the living room

Yesterday I broke a brush with my hair.

It has been two weeks since I used traditional shampoo. Instead, I’ve been using Dr. Bronner’s peppermint castile soap. I stopped because my shampoo wasn’t biodegradable, it had sodium lauryl sulfate, or sodium laureth sulfate and it takes all the stuff that’s supposed to be in your hair out of your hair.

In the first week, I was sort of miserable. From a young age, it was instilled that if I didn’t wash my hair daily, I was dirty. My mom is a super clean-freak, and has always made me feel, inadvertently, like I’m sort of a freak for not being a clean-freak. So, I didn’t tell her I wasn’t “washing” my hair, and she didn’t notice.

Last Sunday, I told Chris that if my hair didn’t feel better by Tuesday, I was going back to good ol’, Earth killing shampoo. See deforestation- I say this because another common soap ingredient, the production of palm oil has been blamed for irreversible damage to our environment.

Anyway, I’ll get off my high horse for a minute to say that I persevered. Literally, on Monday, and I swear, that my hair felt normal again. Once you get past that awful one week threshold, it’s fine. My hair feels thick and heavy and full… But is that bad? I used special shampoos for years trying to get my hair to feel like this. 

Also, let me just say that I have some of the most naturally greasy hair known to man. My hair looks wet when I don’t wash it for one day. Dr. Bronner’s does the trick, though, and makes me look normal.

Anyway, yesterday, I broke a brush with my hair, it’s so thick. Srsly.

So, it looks like I may be going on a trip soon. To help change the world. No big deal. Any places I must visit while in Incheon, Seoul, South Korea? Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but I’d like to be prepared.

Okay, I have some pretty serious things to tell you.

For the past year, I have been using this blog as a catalogue of everything I liked: things I was interested in, wanted to learn about, or things I had made. Over this period of time, I have changed, and so have the things around me, more in my life than ever before.

And so, the things that belong in my Living Room have also changed over the course of the year. Seeing as how this blog’s purpose is to archive all of the things that could, or should, belong in my Living Room, it is time for a few changes. 

Three years ago, I decided to go back to school after two off. Finding my passion, embracing it, and becoming enthusiastic about the future has sparked an innumerable amount of change in my life.

First, let me, finally, officially introduce myself. My name’s Kelli. I’m 25. I am a compulsive shopper who despises mass production, our current consumption patterns, globalization, and consumerism, for the same reasons as all you should, too. How is it possible for me to be a compulsive shopper, you might ask? I feel like I’m programmed to want to shop, to feel the necessity to buy something new when something else gets old, to feel the joy in a new purchase. I also know that I am addicted. However, last summer I participated in a project/experiment called Six Items or Less. I stopped shopping for a month at a time, three times. I only allowed myself to wear six items of clothing (barring undergarments, work uniforms, work out clothes, outerwear, etc.) for a month. I learned, excruciatingly, that I could get along just fine without shopping. Unfortunately, I still get that spark when I see something I want, and generally, I give in, but I have seriously gotten better. So we’ll talk about that.

I’ve started harnessing the desire to shop into a good cause. I’ve started thrifting and antiquing and re-selling items on Etsy. I mean, who wants to go to the mall and buy a shirt for which there are multiples upon multiples in neat little rows? I do, a little, but I’m using that desire to shop to promote shopping for things that already exist (and are usually way more fantastic than what you can find at malls and boutiques), simultaneously trying to shut down The Man, and his sweat shops and pollution, yada yada yada. Yes, I’m still shopping, but hopefully inspiring others to buy more unique things, which already exist, have been around for ages, and will still be around for ages to come. We’ll for sure talk about that.

I’m a designer, currently in school at Herron School of Art and Design for Visual Communication Design, which I love, am unwaveringly passionate about, and fervently believe can change the world. Lots of this will be addressed.

I’ve started Designing My Life into what I want it to be. The most ridiculous thing in life to me is when people don’t like certain Things in their life and do nothing to remedy said Things. Design has the power to change anything you want to adjust in the world if you go about it the right way. Anyway, things are constantly changing around me these days, but because I’m making them and asking them to. I’m working on it, and becoming fabulously happier everyday. I’ve quit the job I had for seven years, I’ve stopped using shampoo (as of yesterday) because I hate the crap that’s in it, I’ve donated hundreds of things to Goodwill (thanks to Six Items or Less for inspiring), and I’ve given myself an insane amount of free time to work on these things and myself. I’m committing to writing more, reading more, working less, thinking and making more, changing, changing, changing, and this is an evolution I think should be shared with the world.