Who’s Who in Green: Josie Maran

Josie Maran has graced the pages of many a Sports Illustrated magazine issue, and was the face of Maybelline for many years. But these days, the stunning brunette model runs her own eco cosmetics company, supports a number of green charities and lives in a recycled barn in the Hollywood Hills.

Maran, daughter of an artist and one of California’s top green builders, grew up in an earth conscious household. She became a model at the age of 12 and lived the party girl life in New York City until she realized that she wanted to return to her roots and be green and healthy before becoming pregnant with her first child.

Maran lives in a home made from reclaimed wood from a friend’s barn that was being torn down. Her daughter, Rumi Joon, was born in the backyard. Maran drives a Prius, composts, and does whatever she can to live an authentically green life.

While she’s grateful to Maybelline for helping her get to where she is today, you probably won’t see Maran in any of their ads – or those of any other conventional cosmetics company – any time soon. Maran has devoted herself to living a natural lifestyle, and that prompted her to create her own eco-friendly cosmetics line, Josie Maran Cosmetics.

Josie Maran Cosmetics are free of toxic ingredients like petrochemicals and parabens. The company is also signatory to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ Compact for Safe Cosmetics – a meaningful commitment to eliminate carcinogens, mutagens and reproductive toxins from personal care products.

In an April 2009 interview with TheStar.com, Maran says,

I’m into promoting healthy lifestyle products and I don’t like to model for things that aren’t really green. I’m involved in Global Green and National Resources Defense Council. My Bear Naked Wipes are makeup removers and a portion of the proceeds goes to protecting polar bears. All the compacts are biodegradable and made out of corn and the packaging will break down in 30 days. I call it “chicological.” You would never know it was green.

Want to know what Maran’s favorite beauty product is? She told Greenopia,

I can’t live without Argan Oil.  For morning and night, it is my favorite moisturizer for skin, hair and nails. So, it was a must that I include this 100% organic wonder-ingredient in the Josie Maran Cosmetics line. Our Argan Oil, housed in a recyclable glass bottle, is purchased from women’s cooperatives in Morocco, thereby supporting their social and economic welfare. These cooperatives also work within a UNESCO biosphere reserve which ensures the protection and reforestation of Argan trees.

Josie Maran’s Green Score: 38,599

Who’s Who in Green: Angela Lindvall

She’s a gorgeous, smart vegetarian eco-activist with a big heart – and one of the world’s most recognizable models. Angela Lindvall is the founder of the Collage Foundation, a non-profit organization that encourages a trend for environmental, social and political concern. She’s also a green living role model and an actress, and shares her eco-knowledge on television and in internet videos.

Born in Oklahoma and raised in Missouri, Angela was a tomboy – she grew up climbing trees and playing with frogs and was uninterested in modeling until a talent scout spotted her at the age of 14 and signed her with IMG. Angela has since appeared on the cover of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Vogue, W and several other magazines and has appeared in ad campaigns for Fendi, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, Tommy Hilfiger, Jil Sander, Chanel and H&M.

As her modeling career took off in NYC, Angela had more on her mind than fashion and glamour. “I [began] looking into what was in our food, water and the air, and started getting environmental disaster anxiety,” she said. “I felt like, ‘Why isn’t this on the front page of the newspaper?’”

For several years, Angela lived on an environmentally friendly tugboat she refurbished with her husband William Edwards using as much sustainable material as possible, including recycled glass tiles, beeswax-based paint and cork flooring. Angela’s current home in Topanga Canyon, California is also chock full of eco-friendly style and she hopes to soon get her own chickens and install solar panels.

The Collage Foundation is “driven by the goal of showing today’s youth they have real choices about their role in the world, and the power to make a difference in a variety of ways.” It provides resources and inspiration for young people to get involved in today’s environmental and social issues, presenting these issues in a fun and entertaining way to foster creativity and activism.

Angela is now the style expert on Planet Green’s Alter Eco, and works with organizations like the National Resources Defense Council and Global Green. She also works with Camp Hill Farms, an organic farm in upstate New York that has developed a model for local food production in cooperation with local government.

Angela Lindvall’s Green Score: 12,038

Summer Rayne Oakes at the Green Inaugural Ball

For more about Summer, see our “Hottest Girl in Green” post with lots of photos!

The Hottest Girl In Green: We May Be Obsessed With Summer Rayne Oakes

Can you blame us? It’s not every day that the world’s hottest Udall scholar takes notice of you, much less in a good way. So in honor of the girl in green most likely to make your heart skip a beat, we proudly present a spread from her modeling portfolio. Oh, and Ms. Entomology-degree-from-Cornell: it’s cicada season where we live right now, so if you want a once-in-17-years show, you know who to call.

