Eco Carmel

I’m fairly good when it comes to being ‘green’. I recycle, I reuse, and I reduce most of the time – but there is always room for improvement and I could be a lot better. That said, and slight sidebar for a moment, now that I walk to work most days, it’s fantastic how long I can go between filling up the gas tank in my car…I got in the car over the weekend and it was still ¾ of the way full. Love that!

We have made the transition from buying cases of water from Costco to using reusable bottles we fill with water from home, we almost always use reusable bags when we grocery shop at Trader Joes (but for some reason we aren’t very good at using our reusable bags at Safeway), we refill our liquid soap containers instead of buying lots of individual soaps (I do kind of miss the fun smelling soaps from Bath and Body Works), we make coffee at home and put it in reusable to-go mugs (ummm, but we’re far from perfect and still get plenty of coffee from coffee shops!). While I’m glad my family and I are making little steps to reduce our carbon footprint, holy cow we could (and admittedly probably should) do a lot more.

Today’s stop was a wonderful exploration in ways to live a greener and more energy efficient life. Eco Carmel is located on San Carlos between 7^th and 8^th. My first impression upon entering the store was how great it smelled. On a table near the center of the store is a display of beeswax candles. These candles are made using pure essential oil with 100% beeswax and the scents are amazing.

This shop has a wonderful general merchandise store feel – there is a little bit of everything and yet it all works well together. There are sections of eco friendly paints and stains, hardware items and fixtures, bedding and textiles, baby clothes, pet supplies, garden tools, composting barrels, and so much more. The owner, Kristi, was working when we popped in to look around. Kristi has a great eye for selecting the right items for the store and is extremely knowledgeable about all the merchandise.

After visiting the store I looked it up online and was surprised to learn that ‘Eco Carmel is housed within the Stonehouse Terrace, a courtyard shopping and office area owned by [Kristi’s] family since the early 1930’s; originally it was [her] grandparents home.’

The scent of the store was so pleasant that I bought the lemongrass and clove votive candle – and I’ve been burning it while typing this blog posting. It’s my new inspiration scent!