Going eco friendly with beauty products

As a girl I watched carefully as my maternal grandmother swirled pink lipstick over her pursed mouth, and hairspray to hold her curls in place. As an adult woman two decades later, I am sifting through my beauty cupboard on an eco friendly mission. The words environmentally savvy and beauty therapy are not two terms that automatically go together. Folding my towels and looking at my many face washes and lip balms, I realised I had a lot of work to do.

I had searched for modern beauty approaches that would drastically reduce plastics in the bathroom, and still be relatively cost effective. While maintaining sensitive and combination skin, I know that finding skin care products can be a challenge. I have face masks for both dry and oily parts of my face, a face scrub for sensitive skin and many bars of soap. Each time I enter the bathroom I am really just walking down the sensitive skin section of a pharmacy. Honestly speaking, I wasn’t proud of this and vowed to pick quality over quantity and ecofriendly over earth destructive where possible.

There are many challenges faced to the environment when the beauty industry consumes so much from the earth in ways many people are not fully aware of. While it’s commonly known that plastic is fast fuelling the garbage littering our seas, many people need to be made aware of soap shampoo and conditioner bar alternatives from places like Lush. These work a treat and make a shower ritual easy to follow.

The next issue faced is the amount of energy needed in the manufacturing of beauty products, in other words, consume less products but better quality products. Pick one great face lotion instead of having two or three on hand. When these become expired many women simply throw these away without a second thought towards their wasteful impact.

To be in line with my values, I categorised all bathroom items into small sections. One for skin care, another for dental, hair styling tools/brushes and then makeup. I placed a new soap in the shower and added some new rituals to the mix. I purchased a large body brush to do dry body brushing to boost circulation, and made a vow to focus more on skin care than makeup. I didn’t ideally want to be the person hiding behind a thick mask of foundation, refusing to let herself be seen all natural. That said, I still want to look and feel my best like any woman.

During this time, living within my truth became the all clear pathway for me to explore. I developed an emphasis on drinking more water, something in which I knew needed to be increased and looking online on tutorials about dry body brushing.

I ate more vegies and took time out to walk in nature. I journaled about my desire to contribute more to the earth while living a life that that encourages a circular economy of refuse, repair and recycle over an earth damaging linear economy. This leads to buy, use a couple of times and discard to landfill.

I swapped plastic handled makeup brushes for good quality wooden handles, and focused on less products but a focus on good quality moisturisers and facial oils like rosehip and avocado for nourishing my skin.

Here are some simple swaps I made;

• Removed body wash for soaps only to cut down on plastic bottles. This was an easy swap, however do not throw out something because it is not the most eco friendly choice. Simply use up the contents and recycle the packaging. Refuse to buy the bottle again

• Bamboo toothbrushes over plastic toothbrushes – these can be found in leading supermarkets and health food stores

• A natural based loofah instead of a polyester body loofah

• Natural deodorant over store bought anti-perspirant, or buying brands like Woohoo deodorant or No Pong

• Making home made lip balm with shea butter and coconut oil

• I now use a shampoo bar from The Bulk Source to wash my hair instead of shampoo from plastic bottles – bonus, these last so much longer than their liquid counterparts!

• A moisturising soap rather than shaving gel

• A safety razor over plastic based razors

• Continued buying from eco friendly beauty brands where possible eg. Sukin, Lush

The irony of the situation was that I saved money over the long term of the first year of doing this. I only bought what I needed, and gained a new sense of purpose as I began living out my ideals through everyday lifestyle habits. This further extended out to other of self care beyond the beauty cabinet. I added aromatherapy to the mix as I believe this is a practice that soothes my soul, and invested in a good diffuser and oils.

It is refreshing to know that with a few easy swaps I was able to live out my values and gain a new sense of freedom over my beauty choices. This followed on to other areas of my life including changing my water bottle, to purchasing stainless steel straws. I’m only one person on a mission but I know with young family members following in my footsteps, I can lower my beauty carbon footprint with the right choices. I hope to see other women taking charge of their beauty choices with compassion and insight for a better tomorrow.