Tips for Moving Your Products Towards Sustainable and Non-Toxic Choices

More and more people are becoming conscious about the products they use. People are starting to realise that everything has an impact and that we should try and make our impact the best we possibly can. The good news is that we vote with our dollar every day. Companies are having no choice but to level up and change the way they do business. I love that people are becoming more aware and we are all moving towards a better future. But I believe the best way to do this is through kindness.

There is a huge trend online with people giving other people crap about their choices in products like makeup, skincare, haircare, cleaning products and everything else that we use in our daily lives. Living with social media for as long as we have has made judgement a lot of peoples ‘go-to’ reaction. In the age of people advocating for the environmental, the pressure to do the right thing all the time can sometimes get a bit overwhelming. So I am here to give you a few helpful tips to making these changes in your life – without judgement.

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GO SLOW

Going slow is, in my opinion, the most important part of making sustainable and lasting changes in your life. If you go through your products and throw out everything you own only to just sit confused about what to put on your underarms after you work out is counterproductive.

My best advice would be to do it one step at a time, one day at a time, one product at a time. If you notice that you are almost out of your usual go-to makeup wipes, start doing some research to find a new and better product that you can use. Once you deal with this one product change, you can then look at your shampoo, and then your foundation, and then your face wash. You don’t have to do it all at once. Go as slow as you need to.

The other reason why this tip is the most important is that a lot of us don’t have the money to ditch the products we spent a lot of money on just to buy a whole bunch of other products that cost even more than the ones we just threw out. It’s not the most financially sustainable method, but going slow is.

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FOCUS ON WHATS GOOD FOR YOU

This is the biggest point that I want to scream from the roof tops is: JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, DOESN’T MEAN ITS GOOD FOR YOU!

You know how a lot of people have the misconception that eating vegan or gluten free means you are eating healthy? But in reality, there are a lot of unhealthy vegan and gluten free foods. Um… let’s not forget that sugar and fats and carbs can be vegan. I’m not saying that you can’t eat these things, your diet is completely individual and up to what makes your body feel good. But it is much the same when it comes to products.

Most people assume that if something is environmentally friendly that it must be better for you. Sometimes this is true, but not always. There are LOADS of nasty chemicals and toxins that can be put in products that can still be called environmentally friendly or vegan. So yes, it can be better than a number of other products in terms of its impact on the environment but doesn’t mean that it is good for you. Don’t just check for the environment, check for yourself too. In fact, check for yourself FIRST. Because when something is good for you, it is usually good for the environment too (but it doesn’t always work the other way around).

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RESEARCH FIRST

Make sure that you do your research first, and online, before you walk into a store or place an order. You want to know that the product you are getting is going to have the best chance of being the right product for you. You don’t want to end up purchasing more expensive products and having them not work out (although this is bound to happen – in which case you keep researching and finding better and better products until you find the one that you love).

Start off with a google search of whatever product you want, look at a few choices from a few different brands. You don’t want too much choice to overwhelm you. Don’t worry, pretty soon you will find brands that you know and trust where you can purchase from straight away without needing to research (and hopefully companies standards will rise and then we all will be buying sustainable and toxic free without needing to check – but that’s a little far away). Next, look at the product ingredients. You want to look for ingredients that sound clean that you can pronounce. I know this can be very overwhelming at first, it all just looks like gibberish. But you can do some research about what ingredients are toxic that you should avoid (I’ll do a blog post on this later). Look up the product for reviews outside of the official website. Look for bloggers who talk about it too. Once you have a product that you love the looks of, order away!

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GIVE YOURSELF GRACE

Give yourself a break. You don’t have to be perfect or get it all right the first time. You might buy a product that you thought was good but later find out that it has some toxic ingredients or that it isn’t vegan or that it doesn’t have the best version of sustainable packaging. Don’t get too hard on yourself because of this, you are doing the best you can. All anyone can ask of you is that you do your best. And I have news for you, you are doing your best simply by attempting to make these small changes to your life. Go you!