Shoptalk

If you've recently been on Halifax Kijiji you may have seen this odd listing: "Gold imported toilets 4 left!!!"

The popular ad, which was recently removed from the website, displayed a white-and-gold, floral-patterned throne—a far cry from the stark white pots us lowly peasants are wont to piss in.

Each toilet, according to the seller, is valued at $1,200 regular price, comes with "wax ring, flush," is in an unopened box and is "extremely rare." But, a Google search for "gold toilets" reveals these lustrous loos may not be as "rare"—or expensive—as the ad suggested.

On Alibaba.com, identical fancy flushers can be yours for $85 to $220 USD ($113-$294 CAD), a fraction of the Kijiji asking price. According to the website, the dual-flushing toilets are manufactured in China by Foshan Haiyijia Co., Ltd. and are only gold-painted ceramic—not real gold. If you were excited about giving your butt a real gold crown, think again.

Gazing at the toilet (pictured, right) long enough, you might think, wait, I've seen these before. That's because identical toilets are installed at Garden Food Bar & Lounge on Clyde Street downtown. It's there that you can try the full, luxury experience—sort of. The shiny, gold seats are actually made of hard, gold-coloured plastic. And like most public washrooms, they're in need of a clean.

If you're looking for a real, solid-gold toilet, you're shit out of luck. Actual gold toilets are reserved for the elite. Consider "America," an 18-karat, fully-functioning, solid-gold toilet installation by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which was stolen last year from Britain's Blenheim Palace (Winston Churchill's birthplace).

Sadly, many of us can't live like Churchill—or anywhere in HRM for that matter (see: one percent rental-vacancy rate). But if you want to spice up your drab bathroom, or you want to give yourself a false sense of wealth and importance, these faux-gold toilets may be the answer.

Filmmaker Phyllis Ellis hopes to send you scrambling to the shower to search out labels on your soap and shampoo. After all, her eye-opening documentary Toxic Beauty (trailer below; streaming now on CBC Gem) not only follows the class-action suit against Johnson & Johnson—and the company's cancer-linked baby powder—but Ellis also uncovers an unregulated amalgam of alarming toxicity in many over-the-counter personal-care products.

"I don't think the onus should be on the consumer to decipher a label with a word that has 750 letters," says the filmmaker. "I do think, keep it simple."

Here, we round up some of the worst offenders in your morning routine and drop local, non-toxic alternatives worth considering.

Shampoo

"If you look on a label and see the word 'fragrance' or 'parfum,' don't use it," insists Ellis of most shampoos. "Fragrance in a product is proprietary so the company that makes that brand does not have to disclose what's in that word (which) can contain 200 to 1,000 chemicals."

That means the best way to make all days good hair days is to switch to a shampoo bar, like the Daytona Shampoo Bar available through eco-beauty and zero-waste haven The Tare Shop (5539 Cornwallis Street). The Daytona bar is SLS-, paraben- and phthalate-free and gets your 'do clean without stripping it of its natural oils.

Deodorant

"When we had the film screen in London, [breast cancer researcher] doctor Philippa Darbre told the audience 'I would not let anyone I love use deodorant,'" says Ellis.

Maybe it's time to give your drug store tube a break and go for an aluminum- and phthalate-free option, like Earth Elements Natural Deodorant. The company, a Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market staple, is big into proving clean and green aren't in opposition, with an extensive range of body powder, soaps and home cleaning agents stocked alongside deodorant in scents like lemon grass and French lavender.

Nail polish

Toluene "is linked to birth defects and all kinds of problems," says Ellis. "Anything that adheres for an extended period of time can't be awesome."

Water-based polish has long been the secret to a fresh mani amongst the hippie set, but formula improvements mean natural polish has more staying power than you'd think. Score a perfect 10 with options free of ethyl acetate, butyl acetate and acetone, like Acquarella nail polish. Find it at the natural-focused spa Bradshaw Pure Esthetics (1556 Queen Street) which, FYI, is a space that's also stocked with 100 percent organic facial masks and serums made in-house.

Face cream

"Anything that lightens your skin has mercury," says Ellis. "And a lot of eye products have coal tar."

Make sure you're keeping your complexion safe by opting for a plant-based option, like Osha Mae's carrot cream. Derived from carrot seed and brimming with essential oils, it's a skin softener that'll still help address aging skin concerns thanks to heavyweight ingredients like argan oil and squalene—ingredients that made skincare giant The Ordinary Company go viral. Hit up Osha Mae at the Seaport Market.

