Our friends at Pangea Organics hit us with a couple of Radiance Gift Sets to giveaway this week– just in time to get your skin in perfect shape for the spring and summer sun by the pool. This awesome box set includes a facial cleanser made from Egyptian calendula and blood orange (can I eat that?), a facial scrub from Egyptian geranium with adzuki bean and cranberry (also, can I eat that too), facial mask (Japanese matcha tea with Acai and goji berry), lip balm (Italian red Mandarin with rose) and an eye cream (Turkish rose and white tea).   It all sounds so delicious it’s hard to believe it’s skin care. 

The 1st and 25th persons to comment today will be crowned the winners. Also, you can follow Pangea on Twitter to follow along and win more great stuff.

Let’s go ahead and just say it: wallpaper and tiles are long dead. New ecological paint job—well, baby, you can get a little more creative than that. The way to go, if you want to really make a statement for guests and live in something conducive to green all the way, is investing in an Ekobe wall. Composed of 100% natural materials, the tiles by the Brazilian company are veggie matter. We’re not talking about banana peels or apple cores; this stuff gets more tropical and exotic, like the insides and outsides of coconut shells. The Membira line goes so far as to mix in rice peel (you can peel rice?). The surfaces are often presented as mosaics that have their own particular discoloration or irregularities in texture—all aspects that reflect their truly natural origins. Consumers can apply Ekoba products to pretty much any internal surface but are advised against making major pathways with the square pieces because it seems they’ll disintegrate with all that wear and tear. As you can see from the photo, surfaces made with Ekobe tiles lend themselves to stunning interiors and stand apart from anything else out there. I’d jump at a chance to attend a meeting in that room. The tiles are available at Nemo Tile in NYC.

Reusable bags. I want to use (and reuse) my reusable bags, but I always forget them at home. I love how many of them I see around lately though. I don’t carry a purse so carrying it around is a little tricky, but maybe I just need to get over that and carry it with pride. Flip and Tumble is a new (and I know, another) maker of Reusable Bags– and these ones look really awesome. Unlike Baggu (which we still love), the Flip and Tumble bags have a small little compartment to pack the bag back into sewn/built inside the bag, so you’ll never lose the little carrier. The bags are available in nearly a dozen colors and cost $9 if you buy 1-2, $8 if you buy 3-6 and $7 a pop if you buy more than 7. I say, Buy 7 and gift to your friends or family and help rid the world of plastic bags.

San Francisco’s Rickshaw Bagworks (whose zero waste messenger bag was previously featured) is now creating customizable folios for Moleskine journals. The $50 folios include space for four pens and business cards and have a protected pocket perfect for receipts or maps. Each is made to order in the City by the Bay, and, should you feel stuck trying to pick a color combination, there’s a Flickr gallery chock full of customized fabrics to delight even the most hardcore Moleskinerie fan. Sustainable, awesome.

The minds behind New Soap, Old Bottle are marketing multifuncionality in the form of new liquid soap sold in reused plastic and glass bottles. After being sanitized, the former Coke and Heineken bottles are filled with home or car cleaner, topped with child safe caps, and sold at $4 a pop. “Big companies aren’t going to do this on their own. So we’ll do it for them,” said Scott Amron, designer, electrical engineer and founding principal of New York’s Amron Exprimental. “We buy brand name liquid soap by the barrel and package it in old bottles here in America.” Recessionistas and green thumbs rejoice– we love this work.

Can anyone guess the bottles above? First one is pretty easy…

Ross Lovegrove never ceases to amaze us with his serious industrial design talent. We assume that it’s his knack for combining that which is visually stunning with an absurd amount of practicality that drew the folks at Biomega into his collaborative arms for what amounts to a stunning addition to their ever growing line of “furniture for locomotion,” or what in layman’s terms could be called a pretty sweet bike. The Biomega Bamboo utilizes a natural material that when properly prepared, is stronger than steel. The result is an eye-catching fusion of nature and innovation on two wheels. To catch a sneak peek at this cycling sight to behold, head over to Milan’s Design Library at Via Savona between the 22nd to 27th of April, where it will be on display from 10am to 10pm. Congrats JMS!

Walk Score assesses the “walkability” of a prospective area by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. The application measures the ease with which you could navigate a neighborhood on foot, not necessarily the safety of doing so. Walk Score peppers Google Maps with local conveniences, making it a very popular widget for real estate websites. In the current economy, knowing the nearest watering hole to your new condo is important info indeed. San Francisco ranked in the #1 spot for city with the most walkable neighborhoods, followed closely by New York. Despite the old Missing Person’s song, Los Angeles came in at a decent 9 out of 40. I guess people just choose not to walk in L.A.

