Eco-Friendly?

Before I get started… this short story came out last month, and I’m thrilled to share it:

You, Who Make Us Holy

Now for the post! For years now we’ve been making small changes that make a big impact on how I feel about the amount of trash we make. I know the changes we make at home can’t compete with the changes that need to be made at an industry level, but I still want to make changes that help me feel better.

I’m going to leave this as a free post because whenever I’m looking into products like these, I’m always trying to find reviews that don’t read like they were written by a computer. I hope this will be helpful to some! I’ll include links to everything. Next month we’ll be back to the more normal coverage of writing and travel and living abroad!

For deodorant, lip balm, and body wash, we use Wild. Things are refillable, compostable, and nice products, but let me talk about each separately. I’ve been using their deodorant for so long that they’ve since redesigned the cases and changed their formulas, and now the deodorant doesn’t fit as nicely in my case as it does in my husband’s newer case. There have been times when a batch of deodorant is more crumbly than it should be. There have been times when I didn’t use it soon enough, and it yellowed, and then it stained some of my clothes yellow. But none of these gripes have made me want to switch. Right now, the batch we have is so silky smooth. It smells nice, feels nice, doesn’t mark up my clothes, and it doesn’t keep me from sweating, but it does keep me from smelling. And I like not worrying about what I’m putting on my skin.

Regarding the Wild lip balm, it’s nice and smells like my mother’s lip sticks from when I was a kid. I bet it would be good enough in many parts of the world, but it’s not good enough being in the UK. The only thing that keeps my lips from getting chapped here and splitting in the corners is O’Keeffe’s Lip Repair. I’d love if that came in not-plastic!

The Wild body wash has been the most successful. We try different scents. The bottle is nice. The inserts are compostable, but they still hold up as we store them and use them. Body wash is a simpler ask, and they’ve delivered.

The annoyance with Wild products is how many you have to order through their website, but I’ve recently found the body wash at Tesco. And I’ve seen the deodorant in Sainsbury’s I think. So hopefully you can find them around instead of ordering from the site.

Okay, onto some other companies! We have used Faith in Nature here and there. My husband uses their shampoo bar, in paper packaging, and wildly available. I’ve tried some of their liquid shampoos and conditioners, and there’s a store in town (and a stall at the weekly market) that lets you refill your bottles instead of buying new plastic, but they made my hair flat, they weren’t always easy to get refilled, and they weren’t great for the zany colors in my hair. I have to try the shampoo bar still, but I like the color-saving shampoo and conditioner that I’ve found for now.

Though I did just check their website to write this post and they’re switching to aluminum packaging, and they sell the large refills, too (though not sure where we’d store them!).

My husband uses Kalamazoo (“gentle beard wash and facial exfoliant”) from Lush, and the nice thing about them is that you can bring your plastic tub back in and they’ll refill it for you.

For toothbrushes, I’m the only one not using an electric toothbrush and throwing away just a little toothbrush head every time it wears out. But now they’re finally making regular toothbrushes that work like this! So I’ve finally switched to a Colgate handheld where you keep the handle and just switch out the head. Sadly, it’s not great. I don’t love the shape of the toothbrush heads, and the handle doesn’t stand easily on a countertop as you’re switching things around or storing it. Still, I prefer it to throwing whole toothbrushes away. (I tried a bamboo toothbrush and could NOT handle how that felt, but I’m glad some people can!)

For toilet cleaning and dishwasher tablets, we use Ecover, which is a brand I like. The Ecover dish tablets come in little plastic wrappers, which I’m not thrilled about. But they’re in a cardboard box. I don’t know. We can definitely still make changes!

We use Method Sweet Water hand soap and their refills. I loved Method in the States, but this is the only one of their products that seems to be over here. I’m slightly disappointed with how everything is plastic, but I have a lot of trouble finding soaps that don’t irritate my skin and with scents that I’m not allergic to, so I’m probably sticking with it for now.

