Post Holiday R & R

Wedge Worldwide hopes that you had a wonderful holiday season and that the year ahead will be an outstanding one! Now that the excitement and busyness are winding down are you feeling like you could use a little pampering and well earned rest? Allow us to recommend a few all natural products that will sooth your senses and calm your mind.

A hot, fragrant foot bath is a wonderful winter treat. This is an ideal activity to preform right before bed as it will deeply relax you and promote a great nights sleep. Simply fill up a large bowl with hot water and put a few pumps of one of our Dr. Hauschka Aromatherapy Baths in the bowl and stir. The bowl should be deep enough so that the water will cover your ankles. Sit back in a chair with a blanket as you soak and listen to soothing music. This is a great time to do some deep breathing and let your mind settle. Hauschka's Lavender Bath is the perfect choice for sweet dreams and easing anxiety and stress. The smell is amazing too! Or for those who are feeling chilled Rosemary Bath is excellent for cold weather as it is warming and stimulates circulation.

Looking for a little something to make your mornings special and give you some gentle get up and go? How about starting the day off with a warm cup of delectable, special tea? Wedge Worldwide offers a variety of organic and Fair Trade teas that are sure to please. Personally I love our Organic White Peony Tea. This tea has a subtle and beautifully refined taste. It sweetly stimulates my senses without the jittery caffine side effects. Or bring some olfactory fun to your shower with Pangea's fresh scented body wash with Canadian pine and white sage which is packed with organic ingredients and pure essential oils. Or try one of our customer's all time favorites, Stinky Hippie Patchouli Body Wash.

Be sure to check back with us throughout the new year as we continue to add more wonderful new products to our site. Happy New Year!

Celebrate the Holidays With Eco-Friendly Gifts

The final countdown towards the holidays has begun! Are you still looking for a huge variety of beautiful eco-friendly gifts to choose from? Then surf on in; Wedge Worldwide has some truly wonderful ideas for you!

Organic gourmet food treats make a great gift option for anyone. Try our brand new Fair Trade chocolate bars and tea in pretty tea tins from Equal Exchange. We brought in the their yummy hot chocolate too!

Sure to please a variety of folks on your list are the gorgeously scented Juniper Ridge Wild Herb Sachets made from ethically wild-harvested plant trimmings. The wonderful Christmas-tree-smell of the Christmas Fir Sachet is perfect for the holidays. We also highly recommend Juniper Ridge's amazing smelling soap and delicious wild-harvested teas.

In search of just the right thing for the ultra-cool hipster in your life? Check out our new Urban Messenger Bag made from organic cotton and hemp. A chic and eco-conscious choice for stylish women is our Street Purse, available in an assortment of vibrant colors and of course, black. By the way, we think the Anthology Cardigan, made from organic cotton and bamboo, looks great with the Street Purse.

Not sure what to get for Mom? How about a fun Fair Trade ring like the one that states, “If you can dream it you can do it!” Or take a peak at our entire Fair Trade jewelry selection for other fabulous options. Mom might also like something from our natural body care section like the refreshing Lemon Body Wash by Dr. Hauschka, or perhaps something from our popular kitchen and dining area like the colorful, extra large salad bowls made from organic bamboo. These bowls are great for serving large tossed salads, and you can even get a sleek pair of bamboo salad servers to go with it.

Or how about some fantastic organic bulk tea? It's the gift that keeps on giving, by providing the recipient with warming, fragrant cups of tea long after the holidays are over. Wedge Worldwide also carries a expansive assortment of teaware and tea accessories. We have everything from the perfect brew baskets for loose-leaf tea to imaginative tea cups and tea pots. A few favorites are our Green Leaf Tea Cups and the Calligraphy Tea Pot Set.

Happy Holidays!

New E-Gift Certificates Available at Wedge Worldwide

We are so excited to announce that Wedge Worldwide now offers e-gift certificates! Would you love to give gifts this holiday season that support Fair Trade and tread lightly on the earth but aren't quite sure what to get for that special someone? Now it's possible to complete your holiday shopping in minutes while getting everyone on your list the perfect gift.

Visit us at wedgeworldwide.coop and click the e-gift certificate link on our front page. Here you can view the few easy steps you can take to quickly and easily buy a Wedge Worldwide e-gift certificate for your friends and loved ones. With just a couple clicks of the mouse a colorful gift certificate email will be sent to the lucky recipient.

E-gift certificates are available in amounts from ten to two hundred dollars so you can select an amount that supports any level of shopping; from a gourmet treat to natural body care products to the luxurious experience of selecting a variety of products.

At Wedge Wordlwide, we have carefully selected only the finest eco-friendly and Fair Trade products available. We also support businesses that are socially responsible. Many of the companies and artists we work with share a portion of their profits with their communities and give aid to worthy causes such as the environment. Anyone on your list is sure to be delighted by shopping our diverse, fun and visually appealing web site where they can feel good about the causes their purchases support. Socially conscious holiday shopping has never been easier this year on Wedge Worldwide!

