Plastic free personal care

After last week’s minor success with the teabags, the #plasticfreejuly mission continues with an audit of personal care products. I started with an audit of the bathroom shelves where I found at least nineteen different items that Mr VV and I either share, or where we each have our own preferences. And I thought we were pretty minimalist when it came to lotions and potions!

The first place I checked was the shower area. We’ve been using a cruelty-free bar soap for a couple of years now, having ditched shower gel in one of our first moves towards reducing the amount of recycling and waste we generate. Shower gel was getting hellish expensive too, so I was happy to track down a French soap brand that was not tested on animals, did not contain any animal products and could actually be purchased in the local supermarket. There’s nothing more irritating than a 60 kilometre round trip to buy something just because it’s vegan (more of that later).

Shampoo and conditioner we share, and we’ve been using a great brand called Herb & Blom, which is Dutch, vegan, natural and comes in a 100% recycled bottle. It’s cheap too. We buy it in Action. In fact, we’re currently using Herb & Blom liquid hand soap all around the house and all their products in the campervan. Hmm … but is a 100% recycled bottle that is recyclable again enough? Aren’t we supposed to be cutting out the plastic bottles altogether? It was as I was pondering this question that I realised the shampoo had run out and there wasn’t a spare. Fortunately, we’d bought a bar of solid shampoo in Germany so I dug that out and put it into service. What a great product, lovely lather and leaves my hair in great condition. It was packed in a cardboard sleeve too – no plastic!  So, the plan now is to convert to solid shampoo and conditioner, once the plastic bottles have run out. Of course, the issue is still the packaging so I’m looking for solid bars that are sold just as that, without packaging, or in a cardboard/paper wrapper.

Drilling down into individual products, Mr VV has used shaving bars for some years now, so we’re not discarding empty plastic bottles of shaving gel. And the good news is that the usual brand comes in a cardboard box. His face wash, moisturiser and deodorant are usually from the Lavera Basics range, which is vegan. This is the first prerequisite for purchase, but none of the plastic tubes seem to be made of recycled plastic or recyclable themselves. The same goes for toothpaste and mouthwash although the mouthwash bottle is recyclable. These are usually bought in the supermarket – not even sure of their vegan provenance (sigh!), though we did get a sensitive vegan toothpaste to try when shopping in the bio shop. In fairness, Mr VV has tried a bamboo toothbrush, but didn’t get on with it, so – as long as I remember to buy it – it’s usually a recycled plastic brush.

I like to think I’m pretty minimal when it comes to personal care products. My favourite brand is Yves Rocher, which is a bit like a French version of the Body Shop. I did actually contact them via social media to ask about animal testing and was assured that their products have never been tested on animals nor do they contain animal ingredients. I’ve noticed that very recently all the products I use are now marked as vegan – that shows that veganism is finally having in France. The packaging is also eco-tubes, recycled and recyclable plastic or in the case of the moisturiser in a recyclable glass jar.

I’ve been using bamboo toothbrushes for over a year now. You have a slightly different sensation in your mouth from the wooden handle but you soon get used to it. It will be interesting to see if the old handles that I’ve put in the compost bin really do rot down. Deodorant is not a problem either, as I’ve had a PitRok crystal stick on the go for several years. Yes, they really do last that long, although I did drop it and chip the casing. It’s been great summer and winter – even during the recent heatwave here. The one particular area with the potential for #plasticfreejuly was my toothpaste, something I decided to investigate this week.

Living out in the sticks our options for shopping are three basic supermarkets, each about a 15km round trip, each offering pretty much the same range of products. Anything out of the ordinary calls for a trip to Limoges – a round trip of at least 60km. Not something we ever do on a whim. So, this week I took advantage of the fact that the campervan needed to visit the dealer to pop into one of the best bio shops in the town, which is right opposite. Le Grand Panier Bio offers a great range of products, including lots of tofu and even vegan cheese. But this time I was shopping with my ‘eco head’ on. What struck me as I stood in the extensive toiletries and household cleaning aisle was the quantity of plastic. Almost everything was packaged. I was really disappointed that the bars of Savon de Marseille, which you can usually buy without packaging, were all shrink-wrapped in plastic. I did manage to find a lovely little cube of Solibio soap. This is a local brand, all natural ingredients and cruelty-free, but comes with a hefty almost four euros price tag for 100g of soap.

Next, I started to peruse the dental products. There were bamboo and recycled plastic toothbrushes aplenty. There was some type of bio or natural dental floss, too. But toothpaste? Virtually everything was in a plastic tube. I was really hoping to track down some Denttabs. These are a new German-developed product that I’ve been itching to try but perhaps they’re a step too far for the Haute Vienne. Looks like I’ll have to track them down online. Meanwhile, I was able to stock up on loose Yogi tea and some lovely Gaia bedtime loose herbal tea with great eco-credentials on the packaging side: recyclable cellulose film inner and paper outer. I also bought a load of cotton reusable bags for loose dry ingredients and fruit and veg and I’ll report on those next week.

Overall, out of the nineteen personal care toiletries, currently seven are plastic free; that’s just over a third. Six are recyclable plastic, but six are not currently recyclable or at least the labelling does not give any indication that they are. Out of the total, there is the potential to immediately change two products to #plasticfree: conditioner and toothpaste. That would put our plastic free products to nearer 50%. I’ll keep it under constant review because, whilst it’s a step forward, it is nowhere near the 100% we should be trying to achieve.