For coffee (and Belgian chocolates!), we’ve been ordering from Wonky Coffee. They’re a company that collects coffee that would have been thrown away, and they make a blend and send it out to subscribers. My husband is the coffee drinker and he says the quality is great! The chocolates are something they just started, and they’re not always available, but we’ve gotten them twice. The chocolates, similarly, would have been discarded, so sometimes the drizzle is missing or there are air bubbles in the chocolate, and they’re so, so delicious. Highly recommend!

For toilet paper (or loo roll, to be British about it), we’ve been using Bumboo, which is, as you might’ve guessed, made out of bamboo. It’s also wrapped in paper and shipped in a cardboard box. It’s the softest option I’ve found in the UK.

For wipes, if you use those flushable ones, we’ve switched to Wype. It turns toilet paper into wipes, and it’s way less irritating on the skin, and it’s less to store around the toilet, and the whole things is just a nicer experience. You also don’t find that you left the wipes slightly open and the whole pack is now dried out and a waste of money. Win win.

This is probably the one that people will find the strangest. For toothpaste, we’ve switched to Smyle, which is toothpaste as tablets. You put it in your mouth, chew it up, wet your toothbrush, and brush like normal. I was skeptical at first, but I’ve been using it for years now and my dentist says my teeth look good. I haven’t had any new cavities. I don’t have any sensitivity. It does what it’s supposed to do. (I still floss and use a fluoride mouthwash as well, for which there don’t seem to be eco-friendly options.)

So the UK is the land of blister packs. Advil, Tylenol, prescription medication from the pharmacy—all of it comes in blister packs. It’s bonkers. And because most are plastic on the bottom and a thin foil on top, you can’t recycle them. Luckily, I found a company that does recycle them. ZeroWaste. You have to buy a bag and then mail it in filled with a particular type of waste, and it is pricey. I waited until a holiday sale brought it down to a price I could afford, but eventually I bought the small bag and it lasted through six months of blister packs. It feels so good not to throw these things out. (I will say, they offer recycling for things that can be recycled for free, so I wouldn’t recommend them for everything. If you have any questions about recycling, feel free to ask me! I went to a recycling plant last year as part of a school field trip and I learned a ton.)

For our laundry detergent, we’ve been using EarthBreeze, which is detergent that comes in paper-like sheets that are mailed in paper envelopes. It washes nicely, is easy to use, and it feels like one of the least wasteful things in the house.

My husband prefers Smol, which is another great company, and they do dish washer detergent, laundry detergent, and many more products now. But! It failed us in a crappy washing machine at our old apartment, leaving goop all over the clothes, and I can’t get over it. One day, Smol.

For hand sanitizer, I use The Cheeky Panda’s biodegradable wipes. I probably could find something better, but these are so helpful. They’re also another one of those companies that have a ton of products.

We just bought Seep sponges, scrubbers, and a pair of gloves because their products are made from bamboo, copper, and more responsibly sourced rubber. But I haven’t actually gotten to use the stuff yet so I don’t know! I’m just glad these things exist.

This is getting so long! I’ll mention a few things quickly. Kleenex doesn’t have plastic in their boxes anymore or their packaging (at least from where we order them). I love my lightweight steel water bottle. It does dent easily, and mostly that’s been fine, but I did know a kid at school who had one that leaked because of where it had dented. For grocery bags, it’s the culture here to have a bunch of reusable bags. I have one that’s expandable and lovely, and I would link to it but I can’t find it anywhere online!

Some of these things feel expensive, because they are more expensive than some of the alternatives, but one trick I’ve learned is to go to a product’s website, sign up for their newsletter or something, start placing an order, and then leave before finishing it. You will get a coupon in the next days, if not hours, to encourage you to finish your order. Maybe everyone knows this, but I didn’t realize!

If I had to pick what’s made the biggest impact, I think it’s been not throwing away toothpaste tubes anymore. I love that.

And that’s my brief foray into random house choices we’ve made over the years!

Next time: Graduate School

Updates: I have a flash fiction piece coming out in mid-June in Lost Balloon!

Current read: The Monstrous-Feminine by Barbara Creed

Current watch: Severence, Love It or List It (UK), and a rewatch of Person of Interest. Next up is the final season of You, and I’m so excited for it.

Thank you for reading!