Buy it for Life

Hello all! Do you recommend any eco friendly loofah alternatives, or anything really to scrub your body in the shower with. The fact that most loofahs are made from unrecyclable plastic concerns me.

Heyo everyone, hope you're all doing well.

I haven't had a lot of time to focus on getting the rules and sidebar set up for this place, but hopefully I should be able to tackle that in the next few days.

Before I did, I wanted your opinions on a few things, as I plan on diverging from the original Reddit BIFL community slightly:

1. I'd like the limit the amount of posts of vintage or antique items that are no longer in production. I think the real value of the BIFL community initially was as a resource to find high value, long lasting items that are easily obtained.

However, there is some value in older items that can be found used on eBay, so I think a good compromise (which was suggested in the Introduction thread) would be a weekly or monthly vintage/antique mega thread that people can post in. Are you guys into that?

2. Since this is a solarpunk instance, Homemade stuff (which is not allowed on r/BIFL) is encouraged here, as long as instructions on how to make the item are included (text or video).

3. I'm thinking about letting a limited amount of self-promotion occur here. I believe self-promotion wasn't allowed on reddit due to them wanting people to purchase ad-space on the site. But since lemmy isn't commercialized, I think it'd be okay to allow a bit of it, but with certain stipulations:

The item being promoted would have to be inline with solarpunk ideals. I.E, using reclaimed/recycled materials, be open-source, hackable, user-serviceable, etc. (Open to other suggestions for criteria).

That's just an idea though.

4. I think it'd be pretty neat to compile a list of all the stuff posted here that's easily searchable in categories. I plan on using a simple Gitlab Readme page, since that's something I'm familiar with, but I'm not sure if that's the best option. I haven't actually contributed to wiki's before, so I didn't really look into that. I would like to self-host something eventually (inspired by reading stuff in the selfhost community here), but I'm not currently in a position to reliably do that, so for now I'm just looking at stuff that will host the list for free.

I guess that's all I had in mind so far. Let me know what you guys think, and any other ideas you have that could make this community better!

Cheers, ProdigalFrog

For most of my life, I'd used cheap leather wallets from places like Walmart and Kmart. Even with a small amount of cash and a few cards, I always felt they were quite bulky, and within a couple years would start to become frayed and tattered looking.

I did a deep dive on wallets, and discovered the Flowfold wallet. It's surprisingly cheap for being a handmade item the US, and re-used discarded sail cloth as its material, which is both a waterproof and extremely durable material.

I've been carrying this wallet for about 3 years now, and still looks like brand new on the outside.

Inside, the inner material made of clear plastic sail cloth which holds cards is getting a bit scuffed at the edges from cards abrading it, but it's not really all that noticeable when the slots are filled.

The killer feature of the wallet, for me, is just how thin it is compared to most normal bi-fold wallets. This picture is with the wallet filled with 9 cards and and 10 bills, making it about as thick as an empty slim leather wallet, so it slips into even the smallest front pocket while still being easy to get out.

I was able to pick up this wallet for about $21 since this olive color was on sale, but I see usually they go for about $40.

It doesn't seem to be showing any signs of fraying or non-cosmetic wear after 3 years, so I could see this lasting a decade fairly easily. A no frills, reliable BIFL wallet.

If you, gentle reader, have your own BIFL wallet, leave a comment below or make a new post of your wallet! I'd be interested to see it. ^^

Obviously I like buying things once and for all, but I feel it's extra difficult with anything electrical because I just don't know that much about it personally, and I can't exactly check the insides.

So lately I've been wanting to buy an upright vacuum. I don't know if there are more durable brands, what kind of accessories I should consider to make my life easier, what budget I should consider, or what characterics are more likely to make it shorter lived than others.