Simple Changes for a Slightly Better Planet - Almost No Effort Required!

Hello and happy Thursday!

So I thought I would elaborate on my post about how to change things about - point by point! I hope it will help you feel inspired, perhaps you have made changes in your life for wasting less, using less plastic, and overall just minimalising? I would love to hear all about it!

Right! So we'll start from this picture here, shall we?

From right to left:

1. Use a shower bar instead of bottled soap - I am still working on finding the right one for me as I have quite sensitive skin, but the lemon bar in the picture from Lush smells A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

2. Biodegradable bin bags - so the ones you see here are the 50L bin bags made from maize! They are super silky soft, super strong, and you can fill them to the rim, it's basically the hero of bin bags! I also bought some smaller 10L biodegradable bags from AllGreen (which always makes me sing Al Green "Let's Stay Together" <3) and I have just started using them! 3. Right, so this was supposed to be toothpaste, however after my dentist appointment yesterday and had a heads up from a friend who is a dental nurse, I have been told that if I was going to use home made toothpaste, it has to contain calcium fluoride! And I had a wee browse to see if I could find any that I could add to my toothpaste, alas.... However! You can totally use this as a natural teeth whitener! Bicarbonate of soda helps removing stains on your teeth, and coconut oil can have a whitening effect - just don't use it as a toothpaste...

4. Shampoo bar! This Seanik bar is soooooo good, and my boyfriend totally sniffed my hair the first day and was like "Yum! How come your hair smells better than usual?!" So take THAT all other shampoos!

5. Home made lip balm! There are plenty of different recipes for DIY lip balm, I made it with coconut oil, cocoa butter and candelilla wax plus a few drops of essential oils - et voila! No chemicals, no plastic - it's all good!

6. Bamboo toothbrush - these bamboo brushes has been treated so they are fit for purpose! Mine has held up really well, and I'v egot another one at the ready for when I need to swap it!

7. Re-usable coffee cup for those cappuccinos to go! I bought mine before I got super aware of plastic, however - rather than having a billion coffees in disposable cups, this one will hold up for yeeeeeears!

Coffee safe and sound when I was taking the train to Elsewhere the other day, cup saved!

8. Soap bars - I know some people can be a cringy about this, but in the household with friends and family, I think it is totally fine to have a soap bar at the read, if you feel like you also need to have a liquid soap too - use that only when absolute necessary! And if you feel most comfortable with it - you can have a soap bar each. I am planning to see if I can make my own liquid soap in the future.

9. Yesterday, I got my shiny Klean Kanteen water bottle in the mail! I am so excited AND it is also my favourite colour, yay! I used it straight away for last night's badminton session.

10. Buy unpackaged fruit and vegetables when you can! Most of the time there is no need for packaging. When you think about it - a year of buying vegetables that aren't wrapped in plastic or nets or cardboard, you'll save quite a lot of rubbish!

11. I have a super cute bamboo lunch box! I got it for £4.99 in TK Maxx, which I thought was a bargain!

12. Eco-friendly laundry tablets! I currently use Ecover for my laundry, and also for dishes I do by hand I have got the bottle of Ecover. In the future I am hoping to get eco friendly fabric softener and dishwasher tablets too!

13. Using fabric bags or recycled bags for your food shop! Honestly the times I have forgotten my bags I have either stubbornly carried all of them by hand, or just gone home to do the shopping next day.... Yup, it's true!

14. Minimalise. When you have clothes that are worn out, recycle them! And don't replace them with anything... I went through my whole wardrobe, attended a friend's clothes swap - and brought all the clothes that were in a good condition with me. We had tea and coffee and snacks and we had a really fun time just trying on clothes and get some pretty new clothes - the rest was donated to a charity shop. And we have these swaps at least two or three times a year - it's so much fun! I donate as much as I can, and then maybe bring two or three pieces that I really like with me home, and just like that! Minimalism has begun. My wardrobe is no longer cluttered, and it is SO much easier to decide what to wear! Phew!
Also, if you don't do clothes swaps, then you can donate clothes to homeless shelters or two charity shops - They will appreciate it SO much! And make sure that clothes donated are clean and in good condition, if you wouldn't wear it yourself - you shouldn't donate it.

So these are just swaps that I have found ridiculously easy and I have written down a list of more things that I can easily swap out - I just want to make until the things I have needs replaced, because there is no need to immediately throw out perfectly good things, use them well - recycle and then replace!


