Our series “Plastic-free” is finally continued! This time it’s about our daily hygiene in the bathroom.
As in many areas of everyday life, we also use an alarming amount of plastic in the bathroom: for example, as packaging for shampoo and shower gel, but also as an additive in toothpaste, scrubs and as a softener in hair care products. But this does not have to be! There are more than enough great and also very inexpensive alternatives for you to banish all that plastic from your bathroom. A few tips, tricks, recipes and tutorials we want to share with you here.
DIY Toothpaste: A Simple Solution to Avoid Harmful Chemicals in Your Morning Routine
Every morning when we get up, we go to the bathroom, maybe go to the toilet and brush our teeth with toothpaste, in which unfortunately often, not healthy and incompatible substances are contained, such as fluorides, flavors and chemical bleaching and consistency-giving agents. But you can buy environmentally friendly toothpaste or toothbrush tablets in well-stocked health food stores. But even easier, with just a few everyday home remedies, you can make your own toothpaste. Pia, one of our journalists, tried herself to make and use a toothpaste from baking soda and coconut oil.
Pia’s report: “It was very easy to make, especially because of the few ingredients that were easy to get. The application was a bit difficult at first, but after I figured out how to spatula the toothpaste onto the brush, it was easy to handle. I found the taste of coconut a little hard to get used to, but if you want to stick with the mint flavor, you can just add some mint oil.“
When it comes to toothbrushes, it’s also good and practical to switch to the much more resource-friendly bamboo brush (organic market, drugstore) or use the very original way of softly chewing the branches of the toothbrush tree to clean your teeth.
“A German uses about 787 bottles of shampoo in his lifetime, consuming about 25 kg of plastic waste.“
Going Plastic-Free: Say Goodbye to Shampoo Bottles and Hello to Solid Soap Bars
In addition, shampoo, or shower gel, is a major microplastic producer. But don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you can’t shower at all. It just means it makes sense to switch to alternatives, like solid hair and body soaps. Don’t lose patience if your first or second soap turns out to be suboptimal for your hair. Keep trying and maybe even try no poo, which is washing your hair without any shampoo at all – this works especially well for short hair.
It’s even easier with general body care, where you can simply switch to any soap made from natural ingredients (e.g. sheep’s milk, olive oil), with a scent of your choice and often for your own skin needs. Deodorants are also quite a source of waste – and often harmful to your health as well. This is due to additives such as aluminum salts, parabens or EDTA. But to smell good, you can try some fine-grained baking soda powdered under your armpits in the morning as an alternative. If your skin doesn’t tolerate baking soda, apply apple cider vinegar under your armpits in a 1:10 ratio after showering or bathing and massage it in. For a stronger effect, just add some sage essential oil. But you can also make roll-on and spray deodorant yourself.
Pia also tried this out: “The deodorant I made myself consists of starch, baking soda and coconut oil, so again simple home remedies that you can get anywhere. Making it was again easy, after that I just had to put it in an empty deodorant bottle (That might be the only difficulty to get a deodorant bottle), after that you can use it normally. It has met my expectations, in everyday life you can use it super, but for real sports, it is, in my opinion, not enough“
Transform Your Bathroom Routine: Simple Swaps and DIY Tips to Ditch Plastic
Also when shaving and cotton swabs you can simply switch to plastic-free variants. These were now mainly tips for useful and necessary care. But you can also prepare cleansing face masks in seconds, for example from clay and water. If you would like to read a post with tips and recipes on this topic, please comment below this post. Also questions and feedback you can ask us very happy, otherwise we hope you can now with your new knowledge quickly banish most of the plastic from your bathroom, and try the recipes and tips. Until next time, your Youth4Planet editorial team
Sources: https://www.zentrum-der-gesundheit.de/zahnpasta-inhaltsstoffe-ia.html https://www.smarticular.net/zahnputzpulver-als-natuerlicher-ersatz-fuer-chemische-zahnpasta/ Book: “Selber machen statt kaufen – Haut und Haar“ smarticular
