How To Live An Eco-Friendly Lifestyle: Changes to make

 

Balancing Eco-Consciousness with Enjoyment

At Clean U, our mission is to help you lead a cleaner life with minimal environmental impact. We firmly believe that you don't have to sacrifice your enjoyment to protect our planet. Our founder, Arushi, draws inspiration from history and tradition to guide us towards living harmoniously with nature so we can continue to indulge the things we love.

To carry out our mission, it's crucial we comprehend the adverse environmental consequences of our modern habits. This understanding enables us to offer practical, planet-friendly solutions to our customers, just like you. In this blog post, we'll unveil the stories behind our purposeful products, the reasons we create them, and how they benefit the environment.

Clean U's Product Categories

Eco-Conscious Choices in Your Everyday Life

Clean U's products are thoughtfully categorised into two groups: lifestyle and skincare.

Lifestyle

Our lifestyle products are designed to enhance your everyday activities, from doing the laundry to enjoying a warm cup of tea, all while making your daily routine more eco-friendly, without adding complexity.

The Impact of Our Laundry Habits

Several of our daily chores, including laundry, exert a significant environmental impact. Washing our clothes consumes approximately 41 gallons of water per wash, releasing 62 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. Furthermore, commercial washing detergents often contain toxins and pollutants that seep into local waterways.

As indispensable as laundry is in modern life, it's not a task we're willing to give up or revert to handwashing. However, there are alternative methods to reduce the carbon footprint of our laundry routine.

Enter Soapnuts.

Soapnuts are a natural and sustainable solution for cleaning your clothes. They're among our most sought-after products, offering an unparalleled eco-friendly alternative to mainstream detergents.

What Are Soapnuts?

Originating from India, soapnut shells, or 'Ritha,' contain natural soap. These shells contain sulfate saponin, which transforms into soap when exposed to water.

How to Use Soapnuts in Your Laundry?

We offer both loose soapnuts and soapnut laundry pods. Each pod is pre-packed with the ideal number of soapnuts for a typical washing load. Simply toss the pod in with your laundry and run your washing machine. As water fills the machine, the soapnuts will create suds, cleansing and scrubbing your clothes effectively. We've also enriched our pods with Epsom salts and essential oils to ensure your clothes emerge smelling fresh and feeling soft.

For those with specific washing requirements, we also provide loose soapnuts.

The Environmental Impact of Using Soapnuts

Transitioning from traditional detergents to soapnuts not only eliminates the toxicity from your laundry routine but also curtails the release of toxic fumes. Moreover, our loose soapnuts and soapnut pods are entirely plastic-free. This absence of harsh chemicals also safeguards your clothes, helping them maintain their quality and last longer.

Clean U's Eco-Friendly Tip: Consider upgrading to an energy-efficient washing machine, as innovative technology in this area offers a reduced environmental footprint.

Tea

Before tackling the day's to-do list, many of us need that initial cup of tea, sipping in silence as we prepare for the day. However, this simple pleasure can have unintended environmental consequences.

Is Our Morning Cuppa Harming the Environment?

Tea bags, it turns out, significantly contribute to water pollution. Many tea bags contain plastic, which infiltrates waterways each time we brew a cup of tea.

Contrary to popular belief, most tea bags are non-compostable. Attempting to compost them contaminates the compost pile, rendering it unusable.

Opting for Loose Tea

Loose-leaf tea presents a solution, eliminating the need for plastic bags and delivering the full flavour of your favourite tea without environmental harm. Clean U's loose-leaf teas are 100% plastic-free and brimming with fresh, unadulterated flavour.

What Is Loose Tea?

Within your store-bought tea bags, tea leaves provide the flavour, and the surrounding bag is primarily functional. Without the plastic exterior, loose-leaf tea offers a fresher, bolder taste and boasts higher concentrations of tea's natural antioxidants and anti-inflammatory qualities.

How to Use Loose Tea

As avid tea enthusiasts, the Clean U team is committed to offering top-quality, eco-friendly teas to enhance your morning rituals. Our selection includes herbal and floral tea leaves, ensuring a variety of delightful choices. To brew loose-leaf tea, you'll need a strainer, and we've ensured that ours is as environmentally friendly as your delicious cuppa. Our Handcrafted Bamboo Strainer allows you to brew tea the traditional way—plastic-free and exceedingly flavourful.

The Impact of Loose-Leaf Tea

Choosing loose tea eliminates water contamination, ensuring that your cuppa contains only the goodness you desire.

Candles

Candles can transform a house into a home, providing light, setting the mood, and filling rooms with delightful scents. However, burning conventional paraffin-based candles can have a lesser-known, negative impact on the environment.

Why Soy Candles?

Soy candles are a safe alternative to the synthetic materials used by most mainstream candle brands. These toxic ingredients make paraffin-based candles tiny yet potent greenhouse gas emitters, which can harm your health and damage your living spaces.

What Is Soy Wax?

Soy candles are crafted from soy wax, an all-natural material extracted from soybean oil. Clean U is committed to using organic wax at every step of production, guaranteeing a 100% eco-friendly and ethical product.

Making the Switch to Soy Candles

We've made it simple and appealing to switch to soy candles with our handmade Soy Toasted Coconut Shell Candle, an invitation to a tropical escape. All our candles are hand-poured, void of artificial colours and scents, ensuring that your candlelit experience is not only relaxing but also environmentally friendly and ethical.

The Impact of Soy Candles

Transitioning to soy candles ensures cleaner air quality in your home and a reduced daily carbon footprint. Soy candles also burn up to 50% longer due to their cleaner, more even burn.

