plastic free personal hygiene

For my cousin Jill, with whom I had a delightful visit and catch up last weekend (I truly have the best family in the world, now if only I could swing seeing them more often than once every 18months...), a little post about plastic-free personal hygiene.

I suppose I haven't said much on this topic because it's largely already been done by other plastic-free bloggers. But for those of you out there who haven't yet discovered those blogs, and for those of you interested in what I am doing, personally (I'm not flattering myself, I know my family reads this! Thank you Jill!), here is a run down of what I've discovered.

The hard one first,

1. Oral care

Oral care is tricky. It's not that easy to get away from plastic toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and floss. BUT it is possible, sort of. Tom's of Maine toothpaste comes in an aluminum (recyclable) tube and apparently they will take back their plastic lid for recycling when you are done. I've also heard of wooden handle toothbrushes, or toothbrushes with replaceable heads. Plastic Manners went with the bone and boar brush, Clean Bin tried out a few recycled plastic brushes,

It's apparently not difficult to make your own toothpaste, but I won't be trying that for a while.

Myself, I'm far too fond of my electric toothbrush and far too concerned about the weakness of my teeth (if I don't floss every single day I WILL get a cavity), so I haven't changed much yet. I bought the Tom's of Maine paste once and might do again sometime. But I also got freaked out about the lack of flouride and bought regular ol' Crest the next time. We'll see what happens when I run out of heads for the electric one, or when it dies. For now I'm sticking with.

2. Hair care

WAY easier than teeth, and this is something I've actually been doing! I was close to running out of shampoo several months ago so I preemptively started looking for alternatives. There are of course, shampoo bars (I bought one from Lush, but really you could use just about any bar of soap I assume), but what I've found I prefer is the baking soda wash, followed by occasional vinegar rinse. Fake Plastic Fish does it, so did Jen at Clean Bin Project, and so did Life Less Plastic, but with more mixed results. She outlines her difficulties with plastic-free hair care here.

In the end I think we all have different bodies, and different hair and what works for one may not work for all. Baking Soda is working for me, for now, although I do occasionally use a Lush shampoo bar as well. In fact, the baking soda is working better than the shampoo I went back to using to try to empty out the bottle. (I want to keep my vinegar rinse in the empty bottle. I'm using another empty shampoo bottle for the baking soda solution right now and it's super convenient). Shampoo made my hair heavy and kind of greasy-like. The baking soda leaves it perfect! I use a tablespoon of baking soda dissolves in water, which I pour from the empty shampoo bottle onto my head. It's strange cause it's just like pouring water on your head, but it works like a charm, at least for me!

3. Deodorant

I haven't run out of deodorant yet, and I haven't quite decided what it is I am going to do when I do, but I am inspired by those who have come before me....

Life Less Plastic and Fake Plastic Fish both use baking soda on their underarms and swear by it.

Jen at Clean Bin took it one step further and mixes her own deodorant into a paste which she then scoops into an empty deodorant container for easy application.

I have to admit, I like the idea of the homemade stuff in the old container. There's something reassuring about spreading the stuff on, I think.

Ok, there's more I'd like to write about, but I'm going to post what I have for now in case I put of doing the rest for a really long time (like what has happened with all the other posts I've been thinking about writing and NOT).

Face cleanser is next on the list, and something that I'd actually love some input on. I'm close to running out of what I've got, and I'm at a bit of a loss of what to do when that happens. Any ideas?