Day Thirty-Four - Clean as An Irish Spring

Learning to Shower Like a Man

OK, so as much as I bust on my husband about being the anti-enviro, he is greener than me in some respects. Let's take the daily shower for example.

To get fresh as a daisy, I use: one plastic bottle of shampoo, one plastic bottle of conditioner, one plastic shower "poof", one plastic bottle of body wash, one plastic bottle of face wash, one steel can of girly-style shaving cream and one plastic, disposable razor. Also include the occasional bottle of Nair hair removal or plastic bottle of bubble bath and you've got nearly a shopping bag's worth of #2 plastics, plus a whole lot of chemicals I can't even pronounce.

My husband's shower regimen includes: soap.

Yup, that's it. One bar of Irish Spring wrapped in a 100% recyclable cardboard box. See folks, that's why he gets to win one now and again.

So to help me clean up my act, so to speak, I'm going to stop showering forever. Just kidding. I am, however, going to get out of my morning comfort zone to make some small changes to help the environment.

For starters, I'm ditching the conditioner. I have short hair so I don't need the de-tangling and it's not the dead of winter so I don't need the static control either. Boom. One less plastic bottle.

Secondly, I'm turning in my "poof" and bodywash in favor of Dove Bars. I'm also trading in my plastic bottle of face wash for a bar of Neutrogena. There's two less bottles and one less poof.

Thirdly, I'm gonna put my razor to the test. I'm not ready to go all European, but am going to push my razor to the limit and see how many shaves I can really get out of it. I don't use the disposable kind where you throw out the whole thing -- just the razor part -- but I'm going to try to use the head for a whole month before switching out. I'll let you know if I end up hacking my knees to bits.

Lastly, no more Nair or Bubble Baths. The former stinks to high heaven and burns my delicate Scotch-Irish mayonnaise-skin and the latter tends to leave a wierd ring around the tub that the magic scrub-fairy never seems to clean.

I'm hoping these small changes will have a positive impact on the earth, with minimal impact on my personal hygiene. I'm sure hubby will let me know ;-)


Savings:

Let's assume I used conditioner, body wash, face wash and "poofs" at about the same rate of one each every two months. I used to go through razor heads at a rate of one per week, but will now switch out once per month. I also went through one bottle each of Nair and bubble bath per year. That's a savings of 20 plastic bottles, 36 razor heads and six "poofs". That's quite a bit of downcyclable and landfillable waste. That's the sweet smell of eco-friendly success, folks!


Difficulty Level: 1 out of 5

Hmmmm, let's see, less stuff to buy, less stuff to store, less stuff to use. Sounds like another win/win situation for this lazy suburbanite.