Garbage In Garbage Out 2

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

 Permission to shine – household and personal cleaning stuff

   Shampoo

There are so many alternatives to buying hair care products in plastic bottles. 

Even if you can’t part with your salon brand, just using it more economically is better for the planet – and your pocket, too! 

Modern life means that our hair actually doesn’t need a daily wash, but many are in the habit of doing so.

Shampooing cleans the scalp and hair, conditioning adds a coating to the hair and keeps the ends tangle free.

If you style your hair daily, try giving it a conditioner-only go-over in the shower. Save time and use less shampoo.

Just repeat to yourself- hair does not require a daily wash.

The cheapest option also has the smallest chemical footprint: using bicarbonate of soda with an apple cider rinse. Apply a paste of bicarb soda onto the scalp and massage in. Rinse with water then follow it with the vinegar.

My review: it didn’t work all that well on my dry top-knot, as it left it feeling even drier to the touch. Conditioning it afterwards helped.

However - all is not lost! Trendy soap stores stock shampoo and conditioner bars. They look like soap bars and come wrapped in paper. Plus - smell almost good enough to eat (but please don't)! They lather nicely and do their job reasonably well.

The other option is to reuse old shampoo and conditioner bottles by refilling them at a bulk or health store. Just give them a rinse before refilling them. The staff will weigh them when empty then deduct that weight from your filled bottle.

The one I tried smelt nice and worked well too. At a comparable price to the supermarket brand shampoos which this cheap-skate appreciated.

My verdict: the bulk products worked best. Shampoo and conditioner bars were also good but those I found were pricier than the bulk goods products. 

                Cleaning Products

They can cook and clean too!

Two common pantry items: baking soda and vinegar. This dynamic duo can power through greasy bench tops, smelly toilets, stained carpets and sticky floors. I know I’m entering Shannon Lush territory here, but using these ingredients to clean doesn’t just reduce packaging, but makes for a healthier environment with fewer airborne chemicals.

Photo from personal collection

Hot tip:

Don’t mix up baking soda and vinegar in a bottle and expect to have a low-impact detergent sitting in your cabinet – it needs to be used as it fizzes up. The two chemicals combine to create carbon dioxide, water and a salt. 

Science alert: It’s a vigorous reaction. As soon as they combine, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar react. Strongly. The technical term is an exothermic reaction, which means it doesn't need heat to power it, but it produces heat as a part of the reaction. This fizz and heat work their magic on dissolving grease, making it easier to then wipe away.

If you scrub with a paste of baking soda first, it acts as an abrasive, breaking up dirt. Adding vinegar to it and wiping away finishes the job. Using a premixed batch just results in pouring water and salt onto the surface – possibly not as effective.

Other low-waste ideas include repurposing stuff that would otherwise be trashed.

Old toothbrushes get a new job - cleaning the base of taps and the grouting between tiles in my house.

Unwanted cotton clothing gets cut up too and used as cleaning cloths. A dead sock can be used like a glove to mop up stuff in the back corners of the oven.

Don’t buy a pack of wipes – just keep using the cotton squares until they’re so worn they fall to bits. 

Then they can be shredded and have their final rest in the compost. They don break down completely, but knowing that the only chemicals that have touched them have been natural ones, it means they wont upset much of the reactions going on.