Green Adornments and Eco-Thrifty Loveliness

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit...eco impediments. Valentine's Day may be awash in pinks and reds, but we here at The Green Guide refuse to let our true color fade for even a day. So for this extended edition of "Fresh Finds," let us lead you down the path of a lover's green enlightenment, because a rose of any other color, as we like to think, might not smell so sweet.

First off, don't drive away love by scribing sonnets on virgin-wood pulp. Say "I Love You" on 100% post-consumer recycled paper cards from Doodle Greetings ($10/10 cards, doodle-greetings.com). Better yet, sow the seeds of a fine, stout love with a plantable greeting card from Bloomin' Flower Cards ($4.50/each, www.bloomin.com), and spur the growth of something that will hopefully endure longer than your last relationship.

But waxing poetic on affairs of the heart will only get you so far on Valentine's Day. The real path to a man's, or woman's, heart is through his, or her, stomach. Leave the car and all its gasoline and CO2 emissions in the garage and make a romantic home-cooked meal using produce from your local farmer's market, which you can find through Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org).

Your energy-saving dinner, naturally, will be lit by candlelight, and nothing serves that purpose better than vegetable wax candles, glowing in all their petroleum-free glory. Let the olfactory delight of your culinary creation speak for itself and instead opt for unscented candles, like the Non-Scents Collection by Way Out Wax (starting at $5.79; www.wayoutwax.com), made from a combination of vegetable wax, beeswax and hempseed oil.

Should you decide, emboldened by the half-bottle of organic champagne you had with dinner—may we suggest the Can Vendrell Cava Brut Reserva sparkling white wine? ($19.99; www.organicvintners.com) —that it's time to pledge everlasting devotion to your paramour, don't do it with dirty gold or conflict diamonds. After all, the romantic shine of a gold ring is dulled a bit by the 18 tons of mine waste, arsenic and cyanide left behind in its wake, and we don't want the diamonds that are traded to fund bloody wars in Africa or the gemstones that lead to human rights abuses in Burma to last forever. If your family's heirloom jewelry isn't yours to offer, find another family. Take a trip to a local estate sale, which can be found by visiting www.estatesales.net, and invest in the longevity of an antique. If brand-new is more your style, turn to Leber Jeweler Inc. (www.leberjeweler.com) and their Earthwise Jewelry collection, made from conflict-free Canadian diamonds, socially responsible gemstones and reclaimed metals.

Whatever your dinner and any subsequent proposals may lead to, you will want to be scent-ually alluring for your companion, but nothing kills an amorous atmosphere like synthetic fragrances polluted with hormone-disrupting phthalates and carcinogenic formaldehyde. Avoid these chemicals with healthier essential-oil perfumes, like Ecco Bella's essential oil eau de parfum ($19.50, www.eccobella.com), Aveda Love PureFume Absolute ($21.00, www.aveda.com) and, for the true Herban Cowboy, Dusk Organic Cologne ($30.00, www.herbancowboy.com).

And, finally, if distance puts you at a disadvantage on this loveliest of all holidays, never fear. Send your lover the electronic version of "The Complete Sonnets of William Shakespeare," available at Audible.com, and let Kelsey Grammer, Elliott Gould and Vanessa Redgrave whisper sweet nothings for you through the earbuds of your significant other's iPod all day long.