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Four Women Blog About Green Living in LA

Illustration by Esther Kim

The green movement has gained so much steam in recent years, and Los Angeles is emerging as one of the top cities touting an eco-friendly lifestyle. Perhaps it can be attributed in part to the celebrity influence of A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, but there is another force at work — the World Wide Web.
Web culture proliferates an enormous number of green ideas, utilizing such high-profile sites and news sources as The Huffington Post (Huffingtonpost.com) and TreeHugger (Treehugger.com). This format of information has paved the way for everyday people to spread the word that sustainable living is not a trendy and tedious undertaking, but a real and accessible option for daily life. For the four women behind the Web sites Green Grown and Sexy (Greengrownandsexy.com) and Your Daily Thread (Yourdailythread.com), the Internet has become an outlet for something they’re passionate about — teaching others how to green up their lives.
For Jen O’Neill and Thuy Nguyen, socializing, dining and shopping were regular activities. It wasn’t until they viewed the animal rights documentary Earthlings, and collaborated with the Heal the Bay organization, that they really began to think about their impact on the environment as consumers.
The two women were then inspired to adopt a more conscientious and healthy lifestyle, and began to explore concepts behind green living. Their Web site, Green Grown and Sexy (Greengrownandsexy.com) became a platform on which they could share information regarding how to make small changes that could lead to a big improvement. Now the site has grown to include the latest in green news and trends involving art, lifestyle and fashion.
O’Neill and Nguyen’s experience maintaining Green Grown and Sexy has afforded them the opportunity to remain socially active, but completely green-minded. They attend green events, dine at organic restaurants and shop for sustainable brands. Their site contains no holier-than-thou preaching — the content’s tongue-in-cheek style diminishes the stigma behind green living. Readers can see that it isn’t an obsessive hippie culture; it’s a way of life that is both personally attainable and socially important.
Aside from running Green Grown and Sexy, O’Neill and Nguyen also highlight green restaurants, spas and stores for Swellcityguide.com, contribute features for Damemagazine.com, and have recently begun to eco-style for photo shoots.
Also in the Los Angeles green scene, Tracy Hepler and Lauren Johanson have the same passion for pursuing and sharing ideas about sustainable living. Their college years revealed precursors to a mutual interest in the green movement, but Hepler’s post-grad travels to Spain and Johanson’s travels to India and Thailand put the idea of conscientious living into perspective for them. After returning to their native Los Angeles, the two women wanted to explore the ever-growing green culture within the city and share their discoveries with other like-minded young individuals.
Hepler and Johanson created Your Daily Thread as a guide to enjoying the city’s environmentally-friendly resources and offerings. Daily columns detail the women’s findings, with Mondays dedicated to living an active lifestyle, Tuesdays to green living, Wednesdays to wellness and beauty, Thursdays to weekend green events, and Fridays to food and fashion. The duo heavily researches products and venues they endorse to ensure that the site advocates only authentic and genuinely green topics. Your Daily Thread already features a jam-packed event calendar and April will see the launch of a community forum, allowing readers to initiate their own eco-minded conversations.
Your Daily Thread has taken off to become a fruitful endeavor for Hepler and Johanson, but Hepler also contributes features for The Huffington Post’s Green section, and Johanson co-owns an all-natural skincare line, Chivas Skin Care. The women are deeply rooted in the green movement and are helping other young people realize their potential to incite change.
Sustainable living is not such a foreign idea anymore. Many Americans have joined in the fight for a greener planet, and Los Angeles is at the forefront. Sites such as Green Grown and Sexy and Your Daily Thread put their ideas and discoveries out there for all Angelenos to adopt.
The advice repeats itself: take small steps. Abandon wasteful plastic and paper bags and opt for reusable totes. Buy organic whenever possible. Become open to the idea of public transit, bicycles, walking and recycling. When people like O’Neill, Nguyen, Hepler and Johanson have gone to the trouble to place this information easily in the hands of others, there’s really no reason not to make the effort and take those extra little steps toward nurturing the planet and the rest of the human race.