Shalom Harlow

Tell us about Lancome's carbon-free initiative and how it came about.

For me, on a personal level, I've been offsetting my travel for a while, for a year, year and a half. When Elettra said, let's approach Lancome, we were already both involved with them and we both have in interest in the environment. What's been the most empowering experience is seeing how an individual can make a difference. It's a huge company but the initiative to do it took the seeds of individuals like Elettra, like myself, like Daria and everyone to all get behind it. And so it's an incredibly empowering experience to see how an individual in their own personal life can make a difference.

What does green mean to you?

A connection with the earth, a respect for the planet and living in life's balance and harmony as much as we all can. And it can be easy. There are a lot of easily applicable things that we can all be doing every day that don't take time or a lot of money.

Such as?

Using eco dry cleaners, using a car service like OZOcar, or getting a hybrid the next time you need to buy a car, reusing your plastic bags at home, shutting off the tap when you're brushing your teeth. Simple stuff that we all as individuals can do without a lot of effort. It all makes a difference.

What green habits do you practice at home?

I use a lot of Seventh Generation cleaning stuff and there's this great product called Citrusol that I love—it's kind of like a green Mr. Clean. It's just a miracle, you can use it for everything. The cleaning products I use in my house are not only for my own health but also the health of the planet. It's a symbiotic relationship that we need to honor and reconnect with and we've become so removed but it's essential to our survival. Also: Shopping at Whole Foods, and supporting local farmers' markets and organic food growers is a great thing to do. Buying vintage clothes and supporting young designers who are doing organic lines from Anna Cohen to Linda Loudermilk to Rag & Bone, who is socially responsible—everything is made in the U.S. and made under fair working wages.

What would you like to be green but currently isn't?

There are a lot of corn-based plastics now and packing could all be biodegradable. That's what I'd like to see—more biodegradable packaging for everything, from food products to software components.

What's your eco-sin—something you love to indulge in, but isn't environmentally friendly?

None of us have halos or we'd have wings! I would say chocolate. I loooove chocolate and it's not always organic.