Bowls

Whether you're serving smoothie bowls or steaming hot curries, sturdy bowls are a kitchen essential. Yet, is there a way to ensure that our beloved crockery is environmentally responsible?

Enter Repurposed Coconut Bowls

Clean U combines rustic aesthetics with practicality through our popular repurposed coconut bowls. These bowls not only look delicious on your Instagram feed but also extend the life of old materials.

Why Repurposed Coconuts?

In many tropical regions, coconut shell waste is rampant, often burnt, releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. By giving these coconut shells a new lease on life, we can reduce waste, curb emissions, and derive lasting beauty from a natural fruit.

Making the Switch to Repurposed Coconut Bowls

Upgrade your kitchen with Clean U's Coconut Bowl and Spoon Set. It's ideal for enjoying breakfast, lunch, and dinner from these smooth and spacious shells. Plus, you can encourage eco-friendliness during meal times by gifting your loved ones a Coconut Bowl Set, complete with our eco-friendly gift wrapping option.

The Impact of Repurposed Coconut Bowls

Choosing repurposed coconut bowls breathes new life into old coconut shells, allowing you to enjoy your favourite meals while reducing unnecessary emissions.

Clean U's Skincare Products

Enhance Your Skin's Health Naturally

Every morning and evening, we tend to our skin's needs, aspiring for a fresh, youthful, and healthy complexion. For many of us, our skincare routine is a moment of relaxation and self-care. We yearn for smooth skin that makes us feel our best from head to toe. However, not everyone is aware that the key to achieving these results lies in using natural formulas that are gentle on both your skin and the planet, as are present in all of Clean U's soap bars.

Soapnut Face Cleanser

The same natural cleanser that you use in your laundry can work wonders for your skin, too. Clean U's Soapnut Cleanser is a gentle natural exfoliant that supplies your skin with essential nutrients. We've added Holy Basil and Neem to rejuvenate your skin and ward off blemishes, blackheads, and other undesirable elements. As always, our products are vegan, cruelty-free, and lovingly handmade in the UK.

Bamboo Safety Razor

No matter how often you shave your legs, whether it's once a week, every day, or twice a month when you feel like it, your plastic razor can have catastrophic effects on the environment.

How Do Plastic Razors Harm the Planet?

The combination of metal and plastic in traditional razors makes them incredibly challenging to recycle. Most shop-bought razors find their way to landfills, where, under the hot sun, the metal gradually breaks down, while the plastic remains stagnant, releasing harmful fumes.

What Is a Bamboo Safety Razor?

Bamboo safety razors offer a smoother shave and a gentler impact on the planet compared to non-recyclable plastic razors. Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing natural materials, rendering it sustainable and environmentally friendly. Paired with a double-edged blade, this razor is highly effective without harming the planet. You can use your bamboo razor repeatedly by simply swapping out the blade and recycling the old ones as needed.

Making the Switch to a Bamboo Safety Razor

The Clean U safety razor features a long, easy-to-grip handle, making your transition even more comfortable. It's plastic-free, vegan, and cruelty-free, providing you with a smooth shave due to the absence of plastic and toxic chemicals. With your purchase, you'll receive the reusable bamboo safety razor, an organic jute travel pouch, and a sustainable kraft gift box. Additionally, you can purchase new razor blades as needed from the Clean U website.

The Impact of a Bamboo Safety Razor

It's estimated that 5.45 million people in the UK used disposable razors last year. By switching to an eco-friendly bamboo razor, we can significantly reduce the levels of plastic ending up in landfills while enjoying a silky smooth finish.

Clean U's Top Suggestion: Enhance your shaving experience with our shaving bar to achieve the silky smooth skin you've been longing for.

Soap Bars

The ongoing debate between bars and bottles in the skincare and beauty industry raises questions about which is superior. Does it really matter, and if so, what's the science behind it?

Clean U's Stance: Bars Over Bottles -  Why Bars Are Always Better

At Clean U, we firmly believe in the superiority of bars over bottles when it comes to making our bathroom and beauty essentials both planet-friendly and effective.

Some ethical and environmental brands propose that using reusable and recyclable bottles can be just as effective as bars. These companies often offer the option to refill and reuse the same container.

Our conviction in bars stems from their minimal packaging requirements, typically involving small amounts of paper or cardboard that can be easily recycled. Bottles, in contrast, demand significant plastic usage. Even if this plastic is recyclable, its production results in increased energy consumption.

Bars also tend to be more concentrated, last longer, and contain fewer additives, delivering all the benefits your body needs without unnecessary fillers.

The Impact of Soap Bars

By switching to Clean U's soap bars, you're choosing a product with minimal packaging. You're embracing kind-to-skin and environmentally friendly natural ingredients that your skin will undoubtedly appreciate. With a range of natural, rich fragrances, you'll not only feel better but also smell better than ever.

A Fulfilling, Sustainable Lifestyle

At Clean U, we're dedicated to helping you reduce your environmental impact without sacrificing the things that bring you joy. We believe that sustainable living shouldn't be a struggle. By taking inspiration from history, embracing traditional practices, and innovating with our products, we aim to make eco-friendly living rich and enjoyable for the long term.

As we continue to expand our product range, we'll keep this blog post updated so you can fully comprehend the profound impact of making minor lifestyle changes.

If you have any questions about Clean U products or our ethos, you can reach us here or connect with us on Instagram @cleanuskincare.

We're thrilled to be part of your eco-conscious journey!