Toiletries were products I had never thought about carrying much of a threat to the environment, as long as they aren’t tested on animals then they’re ok, right?
When I found out about plastic microbeads in face scrubs and body wash a few years ago I immediately started to phase them out of my life. After all, why would you buy a product that uses plastic to exfoliate the skin when there are so many alternatives on the market? Cue me trying every other product under the sun that had any of these ingredients instead: walnut shells, rice, sand, apricot seeds & bamboo. Apparently though, that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
The brand that I (ironically) became loyal to was Bulldog. Their branding is perfectly simple, they care about what goes into their products: Bulldog is cruelty free, vegan (no ingredients from animal sources), manufactured in the UK, scored 92/100 from The Good Shopping Guide and importantly doesn’t use microbeads. Dogs are man’s best friend after all!
Also, over Christmas I also bough a Bulldog gift set and was pleasantly surprised at the packaging – two (recyclable) bottles wrapped in paper inside a cardboard box. I was so used to the bottles being sat in a plastic frame, then wrapped in film, all inside a cardboard-plastic box hybrid from other gift sets that I was slightly taken aback.
I’m of course singing the praises of this one company so it’s important to remember that there are other even more ethical companies out there. To find out more use The Good Shopping Guide and Ethical Consumer to rank your toiletries and other companies too!
They often show slightly different scores to each other; on Ethical Consumer for example, Bulldog scores 12.5/20, a lot less than 92/100 from TGSG. However, their score was still higher than other brands I had used such as Lush Skincare’s 11, Nivea 7.5 and Boots at only 2/20.
Hopefully this post will help you search for the companies that align best with your personal ethics, be they environmental, humanitarian or animal cruelty-based! Happy shopping!
Animal Sam 