The easy way to a plastic free bathroom

The bathroom is probably the easiest area of our homes to start making swaps from short use plastic to more sustainable materials, and as well as saving the planet there may also money to be saved here as well.

The key, I think, is to cast your mind back to your grandparents bathrooms when you were young. I'll never forget Grandma's Imperial Leather soap with the tiny branded sticker on it, which somehow stayed on the soap the whole time (?!) and a beautiful glass jar with bath salts in my Granny's bathroom. Now this was the 80's so there was already plenty of plastic, but there was something much simpler about those bathrooms, and I think simplification is the key to reducing our consumption.

Bars of soap

Bars of soap are as old as time, and I think bringing them back into fashion is one of the easiest and possibly widely impactful things that can happen with regards to reducing our short-use plastic consumption in our bathrooms. I don't mind admitting that I was totally taken by those nostalgic sweet shop scented liquid hand soaps, but I feel like they were on the shopping list weekly. I ditched them in the bathroom and started using up my stash of bars gifted and taken from hotels, and you know what, it's fine. We have a soap dish, and it takes a bit of cleaning every couple of weeks, but that's not difficult. Once the stash was gone we started getting ALTER/NATIVE bars through our veg delivery box company, but soap in cardboard boxes is everywhere now and there's a scent for every season.

Soap's not just for hands either, it cleans your whole body! Honestly, I've literally only just ditched liquid shower gel, and it felt like a proper break up. When my last 'puff' fell apart, that was it, no more plastic puffs, so I bought an 'eco' one - and it was rubbish. When wet it was basically a hard lump that did nothing to distribute shower gel, so I ditched that too and just used my hands - which also did nothing towards creating the lather I wanted. Perhaps a bar of soap was the answer? And you know what, I think it is! I bought an Exfoliating Soap Pouch & Saver by Zero Waste Club from Peace in the Wild and a Hatton Soap Honey & Oatmeal bar, and it's doing everything I want it to. I was slightly worried there would be too much exfoliation from the pouch, but it's just the right level of scratchyness for everyday use, and the lather is great.

That just about covers the basics I think, but if your bathroom's anything like mine, there's probably hundreds more items in there, many of which never get used, so the answer there is probably not to switch, but to ditch. After all, just not having things is by far the most sustainable option.

Shampoo and conditioner bars

These have come such a long way in a really short time, and I think if you can find one to suit your hair, they're a big win. My blog on itchy scalp shampoo bars shows how much choice there is for every hair type. It might take a bit of time, and expense, to find the perfect one, but just think about all that plastic saved while you get there. The big beauty companies are jumping on the shampoo bar bandwagon now, but for me, it stinks of greenwashing and cashing in, so I'm steering clear, but I can see how it might be a good way 'in' for some people.

Sustainable period products

Disposable period products are responsible for tonnes of plastic waste, and thankfully the quality of the sustainable choices available now means there's absolutely no compromise on protection. I swapped Lil-Lets plastic applicator tampons for Hey Girls 100% organic cotton sugar cane applicator tampons, and they're indistinguishable in terms of use and protection, and each time I buy a pack, they donate a pack to help tackle period poverty. Instead of disposable liners and pads I'm building up quite a collection of ModiBodi period pants, and how they weren't a thing years ago is beyond me! I started with washable pads, but while they were good, I found I needed to wear really big pants to keep them in place, and so big period pants seemed like a much easier option. I'm really happy with my swaps, but I know people who swear by their cups. There's so much choice.

Environmentally friendly toilet roll

I feel like the TSS conversation has turned to toilet roll more than any other single product, and as soon as we're allowed in each other's houses there's going to be some serious swapping and softness comparisons made. There will be a whole toilet paper blog at some point, but for now there are a few plastic free options to consider. The Cheeky Panda bamboo toilet paper is available in 4-48 roll boxes and can be bought in some UK high street retailers. Who Gives a Crap was one of the first to offer bulk paper individually wrapped in paper - they do come from Australia, but they look cool and sales help tackle toilet poverty. For something you can pick up with your shopping Tesco recycled rolls are now wrapped in paper - but the quality reviews aren't great! Serious Tissues will plant a tree for every roll sold, which is great, but the min pack size is 18, so you need storage space.

Teeth care

The bamboo toothbrush has become a bit of a symbol of eco living I think, and they're available everywhere and are really affordable, so if you use a manual, it's an obvious swap, but I'm really obsessed with teeth health and I just can't bring myself to 'risk it' by ditching my electric toothbrush. You can get various recycled plastic and bamboo replacement heads for electrics though like BooHeads, but I haven't tried any of them, mostly because I know I won't send anything back for recycling, I'll just add it to my rubbish, which is incinerated, and it always feels a bit wrong to incinerate recyclable stuff. The best of the eco electric toothbrushes might be the new Georganics Sonic Toothbrush, but my current one hasn't died yet, so until it does I'll be sticking with it.

It was slightly more about avoiding liquids while flying, but toothpaste tablets were one of the first eco products I tried, and they weren't bad. I went for Denttabs with fluoride from Anything but Plastic and they take a bit of getting used to, but they are good...though I confess, this hasn't been a permeant swap and I tend to only use them when I'm travelling. There are lots of different options available through, with and without fluoride, and just putting toothpaste in glass jars or tins seems to be an obvious solution, like Ben & Anna do, which I've heard good things about. There's lots of plastic free flossing options available too, and once my current pot of plastic flossers run out I'll be replacing them with something like The Humble Co Floss Picks, which don't seem to be stocked widely in the UK yet, but are available via on Ebay.

Plastic free deodorant

Aluminium recycling appears to be pretty widespread in the UK, so deodorant spray cans can usually go in your household recycling (check before you chuck), but all have plastic lids and tops, so they aren't totally plastic free and roll-ons and sticks are often made with mixed plastics, so are very difficult to recycle. Natural deodorants offer a really good plastic free option, and also contain only natural ingredients, which surprisingly, are really effective. Most of the TSS team have switched to natural deodorants and even the most active among us are happy with the results. I'm current using The Natural Deodorant Co and Awake Organics Space Cat. We are working on a product review post about them.

Eco bathroom cleaning products

So with personal care in the bathroom plastic free, you may also want to reduce plastic bathroom cleaning products too. There's loads of recipes to make your own online, but frankly, that's not going to happen, so I want something ready made. One of the easiest ways to reduce plastic in cleaning products is to switch to a refill system that keeps just one plastic spray bottle in circulation such as Ocean Saver bathroom descaler, now available in Tesco, or Spruce available on subscription. This seems to be a really fast growing area and it makes perfect sense, you just drop a tablet or liquid capsule into a spray bottle of tap water and let it dissolve - use a washable cloth and you've got a really sustainable cleaning solution. I do like the convenience of a bathroom wipe for a quick loo freshen up though, so I'm using Cif biodegradable wipes, because I can't find an alternative.