226

 Danish winter skincare

My skin gets very dry here in the Nordics in winter. I've been using bar soaps for many years, and this is something I continue to use for my body, hands and face. This is the only cleanser that doesn't dry out or irritate my skin. I live with an autoimmune skin condition, and I've noticed that using very simple, natural products works best for me. I buy bar soap from small, local, independent businesses. These bars come without packaging or with minimal paper packaging. At times, I used to use oil (jojoba, almond, rosehip or argan) on my face but as I moved countries rather often in the past three years, I started using a salve/balm instead. I would usually get balms from small, local, independent businesses wherever I was. These balms are made from simple ingredients, and the one I am using now is made from shea butter, olive oil and beeswax. I use it on my face, body and hands. I could make a balm like this myself, but I don't want to get raw ingredients as I wouldn't use them up. I prefer to buy fresh balms and support independent local businesses. 

There are still a few natural products packaged in plastic that I and the fellow human I live with have. We intend to finish those products too, recycle the packaging and not buy products packaged in plastic again. Some products that are packaged in plastic come from the period in my life when I experienced a lot of stress. Some of them are prescription items. 

225

 Making a list of practices & principles 

Over the years, starting around 2010-2011, I've been on a path of a more ecological living. It's been imperfect and at times I made mistakes. Some practices were there even before 2010, while others are more recent. My practices changed a lot too. For a while, I lived without furniture and electric appliances. I washed everything by hand. When I started living with a fellow human, some things changed, e.g., we got some items of furniture and started using shared washing machines in our building. But many practices remained more or less the same throughout the years. I wanted to put all the practices together in one place in this autoethnography. Because I compiled the list in one go, I will be adding to it. The list is here. I numbered the items in the list for some reason, but the order is not so important. I didn't categorise the items. When I looked at the whole list, I thought that it would be almost impossible for me to restructure my life in one day or one week. Living this way now is a result of many years of spiritual growth, trial and error. It is important to recognise various structures within which I dwell. Some are constraining (e.g., the food system), while others are empowering (alternatives such as swap stations). Some structures are empowering but it is expensive to use them (e.g., public transport here in the Nordics). 

I also added a small list of principles that guide these practices or help me practise ecological living. Perhaps it would be fair to say that there is just one principle, which is love towards the self, human and non-human others, and nature (or generally the cosmos/universe). But then I decided to be more specific. This kind of love my co-author and I call "gentleness", as the word love is often used is the context of love towards another human being.