Did you find these helpful at all? I am still just learning little by little, but the minimalising has helped me so much already, and thinking about how much waste I can save just by making a few handfuls' of changes! And like I said - if you have made any changes or attempted DIY projects for the home, or care products, gimme a shout! Also, would you enjoy more posts like this?

I hope you have a great evening and guess what? The weekend is juuuust around the corner!

De-cluttering, DIY Care, and Overall Simplification

Hi lovely people!

Now... I wanted to just write a post about what has been going on in my flat... Since watching the document "Minimalism" by the Minimalist Guys about half a year ago, as well as reading "The Art of D'scarding" - alongside all the forward thinking with zero waste, zero plastic, home DIY, capsule wardrobes to name a FEW to make life easier, I have been de-cluttering my surroundings and also my mind!

I am not going DRASTICALLY in any direction, but I felt general stuff just piling up around me, and impacting an already stressed mind and soul. I have been casually going through all the rooms in the flat, and Kev has been going along with it - one by one, just a bag here or three bags there. But it wasn't until today I actually started seeing a difference!

Unfortunately, I don't have any before or after pictures, because it has been a steady process, but it already is starting to feel a lot easier to wander around in the flat, finding the essential things that I actual need!

Today for example, I donated three bags of clothes and accessories that had not been worn for half a year - aint nobody got time for those things just taking up valuable space! Also, the things are pretty and all, but I reckon there are others who can get much more out of it! I also found at least two bags worth of stuff that shouldn't have been brought into the home anyways as well that have been thrown out. You know those gadgets that they sell you at food festivals that you are convinced you DO need in your life, and they have like a bajillion different blades and basically do everything for you, but then you get home and realise it was a mistake, and that it is way easier just julienne things yourself rather than construct this metal-plastic combo every darn time you are cooking!

I have put all my ingredients in order in glasses so I can see what I have at hand when I do weekly meal planning on Sunday mornings with a cup of coffee in hand, and I have really just started to use all the different teas I have in the cupboard rather than just exactly - grab that cup of coffee instead.

Them beans though....

Also, I have ordered biodegradable bags instead of the usual refuse sacks, and I am going to start using the biodegradable poop bags for Alphonse instead of nappy bags... In TK Maxx the other day I found a beautiful recyclable bamboo lunch box, perfect! Instead of storing 30 odd takeaway boxes thinking they'll get used.

For my clothes, I was inspired by Try Living with Lucie - 5 Days of a Capsule Wardrobe. I wouldn't be able to do a capsule wardrobe, despite having one for Spring/Summer and another for Autumn/Winter, BUT I have noticed for example I only really use 7-8 of my favourite t-shirts and tops - so the other stuff went, I bought new underwear and threw out everything outdated (i.e a small hill of holey socks....) So I bought six pairs of new socks bamboo socks, kept the others I already had that were reasonably new. In turn, I got twice as much space at the end of it! Buying better quality for the future, so I can wear my favourite pieces of clothing forever! (Sort of)

And..... *drumrolls*..... I made some DIY things! Lip balm and toothpaste to be exact! Now, the lip balm is divine (Recipe by Refinery29), whilst the toothpaste... is unusual (general recipe on Pinterest) - the latter only because it doesn't have as many additives, and contains quite a bit of bicarbonate of soda which gives it a sort of savoury flavour. But my teeth feel squeeky clean! I was told that toothpaste should contain fluoride, and I am going to ask the dentist about it when I go in in a couple of weeks time - so I'll keep you posted on that! I'm getting used to the flavour now as well, so if my dentist says it's all right, I wont be buying any more toothpaste from the shop!

Toothpaste on a cobble stone.

Peppermint and Lavender lip balms! I am waiting on some candelilla wax to make a second batch, as this first batch was very temperature sensitive.

Other than that, things like swapping stupid plastic bottles out with shampoo and soap bars from for example Lush, is something I am going to do in the future - got my first soap and shampoo bar the other day!

I bought little tins to pop them in so they keep better. Whoop!

Anyways, after a long afternoon of organising and sorting out, Kev and I went out for pizza at a new pizza bar here in Glasgow called Basta! It was awesome, and when I asked for no cheese, the woman said "we do also have vegan cheese" - and my day was made!

How do you feel about less rubbish? Do you find it challenging? I would love to hear if you have done different things, or similar things to this and your experience of it all!

I hope you have a lovely evening ^ ^