Is it just me?  It’s kind of embarrassing to always end up at the grocery store on the 14th looking at cheesy mylar balloons, bad greeting cards with no matching envelope, and half dead roses. Those mylar balloons sure help me feel green,  yeah right… and to boot, buying anything romantic online has never happened in my world.

But going green this Valentines Day, doesn’t mean you have to suck all of the fun out of giving gifts to your sweetie! Why not turn this Hallmark holiday into an opportunity to support ethical and eco-conscious businesses with your dollars while simultaneously showing your special someone just how you feel? From sexy sustainable skivvies to gorgeous green jewelry, check out our Valentine’s Day Eco Gift Guide for everything your main squeeze wants.

You might want to TAKE YOUR BABY’S BREATH AWAY

This breathtaking heart-shaped wreath made of wisps of organic baby’s breath and preserved roses sends all of the right signals with none of the yucky pesticides or overseas shipping.

Go check out more titillating surprises. It’s worth your perusing our friends blog for more Valentines Day eco-gifts for your honey.

My gut says, that the companies born in this recession will be the stuff of legend by the end of the decade.  Here’s 5 trends for small business I see coming at us like a storm on doppler radar.

5. Mastering (note: the word “mastering”, not just tapping into) social media is one of the hottest of all online trends.

I thought “Sex” was the most searched term online in 2009. NOT! Facebook” in fact was the most searched term in 2009. (Source: Experian Hitwise)

Big business has discovered what many small businesses already know: Facebook is a great place to advertise.

Hop on the social media train, Jane, because it’s headed out of the station at light speed.

4. Going Local in a green farmers market sort of way: Consumers are increasingly looking for a local angle when looking where to spend their hard-earned dollar.

Example: The explosion of farmers markets across the country. According to Entrepreneur, “there are almost 5,000 farmers markets across the country, the result of more than 5% annual growth for the past five years.”

Additionally, with people staying closer to home right now and with the green ethos growing, home is where the heart (and dollar) is.

3. Sharing vs. Shared Experiences: We are all not watching or experiencing the same thing nearly as much.

For the small business person, it is vital to realize that 1) people look for, and increasingly expect, the personal, and 2) small, localized, immediate user-created media are where the eyeballs are headed.

2. Mobile marketing is exploding. Whether it is creating the Next Big App, offering customers a real-time mobile coupon, or creating a text marketing campaign, in 2010 there will be mobile options galore for small business.

It is a new world indeed.

1. The Start-Up Economy:

The outlook is both brighter and calmer. It is calmer because things are slowly getting back to, if not normal, at least something recognizable. And it is brighter because out of the rubble, a new, vital, innovative start-up economy is being born.

We have entered the era of small business. Whereas GM president Charles Wilson once said “What’s good for the country is good for GM, and vice versa,” it can now safely be said that what is good for small business is good for the country. Consider these statistics.

Small businesses now

• Number almost 30 million
• Employ more than half of all workers
• Constitute 99.7% of all employers
• Constitute 97% of all exporters
• Create the majority of business innovations
(Source: U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, 2009)

With 10% unemployment for as far as the eye can see, with the unemployed running out of benefits, and with benefits not what they once were for the employed, start-ups of all shapes and sizes are taking root: One person shops, green home-based businesses, part-time ventures, online enterprises, high tech companies – you name it. These are the folks who, with their creative energy, drive, ingenuity, and hard work will be leading us out of this anything but great recession.

So many topics to discuss. Brad Pitt’s biodegrable body lotion, Tiger Woods is now like the rest of us, a real human being. America’s dollar is weaker, China is building huge solar plants in Arizona and India will not buy our bonds, rather they buy more gold. Most of what I just said is not that interesting so lets do some “You Got to be Kidding Me” gift ingredient audits.

I’ve been shopping for holiday gifts and as a cheif responsible blogger at Hart of Green, I have to pull back that veil on “Biodegradable”. What you don’t know will only help you feel more stupid when you find out whats really in these products posing as 100% green.

You got to be kidding me #1…

100% biodegradable body wash? …really? 100?

On the positive side, when I look at all the ingredients in most of these products, I found most are able to break down within 28 days. Not much biodegrades available as ingredients, especially the thing we care about the most, THE SCENT - there are really only three scents to choose from. Hence, why we see so much aloe.

Packaging-wise, most bottles are made of post-consumer recycled plastic

However, all had fragrances and preservatives such as potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate, which can form into the carcinogen benzene if it comes in contact with acids. And there’s isoeugenol, also found in the body wash, which is currently listed as a “high hazard” ingredient on the Environmental Working Group’s cosmetic database.

