As we begin 2022, it is more important than ever to acknowledge how our habits and behaviours contribute to the environmental crisis and how we can change these to make a difference. You might have considered improving your fashion choices to become more eco-friendly, but have you ever considered how to make your beauty routine more sustainable?

Whether you’ve established a strict twice-daily routine, or just like to moisturise here and there, anyone can make changes to create a more sustainable beauty routine.

Disposable items are anything that you use once and throw away – cotton pads, flossing picks, tissues, face masks, face wipes etc. Let’s face it, we have all been guilty of using products that make the whole process easier! Sometimes, late at night (maybe after a couple of drinks) a face wipe is our best friend. But for the every-day routine, using single-use items produces a lot of waste that goes straight to landfill, polluting the earth.

Thankfully, there are so many reusable alternatives that are inexpensive and easy to use. Since starting my journey towards a more sustainable lifestyle, I hapve made some switches to my beauty routine that have actually been very easy and stress-free, so you can do it too!

One of the easiest and most impactful switches to make is what you take your makeup off with. Face wipes and cotton pads get thrown straight in the bin, so try switching to reusable products such as these bamboo cotton pads or something like these Liz Earle cleansing towels. You can use them for a few nights, then simply put them through the wash with your clothes and voila! They are ready to be used again and again.

We’ve all been guilty of purchasing new beauty products before our original ones are used up. In some cases, you just need to switch up your products, and that’s okay. But in most cases, try and use up that bit of moisturiser you’ve got left before starting a new one (and they try to recycle the packaging!). This is a really important stage of making your beauty routine more sustainable, as it reduced the amount of waste you produce and this impacts your individual carbon footprint

Plastic is one of the most damaging materials that humans have come up with. Not only is its production harmful to the planet, it also practically lasts forever and is not easy to recycle. Around the world, only about 10% of plastic items are recycled, meaning the other 90% are either still being used or, more likely, being thrown away and put in landfill (a very unsustainable solution to the problem). To reduce the demand for plastic products and packaging, we can try and cut our purchases of these products.

In terms of your beauty routine, think about how many of your products come in plastic packaging, that is then either thrown in the bin or (hopefully) recycled at the end of its life. If you switches to plastic-free products, imagine how many plastic containers and bottles you’d save each year!
An easy switch to make is using solid soap. Most handwash comes in plastic dispensers and millions of these end up in landfill every year. Solid soaps last just as long, if not longer, than liquid soaps, and have no need to come in plastic packaging. You can also get solid shampoo, shower gel, and face cleanser! Plus, think about all the cute soap dishes you could get to go in your bathroom…

Soho Soaps have some lovely solid bars.

A lot of large beauty brands do not consider their environmental impact, including what their products are made of, what materials they are packaged in, if they are single-use or not, and how much carbon is produced during their production. So, to try and reduce your impact on the environment, you could try shopping from smaller brands that take all of these things into account!

Click here for a list of sustainable beauty brands.

This one speaks for itself. Instead of going back to your cheap items that you have to replace every month or two, try investing in a similar product that will last longer. Not only does this save you time and effort in replacing it so often, but it also saves on waste produced by packaging.