A small apothecary opened in my neighborhood that makes beauty products. They’ve been very accommodating with selling me shampoo and body wash in my own reused containers. It’s all locally sourced ingredients. I’m new in my Zero Waste journey but it feels great to eliminate plastic from part of my daily routine.
Congratulations!
It starts with small gestures 👍
Nice!
One of the things I learned when trying out zero waste is that sometimes there is still plenty of waste but a distribution/marketing strategy ends up hiding it from you. For example, they just refill the bulk bins with large bags of whatever the product is, so if you use enough of the product you might as well just buy the whole bag yourself for cheaper! Or from a vendor that will use a paper bag instead of plastic. That kind of thing. As a result, I also sometimes just buy a bulk size container instead of refilling from someone else’s carboy.
I’d be curious about what their shampoo and conditioner is made from and if it is possible to DIY it! Also whether they pH balance it. Sometimes unbalanced shampoos can make you lose hair… Learned that lesson the hard way!
Its all well and good until you try to refill a $10 bottle of hand soap and they charge you $50
Nah I’m in a low income neighborhood and their prices are fair. They seem like good folks.
I gotta try a new place then. I mean, the soap is nice but that was some sticker shock.
Also, put a hair tie or rubber band on the soap dispenser. You’ll use the amount of soap you actually need, and your hands will come out cleaner.
Very late reply, but can you tell me more about putting a gumband on the dispenser to use less? I’m having a hard time picturing it. Thanks ahead of time!
So the common plastic pump you see in every soap dispenser has two parts - the part you screw onto the soap container, and the piston thingy, above that, that you push down to get the soap to spurt out of and into your hand.
If you put something above the screwy part, on the lowest part of the piston, you reduce the amount that the piston goes down. And reduce the amount of soap that can come out.