5 Swaps for a Greener Bathroom
Do you want to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, but you’re not in a place in your life where you can make huge changes? I have some good news for you! You don’t have to install solar panels or replace all your windows and appliances to make a difference; you can absolutely get started with some small swaps in your daily routine. Bathrooms are a great place to start thinking sustainably because they’re one of the few places you visit every single day. Today we’re taking a peek into 5 changes I’ve made to my daily bathroom routine that are not only green, but luxurious AND inexpensive. Read through these ideas and then look around your own bathroom to see what swaps you can make for a more environmentally friendly home.
I did not receive any compensation for the specific products mentioned in this post; I just want to share what’s worked for me.
Shampoo Bar
As someone who has long, thick hair, I go through lots of shampoo and conditioner. Every time I chuck one of those big empty bottles into the tiny bathroom trashcan, I feel a pang of guilt. First of all, most plastic bottles are recyclable in most places, so I 100% should be carrying that bottle downstairs to the recycling bin. But wouldn’t it be even better if I didn’t have to get rid of any packaging at all? Enter shampoo bars! I use the one below from Lush, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Shampoo bars work like bars of soap, so there is no single-use plastic bottle and virtually zero packaging. I was worried that there would be an awkward greasy period while my hair adjusted to something so different, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It worked amazingly well from the very first use - it lathers up a TON, and after I rinse my hair is squeaky clean. The particular kind I use is a sunshiny yellow and smells like jasmine. A shampoo bar the size of your palm is said to last up to 80 uses, making it much less expensive than drugstore shampoo, plus you don’t have to replace it nearly as often. Personally, my shampoo bar doesn’t last nearly that long, but I tend to go ham on my hair products; if you have shorter or thinner hair you can probably get a lot more uses out of yours. Still, this shampoo bar met my requirements for being an effective product, inexpensive, and a genuine joy to use. Every time that jasmine scent fills my bathroom it’s like walking through a field of flowers. I have personally only used Lush shampoo bars so far, but any shampoo bar should by nature eliminate packaging waste from your life!
The Godiva Shampoo Bar from Lush
2. Bar Soap
I typically favor liquid body soap because it somehow seems like more of a treat. But once again, I don’t feel good about the plastic bottles. Now I’ve switched over to a bar soap and haven’t looked back. Every drug store carries bar soap, and I’ve found some particularly good-smelling and inexpensive ones at Target. Bars of soap are usually packaged in paper or cardboard, which can be recycled or composted and are the main reason they’re more “green” than liquid soap (of course remember to avoid microbeads in whatever soap you choose). The only drawback to bar soap for me is that I like lots of lather, and I haven’t found a loofah that I love. I can’t justify a plastic loofah that has to be replaced regularly if the whole idea is to cut down on plastic, and I just don’t enjoy washcloths. Overall, I’m very happy with the bar soap switch, but my quest continues for a greener loofah.
3. Toothpaste Tablets
You’ve probably heard of homemade toothpaste made with baking soda, and while it works for a lot of people, it just wasn’t a switch I could get excited about. I found toothpaste tablets at Lush, and was intrigued enough to give them a try (probably because they smell so much better than baking soda). I love the way they taste, and they foam up nicely while I brush. The tablets come in a small plastic bottle which is the perfect size for me to reuse as a travel container for toiletries like lotion. Granted, I won’t have an endless need for tiny plastic bottles, so eventually I’ll start throwing some of them in the recycling when I’m done. This isn’t my ideal solution as it still produces plastic waste, but I do feel better about recycling the plastic bottle than I do about putting a traditional toothpaste tube in the landfill. Here’s the catch: these toothpaste tablets - as well as some traditional and homemade toothpaste options - are not approved by the American Dental Association. That means they could be lacking the ingredients that keep our teeth healthy or in some cases include ingredients that are harmful. My dentist recommended that if I choose to continue using my toothpaste tablets at home that I also get fluoride treatments when I go in for regular cleanings.* Bottom line: you get to decide what you want to put in your mouth. If you want to use an alternative toothpaste, consider getting fluoride treatments from your dentist twice a year, or use an ADA approved toothpaste for one of your twice daily brushings. Or don’t. It’s your mouth.
4. Reusable Cotton Rounds
I used to use (like, up until a couple weeks ago) a makeup remover wipe every single night. I don’t flush them (NEVER FLUSH MAKEUP WIPES) but I do throw them in the trash. In fact, when I looked at my bathroom trashcan, those are what made up the majority of my trash. I decided to cut some old microfiber towels I don’t use anymore into credit card-sized rectangles and use those as my new wipes. I gently rub jojoba oil on my face and into my eyelashes, then wet the little towel with warm water and everything wipes off easily. A makeup artist actually recommended this method to me a few years ago, but for some reason it didn’t click with me until recently. Now that I’ve switched, I can’t believe how many makeup wipes I wasted. I also use these squares any time I would normally use a cotton ball, which for me includes nail polish remover and toner. After I use one, I just toss it into my hamper and run it through with the laundry.** If you google “reusable cotton round” you’ll find lots of options, or you can just cut a microfiber towel into smaller pieces if you already have one lying around.
5. Recycled and Recyclable Packaging
Not every product has a great sustainable alternative. For those items that you’re still going to buy in plastic packaging, take a quick look at the back of the bottle. If the packaging is made of recycled or recyclable materials, it will tell you so in an easy-to-find spot. Take a look at the pictures below for examples. If you start with little steps like switching to recyclable containers, that’s still one step toward sustainability for your house. What’s more, the choices you make when you shop drive big and important corporate decisions. Corporations are motivated by money, and if no one cares about what packaging is used, they won’t be likely to change their ways. When you put your money where your mouth is, you talk to companies in the only language they understand, saying “I will reward you for making your business more sustainable.” The world needs sustainability on a bigger scale than you or I can accomplish on our own, but when we patronize environmentally responsible businesses, we can drive huge changes. And it can be as easy as looking at the back of the bottle.
*Admittedly, I have not researched what the packaging of those fluoride treatments involves. I have also not yet researched the manufacturing process for traditional toothpaste and tubes vs. toothpaste tablets and their bottle. When you want to compare two products or processes, it’s important to look at its whole lifecycle. For example, wind turbines are a renewable source of energy, but there is an enormous amount of CO2 emitted by the steel factories that produce the turbines. To determine the sustainability of a wind turbine, you would have to include that CO2 in your analysis because it’s still part of the turbine’s lifecycle. Make sense? Looking at the whole process of manufacturing from beginning to end is important, but in the case of toothpaste, I can’t think of any reason why tablets would be more harmful to produce than paste, and I view recyclable material as a win over garbage. If you have more information on the topic, let’s start a Troop discussion about it! And as always, if I learn better, I’ll work to do better. And I’ll update this article, duh.
**When I throw these little towels into the laundry I reduce my landfill input, but now I have to use water to wash them. This is a lifecycle consideration like I mentioned above with the wind turbine example. Because these towels are so small and I only use about 8 of them a week, I just add them to whatever laundry I would have done and don’t use any more water or electricity than I would have without them. I call that a win!
Did you connect with one of these ideas? What do you do to make your own home more sustainable? Leave a comment below to share your idea with the Troop, or post a picture on the Facebook group!
