While swapping out your food and lifestyle products to greener, more eco-friendly items is a great way to get onto a greener lifestyle, it may be time to look at what it is you’re putting on your skin. If you’re hoping to become more sustainable, then these are the areas you should focus on.
Purchase Green Options
- Ditch The Face Wipes
While using face wipes once in a while isn’t a crime, continually buying and tossing wipes is not a great way to focus on greening your life (even if the wipes say they’re eco-friendly). Instead, a cotton cloth and water and soap are your best and greenest option.
- Swap Out Your Toothbrush and Toothpaste
Oral care isn’t something many consider greening – but there are plenty of great vegan options out there. Most toothbrushes have plastic handles and bristles which take over 100 years to break down. Ditto for your plastic-encased toothpaste.
Instead, when your current toothbrush is done, you may want to look at eco-friendly and green options such as toothbrushes with wooden handles and nylon bristles which will do the job just as well as your plastic brush. For toothpaste, many companies sell products in glass bottles and jars which is a much greener option for you – and the environment.
Make Your Own DIY Options
- DIY Your Own Toner
Toner is an item many people associate with tingling and slight burning – but did you know toner should never make your skin dry out? Instead, what toner should be doing is refreshing your skin and removing the excess sebum that’s on it before you put on your moisturiser.
While eco-friendly toners are out there on the market, you can make your own vegan one by purchasing a bottle of witch-hazel and mixing it with water – or rosewater. This suits almost every skin type out there and for what you’ll pay for witch-hazel, you’ll be getting almost three times as much product as purchasing an eco-friendly ready-made toner.
- Ditch Your Body Scrub
If you’re still using any kind of body product that contains micro-beads, you need to get that out your house asap! The microbeads are not environmentally friendly and will end up damaging countless lifeforms in the sea and waterways which is a big no-no for anyone seeking to live in harmony with nature.
Instead, make your own body scrub by blitzing up oats and sugar in a blender together and using that on your body to scrub away any hard skin spots. Another alternative is using your coffee grounds from your morning brew to exfoliate with once they’re done making you that perfect cuppa and have cooled down.
- Re-useable cotton rounds
While white, soft, and fluffy cotton rounds may be cheap at the pharmacy, they come with a host of environmental implications. A washcloth is a good alternative for most to this, but if you’re after something more compact, then crocheted cotton face rounds are a good option.
You can make your own as the pattern is easy and can be done on a weekend. These can then be handwashed and used several hundred times before needing to be upcycled.