-12 Months- 12 Eco Changes- Making An Eco Swap Of Hair Care (Part 2)

Month 5 – May It’s Hair Care – Part 2

Background…..

As when I decided to go Vegan back in 2013, I started with the food, gradually as I did the next shop I swapped over the milk and butter and cheese, we obviously stopped eating or buying any meat but finding substitutes didn’t happen over night.

My husband Peter then joined me a few months later as he felt better not eating meat every day, every meal as it was me shopping & cooking the food we all ate.

Our kids were young at the time 3, 5 & 6 so swapping the younger 2 over wasn’t a big deal as they were at the stage of trying different food out all the time anyway. We also found after eating dairy they would throw up later in the day, so it was easier to just look for the V vegan sign on food than to keep checking for non dairy products for them.

Clayton, being Autistic had (and still has) a self limiting diet of dry brown or beige finger foods only so he wasn’t included in our switch, getting him to just eat was a struggle in its self.

Anyway…..my point is, nothing happens over night, going Vegan we started with food, it then progressed onto products, clothing, shoes, coats, linen, furniture, now we chose items without a second thought.

This progressed onto what was happening on our land and led us to permaculture, principles & design. Permaculture principle No6 is: Produce No Waste. This is the overall aim.

Just making 1 swap starts to make a difference to our planet. What could you do today?

What Am I Looking For?

When looking at products I always found that they contained such a load of other harmful chemicals. Watching what food & drink I put into my and my families body made me really aware of what chemicals we were putting ON our bodies that would still pass through the skin into our bloodstream.

I’ve spent the last 5yrs swapping to non toxic brands, but that doesn’t mean that they are eco friendly too. So here I am making more swaps. This month finding hair care- shampoo & conditioner that met my criteria and as a Hairdresser by trade and kids with mixed origin hair this is a tough call!

What Is My Criteria?

My criteria for swapping over Hair Care-Shampoo & Conditioner are:

1. Vegan & Cruelty Free

2. No Aluminiums or Parabans or Sulphates or Silicons

3a Reduce Single Use Plastic

OR 3b Eliminate the plastic all together*

4. Cost. I do not want to spend any more than I already do on our products which is on average £15 a month on various different brands based on offers & discounts I find & stock up

* This the overall goal

What Did I find?

Going into this I was all like…yep zero waste, doing it, got it set.

This was harder than expected. I thought I would just grab some shampoo & conditioner bars and boom that’s my monthly swap done. However what happen was more like, couldn’t find any in the supermarket stores, certainly wasn’t any in the poundland/dollar store style shops, spent hours scrolling google & instagram and got frustrated and you certainly couldn’t pick up anything for a few quid.

Read up on -12 Months- 12 Eco Changes- Making An Eco Swap Of Hair Care (Part 1) to see what I orginally chose.

Here is what I tried

Faith In Nature Shampoo & Conditioner in bulk refillable bottles

Faith In Nature

Putting Nature First Since 1974

PLASTIC
Enough, already. Our 400ml bottles have been recycled and recyclable since 1999.
REFILL
Bulk is beautiful. We’ve been making our products in big 5 litre bottles for decades
CLOSED LOOP
We want our bottles back, by returning your bottles to us, you help us reach better solutions, faster.
ZERO WASTE
Between our plastics policy, refill availability and closed loop scheme, we like to think we’re passing on as little of the plastics problem to our customers as possible.

UK MADE -Thinking global, acting local

How Did It Fit My Criteria?

1. Vegan & Cruelty Free

This is my No1 priority before even looking at anything else. Ideally I would prefer to support fully Vegan & Cruelty Free businesses.

Faith In Nature state: CRUELTY FREE. RECYCLED. RECYCLABLE. NATURAL. VEGAN. BIODEGRADABLE. ETHICAL.SUSTAINABLE. Is the banner they have going across their website. Not only do they have the Vegan approved Logo they are also leaping bunny approved

– YES – This works for me and a Vegan and Cruelty free company!!

