Putting oil on your face can be an odd concept, let alone odd feeling when you apply it for the first time. Most organic moisturisers, cleansers and toners have oil bases anyway so applying an oil on its own shouldn't feel too foreign on the skin, especially once it has absorbed.

There's a big misconception out there that facial oils give you spots but this simply isn't true. Plant oils are actually closer to your skins molecular structure than complex lotions, particularly those that contain synthetic ingredients. The body produces it's own oil of course so it recognises the similar structure and can absorb it more effectively.

The other great thing about facial oils are they don't need preservatives because bacteria cannot breed in oil, only in water. Many with sensitive skin often try to avoid preservatives which is why the facial oil is a good candidate for moisturising their skin.

A few good organic ones are:
• Rose and Vanilla Face Oil by Spiezia is quickly absorbed into the skin and makes a good protective base for your make-up or on it's own to guard you skin against wind and adverse weather condition. Certified by the Soil Association this is a pure oil containing only four ingredients: jojoba oil, rose essential oil, vanilla and wheatgerm oil.
• Rejuvenating Facial Oil by Green People is also certified organic. Rich in Omega-3 & 6 and antioxidants this oil helps to reduce wrinkles and premature ageing. Key active ingredients: hemp seed oil, pomegranate oil, Vitamin E and myrrh oil.
• Orange Flower Organic Facial Oil by Neal's Yard is, you guessed it, certified organic. The Green Beauty Bible say using this oil you notices the ‘extra smoothness and plumpness' on your skin as well as ‘less fine lines, more bounce and a feeling of ease' (we think that means more smooth and less tight!).

Part 3... A Model for a Greener City?

Now may be a good time to bring up the-man-that-burns part of Burning Man. A man does indeed burn but tis of the woody structural kind rather than the flesh and bones variety. At the end of this week-long festival the great man, which stands at the centre of the desert camp, is lit up as a symbol of release (emotional, spiritual or whatever you'd like it to represent). But of course, as the burning of things does require, it also releases a whole lot of carbon into the atmosphere.

This festival/community/city is perhaps not yet a model for green living but it does provide a very real and experimental arena to educate yourself on how to improve and sustain certain aspects of your life in your ‘other home'.

We cannot escape climate change any longer. Changes of another kind must happen if we are to improve our planets potentially dire affair. Which is why, perhaps, the Burning Man school of eco education may be about to get a whole lot greener... in a philosophical kind of way. The theme of this year's burn is Evolution. Here, as the Burning Man web team puts forward to us, is the idea behind this theme:

Nature never made a plan, nor does it seem to copy very well. No living thing is ever quite the same as others of its kind. Charles Darwin called this Natural Variation. There is a kind of subtle chaos, a supple element of chance and change, residing at the core of living things. Our theme this year prompts three related questions: What are we as human beings, where have we come from, and how may we adapt to meet an ever-changing world?

I'll report back in a few weeks to let you know if I come up with any answers. In the mean time for more details and images of this extremely (in all senses of the world) extraordinary festival visit www.burningman.com.

Part 2... The Green Man of Burning Man

This is my second Burning Man so I know something of what I'm in for. Two years ago I went to the 2007 Burning Man where the art theme the year was ‘The Green Man' (a big incentive for me to attend in itself). This year the community delved into exploring the self-sustaining ethos and eco credentials of Burning Man - which, as you may have gathered, is a burning, carbon-emitting event.

One word - MOOP - gives you an idea of the ecological ideals of this festival. Matter Out Of Place is everyone's responsibility - reuse it, recycle it, as a last resort, bin it. But you won't find bins scattered all over this desert. No, this is truly the Nevada Desert, not some theme-park-the-cleaners-will-deal-with-later place. Burning Man is a Leave No Trace Event and everyone is expected to clean up their own act. It can be a hard reality of sustainable living - dealing with your own... errr... rubbish. Here, every little bit of scrap you create or bring you must also take home! After a week of desert shenanigans the potential to take home a trailer load is possible if you don't plan well.

Bicycles and art cars are the only form of transport other than your own two feet to get around. Thankfully this desert playa is hard clay not soft sand. Riding a bike around the desert is something else. You feel like a cross between a Mad Max movie extra and a Traveling Wilbury. You can ride from the dusty desert roller skating rink to the Crude Awakening art piece within minutes on your trusty bike. There's just so much to explore that two wheels can help no end.

