Want a more eco-friendly bathroom? Small swaps add up to big changes as we start our sustainable living homes tour. We’re going room by room to identify small changes we can make to our everyday habits that will make a lasting impact on our families and earth.
Start simply by:
- Choosing a room
- Picking a few swaps you want to make, choosing ones that are exciting to you
- Getting comfortable with those new products
- Rinse and repeat in the next room
We can’t do it all at once. So let’s begin a sustainable living home swap tour; the first stop is the bathroom!
The bathroom is a great place to remove plastic because there are SO. MANY. BOTTLES.
Here are some easy swaps to remove all the plastic from your bathroom.
Substituting A Soap Bar For Bottled Soap
This is an excellent single-use-plastics-eliminator and sustainable living swap. You can pick up a bar of soap at pretty much any store but check your local farmers market or co-op to support a small business near you.
Choose a soap bar packaged in recyclable materials and biodegradable; both are best for the environment.
Instant bar soap killer is having it soak in water. BOO. It’s most people’s objection to bar soap to begin with.
Try these eco-friendly bathroom products to enhance your bar soap experience:
- These soap sacks from Chagrin Valley help with storage in the shower, and use every last bit of your soap while infusing a little exfoliation.
- Their locally sourced, handmade white oak soap decks are another excellent storage option, preventing your soap from getting mushy and gross between uses.
- These simple amazon self-draining soap decks are another excellent option for keeping your soap in prime condition.
Body Wash Soap Bars
Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve, a family-owned business out of Ohio, has many choices that are good for you and the environment.
Face Wash Soap Bars
I love these options from SkinOwl. I use the Matcha Bar, and my husband likes the Charcoal Bar. I use other products from this company. It’s a fab, natural, female-owned brand, and I highly recommend them!
Hand Wash Soap Bars
I love a good lavender hand soap bar. Again, source locally or look to a company like Chagrin with natural ingredients. I love that their website will guide you to choose a product based on product type, skin condition, or sensitivities.
Another good swap for sustainable living is to reuse and refill your soap container with bulk hand soap. This will significantly reduce the use of single-use plastic containers. You can find refill liquid at Target and other big box stores as well as local options. As a very fun idea, see if you have a local ‘refillery’ or refill shop. I just visited my local one last week. Check this out:
Start with bar soap for your hands, body, and face, and grow into finding a shampoo and conditioner bar you and your family love.
Replacing Regular Toilet Paper with Recycled or Bamboo Toilet Paper
The forests need our help. Thankfully, this is a simple swap with eco-friendly replacements at most of your local stores.
In general, single-use paper products take a hard toll on the environment. But toilet paper is explicitly responsible for diminishing the Canadian boreal forest, the last intact forest ecosystem left in the entire world.
Not only is this forest home to several indigenous animals and people, but our earth relies on these trees to absorb toxic carbon responsible for rising global temperatures. We have work to do, as the US leads the world in toilet paper usage, estimating that the average person uses 28 pounds per year.
Eco-friendly Bathroom Products:
The three best swaps for your toilet paper are recycled or bamboo TP, and if you’re really motivated, a bidet-which eliminates the need for toilet paper altogether.
While recycled options have a slight leg up on bamboo choices, both are more eco-friendly than regular TP.
Take the thinking out of things with Reel and Who Gives a Crap toilet paper subscription services, so you never have to worry about running out of toilet paper again.
Amazon offers Reel TP, amongst other options, to deliver your tp straight to your doorstep.
Make changes you and your family are excited about. If you are jazzed about a change, it is way more likely you will make changes that last.
Ok, and the allstar, earth-saving toilet product (insert drumroll), the bidet. This one gets 5 stars from over 15,000 satisfied bums.
See, easy peesy. Once you find a few products you love, you will build confidence in making other small changes around your home for more sustainable living.
Save this post to come back to as we continue our home tour.
Next stop, laundry room!
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