7 Ways To Eliminate Plastic From Your Hair Care Routine

You have the reuseable water bottle, you wouldn’t dream of using a straw in a drink and you are the queen of bringing your home made lunch to work! But how are you getting on with creating an eco friendly hair care routine?

When you go to buy haircare the shelves are without a doubt packed with plastic bottles so it’s no wonder our bathrooms are easily filled with plastic bottles while we are working on eliminating plastic from other parts of our life. Apparently each person uses an average of 11 plastic bottles for shampoo and shower gel each year in their bathroom alone. And our hair care sets us back an average of £460 a year. Wow, we for sure spend a huge budget on those plastic bottles.

So let’s walk through my bathroom and I will talk you through some of the areas I have been able to find alternatives to enable you to ditch the plastic bottles when it comes to your haircare.

Shampoos:

Shampoos are such an easy one to replace so I totally have your back here. Shampoo bars are becoming easier and easier to pick up on the high street or online and replace up to 3 standard shampoo bottles. I like to think there is a bar to suit everyone depending on your hair and scalps needs. Brands you can try include Lush, Conchus, Ethique and Teal from Do Your Bit NI is always raving about the 2 in 1 Zero Waste Path shampoo and conditioner bars.

If however you really struggle with the idea of a solid shampoo or you have tried loads and you just don’t love them the great news is you can get liquid shampoos from local refill stores. This means you bring along your own bottle and they will fill it and charge you for the product based on the weight. My local one sells Faith in Nature but the brand can differ depending on which products your local refill store has gone for.

Conditioner:

While shampoo bars are very similar effect wise to liquid shampoo, solid conditioners are very different to liquid conditioner. The main reason is silicones and I will cover this in a future blog but for now all you need to know is that a solid conditioner will take some time to bring a natural softness to your hair in comparison to the instant softness of most high street liquid conditioners.

Alternatively you could try Conchous hair rinse which comes in tin bottles or Wild and Sage hair conditioner comes in a glass jar.

You can again hit up your local refill store for a top up of liquid hair conditioner without the need for a new plastic bottle. It’s great to support your refill store as it means you can buy products and have them instantly with no waiting around for deliveries.

Hair Treatments:

For me Lush are king when it comes to plastic fee hair treatments! They effectively sell us a hair treatment minus the water to enable it to come package free and on sticks! You then use the stick to stir the treatment in hot water to make up your own fresh hot hair treatment which can be kept for up to 4 weeks. They have several options available in their solid hair treatments range and I highly recommend checking them out – extra bonus is the solid hair treatments are cheaper than the ones in pots.

You can of course make your own hair treatment with some excellent ingredients you will likely have in the home already. Banana, olive oil and apple cider vinegar anyone?

Dry Shampoo:

Primal suds are the brand that instantly comes to mind for dry shampoo. These guys sell their dry shampoo based on hair colour and its packaged in a paper bag which you can decant into your own container. I’ve seen some folk brush this powder into their roots but personally I would be whacking mine into a jar with some muslin held over the top (with an elastic) to enable the powder to be shaken into my hair.

Hair Styling:

Hairspray:

Hairspray is a tricky one, there are some available in glass bottles but with plastic spritzer. It’s a little costly but Moo Hair seem to be the best looking for almost plastic free and vegan friendly hairspray. It offers a flexible hold with natural movement. I also love that this brand is based in Scotland, it’s nice to support smaller local brands to encourage more creativity and variety to become available to us.

Hair Mousse:

Now this is one somebody came to ask me about I was a bit like errr – no idea! However, there is good news, there may not be a plastic free mousse but I did find some alternatives with similar effects. When I was looking through the Moo Hair range I spotted something I think would be worth a good try. Their Volumising Spray Mist. It is described as “Adds body and volume. Provides a gentle hold, leaving your hair feeling smooth and shiny. Perfect for fine, flyaway hair or to add volume to any style”. Again, it isn’t cheap but it is almost plastic free as it comes in a glass bottle with a plastic spritzer – a heck of a lot less wasteful than a can of hair mousse.

We Are Paradoxx also offer you Climax Volume Tonic which will help to volume, add shine and make hair look & feel healthier when sprayed on damp hair before drying. This brand are currently 90% plastic free and working on reducing this further.

Hair Gel:

Peace With The Wild are a brand I love and they offer a hair clay in a tin that has a matte finish. Or as an alterntive I found Badger Balm Hair Pomade.

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I hope you have found something to help you make another switch in your routine. My list is of course only there to give you ideas and get you started. There are many small brands out there working hard to create new formulations that are plastic free, vegan and cruelty free and on your journey you are bound to stumble upon loads which I haven’t.

If you find anything magical that you think should be on this list as a game changer then let me know! I am deffinately up for editing this post further to keep people on an easier path to find their desired product.

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