Earth Day. The only holiday that somehow doesn’t have a college drinking game associated with it. So, since you’re sober, why not take a moment to  save the planet. Or at least support companies that are making their own attempts to go green.

The following 5 companies are all my favorite eco-friendly brands. These are brands that include being kind to the earth in their manifesto and take steps towards “greenifying” their processing, despite the hike in cost. Often, they supply products on or above par with their less eco-minded competitors and are definitely worth a look!

Make Mother Nature proud and check ‘em out (just make sure you have your credit card handy!):

What other earth friendly companies should we know about? Sound off below!

Nothing brightens up an ugly rainy day like bold, colorful rain boots. Especially on those icky, brooding, stormy days where going to class seems like a life or death decision. That’s where Kamik comes in!

Kamik, a Canadian footwear company, manufactures the very rain boots that make a gray day that much brighter! Not only are they beautiful, they’re also functional. They’re waterproof, have great traction, and have soft, insulated Polartec on the inside of the boots to keep your feet warm and dry, despite any wind, rain, or snow!

But the coolest part of it all is that they’re made out of completely recycled materials. Can you believe it? The boots 100% recyclable!

The way these boots are made is also amazing. Kamik uses a green hydro-generated power source that uses and reuses the water so there’s practically no waste at all! Also, Kamik has had a long-standing recycling program that rescues scraps and old boots to create fresh pairs. From start to finish, Kamik is completely and 100% eco-friendly! How many other companies can say that?!

And because we think they’re so awesome – and because it’s Earth Day! – we’re going to give one of you, our devoted readers, your very own pair of Kamik rain boots.

How do you win? Read More »

With Earth Day happening tomorrow, we at CollegeCandy have been thinking a lot about our carbon footprint and the many ways we can reduce it. Since there are only a few of us up in here, it’s easy to make small changes that will have a big impact. Like reusing coffee cups and water bottles. And printing on both sides of the paper. And keeping the window closed when the heat or A/C is on.

See? Easy breezy.

But then we think about all our college ladies out there and the campuses you live on with thousands of other students. And all that waste. Between the electricity, food, water, and everything else college students use and toss, colleges waste a lot. Just think of all the lights that are constantly on in every building or the cafeteria food that doesn’t get eaten at the end of the day. There are so many wasted resources on college campuses and until recently, that was just the name of the game. But in the past few years tons of colleges have found ways to combat that, reduce their carbon footprint and be more earth friendly.

Here are just a few things your college might be doing to make Mother Nature proud! Read More »

Well, the week is finally over, and what a week it was. Where do I even begin? Obviously with the amazeballs Glee Madonna episode.  Sue Sylvester is seriously my hero.  Then we found this video of ‘Things I Hate’ that made me laugh until my face hurt more than after prom pictures.  It was also 4/20 and Earth Day, and I killed two birds with one stone by chowing down on Sunchips.

And now, to call the week to a close, we have a whole weekend dedicated to patio happy hours and shopping online for new spring dresses. It’s moments like these that make me happy I have a little money store in the bank.

Ahhh, the good life. Summer is really inching closer and closer and I can already smell the burnt hot dogs in the air. But before you get wrapped up catching up on Glee (they’re airing it again tonight for the many of us who missed the last few minutes thanks to stupid American Idol) or diving into the spring dresses tab on the J. Crew website (color me guilty), take a look at the awesome week that was.

- We are wondering, if Noah can chase Allie (and hang on a Ferris Wheel to get her attention) why can’t women do the same without looking like complete creepers?

- Are sick days included in the real world?  Eh, not so much.

- We argued the reasons why women shouldn’t wait for sexy time.

- Cosmopolitan came out with a ‘Sexy Issue’ this month. Yee-haw! But after reading it, we think it should be re-named the ‘Silly Issue.’ Read More »

Although yellow is in the forecast as a hot color this spring, the real question is this: Why go yellow when you can go green?

Especially when Green is so chic!

Functional and fashionable, products are coming out all over the place, making it easier than ever to be sustainable and stylish. With stuff like this, the “green” movement is something we can all embrace. So, in honor of Earth Day, here are eight eco-friendly products that have stolen the heart of Mother Nature this season:

8. Little Kay Gardens Pre Seeded Gift Wrap: Looking to wrap up a gift for a graduate this May? Wrapping paper has never been this environmental before. Little Kay Gardens produces a flowered gift wrap, with seeds embedded in the tissue paper. After the gift is unwrapped, the giftee can plant the paper in the ground and sprout some beautiful flowers. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving.

7. John Masters Organics: There is no better feeling than the one a good skincare product can give, leaving your face feeling fresh and clean. Throw “eco-friendly” into the mix and a winning skin product comes to the forefront. John Masters Organics skincare has won several awards including Tree Hugger.com’s  2010 “Best Of Green Award.” With over 30 products, John Masters is prided on harvesting wild-crafted ingredients that give your skin a natural and beautiful look.

6) Scott and Gabs: Heading to the grocery store? Don’t you dare leave the dorm without your Scott and Gabs reusable bags. A personal favorite of mine, Scott and Gabs is revolutionizing the reusable bag trend with cute and compacted products. Shipped in packs of four and adorned with trendy designs, these bags prove that going green and having fun are meant to be in the same sentence. Purchase your bags over at www.ScottandGabs.com and make everyone else’s groceries jealous! Read More »

With Earth Day coming up (cue the Al Gore/whales/rainbows/wind technology montage) I took it upon myself to make a few Green changes in my life. I’ve swapped my regular lightbulbs for CFLs, picked up a few reusable grocery bags and started unplugging my electronics/appliances when I’m not using them. These are teensy little changes to my everyday life that are proven to have a very big impact on the planet. Go me.

I started looking around for more ideas of things I could do for the plant and came across a ton of student groups and entire universities that have dedicated themselves to Going Green. After realizing how awful my own school is when it comes to the planet (we’d be better off shipping students off to burn entire rain forests), I was totally inspired by a few colleges that have taken “Going Green” into their own hands. Seeing what these students can do makes me want to do so much more. Read More »

Did you do your part to celebrate Earth Day this year? Maybe you showered with your man to conserve water or skipped the cardboard sleeve on your Starbucks to reduce paper waste. As for me, I went to a showing of DisneyNature’s new documentary film, Earth.

If you are into the kind of documentaries that make you feel incredibly guilty for living a lifestyle full of gas guzzling cars, 30 minute hot showers and an “ignorance is bliss” attitude, then this movie is not for you! Going in, I expected a deep-voiced narrator (most-likely Morgan Freeman) to describe how keeping my laptop charger plugged in is contributing to the deaths of adorable, innocent baby polar bears, but was pleasantly surprised at the opposite.

This film didn’t make me feel like a bag of crap for living in a world of consumerism. There was no finger pointing and guilt tripping here! However, the gorgeous views from around the world (and the stories of amazing animals) did make me think twice about not recycling my Red Bull. Instead of laying it on thick about the importance of what humans can do to help the planet, the narrator takes the viewer on a trip around the globe to educate you on the things we forget even exist.

Did you know that the Rainforest makes up only 3% of our land mass, but contributes more than 50% of our Earth’s oxygen? Not only did that fact blow my mind, but it inspired me to spend a Saturday not hungover in bed, but outside planting a garden instead.

But the facts and information presented were nothing compared to the film’s photography; I have never seen ocean water so crystal clear or trees so lushly green. Imagine what it would be like to take a helicopter tour over Hawaii and you can get an idea of what watching this movie was like. I especially loved the time lapsed sequences when you could watch a flower bloom in seconds and see an entire continent turn green with growth. My mouth hung open in awe at what our planet can do!

Oh, and the animals!  Watching the baby polar bears play in the snow had my heart melting along with the ice caps; and nothing is cuter than a furry little butt (as long as it’s on an animal and not my man).

The OCD bird who was obsessed with cleaning up his nest to attract a female had me cracking up in my seat. I barely know any guys who would go to the trouble of picking up a sock, let alone scour his room to spic-and-span standards! Those “chicks” in the forest have it made! When you’re not laughing at the birds, you’ll be rooting for several animal families as they run from predators and risk their lives in search of food and shelter. After learning that elephants trek for over a month just to find a drink of water, you’ll never hear me complain about a 3 mile run again (well, maybe).

If you haven’t gone to see this film yet, I am urging you to run out and buy a ticket. This is one documentary that is anything but boring and won’t have you feeling guilty when you do have to print out that 10 page essay or go for a drive. You’ll be cracking up at the animals, mouthing “WOW” at the gorgeous sights and become inspired to do your part to keep our world as beautiful as it has always been.

Don’t forget to stay for the ending credits! You can catch a hilarious blooper of the filmmakers crashing into a tree in their hot-air balloon. High comedy, I promise!

This week may have been the best week ever.  For starters, people celebrated 4/20 on Monday.  Tuesday (probably the best day ever) was both Iced Coffee Day at Dunkin Donuts® AND Free Scoop Day at Ben and Jerry’s®.  Plus, on Wednesday, we celebrated Earth Day!  We learned why college students should go green, which is easier than you’d think.  And now we can keep the celebration going this weekend with an eco-friendly gathering, where we will have to lay off the booze so as not to become the drunk girl.

Also, this week was the first week that, at least for a lot of the country, it actually felt like spring—which makes us (and squirrels) want to party!  So throw on that new organic cotton sundress, paint your nails hot pink, and have fun!  Plus, we all know that spring puts us in a sexy mood (you’re probably stalking your crush’s Facebook page while you read this, right?), and now we know exactly how to find that new guy.

With all the fun we’ve been having this week, it’s going to be hard to get back to writing that paper we’ve been putting off. But we must, or we may regret it later.

Happy late Earth Day! You probably don’t think of tech gadgets when you think of saving the planet but you should. I mean think about how many new cell phones you’ve gotten in the past two years. For most people it’s at least two (or more if you’re accident/drop-in-the-toilet prone).

Where do you think your old phones go? There’s no magical cell phone farm where they go to live out their last days in a texting spree. It’s more like a industrial landfill where they sit until the end of time.

And well that’s just not great for the Earth. The amount of tech junk that’s hanging out would make Captain Planet cry.

So what can you do to help with that? Well, you could buy less stuff, but that’s not too realistic. Especially with all the cool shiz that comes out monthly (thank you, Apple!) and the short life many of our gadgets have.

So what can you do? Why recycle, of course! Read More »

Here are some quick and simple steps from two…er…lovely ladies on saving water and using it wisely. Once you get past the unsightly upper-lip hair and interesting makeup choices, these girls provide some useful information.

Just another easy way to give somethin’ back to Mama Earth.