• Nadine Sparks, owner of Unity Hair & Esthetics, will showcase looks at the event.
• SUBMITTED

The Braid Couture Art Show
Feb 15, 8pm
Bus Stop Theatre, 2203 Gottingen Street
braidcoutureshow.com
$35-$45

From ombré hair to pastel colours, hair trends come and go. But braids, from cornrows to the French variety, have long been a hairstyle staple across cultures.

Tara Lynn Taylor is organizer of the Braid Couture Art Show, happening this Saturday at the Bus Stop Theatre, and she wants to broaden everyone's understanding of braiding and textured haircare. "It's for us," she says of the event, "but it's also for non-Black people, so they can see we have our own versatility, we don't need to look like them."

She hopes the event will shed light on the intricate details of textured hair, such as the importance of understanding porosity and density. "There's a science to it," says Taylor. "My products are designed in a way that takes the guesswork out of it."

Taylor is also the owner of Carmalina Naturals, a Halifax-based company that sells natural-haircare products. Along with P3 Hair and Beauty Supplies, she'll be selling natural haircare products in the venue lobby.

Hair stylist and creator of Braids By Tasha, Natasha Stephenson, will be braiding on Saturday night along with with her 12-year-old daughter, Na'siya. Stephenson believes the event will encourage people to get educated about different types of hair and hairstyles.

Stephenson says she'd like the Cosmetology Association of Nova Scotia to place more emphasis on braiding. "It's not only Black folk that can braid," she says. "There's white people, there's Asian people that may want to learn or already know how to do it. Taylor even points out that white parents of bi-racial children may benefit from better understanding how to care for their kids' hair.

This show will also showcase local fashion designers, such as clothing by Hilary Taylor Sears, Hologram Designs and purses and bags by Jaziel Ugbebor. There will also be theatrical, musical and dance performances.

• LOCAL by Local Girl designer Anita Joh sporting some of her wearable art.
• tylerpengelly

LOCAL By Local Girl
To Feb 8
Anna Leonowens Gallery, 1891 Granville Street

W hat does "local" mean, anyway? NSCAD student Anita Joh's artistic persona (and "conceptual brand") LOCAL by Local Girl is an attempt to dig into that question through a series of pop-ups, installations and social-media engagements. The brand includes everyday functional objects, from wearable art pieces like t-shirts and bags to printed matter and book arts.

An institutional setting is new for Joh, however. That makes her grad exhibit, running until Saturday at the Anna Leonowens Gallery, a new experience: "I'm bringing it to the gallery space, which creates a different context," she says. "Everything else has been me popping up in an urban space that I found myself." (Explaining the streetwear vibes that permeate Joh's work.)

The exhibit involves taking gallery posters and invitations, turning them into art pieces themselves. The result? A deeply instagrammable aesthetic that's slick as lipgloss, with Joh sharing a micro-collection that carries an Off-White energy and features mini handbags that read like an edgier take on trendy French designer Jacquemus' micro-accessory.

It is, alongside being a breakdown on what local connections means, a reminder that high fashion and high art have always been RSVPing yes to the same party.

Originally from Vancouver, Joh has lived in Halifax for four years. She associates home with experience, people, community and connections. "You can be local to many places at once, it is okay to bend and adapt that definition to whatever works for you. We all want a sense of belonging and a home but that doesn't have to be geographical or physical, it can be found emotionally and mentally through people," she says.

• Classic games on classic carpet at the Best Western Chocolate Lake.

P inball wizards (and would-be wizards) are invited to Propeller Brewing Company's Propeller Arcade Room (2015 Gottingen Street) beginning at 4pm on Friday, January 31, for the arcade's first birthday party, featuring balloons, $5 beers, $10 t-shirts and lots of ball-flipping action.

Since opening last January with a modest collection of pinball and video games both vintage and new, the Arcade Room has blown Propeller up into one of the city's most eclectic pinball destinations, with brewery employee and pinball mastermind Ian Matheson squeezing in new machines "wherever he can find a few more square feet," says Propeller's Evelyn Hornbeck. It's also become a hub for Halifax Pinball League tournaments, and surprisingly raucous crowds of spectators.

