Being eco-friendly goes far beyond just turning off lights when you leave the room or separating your rubbish for recycling – it’s about changing how you live your life. Here are some things you can change in your hair and beauty routine to be more environmentally friendly whilst still looking fabulous.
1. Use cosmetic brands that will recycle their products.
It can be hard to be eco-friendly when buying cosmetics. But did you know that brands such as MAC, The Body Shop and Lush are working to reduce their plastic consumption? We think it’s great that they are taking responsibility of the plastic they’re producing whilst giving you a greener way to live.
Giving back!As well as the reassurance that your products are going to be properly recycled, these cosmetic brands offer free rewards as a little thank you for being so awesome and helping them recycle:
MAC offer you a free lipstick in a colour of your choice in exchange for five of their recyclable products. Want to know more about this? Click here.
The Body Shop give club members a five-pound reward when recycling their products with them. Find out more here.
Lush offer a free face mask when you bring back five of their black product pots.
2. Give your used items a new purpose.
Did you know only 44% of the UK’s recycling actually ends up being recycled? So, when you’re carefully separating your recyclable items it doesn’t always mean it will be recycled. Until these stats improve, we think it’s a great idea to re-purpose your old items. This will significantly reduce pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy usage.
How can I do this whilst looking fabulous?
Use a plastic bottle to curl your hair
It takes just minutes to make and leaves you looking amazing! All you need is a plastic bottle, scissors and a hairdryer. Here’s how:
- Cut the top off your plastic bottle and create a rectangular incision that's about the same size as the nozzle on your hairdryer.
- Place a section of your hair into the bottle.
- Place the hairdryer’s nozzle inside the incision and blast your hair for around 8 seconds. (We recommend that you use gloves while doing this as the plastic can get hot)
- Then voila! Your hair looks amazing.
Use some old clothes to do Rag ‘n’ Roll curls in your hair?
To do this you will need some old clothing and scissors. Here’s how:
- Cut between 10 and 20 strips of your old clothes, these need to be about 2-inches by 8 to 10-inches.
- Wash hair and let it air dry, or dampen it. Do not start with dripping wet hair.
- Separate a section of hair. The smaller the section, the tighter the curls will be. The larger the section, the looser the curls will be.
- Position a rag about 1 inch from the bottom of that section of hair. Gently wind the tail of the hair around the rag and use your fingers to hold the tail in place as you roll the rag up toward your head, until the hair winding around it holds it in place. Roll it all the way up to your head and tie a square not in it. Don’t tie it so tightly that you’ll have trouble untying it in the morning, but be sure it’s secure.
- Go to sleep! Dream of bouncin’ and behavin’ curly hair.
- Untie then unroll and remove each rag.
- Separate curls gently with your fingers. If you brush them, the curls will become wavy hair rather than curly hair; it’s your call.
3. Reduce plastic by switching to shampoo and soap bars.
How many bottles are there in your bathroom? Currently, about nine million tons of plastic get thrown into the ocean annually, which breaks down to one garbage truck full of plastic being dumped into the sea every minute. Instead, you could make the switch to solid shampoo and soap bars ditching horrible plastic packaging.
We’ve recently added new items to our solid shampoo and soap bar collection, our bars don’t leave a trace on the environment as they all come in recyclable carboard packaging. We think they're great, why don’t you make the switch and give them a try? Click here.
4. Ditch the plastic makeup remover wipes!
Why are makeup wipes so bad?
Makeup remover wipes are a seriously uncool addition to your makeup bag. They are notoriously bad for the environment, made of non-biodegradable plastic fibres, and are key players in catastrophic sewer build-ups, like the giant 'fatberg' in London's sewer last year that was as big as 11 double-decker buses. They litter beaches around the world, with the Marine Conservation Society estimating an average of 30 wipes are found per 100m of beach in the UK.
What can I use instead?
- Coconut oil – Coconut oil isn't just an excellent body moisturizer it's also a really good makeup remover. Just scoop out a little bit of coconut oil and rub it between your fingers to warm it up first. Smooth that over your skin with your fingers, then wipe it off with a dry bamboo flannel and it'll take your makeup with it.
- Bamboo Flannels - Choosing bamboo flannels rather than conventional face cloths is a far more environmentally friendly option. Bamboo towels are very soft, more absorbent than standard cotton and they are naturally anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. At the end of their useful life, the fibres of the flannel will naturally decompose completely into the earth
5. Restore & repair before buying new.
Repairing broken makeup powder
You’ve just opened your make up bag, your eyeshadow has broken and ended up everywhere! It’s so annoying, especially when it’s one of your favourites, but all is not lost Instead of throwing this away and buying new, you can repair it. All you need is a spoon, makeup brush and tissue.
This YouTube clip can show you how to do this -
How to restore tacky or sticky nail varnish.
No problem! All you need is nail polish remover, add a couple of drops into the nail varnish, screw the lid on and shake. This will thin your nail varnish out for easy application!
Watch this YouTube clip to see how it’s done -
How to restore dried out mascara.
Don’t worry, it can still be saved! All you need are eye drops. Here’s how:
- Add a few drops of eye drops into the mascara tube.
- Take the mascara wand and twirl it around inside the tube.
- Next, shake the tube. And voila, your dry mascara is now well moisturised to use again
Note, while swirling do not pump the mascara wand.