In Sophie Uliano’s latest book “Do It Gorgeously: How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products” she presents a bevy of projects on how your average glamorous woman can really spruce up her life in a green way. Or at least she claims to.

I have to admit right off this is not the kind of book I would normally pick up. It’s clearly not aimed at me (as almost no one would classify me as a woman), and I found it a bit light on the green and a bit heavy on the glamorous stuff. But I gave it a chance.

If you are looking for a good collection of arts, crafts, cooking, workouts, diy home improvement, even pet care (and a bunch of other things), this book might be just what you are looking for. The collection of projects ranges from home made face cream, to home flee treatment for your dog, and everywhere inbetween.

Its not the kind of book you read from cover to cover, its the kind of book you browse all the while stumbling on interesting tidbits. Home made clothes, home made toys, and a nice chapter on composting, as well as the cooking chapters stood out as particularly good. Each project is accompanied by some nice line drawings, and a clear list of what you will need and how to do it.

The book does suffer from a bit because the variety of projects is so broad. I found myself wondering “is this a cooking book, or a workout book, or a diy home repair book?” While it doesn’t do any one thing badly, its suffers a bit from “Jill of all trades, master of none” type reasoning.

I also would have wanted to see more of an environmental message. Why exactly each thing in the book is good for the environment is often unclear. The book tells you how to make a non-toxic car cleaner, but doesn’t tell you to stop driving your car. Having an organic sandalwood smell in your giant SUV isn’t going to help anyone. Also it mentions a lot of things you need for each project, but it doesn’t always mention where to get them, or what the impact of using each ingredient is. Many of the projects call for an exotic mix of essential oils from all over the planet, a variety of stuff you may have to go out and buy, etc.

This is not a horrible book, it has a lot of interesting projects, but it can be hard to sort through them all to find the gems. The main focus of the book is basically how you can continue to live a glam life style (think Martha Steward) without feeling guilty about killing the planet. This is a hard line to walk, as many things that are fabulous are simply not needed. I mean does it really help the earth to make a dog coat out or re-used materials, don’t dogs come with coats?

I would have loved to see a lot more science in this book. That may be a personal preference as I am kind of a science buff, and like I said this book was clearly not aimed at me, or my life style. I found many of the projects in the book to be absolutely useless. If you really want to live a greener life style, perhaps living a whole lot simpler would be a first step.

Overall its not a bad read, and if you skip over the organic car scent, and the re-used dog coats, you will find some really nice projects about gardening, recycling, diy home repair, and others. I would say this is a great gift for someone who spends way too much on harsh chemical products and new stuff from the store. It could serve as a nice transition into a greener way of living. But for anyone who has taken a serious look at how they live and its impacts on the earth you might find it a waste of time.