Lifestyles

EDITORMICHELE PAULSE |

MARCH 16, 2017 |

THE VOICE 5

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Students mix ingredients of their choice using stainless steel bowls and rubber spatulas to make their own special bars of soap. /4uR4 BROUGHAM PHOTO

DIY soap reflects values

Sudsy class ditches unwanted products and footprint

li By LAURA BROUGHAM

aking handmade soap is

an option for vegetar-

ians who prefer to use

high quality cleansers
that do not have animal-based ingre-
dients.

People can make soap with plant and
vegetable fats because the product they
make agrees with their lifestyles and
complements their principles.

“[People come to the workshops]
because of the quality and the process
and the control they have over the in-
gredients, not necessarily because it’s
vegetarian,” said Kate Duda, the owner
of Plenty + Spare, a Vancouver-based

soap-making company.

“You can make an incredibly high-

don’t want to be using animal products
on my skin,” said Bigler, who works at

quality soap with any kind of scrap Cambridge Uniforms.

animal fats that .— = Conventional
you've sourced “T don't eat meat, SO I soaps that are
locally, and in ' . bought in gro-
that case you've don t want to be using cery shops don't
reduced your . necessarily have
shipping foor- | animal products on My | animal products
print, you've ow but they also
reduced your skin. might not have
packaging foot- — JENNIFER BIGLER, PURCHASER the natural glyc-
print, you've “~~ erine that gives

avoided palm oil, that sort of thing,”

Duda said. She teaches the soap-mak-
ing class.

The option to make soap with plant
oils attracted Jennifer Bigler.

“Tm vegetarian, I don’t eat meat, so I

soap a smooth texture.

“Because it’s handmade there’s
natural glycerine in the soap, [and]
there’s no added unnecessary ingredi-
ents,” Duda said. She was explaining
the main difference between conven-

tional soap sold at a grocery store and
handmade soap. Buying soap-making
ingredients at a bulk supply shop can
be less expensive than getting them at a
grocery store. Duda encourages people
to get equipment they'll need to make
soap at home, at a second-hand store.

Rick Havlak, owner of Homestead
Junction, where the soap-making work-
shop is taught, said the class is impor-
tant because it lets people become more
familiar with a product they use every-
day.

“Soap making was actually one of the
first workshops we offered, back in 2012
when we first opened,” Havlak said.

“Almost everybody uses [soap], and
almost nobody really understands how
it’s made.”

Irrigation boosts

IRRIGATION COMPONENTS |

lan Griffiths will talk about the different hoses and valves that are used in an
irrigation system during his workshop on March 23. sugiiTTED PHOTO

H20 efficiency

Drip and flow
systems help
gardens during
water shortages

i By KURTIS GREGORY

ardens without water-saving
systems will suffer most dur-
ing water shortages.

During Stage 3 water restrictions in
Vancouver in the summer of 2015 —
the first in 12 years — gardeners had to
use drip irrigation or water by hand.

Irrigation systems can be installed in
small and medium sized gardens and
deliver water directly onto or near the
root system to control water use and
keep gardens green during drought
conditions.

Lee Valley Tools on Marine Drive
will hold a free irrigation workshop on
March 23.

“At Stage 3, when it comes to any
watering hook ups, you're not allowed
to use any soaker hoses, you're not al-
lowed to use garden sprinklers," said
Ian Griffiths, a longtime gardener who
teaches the workshop. "So if you have
a proper irrigation system set up to a
drip-type system, you're good to go.”

Jody Baker, a member of the Strath-

cona Community Gardens, remembers
when the Stage 3 water restrictions
went into place and the city shut off the
gardens’ water supply.

“Everyone was affected, it wasn't just
us,” Baker said. “It wasn’t that long, it
was just a couple of weeks as I recall.
I think some stuff died, things kind of
went sideways.”

The system, a free-drip and low-flow
irrigation set-up, that Griffiths teaches
in his workshop can be made to drip
anywhere from four litres an hour to
around a 100 litres an hour.

“That’s an awful lot of water,” said
Laura Doheny, store manager at Hunt-
ers Garden Centre.

Depending on the number of hoses
and valves that are set-up in the system,
where each valve is dropping 10 litres
per hour, she said it could easily exceed
100 litres per hour, she said.

Egan Davis, a horticulturalist at
UBC, says conventional watering meth-
ods can be wasteful if not done properly.

“If you've got a hose and a wand and
it’s on full blast, then in half an hour
you can use 1,500 litres of water,” Davis
said.

However, according to Davis, drip ir-
rigation remains the most efficient way
to water plants.

Davis said gardeners should learn
how to do it right, so they can reduce
the amount of water wasted on their
gardens. The workshop might be a
good place to start.

Yoga
takes
on grief

Loss resolved
through yin
practice, joint
movements

li By CASS LUCKE

earning to cope with the physi-

cal, social and mental effects

of loss can become easier with

yoga, especially if facing that grief is
part of the practice.

Grief integration yoga gives the be-
reaved space and time to work through
the complex effects of loss. An instruc-
tor at Karma Teachers Centre for Yoga
and Meditation started GIY to deal
with her own challenges.

“T was going through intense times in
my own life, all I wanted was a space
where it was okay to break down,” said
Juniper Quin, who began teaching GIY
in 2014.

The yoga class uses vocal exercises,

“Tt's meant to
broaden your mind
and relax you, like
this class just did.”

—JOSCHA BRANGS, GIY STUDENT

simple joint rotation, yin yoga and
focused breathing to help students
through different aspects of grief over a
period of six weeks.

"The whole purpose of the practice is
to create a stable, safe space where the
student can witness themselves feeling
big emotions,” Quin said.

Karla Helbert, a therapist, trained
yoga instructor and bereaved mother,
said, “yoga is all about ritual, and ritual
really helps us to process and connect
with our own hearts and the world
around us. Grief is a process that really
demands ritual.”

Joscha Brangs who has taken the
class three times, said grief yoga left
him feeling more serene than any other
yoga practice he has tried.

“Yoga isn’t meant to be a workout,”
Brangs said. “It’s meant to broaden your

mind and relax you, like this class just
did for me.”

Helbert said GIY offers a less intense
approach than counselling.

“In grief, all the parts of who we are,
are hugely impacted,” she said. “All the
different practices of yoga address all
the different issues a grieving person
goes through.”

Each GIY focuses on different as-

pects of grieving.

Simple yoga poses help students to
resolve their grief. cass iucKE PHOTO