Today’s Equinox Event at San Francisco’s 111 Minna will be the most recent SF Beta event and program from Virgance, the for-profit activism campaign management company whose primary tool for encouraging change is online networking. They’re the brains behind 1 Block Off the Grid, a community effort to make solar power available in bulk to neighborhoods, and consumer network Carrotmob, which invites people to reward companies that make socially responsible purchasing decisions. Promoted as “the biggest beta ever,” today’s Equinox Event is co-sponsored by cloud hosting company GoGrid and GOOD Magazine, and promises cocktails with entrepreneurs and activists to celebrate Virgance’s upcoming first anniversary.

Keen, a company that started with the question, “can a sandal protect the toes?”, has gone on to expanding their product line well beyond just active sandals. Admittedly, I have not checked out their site since I was shopping for my trip to Kauai a few years ago, but a few weeks ago I pointed Firefox their way and was impressed with what I saw. Their Harvest Collection of bags is particularly noteworthy.

One model, the Cornell, is a unisex messenger bag made of 100% reclaimed rice paper. For those of you who have ever bought large sacks of rice from an Asian market, you know exactly what that is. The design and graphics on each bag are completely unique, the bottom is made of 100% recycled rubber (from tires), and there is a lushly padded 17.4″ notebook sleeve built in. I will not say it’s perfect, however. The front zipper on mine gets stuck, and repeated pulls are slowly ripping the pouch from the bag. My only other complaint is a small one - occasionally the strap folds up onto itself within the metal loops. Other than these small quibbles, the Cornell gets my vote if you are looking for a comfortable, unique, and green bag.

Who ever thought something rolling on 30-inch bicycle wheels could look so good? Mercedes Benz has unveiled its F-Cell Roadster (the F stands for fuel, and yes, it’s a hybrid), an unconventionally attractive ride incorporating every era of the seasoned carmaker’s pioneering design style. The F-Cell embodies the company’s innovative technology with the simplicity of the first epoch of automobiles. While it may top out at 25 km per hour, it’s the progressive concept of this prototype that counts.

Via Clusterflock

Atlanta-based designer Brooke Serson Cernonok has come up with a creative way to “upcycle” your old cashmere sweaters: she turns them into one-of-a-kind plush bears, bunnies and elephants. You can donate your sweaters to Teddylux and leave it at that, or for about $55, you can have your sweater transformed into the aforementioned animals. Each plush is hand-crafted with vintage silk accents and comes gift-boxed with the a Teddylux story and a certificate of authenticity.

The image of hybrid cars as boxy, efficient little travel pods is getting a makeover. At the Geneva Motor Show, Italdesign unveiled the Namir prototype, a 370-horsepower space rocket that can travel over 1,200 miles on a single charge. Namir is the world’s fastest hybrid to date, with a top speed of 187 mph, and releases lower emissions than any sports car on the U.S. market. We’re not sure if this particular whip is going to be available stateside, but it’s nice to see this trend forming.

Via Inhabit

As we reported to you in December, the Greener Gadgets 2009 Conference is a must for anyone interested in ecologically-friendly design. If the only green you’re lacking is in your wallet, Inhabitat is footing the bill for one lucky winner to get into the event taking place this February 27th in New York City. Head on over to their site, sign up for newsletter, and comment on your favorite of their greener gadgets for a chance to win.

Via Inhabitat

Millions of people are talking all day, every day on twitter. But what if all those people came together and actually did something? Enter Twestival, a global event organized through twitter taking place on February 12th. Over 100 cities have signed up for events, rounded up sponsors and put together guest lists. The goal of the event is to raise money and awareness to combat the 1.1 billion people who don’t tweet have clean water to drink. To find out more about the cause visit the charity: water group. Each city is asked to set a goal of at least $4,000 (the price to sponsor a water well in a development area). Check out this page to find out more information.

Another product to earn kudos for what it’s not (i.e. fattening or habit forming), Clear Magazine has become “100% tree-free” and is now being printed with YUPO synthetic paper. The Michigan-based design and fashion publication released its “fame underground” issue, including features on designers Arne Quinze and Martin Mariela and artist Kenji Yanobe, at Art Basel Miami Beach last month. A recently posted video with Clear’s creative director Emin Kad explains that the paper is tear-proof and waterproof. Once purchased at fine newsstands worldwide, the issues can be put in recycling bins with other plastic items.