By Hannah Schenker
She is onto it. She chooses natural, organic, free-range, chemical-free. She is concerned about the toxins wending their way into our homes and bodies. She cares about where things come from, what they are made of, and where they end up. She minds what she puts on her skin and in her body. And she’s even fiercer about it when it comes to her baby – that small, sensitive, defenceless creature. She is an eco-mama, and you probably know what kinds of things she eats, what kinds of things she wears, and the kinds of things decorating her home. But what might you find in an eco-mama’s bathroom?
Mooncup
The eco-mama knows what’s up. That’s right sisters, women spend approximately 3,500 days of their lives menstruating, with around 70 per cent of women using tampons – nearly 11,400 of them to be precise. Yet, how many of us consider the humble tampon from an eco-perspective? Tampons are made up of cotton and rayon, the production of which results in a little torpedo loaded with nasties like dioxins, which are cancer-causing. You don’t want that up in your lady-garden. So an eco-mama knows a Mooncup is the best option.
Mooncups are made of soft, medical-grade silicone – super comfortable and leaving no fibres behind. Because it is reusable, your Mooncup will always be on hand and reduces your waste monumentally. The Mooncup holds three times as much as a regular tampon, saving you a big whack of money while you’re at it. Latex-free, hypoallergenic and containing no dyes, perfumes, BPA, phthalates, plastic, bleaches or toxins, the Mooncup menstrual cup from Oh Natural is ideal for the sensitive ones too.
Natural Paint
The eco-mama doesn’t want to be coating her walls with plastic paints and chemicals – she wants to go natural. The Natural Paint Company have developed the perfect choice for your bathroom – Enamel Paint that offers supreme durability in wet areas. It used to be that eco-mamas would have to go for a water-based paint rather than a chemical-laden oil-base, but The Natural Paint Company have devised a way to produce an oil-based, solvent-free enamel paint. Using the most up-to-date technology they have come up with a way to manufacture oil-based resin so that it disperses into water and not Turpentine or Xylene. When dry, the eco-mama can see and feel the oil-based finish and smell the pleasant plant resin. Hard-wearing natural ingredients made with renewable resources and no solvents or chemicals? That’s a winner, right there. Not only that, it’s available in their full colour range and they will also colour match to all other paint companies.
Cleaning products
Eco-mamas want their bathrooms to be clean and sparkly without harming the planet and while reducing their carbon footprint. As there is little regulation in the cleaning product industry, it can be difficult to know what kind of products to choose. Resparkle are blazing the way in environmentally friendly solutions by ensuring that each product is 100 percent natural and certified organic. Their patented spray refill pods mean eco-mamas can reduce their carbon footprint by a huge 75 per cent, by reducing the amount of plastic waste going into landfill. Drawing on the properties of essential oils, their Organic Bathroom Cleaner with its refill pods are super easy to use – just fill the re-usable spray bottle with your own tap water and then twist on the innovative refill pod to automatically release the cleaning concentrate into the bottle. It’s that easy!
In the bath
When it comes to caring for your skin, the eco-mama knows it’s important to choose wisely, as our skin is our largest organ. Of course, we absorb a huge amount through our skin, especially when our pores are all nice and open when soaking in a bath. When it comes to our babies, we need to be even more vigilant as their fresh new skin is much thinner and more delicate than our own. The eco-mama knows that nature is the source of the best ingredients, so these Oatmeal Bath Salts from Soultime Skincare will be ticking all her boxes. Using the soothing properties of oats in combination with Epsom salts, dried flowers and essential oils, the eco-mama will be happily bathing her baby and herself with no worries. With a business ethos incorporating “love, compassion and spirituality, as well as genuine consideration for all people and the world we live in”, Soultime Skincare are a great source of products for the whole family.
Where to put the toothbrush?
One thing that’s easy to overlook when giving your bathroom the eco-mama makeover, is storage. How many bathrooms have some kind of old plastic cup as home to the family’s toothbrushes? The Love Mae Chevron Tumbler from Naked Baby Eco Boutique is made from bamboo – and not just any bamboo. This bamboo is made from the by-product of the bamboo industry – the bits that nobody wants to use. Rather than wasting it, Love Mae‘s bamboo products are made by grinding the waste bamboo into a fine powder, then adding food-grade binding resin and pressing it into moulds. Then it’s twice-baked, a bit like porcelain, with a decal added for the second baking. The result are these very cute toxin-free tumblers that the eco-mama can use in the bathroom to house the toothbrushes, or the kitchen or anywhere else in the house for that matter.
Hannah Schenker is a freelance writer, editor and regular contributor to The Natural Parent Magazine. She lives with a touch of magic in Golden Bay, New Zealand.
