Ecothings- Looking at the A Swap a Day May challenge- Shampoo, Conditioner and Deodorant

Here's my next installment of A Swap A Day- trying to swap waste and packaging heavy items for more eco-friendly, less wasteful alternatives. As always, these are here to inspire you, give you ideas and just allow me to waffle. If you budget means things are prohibitive, things are harder to swap and you may not be able to  It was lovely to receive your responses on the previous post of this regarding Swaps 1&2.

The next Eco-swap is a great one though one that has not been without pitfalls:

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I'm already behind but I will be joining this #swapaday insta thing. Although we did a swap a month to really get habits changed we have now done nearly all of these so can share! Now to catch up... #sustainableliving #sustainablelivingonabudget #zerowastejourney #goingzerowaste #plasticfree #plasticfreejourney

A post shared by Sustainable living (@sustainablelivingonabudget) on May 2, 2019 at 11:29am PDT

3.  Shampoo/Conditioner:

Status:  Swapped.
Shampoo comes in plastic bottles- these CAN be recycled but if a waste-free, non-plastic solution was available, I wanted to try it!

For many years, I tried to use Natural Shampoos as I have not been happy about the use of SLS and parabens but my hair has not always got on with it.  I don't wash my hair daily- I probably wash it every 5-7 days. Some people might look aghast at that but generally, your hair gets used to it- I am awful at getting up early and even if I WANTED to wash it on school week days, I generally can't seem to get up in time to do it! This means, it generally takes me a long while to get through a bottle of shampoo which, I suppose is a method of waste reduction in itself.

My first attempt at swapping to a Plastic free solution was to refill my shampoo and conditioner bottles from The Refill Room, my local Zerowaste place. They had a fragrance free natural shampoo which you fill up from a big stainless steel vat and you can add your own essential oils to.

Right from the start, both CBC and I didn't get on with this shampoo.  It didn't seem to make our hair feel clean, it felt tangly and CBC, who is sometimes very disgustingly apt with his descriptive skills, described it as 'Horse sperm' (not sure how/if he genuinely knows what this ACTUALLY looks like!).  Alongside using this, I still had SOME of the Tre Semme shampoo I'd nabbed from WOMOTM's flat when we cleared it (a large bottle lasted us a year!) so this was BACK up between washes.

However, especially since CBC is not so good at using things up if he doesn't like them, I stated that we WOULD use up this shampoo and conditioner before we bought anything else but it was rather a chore as both of us didn't like it!

Here's a picture from where I first tried the shampoo bars

My next attempt, after recommendation by Vix was to try Lush's Shampoo bars which come completely naked.  Making solid products is a MUCH more Eco-friendly solution in terms of space needed for the product as liqud takes more room up and more travel costs as well as the plastic used to house the product so swapping to a solid product is a GREAT easy swap to attempt.

I went into the store and asked for advice on which Shampoo bar to use. As my hair has greasy and dry bits, I went with the Montelbano bar which costs £8.00 online for 55g.
(There are cheaper Shampoo bars from other places that are cheaper- I've seen them for around £3-5).
I also bought the American Cream Conditioner bar and bought tins for them to go in which cost £2.95 each.   CBC was skeptical at first but as soon as I showed him how to use the shampoo, he was impressed.  He's subsequently said, most approvingly, that he prefers it to all the shampoos we used in the past- he likes the smell, the way it lathers, how it leaves his fair feeling and looking and when he went away to Scarborough for 5 days, he took the tin happily away with him with our shampoo.  I've been happy with using these products and whilst I still prefer how my hair feels after using my old Tre Semme shampoo, it looks good and shiny with this new shampoo bar and is liveable with. It feels clean, brushes and smells good so that is fine even if it feels a bit different.  For the sake of waste reduction, I can live with this- I'm not UNHAPPY with how my hair feels, it's just slightly less 'squeaky'!.  I think I just need to go swimming every so often to strip my hair of its oils and I'll be fine!
Also, they smell AMAZING, lather up well and seem to last FOR AGES!!

The conditioner is also fine.

4.  Deodorant:
Status: swapped

Deodorant bottles are NOTORIOUS for not being recyclable in MOST areas- many councils refuse them so the wretches live in landfill by and large so they were a BIG item I was keen to swap!

Other the years, I have tried more natural solutions to deodorant as I have not been a fan of using harsh antiperspirants with Aluminium in them as I am not sure of the long term effects of rubbing Aluminium into your pits and whether there is any link between breast cancer and the use of them!   I've been using Plastic-free deodorants for almost a year now and largely, I am very happy with them.  They ARE more expensive, but actually, I have been buying more expensive, natural deodorants for a long time so I am already committed to this.

Click HERE for the reviews.

I wrote a Blog  post on my experience of a few brands- Kutis, Your Nature and Earth Conscious HERE if you want to find out more. I've had issues with ALL deodorants not working for me in the past so I am not worried about using an antiperspirant.  I really like Earth Conscious and will continue to use this though Lush does some solid deodorants which I might try next as they have NO packaging at all, not even cardboard!

What about you?  How do you feel about these swaps? Would you give them a try?

xx