New eco-friendly habits to embrace, new beauty customs… Take advantage of summer to get (re)acquainted with clean beauty!

Even if your new year’s resolutions are already long gone, summer is an opportunity to have (another) good bathroom clearout, to start afresh. 

• Be sure to use up the products that you’re currently using before buying more
• Go right ahead and discard partly-used products that have been hanging around for too long
• Once the seal on a bodycare product is broken, don’t keep it for longer than a year
• Also, don’t forget to give away any unopened packs, if you don’t think you will use them
• When you’re in “restocking” mode, because your shelves are almost empty, go for a beauty product that’s more responsible when it comes to the planet. Brands are making more and more effort to offer clean products, or even refillable or solid versions.

Even if it’s there’s still some way to go, we can only commend this kind of initiative. Like that of the colourful, innovative brand 900 Care (on sale at Monoprix, in France). With this one, you can learn to enjoy refilling your products! 

Operation clear skin

Before the summer and fine weather come around, it’s good to prepare the skin by ridding it of the dead cells that have built up over the winter. 

Skin brushing

Go right ahead and get back into using a brush for a little skin brushing. This is something that’s done without using any products, and is therefore very eco-friendly. So what’s the idea? Once to twice a week, just before taking a shower, brush your skin all over your body, starting with your feet and working your way upwards to your belly. Do so with a light touch so as not to “scratch” the skin. Avoid the breasts (which are more fragile) and any visible veins that you may have (varicose veins, etc.). So what are the benefits? