It's Only Fair

It's not hard to incorporate fair trade into your every day life- you could replace your regular coffee with a fair trade brand, shop fair trade for gifts, and wear fair trade clothing. But is it possible to live your whole life fairly? Probably not, but how close can you get to that? In this post, I'll be going through an average day and taking some of the little things you and I use everyday and seeing how many of them could be fair trade.

"Getting Ready" products:

After some extensive searching, I think I may have found one of the best companies ever. It's called The Body Shop, and they're so committed to fair trade, they set up their own organization called Community Trade, which helps them ensure that they use fair trade products as often as possible. After checking out their website, I'm convinced that you can get anything you could ever need to get ready in the morning and then some. They have lotions and soaps and hair products and make up and fragrances and even a men's shop. I was really impressed with the variety they carry and that the prices weren't astronomically high - in fact, they're competitive with prices I've seen from non-fair trade companies for higher quality products. Though I haven't tried any of their products yet, I'm planning on it.

Here's their website: http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com

Clothing: 

I know I've mentioned them before, but I love People Tree. They're very fashion forward and for what you're getting, I think the prices are amazing (they show up as British pounds on the site, so make sure you convert them to dollars when you're shopping!). But what about other brands? Check out this website here. It's a huge directory of fair trade brands from all over the world. If you're really into fashion and fair trade, I'd definitely check it out.

Food:

What could be more fair than buying local? Not only are you buying fresh foods, but you're also helping out local farmers in your community - that's a win-win. Easiest way to do that? Go to a Farmer's Market, where the vendors are all in one place. Since many of One Fair World's customers are Salem locals, here's the link to the Salem Saturday Market website.



Those are the things I go through on a daily basis. Little things. And looking through what I've found, it's definitely possible to replace a ton of those little things in your life with fair trade things. As far as living a completely fair life though - nearly impossible in the society we live in. There are no fair trade cars or refrigerators or computers. Not yet at least, and even if there were, would average people be able to afford them? I doubt it unless there are some big changes, and those don't happen overnight. The point of this post wasn't to show the impossibility of a fair trade lifestyle; it was to show that it was more possible than you'd think, just in little ways.