"Green" is a big broad term that can mean a lot of different things - like recycling, using less water or electricity, buying less stuff, using the car less often, using fewer suspicious chemicals around the house, or even eating less meat and junk food.
Regardless of how you're going "green," every action - no matter how small - makes a BIG difference, especially if we all do it! There are over 318 million people living in the United States. If we all did one "green" thing every month, that's 3.8 billion green actions every year!!
Greening your daily routine - especially in the shower - can often be as simple as switching out a few products in your shopping cart.
Here are a few easy tips and ideas for creating a greener, healthier shower routine.
1. Skip the Antibacterial stuff!
I know this may sound backwards, but it's really important to skip antibacterial cleansers if you want to ward off dangerous bacteria. Triclosan, the famous antibacterial powerhouse in hand gels and hand soaps, can create bacterial resistance to antibiotics - which is incredibly dangerous if you ever need immediate antibiotic care for a common infection like a urinary tract infection (UTI's are the number one most common reason women visit health clinics for care).
The United States recently banned Triclosan, and it is currently phasing out from the market. In the meantime, save yourself the trouble and stick with regular soap and water. Recent studies have shown that plain ol' soap and water is as effective as antibacterial products like Triclosan in removing bacteria from your hands - but plain soap doesn't cause dangerous bacterial resistance.
2. Skip the Wacky Colors!
There's no need for bright blue body wash or neon green hand soap - it doesn't make your soap more "soapy." These added colorants are chemical additives that go down the drain into our ecosystems. Plus, most of them are made with petroleum by-products. It's easy to stick with safer colors. All the colorants in our soaps are botanicals, clays or minerals that are free of petroleum.
3. Skip the Microbeads!
Ugh! Microbeads may sound like a luxurious, pore-saving tech-jewelry mashup, but it's really just teeny bits of plastic! I can not say enough about how bad microbeads really are.
Our sewer treatment systems cannot filter out microbeads, and after millions of bottles of microbead washes have been sold and used, microbeads are piling up in our streams and lakes.
A microbead looks like a tasty meal to a teeny tiny fish, but it's a deadly, toxic dish. Microbead-caused fish and wildlife destruction has gotten so bad, a few states have banned microbead products. The FDA hasn't banned microbeads however, so it's up to us to go green - and hope that everyone else does, too.
Fortunately there are a lot of great alternatives out there - like apricot scrubs, sugar scrubs, salt scrubs, loofahs. You can make your own face scrub: just add salt, sugar or even dry poppy seeds to your body wash or bar lather. Our Coffee Scrub Soap has a rough scrubby texture your body might love.