For those of you that are scraping yourselves off the floor still, let me point out the massive difference in style in some of these photos. Girl’s got range, y’all.

All photos courtesy of Summerrayne.net

EarthFirst.com Has Like, A Tractor Beam Of Hotness: The Top 25 Hottest Girls in Green (#1-5)

EarthFirst.com has been tracking the hottest girls in the environmental movement all week, and, with the exception of taking a moment to make fun of Paris Hilton for letting millions of people see her get nailed in night vision (That’s green! It was research, we swear!) we’ve hopefully introduced you to some beautiful women who are going to save the planet. Today is no different, but today is about the top five–the super-gorgeous, alpha-environmentalists that would be capable of stopping global warming by themselves, if they never got in a two-piece. The Top Five Hottest Girls in Green:

#5. Olivia Zaleski

Olivia Zaleski is a freelance writer in New York, and has made the most of the opportunities running rampant in both that city and the green movement right now– she’s the environmental living expert for Huffington Post and the editor for their new Green section, and managing editor of Eco-Chick, two websites that aren’t in any danger of running out of business anytime soon. She’s also seen her work appear in Treehugger, and The Daily Green, and like many of our honorees, has a background in design, leaving her even better-suited to fine-tune a green lifestyle and look great doing it. She’s been making a green splash in the mainstream media with her recent video work for Good Morning America.

#4. Hayden Panettierre

Before justifying the inclusion of Hayden, who is no longer jailbait, on this list, EarthFirst.com would like to give you a chance to guess what her cause is by letting you know that there’s a warrant for her arrest in Japan. What can make the land of the rising sun so upset at such a pretty girl? Whales, kind sir, as Hayden has taken on the role of spokeswoman for “Save The Whales Again,” an organization aiming to consolidate and expand upon the gains in conservation made since the 1970s. She’s more than just a pretty face, appearing in press conferences with Sen. John Kerry, facing crowds in Q&As for over an hour, and even selling her own clothes for a fundraiser.

#3. Rachel McAdams

The Mean Girls and Wedding Crashers star permanently endeared herself to environmental activists last year when she and two friends launched Green is Sexy, a green blog that’s utterly without pretension, or even the acknowledgment that one of the writers is best known for being Owen Wilson’s love interest. From the site:

Rachel’s love for the planet began at a young age – summers spent at the cottage, swimming in the Great Canadian Lakes , riding her banana seat bike around the neighborhood. Winters consisted of tobogganing through the treacherous woods and building dangerous snow forts. Today, her bike is still her vehicle of choice and she isn’t above the occasional snow fort. But she’s trying to lighten her footprint on the earth – supporting tree planting organizations, switching her house to green power and developing an OCD for unplugging anything with a plug. She dreams of one day living in a treehouse and being able to grow her own food.

Who’s in love?

#2. Julia Butterfly Hill

Julia lived in a 180-foot tall, 600-year old redwood tree (Luna) for over two years, from December 10th, 1997, to December 18th, 1999, in order to prevent it from being cut down by the Pacific Lumber Company. If that wasn’t crazy enough, she undertook her act of civil disobedience alone–while organizations like Earth First (no connection to us) later came to her aid, she saw a need and a change to act, and rushed into the gap. Eventually, Pacific reached a settlement with her, and a three-acre buffer zone around Luna was created where no logging would take place.

#1. Summer Rayne Oakes

As you might gather, Summer’s a model. She’s also a National Wildlife Federation fellow, a Treehugger contributor, host/contributor/expert/board member for the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green, and still more environmental cred that can’t be easily listed here, among it an entomology degree from Cornell. That’s right–the girl in the picture above, in college, chose to study bugs. She’s also running circles around the rest of us trying to save the planet, and looking fabulous doing it, so what the hell are you doing in front of your computer?

EarthFirst.com Feels So Pretty: The 25 Hottest Girls In Green (#6-10)

The internet, according to Avenue Q, was made for porn, and it may be host to more…enterpenurial…young women than any other medium, ever. That hasn’t stopped EarthFirst.com from sifting through the masses to find not only the 25 hottest, but the 25 hottest that are carrying some serious eco-cred. Today, we proudly present 10-6 of the 25 Hottest Girls In Green:

10. Heather Stephenson

Heather is the co-founder of Ideal Bite, an organization committed to massive change on an incremental scale: their most prominent project is a series of tips that tell you how to green your life in baby steps. Prior to working there, Heather was also a founding member of Urban Sage, a New York rooftop garden deign and installation firm, giving her a unique background in the greening of urban areas.

