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A Guide to Travel and Eco-Friendly Toiletries

Hello and welcome! Buckle up your seats because I will show you, how to travel more efficient, lighter, with a smaller risk of having liquids spilled upon your clothes All of the alternatives that I present in this post are also a lot more sustainable than your usual options. How you may ask? By switching to Eco-Friendly Toiletries!

Why Changing to Eco-Friendly Toiletries?

When I first noticed that I need to change the way I think about toiletries was when I started to think about ways to reduce my plastic consumption. Soon I thought more and more about minimalism and how well both go along together. Now as I am nine months into this minimalism & sustainability journey, I learned tons of new things, that I want to share with you. For your own sake and not only for the environment. Because the more I looked for alternatives, the more I advantage I saw of switching certain products!

Side Note: If you are in Asia and you are looking for sustainable products, I put a list of companies and shops that sell all kinds of useful zero waste items. From clothing to toiletries to household items, you will find a lot of things and great companies in this post! You can find the article here.

Before we Start…

I want to give you a new perspective on how to handle your body care with more care for your environment and for how to travel lighter. But please don’t throw all of the stuff, that you are currently using away and just to buy new stuff. This just creates more waste and that’s not our goal here. Please just use up the stuff you already have. For example, I still use an old tangle teezer (brush) now for almost three years already although I would love to get a new one. But I won’t toss it away. Until it will fall to pieces it will be there to brush my hair and nothing can change this! So keep this in mind, before you get all the new fancy stuff.

First of All: Solids Rule

One of my dresses was ruined because there was nail polish all over it after a flight. Another time, my complete shower gel was gone but not without spilling all over my clothes. Well that’s the problem with liquids. They can spill and come with a plastic container. But luckily there are solid options for almost anything that you know as a liquid.

Therefore I decided to go with solid bars of shampoo, shower gel, and body lotion. This makes my body care easier and way more convenient!

Shampoo & Shower Gel

So for shampoo, I can heavily recommend the Lush shampoo bars. They offer a ton of variations for all different hair types and you can also use it as shower gel if you only want to bring one piece of soap. For shower gel just use a piece of soap. It is just as easy as this!

Lush shampoo Bar seanik
My favourite shampoo bar: The Seanik made by Lush!

Conditioner

The same goes for conditioner or hair care in general. There are great solid options for conditioner or simpler you bring a small can of coconut oil which can be used for almost everything. You can use it for your hair, for your teeth, as body oil, shaving oil, and so on and on and on. Mostly it comes in a glass jar, making it more eco friendly than something that comes with plastic packaging. And it makes your life and body care easier.

Body Lotion

You will see: this one comes with the same logic as the ones above: get a solid one! It will only take very tiny space in your bag, compared to a huge bottle of body lotion. And it will last longer than some of those tiny bottles of body lotions.

Deo

Maybe you would be surprised but you can get deodorant as a solid one too! It is easier to store and to get it through the security check at the airport as you won’t need to put it into a plastic bag.

If this isn’t your style either, you can simply buy a deo in a glass container the next time you will get a new one. Or make one yourself. But please use deo in any case. Just, please. The most important part about personal body care.

Perfume

One of my favorite things ever to own in a solid form: my perfume. Instead of having a big bottle of perfume (that you might not be able to bring on a plane) you just have a tiny tin of perfume. Most of them are all-natural and only carry good ingredients. It is such a room-saving piece in my toiletry bag, that I don’t want to travel without it anymore. My favorite ones are either from Lush or from the Apothecary, a small company from Malaysia. Check them out, I bet they offer something, that suits you too!

Solid Perfume - La Vie En Marine
Solid perfume from Lush! I use this for years now and I still have a lot of it left!

Toothpaste

Well, who would have thought this but you can actually get solid toothpaste and mouthwash! It is all-natural and chemical-free if you get the right one. And as the rest does as well, it won’t spill all over your beautiful clothes.

Mouthwash

As you can have solid toothpaste as small tabs it was no wonder to also turn mouthwash into tiny tabs. Now I carry mine in a small reusable glass with my toothpaste. It looks super cute in my opinion!

Then Ditch the Plastic

Plastic is a very harmful material. It pollutes our oceans, kills our environment, and damages our own health. Reducing it is not only useful, but it is also necessary. No matter if you do it for your own sake or because you are interested in creating a better future for the next generations, if you reduce plastic, you rule.

Toothbrush

A few months ago, I didn’t even know that there is something like that. But now I wouldn’t even use a toothbrush that is not made from bamboo anymore. As bamboo is antibacterial, I suffer way less from infections inside of my mouth. I simply love it. And as it is made from wood, you can just compost it after using it.

Comb & Brush

Bamboo is one of the most sustainable materials in the world. It grows super fast, is strong and compostable. And on top of that, it is antibacterial. Therefore it makes sense to get as much of your body care made from it as you can. Besides having it in your toothbrush, you can also get your comb or your brush to be made from it. Good for you and your environment.

Alternative Packaging

So despite getting everything in a solid form, you can also avoid some packaging by looking at other possible materials. What I think about is something like solid glass or metal. As mentioned before, get your deo in a glass container. Or for example your chapstick: ditch the plastic one and get one in a metal tin. And as soon as this one is empty, just fill this tin up with coconut oil and use this as your lip balm. Another example would be to get a face cream in metal packaging. But check if you can recycle it, in advance.

Last But Not Least: Bring Less

We are already coming closer to the end of this post. But the only thing that I want to tell you now, is to rethink your current habits. Thinking back, I was a terrible mess. I brought all of the things to my trips just because I wanted to. I carried tons of things that I didn’t even use. What was I even thinking? That I would use three lipsticks on a two-day trip? That is just ridiculous. Two pallets of eyeshadow? Even-though I knew that I wouldn’t even use one of them? Not anymore. Just rethink your consumerism guys. This can save your back from pain, as you won’t have to carry super heavy bags anymore.

Less Means Using The Same Product For More Than One Use

When it comes to saving space in your sanitary bag, there is no better thing than having a small bottle of coconut oil with you. There is almost nothing you can’t do with coconut oil. You can use it as a conditioner, shaving oil, lip balm, hand cream, body lotion, mouth wash. Really. It is so so so useful and I use it almost daily!

So that’s it! Thank you for reading this until the very end. Please let me know, what’s your favorite piece of Eco-Friendly toiletries!

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A Guide to Eco Friendly Toiletries - La Vie En Marine

6 COMMENTS

  • Elke Prondzinski

    Sweet blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Many thanks|

    • paula
      AUTHOR

      Hello Elke,
      Thanks for the compliment!
      I am not quite sure how yahoo works bur I think it is important to always improve your pages SEO.
      For wordpress I like the plug-in Yoarst.
      Best wishes,
      Lavieenmarine

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