Would you like to learn how to make your own household cleaners, foaming hand soap, and other natural products right at home? WVU faculty member and owner of Natural Home Essentials, Karen Woodfork, can show you how.
On Thursday, October 23, 2014, the fall series of Green Nights at the Library continues with a hands-on workshop for adults and children alike. This fun, do-it-yourself workshop—limited to 15 participants—requires a willingness to learn, payment of a $10 supply fee, and a few of your own small containers and spray bottles to take home what you make.
Woodfork is a faculty member in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the WVU School of Medicine. Her background in toxicology led her to investigate less toxic alternatives to the cleaning and personal care products on store shelves back in 1999. When she could not find the natural cleaners and personal care products she wanted, she decided to start making her own.
In 2008, she founded Natural Home Essentials and currently offers laundry powder, laundry stain remover, vegan lye soap, facial and body soap, body butter, lotion bars, hand cream, and hair conditioner at Mountain People’s Co-op in Morgantown.
“It literally costs pennies to make a bottle of spray cleaner that would cost you several dollars at the store,” she says, “and you can be assured that you know exactly what is in it.”
Commercial spray cleaners, disinfectants, polishes, air fresheners, and other items, she said, can be irritating to the skin, eyes, and lungs, particularly harmful for babies and young children or people with certain medical conditions such as asthma, skin problems, etc. Chemicals found in some of these products can also cause environmental damage and are associated with more serious health risks.
Karen teaches workshops on how to make your own natural cleaners and personal care products. She loves to share the news about how simple and inexpensive it is to “do it yourself,” and how much fun it can be to create your own custom products for your personal and household needs.
Residents of all ages in the Morgantown area are welcome to attend the workshop (children should be accompanied by an adult). To pre-register or for more information, write Pamela Cubberly at Pamela@Cubberly.net or call 703-218-5417. The workshop will run from 6:00pm to 7:30pm at the downtown public library (373 Spruce Street) in Meeting Room A. Parking is available across the street and at a nearby parking structure.
Targeting the average citizen, Green Nights at the Library is a series of presentations, workshops, and resource nights on green topics that will continue monthly at the downtown public library through Spring 2015.
The Morgantown Municipal Green Team is a group of citizens that advises the City of Morgantown on matters relating to sustainability in public policy, planning, education, departmental management, development, and evaluation of environmental and energy-related issues. For more information, please visit www.morgantowngreenteam.org. The Green Team also runs the Facebook Group “Green Morgantown” at this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/greenmorgantown.