glass bottles. Keep an eye on the use by date. It's best to buy small quantities at a time as each time a bottle is opened the oil is exposed to oxygen, which accelerates the deterioration and therefore the effectiveness of the oil.

Once you've tried a few mixes you'll probably want to experiment with your own. It's quite fun to play perfumer and discover your own original scents.

Happy mixing!

Well yes there are and they are quite spectacular. Inhabitat.com has photographed a collection of brilliant eco friendly tree houses from across the globe. They've captured the unusual and the enchanted.

There's the 4Treehouse that sits amongst the fir trees of Lak Muskoka in Ontario. It looks a little like a Japanese lantern on stilts. The design minimizes the impact on the trees and the surrounding natural area. Then there are the Tree Tents designed by Dutch sculptor Dré Wapenaar that were created to help out tree-sitting activists on their missions.

As you can see here these look like droplets of water attached to the trees. Apparently four adults could have a good night sleep in one.

Another of our favourites is the Free Spirit Eco Spheres which are handcrafted from fiberglass and locally sourced wood. They have an electrical line for heating and electricity (from a renewable source of course), are supported by a web like structure and can be accessed via a beautiful spiral staircase wound around the trunk.

Inhabitat.com is a "devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future." Sounds like a sweet bit of green inspiration to us!

If you're interested in getting some help to design and build your dream eco tree house definitely take a look at Blue Forest's portfolio. For a small fortune you can have an amazing tree home all of your own.

If you're like me and have to settle for borrowing a luxury tree house for a short break away, try The Tree House in Scotland. It's a unique eco building built around a whole oak tree. Perfect for a serene break and satisfying those inner-child tree-climbing desires.

This is the first in a series of interviews we'll be doing to highlight people who are committed to the organic movement and care about the impact they have on the environment. It is about people who walk their talk and are honest about what they are doing to make our earth a safer and healthier place to be. What better place to start than the So Organic team - they're an enthusiastic bunch and as I've discovered have the passion for all things virtuous, not just organic!

Today we start with the founder of So Organic, Samantha Burlton.

What's your main role at So Organic Sam?
My main role is being head of the company and generally overseeing everything that we do including the strategy and the direction the company should take. I liaise with new suppliers, deal with PR side of business, talking with journalists and at events as well as looking after the marketing team.

How would you describe So Organics company ethos/philosophy?
Our philosophy is really about being a trusted friend to our customers

3 words to describe So Organic?
Honest, knowledgeable, experienced

What are the most challenging questions you face from suppliers and/or customers in regards to So Organics ‘organic and natural' status?
From suppliers its generally about them questioning our ingredients policy and wanting us to stock things that we don't really agree with. For consumers the challenging questions we get are based on the fact that there is a real lack of knowledge out there about what genuinely constitutes an organic product and what customers mean when they ask for organic products. Many people don't understand that some things just can't be 100% organic all the time. So that's the difficulty, being able to explain to people something is as organic as it can be for its organic type when in fact it might only have 30% of organic ingredients in it.

What certifications do So Organic as a company hold?
We are certified by the Soil Association as an organic health and beauty retailer and textiles retailer.

What is your favourite product in the range and why?
The So Organic body lotion because it smells lovely, the texture is lovely and it moisturises your skin really beautifully. Other favourites are the Evening Primrose Shampoo by John Masters and the Erase Organic Concealer by NVEY Eco - one of the best organic make up products I've found.

What is your definition of organic?
Something where the plant based ingredients or the agricultural ingredients have been grown to strict organic standards without the use of pesticides.

What is your favourite organic brand excluding your own?
Probably the Riverford Organic Box Scheme because I think what they're doing in terms of locally produced organic food and getting it out at an affordable price to the British public is absolutely fantastic, and the quality of their products is brilliant.

What environmental issues are of most concern to you?
Local sourcing is a prime concern for me. It makes me really angry when we're importing things from thousands of miles away when we're able to produce them in the UK from both an environmental point of view and a human angle. We've driven thousands of UK farmers out of business by wanting cheaper imports. We could help our environment and local population if we started to buy more local products.

Would that stop you from stocking overseas products?
Yeah, we make decisions about stocking products based on numerous things. We take into account where things come from. We look at it on a case-by-case basis. But pretty much the rule is, something has to be pretty unique or absolutely best in class for us to be willing to import it from a long way away rather than get it close to home. For example we decided we'd discontinue selling the Tushies baby wipes because they come all the way from America and we have at least three other brands that are produced in Europe or the UK and there's no need to do that. Something like the NVEY eco makeup which comes from Australia or the Trilogy skin care range which comes from New Zealand - both of those are best in class products and exceptionally high performance and I think this justifies bringing them in. As well as the fact that Trilogy is completely carbon neutral and it makes offsets in order to counteract the impact of moving their products. Also they ship rather than airfreight.

What natural beauty issues are you most concerned with?
The avoidance of ingredients like parabens, particularly synthetic fragrance, which is really irritating to people with sensitive skin, plus people with allergies and asthma. I'm most concerned about brands like Johnson and Johnson putting products on the market and calling them things like ‘soothing naturals' when they contain virtually no natural ingredients whatsoever - that's really misleading for consumers.

What latest innovations in regards to the environment have grabbed your interest?
Products that are made from recycled materials. It's not just enough that we're recycling we need to be buying things that are made from recycled materials. Things like the Remarkable products that are made from recycled plastic and car tyres are fabulous. Making things that are not brand new. Brands like Patagonia who make clothes from recycled bottles. I think that's the kind of thing that needs to be encouraged.

What is you worst eco habit?
Leaving too many lights on.

Who's your eco role model?
Guy Watson who founded Riverford Organic. He's been so strong with rejecting working with supermarkets because of the way they were treating him and their attitude to business and he's had the strength to decide the way he'd like to do things, stay true to his principles and still build a very successful business. And he's not been afraid to say what he thinks.

How do you envision the world in 30 years time from an environmental perspective?
What I really hope happens is that because of climate change issues we start taking the environment a lot more seriously, that we'll all be recycling a lot, that we'll all be shopping locally. We'll all be buying products that have a lower impact on the planet and consuming fewer, better quality products. That's what I'd like it to be like. I don't know if it will be. I think that we have a really big opportunity but it's going to be a battle against the rampant consumerism from those who want more and more for cheaper and cheaper prices all the time. The alternative is too horrible to think about.

By its very name, a cooperative (or co op) is a virtuous enterprise. Owned by the workers, growers, producers, or consumers a food co op is the coming together of community food projects. They are created to service the local community by providing affordable, fresh fruit and vegetables to people who don't have access to sustainable food shops close to their homes. Co ops come in all shapes and sizes - from a fruit and veg stalls set up outside schools or churches to box schemes and mini marts.



There's a great need to improve the sustainability of cooperatives across the UK as the convenience of big supermarkets that fly in cheap produce from across the world often wins out. The London Food Link, with the help of the lottery fund is striving to help co ops be more economically viable to set up and run. They're doing this by developing training packages as well as organising conferences and exchange visits for the mostly volunteer run co ops. These volunteer angels make it easier for those who want to buy local and as direct for the producer or farmer as possible.

The London Food Link is coordinated by Sustain (the alliance campaigning for better food and farming policies in the UK). For more information visit www.sustainweb.org