Of course, it’s not as though using this body wash will cause skin cancer, but compare it to something like Dr. Bronner’s soaps, which are made of nothing but glycerin and essential oils - fair-trade, organic ones at that - and it suddenly doesn’t seem so impressive.

You got to be kidding me #2

While most all bottles are recyclable, the pumps are not. Even Brad Pitt’s, Kiehl’s, generally tries to be eco-conscious in their product development and retail, it has yet to offer an in-store refill option.

What’s scary is we should grab a bottle of Jean-Nate and see what’s in that. Remember that stuff? They still sell it.  Even scarier, I bet Brad Pitt and Angelina flood thier bathtub with it.

Furthermore, biodegradable soap is actually not biodegradable when it ends up in a body of water, because it requires soil for it to break down properly.

This is why many “camping friendly” soaps have labels reading “Do all washing, bathing or cleaning at least 200 feet from any water sources.”

So you make the call. More products posturing as green this holiday season on the margins of what is otherwise an unsustainable product. There are two components with biodegradable, the ingredients and the packaging, and neither is as sustainable as something like a bar soap, which is natural, doesn’t require packaging and has a long shelf life.”

There are two categories of green products:

Best in class, which refers to the best of a bad set of products (for example, biodegradable plastic bags, which are better than regular plastic bags but still belong to a category that’s inherently unsustainable); and alternatives to unsustainable products, such as a cleaning solution that uses vinegar instead of ammonia as a base.

Companies that are genuinely trying to change their ways for the sake of the environment should be commended, even if they’re not perfectly green in the end.

But consumers who are serious about reducing their footprint will soon figure out that words like “recyclable,” “biodegradable” and “natural” don’t always translate into sustainable.

If you think Green gifts are cheesy and expensive, well, keep that skepticism front and center and drop down to the end of this post for some UN-green holiday gifts from our friends at Best Buy.

If you really need to cut the Ho Ho HOLY COW No Cash for Gifts, then let’s find a cool way to say I love you when shopping this holiday season. Nothing says I love you like a pallet for your shoes with a new twist to living Green. As of today, consider yourself an Upcycler.

Upcycling is SO much more fun than recycling. Upcycling is taking something that has outlived its intended usefulness and gets converted into something even more awesome.

One of our favorite things to upcycle here at Hart of Green are shipping pallets!

Israeli designers, Junk+Ion, are absolute masters at upcycling shipping pallets and other everyday items into wonderfully useful pieces of art and furniture, like the DIY shoe rack you see here.

So what else can you do with shipping pallets?

Maybe more than wondering what you could build with salvaged shipping pallets, you could find yourself wondering, “Why would I want to use shipping pallets to make anything?”

One user in this pallet project metafilter says,

“Pallet furniture is actually a big deal right now, as used pallets are an endemic disposal problem throughout the industrialized world. But what’s being talked about is recycling the wood and using that wood to build furniture.”

Just as a reminder, when working with shipping pallets (or any lumber, for that matter)…be sure you are using non-treated wood. Pressure  treated wood has been treated with various chemicals to help it resist weather, rot, and insects.

Arsenic is the monster. Yeah, like the poison.

There are some things that — no matter how green — just don’t make sense.

What you name a clothing store when you want to appeal to everyone.

Angel View Thrift Mart Prestige Boutique

Thrift? Prestige? Boutique? All at once? Perfect for the Eco Barbies…….huh?

Green Fashion Show. Ever wondered how Eco-Sexy you can be with a Cosmo-Green lifestyle? I’m tired just thinking about it.

By all means, jump in…do you have an OM that’s just gas? [oxymoron]

Clean Coal has to be the weirdest

Green warfare is a new one on me!

Exxon Cares

A ’sustainable’ iceberg hotel … in Dubai

Is it just us, or is the Arctic really the only logical place where an iceberg hotel can be considered sustainable? From that perspective, sticking a piece of frozen architecture under the blazing sun of the Middle East seems the antithesis of “green,” no matter how much solar energy you harness. But that’s the idea behind the Blue Crystal, a “swimming world of ice offshore Dubai” that would feature luxury restaurants, an underwater lounge and five-level ballrooms, among other amenities. Did we mention it would have a “self-sufficient energy system?”

Green shopping malls

Never mind how appealing the design and eco-friendliness might be (see, for example, these plans for a 1-million-square-foot shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur) … the whole idea behind the shopping mall — cheap plastic stuff from China, “As Seen on TV” consumer gadgets, all the latest fashions, etc. — is, admit it, an unsustainable one. Certainly, a growing number of once-middle-class consumers have come to that conclusion during this Great Recession.

Ridiculous

Vegetarian Meatballs

Plastic silverware

Corporate conscience

Melted ice