Fair Trade Holiday Gift Ideas

What better way is there to share the good will of the holiday season than by giving a Fair Trade gift? Here at Wedge Worldwide we make a concerted effort to locate and offer a wide variety of high quality Fair Trade items. Two important aspects of Fair Trade are that workers and artisans who make a product are paid a living wage for their craft and work under safe conditions. So this year you can enjoy gift giving even more knowing that your purchase is supporting and helping the workers who made it.

Allow us to offer a few fun Fair Trade holiday gift suggestions!

We love these colorful and highly durable Messenger Bags made from recycled rice and feed bags. Each hand-crafted piece is unique! These bags provide a sustainable living to Cambodian weavers and producers, many of whom are female heads of households, disabled due to polio or landmine injury or young women pulled from brothels and taught a trade.

Or peruse our all time customer favorite products from Wedge Worldwide, our extensive Fair Trade Jewelry collection. We offer a variety of gorgeous and unique jewelry from across the globe, and also stunning hand-made pieces by local artist, Robin Rifé.

Our Fair Trade Silk and Velvet Scarves are great items for moms and the women in your life. Wedge Worldwide also offers a variety of lovely products made with pure silk like scarves, sumptuous silk throws and velvet jackets.

We have a variety of lead-free, safe and ecologically sound toys for kids. Take a gander at some of our newer Fair Trade Wooden Play Sets and Puzzles made from reclaimed rubber wood.


A few distinctive items that would fit perfectly in any natural home setting are our Fair Trade Salt Crystal Lamps that give off a soothing warm glow while releasing healthy negative ions. Our Salt Lamps are available in a variety of sizes. We also carry the Planet Lamp, a polished, symmetrical salt crystal.

These are just a few of the Fair Trade items that we carry. Stop by and start planning for your holiday shopping today. Let us wrap your presents with pretty, recycled materials and ship them directly to that special person on your list. And another exciting option is coming soon, look for Wedge Worldwide egift certificates this November!

Great New Products For Combination and Sensitive Skin

We are happy to announce that we have brought in yet another exceptional, extremely pure and natural facial care line at Wedge Worldwide. Allow us to introduce you to Suki Naturals, a collection of ultra-pure, facial care items that will make your skin sing.

Suki was started by Suki Kramer who grew up with severe eczema. Having difficulty finding facial and body care products that would help her troubled, delicate skin, Suki experimented with making her own herbal preparations and skin formulas. Her blends improved with each batch and eventually, her skin radically improved. Suki's holistic, effective and gentle formulas resulted in Suki Naturals, products made for all skin conditions, but with sensitive types like her in mind. Suki Natural's skin and body care line are truly natural products with pure botanical ingredients preserved with essential oils, and contain no synthetic ingredients. Extracts of the most potent parts of healing plants are used to maximize the effectiveness and strength of Suki's unique products. Standardized botanicals perform specific functions such as cell regeneration, anti-inflammation, anti-bacterial, detoxification and antiseptic action.

As always, we have tried and tested these products ourselves here at Wedge Worldwide and have a few favorites that we would love to recommend to you. Personally, I have combination skin, which means that my face tends to be both oily and normal or oily and dry, depending on the season. Naturally, I was pleased to come across products from Suki that were perfect for my skin type.

Let's start off with Suki's Exfoliating Lemongrass Cleanser with chamomile and vitamin C. First of all I love the all-natural scent of this cleanser! It brings to mind fresh lemon aid or delicious lemon curd. The gently exfoliating granules are made from grains of organic sugar and gently melt as you massage them into your skin. My face feels smooth and clean after using this cleanser, not harshly stripped of it's natural oils. Suki says that their Lemongrass Cleanser increases cell turnover & unlike damaging glycolics, utilizes natural, safe AHA's & BHA's, awakening a fresh, new layer of skin safely and gently. I found that with continued use of this product my skin tone looked more even, my skin remained hydrated and the T-zone area of my face that tends towards oiliness was more balanced and less prone to break outs.

Another thing that we appreciate about Suki Naturals is their commitment to causing the least impact on the earth in all of their business practices. They are also leaders in the personal care industry and have set standards for purity in personal care that equal our food standards. Neither Suki Naturals, nor their suppliers, test on animals. And, our vegetarian and vegan friends will be happy to know that many of Suki's products are vegan!

Delicious Fair Trade Organic Chocolate

A great new set of products that we have just brought in at Wedge Worldwide are a variety of super yummy chocolate bars from Theo Chocolates. Theo produces premium, organic, Fair Trade and specialty chocolate. Their founder, Joseph Whinney, pioneered the manufacture and supply of organic chocolate products as the first importer of organic cocoa beans into North America in 1994. Over a decade later, Theo is proud to be the only roaster of organic cocoa beans and the first roaster of Fair Trade certified cocoa beans in the United States. All of their ingredients are carefully selected to ensure they meet their standards for social and environmental responsibility. There's a photo of some of the swell folks from Theo pictured in their Seattle based factory above.