Always working to reduce the environmental impact, The Green Man, took the opportunity to find solutions to improve it further. Burning Man is a place of experimentation as much as it is play and survival, and tends to attract some of the worlds most innovative, progressive thinkers. For example one year hundreds of pastel green bikes were gifted to the community and spread around the playa for anyone to pick up, borrow and re-lend anytime, anywhere (very handy and ingenious idea indeed). Rumour has it was the founder of a certain giant search engine (rhymes with boogle), a burner himself, who made the drop.

Some of the ingenious green inventions and eco highlights at 2007's Green Man were the solar photovoltaic panels to power the Green Pavilion (an all-eco education area under the man); 11,000 gallons of petroleum were replaced with reclaimed veggie oil from nearby Reno to power 85% of the cities generators; experimental biofuel technologies, including a greenhouse-gas eating algae; and The Mechabolic, a trash-to-fuel land speed racer art car that produces a potent carbon fertilizer by feeding it organic matter (in other words, it runs on food scraps).

Another green project inspired by the earth guardian ethos of Burning Man is the Cooling Man. Initiated by an environmental scientist and an economist, this project aims to encourage burners to buy ‘carbon offsets' to cancel out the greenhouse gas emissions generated during the festival. It has been estimated that if every burner offsets 0.7 tons of carbon then Black Rock City would be the first carbon-neutral city in the world.

Part 1... About Burning Man

Each year at the end of August a community of 45,000 artists, musicians, eco-warriors, children, bankers, drag queens, inventors, locksmiths, bakers, candlestick makers (anyone with a heart to share and spirit to play), descends on a quiet Nevada playa* to build Black Rock City... and then tear it down 1 week later (*a playa is the desert earth we doeth tread; a prehistoric alkaline lake bed to be precise).

The Black Rock Desert of Nevada, USA is where my six-month travelling odyssey down the Americas begins. Why Nevada? Why the desert? Two words: Burning Man - the global mother of all festivals.

Now the name doesn't do wonders for witches or those with a rampant fear of fire, I agree, but let me tell you, when I hear those two words I'm filled with utter joy and a comforting bliss no other place on earth has done for me yet. It's a reminder of home, a place where money has no value and running free is the name of the game.

Art installations spotted around a fairly barren desert landscape take you both back to your childhood and into the future at the same time. The thing is, trying to describe this festival is somewhat of a futile endeavour; anyone who's ever been has sprouted the words ‘it's hard to explain' and almost as many have said ‘it's a life changing' experience. Burning Man is just one of those magical places that you have to see and live, in order to believe and appreciate.

The spirit of Burning Man lies in its gifting economy; participation and volunteering are a part of your every day play. Cash doesn't count here. You have got to bring your week long supplies of food and water if you want to survive. It has been said if you were to walk into the Nevada Desert with nothing more than the hair on your head near the end of August you will come out trumps from the generosity and survival skills of ‘burners' - people ‘dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance'.

One of the best things in life is good food. One of the best things about Organic Fortnight is the Organic Food Festival in Bristol. Not only is it a chance to taste the best of organic mouth watering creations but also a chance to learn more about the ways we can all help to build a sustainable global community.

Hundreds of delicious samples will be on offer in the street market and food pavilions. Riverford Organic Vegetables, The Village Bakery, Doves Farm Foods and The Chocolate Alchemist are some of the food vendors who will be exhibiting and offering their tasty treats at the festival. There is also an Organic Bar (stocked with plenty of organic wines, ales and ciders) and the Bordeaux Quay Cooking Demonstrations where the UKs best chefs will be showing us how to make easy, affordable organic dishes.

The Organic Gardening Pavilion will provide tips on how to create and then get the best out of you very own organic veggie patch. If you don't have a garden at home allotment networks will also be there to offer help on finding and working your own plot of land.

The festival also a dedicated area to organic and eco living. From the best organic skin care and cosmetic brands (Green People, Madara, Spiezia) to the most beautiful ethical clothes and home ware products (Greenfibres, Luma and Abaca Organic).

Date: Saturday 12th September (10am-6pm) and Sunday 13th September (10am-5pm)
Where: Bristol Harbourside
Cost: £5 entry, free for Soil Association members and children under 16.