Oh Natural’s 7 waste-free ways with beauty

LOTIONS & POTIONS

Do you have a shameful drawer bursting with enough moisturisers, cleansers, night creams, serums, toners, scrubs and eye creams to provide skincare for an entire beauty pageant?

Ditch all the expired products, the ineffective creams and the chemical laden brands. Look for multi-use products and declutter your skincare regime of all the steps that you don’t see making a difference. Buy larger products to reduce the amount of packaging used.

Buy ONE of each skincare product you really want, that works for your skin, and choose waste free where you can.

PLASTIC PACKAGING

Plastic shrink wrapped boxes of plastic tubes and pottles are not our kind of pretty.

We’re loving the emerging 100% waste free beauty products led by New Zealand’s own Ethique – and the beautiful glass jars and bottles of completely natural skincare from brands like Tailor Skincare and Ere Perez.

Make packaging part of your beauty criteria and support the brands that are taking a stand for our world.

It may add a few cents to the price, but you’re going to feel great.

MICROBEADS

Yaaaay New Zealand!

In a few short weeks, microbeads will be illegal in ‘wash-off products that contain plastic microbeads for the purposes of exfoliation, cleaning, abrasive cleaning or visual appearance of the product.’

So, we didn’t outlaw microbeads completely for some godforsaken reason but we basically banned them in beauty products. That’s a win for the fish (and those of us who eat them!)

CLEANSING WIPES

Ohhhh the old “disposable wipe” – Yeah right! *+%@… Sorry, we just choked on our coffee…

The bane of waste plant engineers and plumbers, those harmless looking flushable wipes are full of non-biodegradable plastic, and cause massive gunky blockages in our city systems as well as having a nasty habit of taking OVER 500 YEARS to degrade.

Stop. Buying. Wipes. Use reusable cloth. Like gorg Tailor Towels & Organic Cotton Wipes.

COTTON BUDS

It’s insane to drill for oil in the middle east and ship it to china to manufacture plastic sticks and transport those overland to a cotton bud factory and then ship those all around the world to be driven home from the supermarket and have the plastic packet opened to withdraw a teeny bud and wipe some mascara away from your eye … and throw it in the bin.

Bamboo. Bamboo makes us happy. It’s one of the world’s most sustainable resources, grows without pesticides, is a grass for goodness sake, and grows back super fast when harvested and makes nice eco friendly bamboo buds. There. That’s better.

REFILLS BABY

We love love love refills. Eco Minerals have cute eyeshadow refill packs and Black Chicken’s Nasalettes are refillable with essential oil blends.

NO; IT ISN’T PLASTIC!

Special mention must be made of Ethique’s Shower Containers, made with bamboo & sugarcane, they are completely compostable but will last up to five years.

We think Ere Perez have eco brushes nailed with their range of vegan makeup brushes (so yes, the soft bristles are synthetic, but no animals were harmed) and the handles are corn resin or wood. That’s eco-babe classy!