Plastic-free cosmetics

Note the heavy dependence on Lush...

Face wash: I'm using a great moisturising, exfoliating soap bar from Lush. It's really very good, and I have tried the whole gamut of skin care products.

Shampoo: Currently trying Lush's shampoo bar 'Squeaky Green'. It does the job - I'm not sure it's any better or worse than normal shampoo, really - but apparently you can get 100 washes out of them.

Conditioner: I've got a solid conditioner bar from Lush lined up, but haven't finished up my old stuff yet... watch this space

Anti-frizz hair stuff: Lush had a tiny metal pot of 'King of the Mods' hair gel but the larger version was in plastic. It is ok.

A friend very kindly gave me an aloe vera plant and I've been trying this as hair frizz stuff. I can't really decide what it DOES. I've tried it in dry hair and it's rather sticky and unpleasant on your hands, but not bad in your hair, but doesn't get rid of all frizz. Perhaps it's better as a holding gel on wet hair?

There's also this hair pomade: http://www.soorganic.com/product.php?productid=700 which looks good, but appears to be insanely expensive.

Concealer: no joy yet, but I haven't really been looking that hard. Not filling in my eye bags has led to several comments like, 'Have you just got out of bed?' but for some reason it's not bruising my vanity as much as I'd feared. In fact never wearing any makeup at all is extremely satisfying.

Foundation: the Clinique one that I used to be bothered to apply when I cared was in a glass bottle with a metal lid, though probably had a small plastic disk inside the lid.

Eyeliner: possibly the lack of this is also part of the 'just got out of bed' look. There must be eyeliner pencils with metal lids and no plastic on them. I think all liquid eyeliners will have a plastic bit inside. I'll look into this in case someone's interested.

Deodorant: Lush, again- it's called T'eo. I think it's brilliant (smells nice, works), but other past users I've been chatting to were distinctly underwhelmed. Perhaps they weren't putting on enough? The nice thing about this is it also doesn't contain aluminium, which has a *possible* link to cancer.

Finally: You can, of course, make your own soap, shampoo, conditioner, etc, from natural products, and I WILL post about this when I get round to it!