---

2. No Aluminiums or Parabans or Sulphates or Silicons

After so many years of reading labels, endless hours looking up chemical names, I am not about to give this up just because it is eco friendly. I need to have both, all, my criteria met to make yet another swap

Faith In Nature state:

Paraben and SLS free

99% naturally derived shampoo & conditioner

100% natural fragrance & essential oils 

Vegan Society Approved and cruelty-free hair care

– YES – This works for me!

---

3a Reduce single Use Plastic

OR 3b Eliminate the plastic all together*

In this case I bought the smaller 300ml bottles of shampoo, conditioner and got the 5ltr bottles to fill up with. These large bottles when emptied will be returned to the company, not something I wanted to be doing, but I figured once a year isn’t really an issue, that’s if I don’t end up using them to plant in around the garden, or use them as watering cans or even filled with water to heat the soil over night when the sun heats the water in the bottle during the day. Details on their website read:

PLASTIC

Enough, already

Our 400ml bottles have been recycled and recyclable since 1999. It’s why they’ve always had that funny grey tinge. Because if we’re going to use plastics (and unfortunately we do still need to), then we want to ensure that as much of that plastic as possible is already in existence. One day, we hope we’ll find a way to ditch it for good. Until then we’re doing all we can to use as little of it as we can.

REFILL

Bulk is beautiful

We’ve been making our products in big 5 litre bottles for decades — but it’s only recently that people have really started buying them from us. And we’re so glad they do because the maths is pretty simple: the bigger the bottle, the bigger the difference it makes. Our 5 litre bottles hold the equivalent of 12.5 smaller bottles. And our whopping 20 litre bottles hold the equivalent of 50 smaller ones. Yes, the bigger bottles use thicker plastic — but they still use substantially less plastic than the combined volume of the smaller bottles. So whether you refill at home or refill at one of our many refill stores, refill really does mean less landfill.

CLOSED LOOP

We want our bottles back

We tie ourselves in knots trying to close the loop on our products — and have been trying to figure out how best to do this since before ‘closed loop’ was a thing. Previous attempts have looked good, then not so good. So right now, we’re back to trialling new methods — and by returning your bottles to us, you help us reach better solutions, faster.

Our hope is that very soon all large format bottles returned to us can either be washed and refilled or ground down and remoulded. For smaller bottles, the best way to close the loop at home is by refilling them over and over again.

– YES – This works for me!

4. Cost. I do not want to spend any more than I already do on our products which is on average £15 a month on various different brands based on offers & discounts I find & stock up

You have to shop around to get these 5ltr bottles, I ended up getting mine from Holland & Barrett, Boots and Llyods Chemist Online when they were on discounted sales so got them even cheaper than it would cost me to buy single bottles each month. I have seen Faith in Nature do buy 1 get 1 free also, so really look around before you buy. (Pumps direct from Faith in Nature as I wanted to make sure they were they right ones). With the shampoo bars I originally got, the conditioner didn’t work for us and for my kids hair (mixed Afro hair), this they are able to do themselves again and works well keeping those curls under control.

We loved the products so much I also got the body wash and hand washes and Clayton loves going round them all each month filling them up.

– YES – This works for me!

Top 5 Reasons To Try This Swap

1. The whole reason is to stop extra waste coming out of the household. This produces ZERO PLASTIC waste each month!!

2. Easy to refill the smaller bottles.

3. Better on the environment not using or recycling bottles each & larger bottles can be sent back

4. Cost actually works out cheaper per 100ml than buying in smaller bottles

5. Able to get body wash & hand wash in the same style saving me more money over the year

As a household of 5 we each get through our shampoo and conditioner bottles once a month that would be 24 plastic bottles eliminated per year using the bulk refilling bottles.

🌳Permaculture Principle No6 – Produce No Waste

🌱Vegan Living- To Do No Harm

👣🌎Small steps is better than none at all! What small change could you make this year? Could you look into your hair care too? What changes could you make to reduce your plastic waste