These green beauty switches help you to reduce plastic waste, ocean pollution, and harmful chemicals for a healthier routine.
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Believe it or not, our beauty routines are harming the environment. There’s an excess of plastic packaging: 14 million tons yearly. With only 50% of packaging recycled, that means that there is a lot of plastic waste that is piling up in landfills and our oceans. Thankfully, some brands and organizations are catching on to offer everything from refillable products shipped in compostable packaging to compiling lists of harmful ingredients in beauty brands. It almost feels that these days it’s easy to adopt a green beauty routine. And all you need to do is make a few conscious shopping swaps that will be better for you and the environment.
Swap: Single-Use Masks For A Useable Mask
Sheet masks are literal trash. Not only are they wrapped in single-use plastic packaging, but they are also sheets of single-use plastic themselves meant to be worn once before hitting the landfills. They’re a double dose of single-use plastic. So, why not indulge in skin-saving technology without indulging in single-use plastic?
For tighter glowing skin, try a face mask that combines red and near-infrared LED technologies that target uneven skin tones. Crafted from medical-grade silicone, these masks are plastic but are meant to be used again and again, year after year, to get your skin glowing without the single-use plastic waste.
Swap Heavy Plastic Containers For Refillable Subscriptions
Did you know that the average deodorant tube can be made from several different types of plastic? And, each type may not be recyclable. That means that the cap, body of the container, and even the dial at the bottom can be made from three different types of plastic that you’d have to separate in order for it to be recycled properly. And, if you’re one of the millions who you use toothpaste tubes, you might be looking at the same problem- millions of tubes of plastic waste are thrown out yearly.
There are brands that are trying to offer sustainable solutions- refillable green beauty products. These items are shipped to your home in glass or plastic containers that you can refill. Depending on how often you need new products like toothpaste or deodorant delivered to your door, you can have a subscription model that replenishes your supply monthly, every 3 months, etc. The items will be shipped to your home in biodegradable or recyclable materials, allowing you to refill them without creating waste. And, some brands are even part of carbon offset programs meaning that they’ll find solutions to balance out their CO2 pollution through tree planting or waste recycling programs.
Swap Water Based Products For Solid Beauty Products
With plastic packaging, bottles, and single-use waste clogging landfills and even making its way into waterways polluting oceans, solid beauty products pose another solution to the current waste model. Instead of heavy-duty plastic containers housing shampoos and gel cleansers, solid beauty products often come in minimal packaging like paper that is recyclable. As an added bonus these products aren’t made with excess water.
Marketplaces like Public Goods offer solid beauty products that are full o the good stuff like skin-nourishing coconut oil and aloe vera without the bad stuff like sodium lauryl sulfates and phthalates.
Swap Chemicals For Natural Makeup
Thousands of chemicals are used in makeup yearly. And, a lot of them are considered harmful to our health with irreversible effects. In fact, according to a report from the early aughts 595 cosmetic manufacturers have reported using 88 chemicals in more than 73,000 products that are considered carcinogenic or linked to birth defects. There are green beauty brands that are made using minerals, organic fruit-derived ingredients, and essential oils. These ingredients are kinder to our bodies considering that what we put onto our skin is absorbed into our bodies.
Use Reusable Applicators
There’s a better way to apply and remove your makeup than single-use cotton rounds or wipes. Not only will you reduce the amount of plastic packaging waste when switching to reusable products, but you’ll also minimize the plastic or cotton trash you would usually create. Once disposed of, those makeup remover wipes could cause a waste problem: clogging drains and sewage pipes, potentially costing your city hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix.
Reusable makeup applicators and removers are an eco-friendly solution to their disposable counterparts. Support brands that use organic cotton or bamboo and avoid bleach or harmful colors of fragrances. This further ensures that the items that you’re reusing are safe for your skin and also aren’t leeching microplastics into the ocean when you wash.
All in all, these are simple swaps to make to your beauty routine to reduce waste, single-use plastic, and adopt a green beauty routine that is better for you and the planet.