Welcome To The Vegan Dandy

I’ve decided to start this blog on a whim.  Hopefully it sticks.  I’m a vegan – at some point I’ll do a “why vegan?” post, but for the time being I’ll assume you don’t need to know “why vegan.”  When I first went vegan, about three-ish years ago, I decided to slowly remove all animal products not only from my diet, but from all aspects of my life.  Out went my leather clothing and accessories, out when my toiletries that had animal products or were tested on animals.

When I set out to do this, I found it really hard some time.  I have dry skin, so I went looking for a vegan moisturizer.  This raised many questions – where does one find a vegan moisturizer?  Would I have to look in specialty health stores?  Were any of the moisturizers in my drug store vegan? Were they any good – were they too greasy or did they have an annoying scent?  Help!  Repeat this for virtually every product in my daily ablutions.   After getting wet shaving this became even more complex.  I began to think to myself ‘if only there was a good site that reviewed vegan products….’ and then after mulling this over for a month or so, I decided to do it.

About me and what I’ll be reviewing.  I try to dress and groom professionally, as I have a job where I am encouraged to look not-like-a-slob.  So, part of my initial switching to vegan clothing involved finding vegan belts (fairly easy), vegan shoes (easy-ish), and semi-professional wear (something of a challenge when it comes to sports coats and suits).  I think I’ll lay off reviewing these for some time, but there are some things I’ll talk about.

I’d describe myself as having dry and sensitive skin.  This means if you’re looking for reviews of products for oily skin, uh, go somewhere else.  You won’t find those here.  It also means strong scents really annoy me.  So, uh, again, if strong scents are your thing, go elsewhere.  As I mentioned above, I wet shave, which I strongly, strongly, encourage.  It saves money and provides for a much closer shave.  Expect reviews of plenty of shaving products.  I have a beard, which I keep relatively short, trimmed, and neat, so I’ll be looking at beard care from time to time.

A few final caveats.  This is the first time I’ve blogged since I had a livejournal many moons ago.  So, I can’t promise it’s going to look spectacular at first.  Second, like most vegans, I double and triple check to make sure that everything I buy contains no animal products and isn’t tested on animals.  That said, like many vegans, I’ve sometimes purchased something, gotten home, taken a closer look, and realized “damnit.  There’s animal in this.”  If that happens on this blog, I apologize in advance.  I’m not perfect.