20 pledges for 2020: How I'm making my beauty routine more eco-friendly

Truly ethical and sustainable beauty brands aren't easy to find. Can Jessica Jones go a whole year without using anything else?

De-clutter your bathroom: so many things don't need to be packaged in plastic anymore

Everyone has their favourite beauty and care products. It’s rare to find products you couldn’t live without, but just how sustainable are they? Until now, I had never considered just how ‘green’ my most used beauty products were. But since starting this pledge, I’ve had to investigate how sustainable they are to see if they measure up... and if I can find alternative products with better environmental credentials.

Garnier’s Micellar Cleansing Water has always been my go-to product for removing make-up at the end of the day. It’s not vegan, but Garnier claim they are committed to sustainably and ethically sourced ingredients. Furthermore, they use recyclable materials and work with the company TerraCycle, making it possible for any consumer waste to be sent there and recycled if it can’t be done through a local waste collection. Although it seems unlikely that anyone would actually take the trouble to do this.

Also, the cleansing water requires using cotton wool pads to remove make-up. The detrimental effects of cotton farming are often overlooked and WWF say that the current production processes are environmentally unsustainable. Buying organic cotton wool pads is one way to ensure that they are sustainably sourced but an even better alternative, that will also save money over time, are zero waste reusable cotton pads like Holland and Barrett’s.

Benefit is known for its fun aesthetic packaging and good quality makeup. I have bought their Roller Lash Mascara for the last two years knowing that Benefit do not test on animals and use no heavy metals in their cosmetics. However, not all of the ingredients are natural or organic and the packaging is unhelpful in not stating whether it is recyclable. Mascara can be tricky to recycle because of its different parts but there are many new products on the market which only use natural ingredients and are fully recyclable.

One step further is a zero waste mascara and, although these are harder to find, there are a surprising amount of options available. I am going to try this one by BeeYou Organics which intrigues me - it contains beeswax but they also make a vegan version.

My favourite hair product is OGX’s Penetrating Moroccan Argan Oil serum but it might not be as organic as the brand’s name suggests. Its main ingredient is not actually argan oil - instead there are lots of chemicals as well as fragrance and colourings. It is also in single use plastic packaging, which might be recyclable but that depends upon the user actually recycling it.

As an alternative to expensive shop-bought hair serums that can contain harmful parabens and silicones, combining pure oils to make a natural hair serum is a more eco-friendly and sustainable approach. Once made these homemade serums can be stored in refillable bottles or jars - whatever you have at home! There is plenty of advice online about how to do this so I'm going to try it out over the course of my pledge.