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🌳 How to avoid "forever chemicals"

🌳 How to avoid "forever chemicals"

Friday 3/13: Sponsored by Roku and Masterworks - Plant-grown cups, sunset of the day, and avoiding forever chemicals

March 13, 2026

In partnership with

Friday

“Dear old world… you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”

L.M. Montgomery

In today’s issue, we’ll take a look at:

Plant-grown cups might replace plastic
Sunset of the Day in Turks and Caicos
Inside the ads on TV
How to avoid “forever chemicals”
Making money off of art

True or False?

Spending just 20 minutes in nature can lower your stress hormones.

Scroll to the bottom for the answer.

Plant-Grown Cups Might Replace Plastic

A New York design studio is reimagining sustainability from the ground up. The design studio asked a simple but bold question: What if we could grow cups instead of manufacturing them? The result is The Gourd Project, which uses 3D-printed molds to shape gourds into functional, fully compostable drinking vessels.

The gourds grow into cup-like forms inside the molds, then dry into durable, watertight shells. Known as HyO-Cups, these natural containers can be tossed in the compost bin when they’re done. It leads to no plastic, no chemicals, and no landfill waste.

The studio hopes to expand production, aiming to turn this backyard experiment into a global alternative to single-use plastics.

Sunset of the Day in Turks and Caicos

The Canopy reader Andi shared this sweet moment from a recent trip to Turks and Caicos. Her son, Joaquín, decided to try and “catch” the sun, and came pretty close! The soft light, sandy shore, and glowing sky made the perfect backdrop for a playful, golden-hour memory.

Thanks to Andi (and Joaquín!) for sending this in. If you’ve captured a sunset that made you stop and breathe a little deeper, send it in for your chance to be featured!

Image courtesy of The Canopy reader, Andi.

How Jennifer Anniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.

LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.

The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.

Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Anniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more.

Thank you to Roku for sponsoring The Canopy.

How to Avoid “Forever Chemicals”

PFAS, often called “forever chemicals”, are substances used to make products waterproof, nonstick, and stain-resistant. They show up in everything from cookware and carpets to fast-food wrappers and mascara. The problem? These chemicals don’t break down easily and can build up in our bodies and the environment over time.

Avoiding these forever chemicals doesn’t have to be complicated. Start in the kitchen: swap nonstick pans for cast iron, stainless steel, or ceramic. Choose glass or stainless containers instead of plastic, and look for food that isn’t packaged in grease-resistant wrappers.

In your home, pick untreated fabrics when buying carpets or furniture, and choose clothing made from natural fibers over waterproof synthetics. You can also use a water filter labeled to reduce PFAS and dust regularly to limit indoor buildup. Small swaps like these go a long way toward keeping your home, and the planet, a little cleaner.

Someone just spent $236,000,000 on a painting. Here’s why it matters for your wallet.

The WSJ just reported the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction.

While equities, gold, bitcoin hover near highs, the art market is showing signs of early recovery after one of the longest downturns since the 1990s.

Here’s where it gets interesting→

Each investing environment is unique, but after the dot com crash, contemporary and post-war art grew ~24% a year for a decade, and after 2008, it grew ~11% annually for 12 years.*

Overall, the segment has outpaced the S&P by 15 percent with near-zero correlation from 1995 to 2025.

Now, Masterworks lets you invest in shares of artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso. Since 2019, investors have deployed $1.25 billion across 500+ artworks.

Masterworks has sold 25 works with net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.

Shares can sell quickly, but my subscribers skip the waitlist:

Skip waitlist

_{*Per Masterworks data. Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures:}_{masterworks.com/cd}

Thank you to Masterworks for sponsoring The Canopy.

Final Thoughts:

From fall flowers to baby dolphins, check out this week’s top eco-friendly finds:

Reflections:

🌎 True or False: True. Even a walk through a local park has measurable mental health benefits.

🌅 Sunset Of The Day: The sun can provide the most beautiful photography. That's why we're eager to see your favorite sunrise or sunset photos. Reply to this email with your best sun-based pictures for a chance to be featured!