Why Is Shower Gel Bad For The Environment?

How many of us have shower gel in the bathroom right now? Probably the vast majority of people in the UK. We get it at Christmas, it’s in the supermarkets and you will have probably bought the minis to take on holiday. The question is, how many of us have stopped to think if this is the best option for the environment?

Take a good look at it next time you’re in the bathroom. What is the bottle made of? How long does it take you to use it? Is it cruelty free? Chances are we can all make better choices for our beauty products, but here’s why you should.

How much you will save by switching to bars of soap.

We started out with bar soap, introduced shower gel with it’s new range of fragrances but now the trend is to switch back to bar soap. By switching to bar soap you’ll be saving right from the beginning at the manufacturing step. Before the gel has even reached your shopping basket it’s already done a lot of damage. It takes 9 litres of water, 200ml of oil and 110 grams of CO² to make that product and get it to you. By switching to bar soap you can start to reduce the impact on the environment every time you shower.

Bar soap is, hopefully, wrapped in paper instead of plastic which reduces the need to continually produce more plastic.Another benefit is you can ship more bars of soap at once than bottles because they take up less space and require less protective packaging, plus bars of soap can’t spill or burst during transit. With bars of soap now available in most major supermarkets, it’s easy to make the switch back. 

One less thing to try and recycle.

The Guardian recently discovered that bathroom waste was most likely to end up in landfill. This could be due to lack of clear labelling, customers not associating bathroom waste with recycling in the same way as kitchen waste or customers thinking because you can’t clean the bottles, it can’t be recycled. One thing is clear, a lot more needs to be done to improve recycling in the bathroom.

You can make your life so much easier by switching from shower gel to bars of soap. No more bottles to cart down to the recycling, inevitably leaving water throughout the house because you can never get the bottle dry. No more trying to clean out that last bit of soap from the tub. Simply recycle the bar wrapper and you’re done, so much easier!

You’ll save money.

How do you use your shower gel? A tiny amount at a time or do you put plenty on your sponge so there’s lots of bubbles? The second one is way more fun and feels like you really get clean, but that’s the fastest way to waste the gel itself. 

Going through the gel that fast means you have to buy more of it, far more often. That’s not the case when using a solid form of soap. The solid bars foam up just as much as their gel counterparts but use up less product to create that result. Not only do they leave you feeling squeaky clean they do it without draining your bank balance.

You can get way more fancy.

Shower gels come in a bottle, feature a few  fragrances and boring colours. Why stick with this when there are so many more different bar soaps you can treat yourself to.

You can buy bars of soap with different textures, flowers added in to them or glitter if you choose. Try a bar of soap with a raised pattern on one side to really exfoliate with no extra effort.
The only option used to be lush, which still has some great bar soaps, but now there is a whole internet to explore. If you want to lose some time, we recommend exploring Etsy where there is every type of soap you could ever want. From soap for sensitive skin, vegan, palm oil free and bulk orders you’ll never want to go back to the £1 shower gel again.