Zero Waste Personal Care Made Easy

You've taken your period zerowaste - how about the rest of your personal care routine!  Rosemary Newton, our guest blogger, is here to share. She's passionate about the environment, running, travel, and trying out new green beauty products.

Personal care products can be a huge part of your practices and routines of self-care. Luckily, there are more options than ever to introduce zero-waste products into your personal care repertoire. An added bonus? Companies who prioritize zero-waste packaging also tend to value all-natural ingredients. Here are a few key personal care categories where simple swaps can be made to nix waste with the products you use on the daily.

Hair Care

This is one of the personal-care categories with the largest variety of products on the market. Shampoo and conditioner bars eliminate plastic packaging while delivering all the same benefits of a liquid. Ethique Beauty Bars offer three bottles of liquid shampoo to one bar, cater to various hair types (oily, frizzy, etc.), and come in a range of scents including pink grapefruit and vanilla (Pinkalicious Shampoo Bar) and orange, cinnamon and ginger (Sweet & Spicy Volumizing Shampoo Bar). For extra hydration and care, Ethique also offers zero-waste hair mask bars.

Other companies offering bars include The Unwrapped Life and super unique Beauty Kubes, which offer mini cubes suitable per one wash. If you’re unsure about converting to bars, Plaine Products offers refillable aluminum bottles of vegan, biodegradable, cruelty-free shampoo and conditioner via subscription.

Oral Care

Oral-care is super important to overall health, but it doesn’t require the use of plastic. Consider a bamboo toothbrush over a plastic one, like this one from Brush with Bamboo. The eco-friendly brush is fully plant-based from the bristles to the handle, wrapper, and the box it comes in. It’s also made of certified 100% organic bamboo. To take it one step further, try out Dental Lace, a refillable dental floss that is 99% a zero waste product. It’s a glass container and holds 100% Mulberry silk floss that can easily be refilled.

Skin Care

As we head into the dry, winter months, it’s probably time your skin needs a little extra TLC. Quenching your skin’s thirst doesn’t have to mean a disposable, plastic container. Butter Blocks from Ethique are made with organic cocoa butter, organic coconut oil and essential oils and are equivalent to about 500 ml of liquid lotion. They also offer an all-natural, zero-waste self-tanning bar.

Zero-waste and cruelty-free company Humble Hive Homemade offers handmade skincare products including Lotion bars coming in fragrances like lavender and cocoa butter, all in reusable tin containers. For those who prefer liquid lotion, Plaine Products also offers refillable body lotion, face lotion, and face wash with subscriptions starting at once every two months, to once every six months.

Makeup

When it comes to makeup, plenty of brands tout cruelty-free products (as they should), but some brands extend this to both animals and the environment. Antonym Cosmetics is certified organic, vegan, cruelty free, and uses sustainable bamboo and paper packaging and sustainable materials for all products, including brushes. Canadian company Elate Cosmetics prides themselves on conscious beauty, which means all compacts, tools and palettes are made from bamboo and refills are packaged in seed paper that you can use to grow a plant.

Deodorant

Smelling fresh shouldn’t come at the expense of the environment. Thankfully, companies like Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve offer organic, zero-waste cream deodorants. Meow Meow Tweet also offers roll-on, plastic-free deodorant in scents like lavender bergamot.

DIY and Resources

There’s plenty of sites which sell small-batch zero-waste products from a variety of manufactures. Package Free Shop, The Zero Market, and Etsy are great online marketplaces. Or, you can always go DIY to limit waste, save money, and get creative. There’s lots of recipes easily found online, like from the Going Zero Waste blog.

P.S. Need some help taking you period zero waste? Try our matchmaker quiz!  

Photo by Anna Oliinyk on Unsplash