Propeller's party caps off not just a big year for its arcade, but for pinball in general in Halifax, which now boasts eight destinations on pinballmap.com, the pinball scene's digital bible. Five belong to Silverball Games, which started four years ago with an arcade at the Best Western Chocolate Lake (250 St. Margarets Bay Road). Last December, Silverball opened the Pubcade, inside The Pint Public House (1575 Argyle Street).

According to Silverball's owner, Allison Amirault, the scene has become big enough and diverse enough that pinball cliques have begun to form. Older fans of vintage machines hit up the Sunnyside Mall Arcade (Sunnyside Mall, 1595 Bedford Highway), featuring classics from the '70s, '80s and '90s, whereas younger players make their way to the Pubcade, with newer offerings, from Iron Man to Game of Thrones to perennial favourite Jurassic Park. “Everyone loves Jurassic Park,” Amirault says.

“It’s pretty exciting to see games that are popular and new internationally, and have them here in Halifax,” says Hornbeck. (You can battle raptors at Propeller, too.)


As for Friday’s celebrations, “There will also be some surprises, but we can’t share them just now,” says Hornbeck. “It’s really just celebrating the space, because it’s been incredibly exciting to see how much people have loved it this past year, and how so many other spaces have opened. It’s amazing how people are into in this kind of fun.”

• Lauren Marshall credits her Real Fake Meats staff for supporting the switch from plastic to paper packaging.
• ian selig

  As a plant-based butchery, Gottingen Street's Real Fake Meats is far from a typical butcher shop. But if there's one tradition co-founder Lauren Marshall believes is worth preserving, it's wrapping her products in old-fashioned butcher-shop paper, not plastic.

It hasn't always been that way: when the shop opened one year ago this month, most of its products were vacuum-sealed in plastic, ready to grab-and-go. But all that hard-to-recycle single-use plastic never sat right with Marshall. "I had guilt knowing over the last year I could make this change, and it was just kind of weighing on me," she says. So, recently, Marshall started selling her plant-based products in more traditional, sustainable packaging.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, with the umami smell of simmering seitan in the air, Marshall's team was busy scooping Mozza Balls, heaps of Sun Parma and thick globs of Cream Cheeze into glass bottles. Other employees were plating decadent logs of cranberry-rolled "Goatless" Cheeze alongside juicy slabs of veggie steak, fat veggie sausages and thin slices of veggie ham. These were all destined for the display case, to be weighed and wrapped up for customers, or tucked away into paper boxes first thing the following morning.

Real Fake Meats isn't the only new local business becoming more mindful of its contribution to the single-use plastics problem. Neighbouring restaurant, Springhouse, recently started offering a $0.30 discount for customers who bring their own containers. A few months ago, Luminate Wellness Market opened its doors in Bedford, offering plastic-free produce and a "refillery" bulk section, where customers can, and are encouraged to bring or buy reusable containers.

Finally, in 2018 The Tare Shop on Cornwallis Street became Atlantic Canada's first package-free grocer. "Over the last two to three years, we've seen new businesses crop up that are going completely plastic free," says Marla MacLeod, director of programs at the Ecology Action Centre. "In general, there is just more awareness of just how much plastic waste we create."

MacLeod says that recent changes in public policy will set the bar higher for those who have yet to catch up. Last October, the Nova Scotia Legislature adopted the Plastic Bags Reduction Act, a pending province-wide ban on some single-use plastic bags that is set to come into effect this October. There is also recognition of the plastics problem at the municipal level, with the city's Beyond 3 Rs Program, which launched late last year. That program seeks to highlight businesses doing their part to reduce their plastics footprint.

But reducing plastic creates new challenges. While Real Fake Meats' refrigerators are now largely free of plastic packaging, the to-go freezer is still packed with towers of vacuum-sealed products. Unfortunately, says Marshall, it "makes the product kind of better," sealing in moisture and flavour while protecting it from freezer burn, and extending its shelf life without added preservatives.

Marshall also admits to a bit of concern that making the customer's experience less convenient—such as waiting for an employee to wrap up a purchase rather than just grabbing and going—could lead to a dip in sales.

Regardless, Marshall is pleased with the change, and while she's glad to see plastic reduction becoming a priority of government, she says her real inspiration for cutting down plastic waste comes from her employees.

"We'll always have meetings and speak with our staff and ask them what they think," she says. When she mentioned making a change, and felt her staff was behind her, "That was where I felt the influence [the] most, from the people that I spend the most time with."