I don’t suppose there’s anything gadget-y about a yoga brick, but this one’s supposed to be environmentally friendly, so I’m giving it a post. I’m not sure what regular yoga bricks are made from, but they do tend to feel a bit plastic-y, and who knows what chemicals are used to create all the color options you can choose from…
This Gaiam brick is made with cork from a “certified sustainably harvested resource,” and it’s supposed to work just as well as the regular ones, offering good texture and traction (important for when you’re squeezing it between your feet and doing those torturous legs-in-the-air ab exercises). The brick is available from Amazon for $14:
Okay, a yoga bag isn’t terribly gadget-y, but I thought I’d write about this one in case you know a yoga guru (or someone just getting started) who needs a place to store his or her yoga mat. The bag is made in Guatemala by the Adimat women’s cooperative, and your purchase would help economically-disadvantaged workers. Also a portion of the proceeds is used to send orphans to school and to organize a monthly litter clean-up in the community.
The bag itself is made from woven berries and bark, so it’s definitely something for the back-to-nature Zen yoga enthusiast. Even the dye used to color the material is made from all-natural pigments. The price is $40 at World of Good, and the bag is available in red, green, or brown.
If your yoga instructor is doing her job, you’ll get nice and sweaty when you go to class. Good for your body, but your yoga mat is bound to get a bit… ripe after a while. Most of these things aren’t machine washable, so what do you do? Well, you can grab one of these handy little yoga mat cleaners. The individually wrapped wipes are infused with essential aromatherapy oils and sanitized to effectively clean your mat. They dry quickly, “leaving the yoga mat with its important sticky surface and a faint lingering scent that invigorates the senses and adds to your yoga practice.” Available scents include lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, and tangerine.
The wipes are environmentally friendly (plus the packaging is 100% recyclable) as well as skin friendly (the cleaners don’t use alcohol or bleach). It’ll cost you $11.95 for a pack of 20 individually wrapped wipes.
Sometimes you go to a yoga class, and it seems like you’re surrounded by the ultra-serious I’m-being-one-with-my-body-and-my-mind types. They’ve got the matching yoga outfit, they can twist their bodies into pretzels, and they never crack a smile. You can try to emulate those people if you want… but if you’re like me and you’d rather pretend you’ve got a little personality, maybe a fun yoga mat is a way you could let everyone know.
This “Kam Kam” yoga/pilates mat features a fat little cat and comes with a matching carrying case. If dogs are more your style, there’s a “Don Don” mat with a cartoon hound. Both cost $37.