9. Starre Vartan

Starre Vartan is a Huffington Post blogger, and founder of Eco Chick, which has been supplying our list with scads of talented, classy, environmentally savvy women. She’s an Ozzie by birth, and has had a hand in more green media than we can keep track of: she’s associate produced with the Discovery Channel, writes regularly at E and The Daily Green, and been published in various print media worldwide.

8. Jill Fehrenbacher

A freelance designer and green design consultant in New York, Jill is also the founder of Inhabitat, a blog dedicated to green design in all facets of life. When she’s not exploring the intersection of green and pretty, Jill is a graduate student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

7. Katie Fehrenbacher

Katie and Jill are the only two siblings on this list, and they’ve earned it: in addition to Jill’s skill as a designer, Katie edits Earth2Tech and writes for GigaOM; she’s also gotten her freelance work published in Red Herring, Endgadget, and ReadyMade Magazine.

6. Angelina Jolie

One of the rare celebrities with the enviro-cred to crack out list of 25, Angelina gets the nod because of her dedication to the developing world. While tinpot dictators are keen of saying things like “environmentalism is a luxury for the rich countries,” she makes it her work to ensure that the developing world is able to save the planet as well. Most recently she funded–by herself, because she’s a movie star–a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary at a cost of over 5 million dollars.

EarthFirst.com is looking (staring?) at the hottest environmentally friendly women all week–be sure to come back tomorrow for #5-1 and follow along all week with the Top 25 Hottest Girls in Green! Don’t worry Ladies, we have the Top 25 Hottest Guys in Green coming up next week.

EarthFirst.com’s Getting Hotter, And It’s Not Climate Change: The 25 Hottest Girls In Green (#11-15)

The internet is full of lists of hot women, and this one is no different–except that to get on it, these women have, in addition to bringing the hotness with them, have displayed environmental cred in any number of fields; some are activists, some are fundraisers, some are inventors, but every one of them does more than just drive a hybrid. Without further adieu, 11-15 of the 25 Hottest Girls In Green:

15. Emily Pilloton

Emily is the managing director of Inhabitat and the founder of Project H Design, a firm specializing in “initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness.” Project H is a nonprofit entity, and her designs there focus on a sustainable sensibility that’s both cutting-edge and classy.

14. Paris Hilton

Ah, Paris. This picture probably represents the “greenest” the hotel heiress has ever been, despite the fact that she’s fond of telling the press about her ever-more-ludicrous hybrid car ideas. First it was the 2007 GMC Yukon Hybrid, which may count, except it still only gets 21 mpg, and then there was her insistence that Hummer design her a hybrid–even more humorous when taken with the news that GM is considering dumping the brand. All the cool kids are wearing green these days, and I suppose she’s been feeling left out, but eco-fail, and everybody ranked 25-13 should move up a spot.

13. Lauren Bush

I know, right? The last name says that young Lauren here should be out issuing ultimatums to her friends and then getting into fights with people that look different than her, all before coming home to write several thousand letters to the editor about drilling in ANWR. Unlike her more famous uncle however, this designer has taken to the environment in a big way; she’s a vegetarian, and her design and modeling careers have allowed her to launch Project FEED, which has generated millions of dollars for the UN’s World Food Program through sales of accessories.

12. Kylie Minogue

Kylie has been agitating for environmental in a variety of ways since her career took off in the 1980s, advocating for penguins in Australia, playing at LIve Earth II, creating a completely energy-independent home with renewable resources, and speaking out in public. All of that, the stress of a show business career, and she still looks that good into her 40s? Oh my.

11. Darryl Hannah

Daryl Hannah is another celeb that backs up what happens in front of the cameras with real eco-friendly action: she’s served as a judge for Treehugger’s Convenient Truths contest, runs her own blog on sustainable solutions, and has won multiple awards for agitating for higher water quality and cleaner fuels. In 2006, she, Julia Butterfly Hill, and Joan Baez were arrested along with several other demonstrators who were attempting to stop the bulldozing og the nation’s largest urban farm in South Central Los Angeles, and actually spent some time in jail– proof positive that she’s sticking with her convictions.

EarthFirst.com is looking (staring?) at the hottest environmentally friendly women all week–be sure to come back tomorrow for #10-6 and follow along all week as we work like dogs to determine the Top 25 Hottest Girls in Green! Don’t worry Ladies, we have the Top 25 Hottest Guys in Green coming up next week.