My ocean friendly toiletry kit – Hvar edition

Hey lovely people,

With so many products on the market, it´s really hard to make the right decision today. What´s really natural or eco. Is the product in our toiletry bag really green, or is the colour of the box the only thing green about it. I thought it might be useful if I share with you all the low waste, diy and natural products I use for my skin and hair.

The past month I was living in a house located 20m from the sea, with outside shower, that´s why it was really important for me that all the products are as natural as possible and safe for the environment. If you have ever been to my house, I probably checked your products for microbeads and bad chemicals as well. All the bags have to go through my security 😛


SKIN PROBLEMS

It´s not always been like this. My simple skin care routine did not really start as a planet-saving project, but rather skin and hair saving one. I wanted to get all unhealthy chemicals out of my bathroom and body. Next to that, I had acne and my skin was not looking happy, my hair was dry and dyed. And I used to believe there is a magical cream that will clear out my skin. That´s why I kept buying them. Guess what? They didn´t help.

What we put inside our body, shows on the outside. I can not repeat this enough, but if you have acne prone skin please try a plant based diet. You should do it for so many other reasons, but if your clear skin is the main problem right now, do it because of that. I promise you, that you will see results. Next to a healthy diet, drink enough water, skip the processed sugar, skip makeup and spend time outside in nature. You will need less skincare products, dietary supplements, …

HARMFUL INGREDIENTS

Cosmetic products have a lot of bad chemicals, half of them I don´t even understand while reading the ingredients. There are foaming agents, sulfates, parabens, colours, fragrances, triclosan, oxybenzone … and even plastic.

I used to think, that it has to be safe otherwise why would they sell this to us? Oh, those naive days. Most of the brands just wanna sell us products that are as cheap to make as possible. They don´t care about our health or environment, or animals they tested that on. And all that is absorbed by our skin, our largest organ. Well, that definitely freaked me out. Those bad chemicals are linked to all sorts of issues − from hormonal problems,  irregular periods and infertility to allergies and even cancer.

You can download and read about the worse 10 chemicals righthere        and        here       . If you are not sure about some of the chemicals in your products, just google them before buying or use Code Check app           that will mark any harmful ingredients. 

Many kinds of toothpaste have microbeads, those magical plastic parts that are supposed to whiten your teeth or exfoliate the skin. They can also make products feel creamy on the skin, and help fill in wrinkles. Estimates are that one facial cleanser tube contains 350,000 beads. All of them get either into your body or washed down the drain and into the sea. Read more and check the list of brands on Beat the microbead.

The cosmetic industry is also so good at greenwashing. That is selling something in green packaging calling it natural, free of chemicals. “A chemical is any pure substance (an element) or any mixture (a solution, compound, or gas). Chemicals occur naturally and can be made artificially.” We just need to make sure “Natural” Is Really Natural and not full of bad chemicals.

When it comes to packaging, try to always go for glass. It’s recyclable and has no danger of leaching toxins into the product contained within.

Having a clear skin, shiny healthy hair, smaller and lighter toiletry bag and at the same time helping the environment? Sounds good right? 

LET´S SIMPLIFY

Don’t be fooled by cosmetic advertising, you really don´t need all that creams and scrubs and face masks, making promises they can´t keep. All the creams in the world will not stop ageing as they advertise. All we need is a basic face wash/soap, some moisturiser, and sunscreen to keep our skin healthy. 

“Eye creams, for instance, rarely vary in formulation from your basic facial moisturiser.” treehugger

MY SIMPLE OCEAN FRIENDLY HVAR TOILETRY KIT
  • Natural soap as body and face wash 
  • Natural deodorant (this one is by Slovenian brand Amon&Anis)
  • Bamboo toothbrush 
  • Chalk toothpaste by Birkengold
  • Safety razor with an extra blade just in case 
  • Some coconut oil for my face – I just use the same one that we cook with *update 202: I stopped using coconut oil on my skin, I believe it was the reason why I was having bad skin in summer.
  • For peeling, I improvise a mix of salt, coffee, coconut oil or oats
  • For face mask, I use some oats
  • Rye flour – I just use the same one that we make pancakes with 🙂 (a great alternative is shampoo bar like this or this)
  • Menstrual cup  because it´s the best thing ever and also I can avoid a lot of waste this way
  • An old wooden comb
  • An old dental floss that lasts forever.  After that, I will buy plastic-free one (something like this or this)
  • Natural reef friendly sunscreen (the last one I used was made by my boyfriends’ mom). Avoid sunscreens containing petrolatum, titanium dioxide, oxybenzone and octinoxate.

Chalk and my bamboo toothbrush. Before that, I had Hydrophilone.

Our outside shower If you haven´t tried the safety razor yet, please doooo. It´s the best thing ever. Really easy to use, safe, lasts longer, plastic-free, closes shave ever. It´s gonna save you a lot of troubles, money and give you karma points for saving the environment from all those plastic razors. I throw all small pieces of soap in this soap dispenser and I never need to buy liquid soap again 

This might looks like a pancake mix, but it´s actually my rye flour shampoo. It´s the most eco friendly and cheap shampoo I ever used. Scroll down for a post about it.

To make things easier for myself I decided to cut around 15cm of my hair off. I´ve been cutting my own hair since I was 13 and I´m OK if I need to fix it twice. Don´t go blaming me if your first time goes wrong hehe. Please watch a few youtube videos first and go little by little 🙂

Now let´s take a moment to appreciate my chest hair that would make some teenage boys very jealous.

Have fun and let me know if you have some great ideas, tips or questions. And please stay away from typical women´s magazines that will try to convince you that you need cream for each part of your body. 

Thank you!

Mateja


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