Updated March 2023

9 Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Beauty Routine

Spring cleaning isn’t solely reserved for the rooms in your home. You can spring clean every area of your life. Removing the things that no longer serve us from our physical and mental space is an important practice to adopt. So, let’s talk beauty routine because that can be an area we tend to overlook! Brushes go too long without being washed and unused hair products to sit beneath our bathroom sink for far too long. What a great time to start fresh!

1. Reef Safe Sunscreen

If you’re not already wearing sunscreen daily, it’s time to start! Be sure your sunscreen does not have chemicals in it that can be damaging to our sea life. My personal faves are the Josie Maran daily moisturizer with SPF and the Supergoop! mineral sunscreen with marigold extract.

2. Green Beauty Products

Pay attention to which companies you’re buying from and supporting. Read through their websites to learn about their practices and ingredients. Makeup wise, I love Tower 28 from Sephora, all of their products and vegan, clean, and cruelty-free! I’m also super pumped about Prose hair products. This company makes custom formulas for shampoo, conditioner, creams, gels, and more after analyzing the results of a lengthy questionnaire you’ll take describing the texture, length, style, and other unique qualities of your hair. They use clean, natural ingredients (no parabens, no sulfates, etc etc) and the custom model is awesome because it leaves no room for excess manufacturing and therefore, no waste.

Check out Sustainable Jungle’s list of clean, green beauty brands for more ideas of where to shop!

3. Clean Your Brushes

Use shampoo or a brush cleaner to bring your brushes, sponges, and beauty blenders back to new. Make washing your brushes part of your normal routine. They hold a lot of bacteria and need to be washed frequently!

4. Wipe Down Your Drawers

Take everything out of the drawers and cabinets in your bathroom. Wipe them down with a natural spray you can make yourself! Declutter anything you don’t want or need and then put it all back.

5. Organize Your Drawers

After wiping down your drawers, keep similar items with other similar items by organizing them using sustainable bamboo drawer inserts! Drawer organizers in your bathroom will literally change your life! Without them giving structure to the drawer, it’s so easy for bathroom drawers to fill up top to bottom with tons of small bottles, products, and items, allowing things to get lost at the bottom!

6. Switch Deodorant

If you haven’t already, make the switch to aluminum free, natural deodorant. My favorite is Native. I love the coconut and vanilla scent. I will say, it does take a while for your body to adjust. I had to apply way more in the beginning and switched brands a few times. But, it’s so worth it and sooo much better for you!

7. Check Your Makeup

Check expiration dates to see if your makeup is still good. If there’s no expiration date, smell the product. If it smells odd, chances are, it’s expired. You can also use texture and color changes as cues.

8. Travel Size Items

How many travel sized bottles do you have sitting untouched in your bathroom? Do you have a mini shampoo and conditioner from every hotel you’ve stayed in? Go through your stash and determine if realistically, you’d ever use them. Perhaps, keep a small collection and part ways with the rest. Instead of picking up travel sized products when I see them, I like to use reusable travel bottles. That way, I can bring the same products I use at home, instead of whatever was available in a small size, and it’s significantly more sustainable.

9. Donate Unused Products

If a product has been sitting in your drawer untouched for quite some time now, chances are, it’s going to stay that way. Many shelters will accept donations of beauty, hair, and skin products along with other toiletries. Those travel size products you decluttered will go to great use here. Sometimes, they’ll even accept products if they have been used a couple of times (use your best judgement).

Originally posted March 2022