We love the ultra cute illustrations that are different for each flavor! But even more important is how they taste. Theo was generous enough to send us a gigantic box of chocolate samples so everyone here in our office has had the luxury of fully acquainting themselves with all the flavors and deciding on our own personal favorites. Here is a brief run down of the Phinney bar varieties based on our taste tests:

•Nib Brittle and Dark Chocolate Bar- Those who love cocoa nibs will really like this bar. It has a satisfying crunch to it and a pleasant dark, mildly bitter taste. The 65% cacao content packs an enjoyable, but not over powering, punch. It makes my heart beat a little faster with dark chocolate joy.

•Chai Tea Chocolate Bar- Normally I'm much more of a dark chocolate fan, but the milk chocolate Phinney bars really won me over! This unusual and delightful milk chocolate bar is highly enjoyable. Who knew that chai tea and chocolate went so well together? I love the strong hints of cinnamon and milder notes of ginger.

•Bread and Chocolate Bar- This bar is a true work of art! A creative pairing of dark chocolate, buttery bread crumbs and a pinch of sea salt. I was skeptical at first but was pleasantly surprised. It's delicious! Many of my co-workers were a fan of this flavor.

•Coconut Curry and Milk Chocolate Bar- It's hard to choose but I think that this flavor is my absolute favorite. I thought it might be kind of funny to put chocolate and curry together but the magical people at Theo have married a perfect blend of delectable tastes in this bar. The spicy curry provides a lovely, gentle background for the delicious toasted coconut that can sometimes be found throughout the bar in tiny little chewy slivers. Yum, yum, yum.

•Vanilla and Milk Chocolate Bar- A friendly, smooth, melt-in-your-mouth bar with satisfying over tones of real Madagascar organic vanilla beans.

I'm already planning on including Theo chocolate bars in my own holiday gift packages that I'll be sending out through Wedge Worldwide this season. Your friends and relatives are sure to enjoy these chocolates but don't forget to treat yourself too!

Wedge Worldwide Talks With One Of the Leaders In the Fair Trade Body Care Movement

Olowo-n'djo Tchala, the founder of Alaffia was in town recently to speak with several of the food co-ops in the Twin Cities area about the philosophy behind the great body care products his company produces. Olowo-n'djo is a tall, engaging, warm-hearted man who's kindness and enthusiasm are contagious. His generosity even extended to cooking us all a traditional African meal that was just delicious!

When Olowo-n'djo was developing Alaffia, he had a big vision. He sought a way to support those living in Togo, Africa, a place where he himself grew up in poverty, that would be culturally, spiritually, economically and ecologically sustainable, all while improving the community. Alaffia is the Fair Trade enterprise that Olowo-n'djo, along with his wife Rose, developed to do just this.

Even though many Africans live in a state of abject poverty, their continent is abundant in natural resources. Olowo-n'djo decided that shea butter was the answer that he was looking for. As he states on his website,"(Shea) is a renewable resource of African origin; shea trees are wild, requiring no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Furthermore, it is an integral part of many savanna communities and, consequently, there is a wealth of local and traditional knowledge of making shea butter." In fact, Olowo-n'djo grew up collecting shea nuts when he was a child in order to make extra money for his family, so he learned through personal experience that collecting shea nuts is very labor intensive. Producing 1 kg of handcrafted shea butter takes twenty to thirty hours of work. Shea trees can be five to ten miles apart from each other which can add up to a lot of walking to gather nuts. Once the nuts are collected, they are pounded, ground, whipped and clarified over low heat by hand. Alaffia uses traditional extraction processes for their shea butter products, unlike many other commercial shea butters made with hexanes or other petroleum products.

Olowo-n'djo spoke with us about some of the grim difficulties that his fellow Africans grapple with on a daily basis. The life expectancy in Africa is 41 years of age and 50% of the people there survive on $1 per day. Many suffer from AIDS and other devastating illnesses, and have difficulty receiving the health care that they need. He also told us that deforestation has been a large problem, having lost 5.3 million hectares in the 1990's for example. Olowo-n'djo believes poverty is the true cause of these limitations. Fair Trade offers solutions by paying fair wages and being environmentally responsible. In addition, Alaffia and many other companies who are part of the Fair Trade Federation are fully accountable organizations; all of their books and profit information are easily accessible to the public.

Encountering someone like Olowo-n'djo and a great organization such as Alaffia gives me hope for the future. Alaffia not only provides Fair Trade employment for women in West Africa they are also involved in a whole slew of community empowerment projects that support African mothers and school children, and the environment. Like the African school children pictured to the left who received new school desks from Alaffia. Read more about Alaffia and their community projects here. Stop on in to Wedge Worldwide to experience the divineness of their hand-made shea butter or check out all of the great Alaffia products that include hand, face and body lotions, a variety of delicious soaps, shampoos and more. Olowo-n'djo stated during his talk that if all of the products that come from Africa were produced under Fair Trade guidelines, eventually Africa would not need financial assistance from other countries and could build a vibrant economy and stable, healthy way of life for its people. Bring this dream one step closer to reality by supporting Alaffia!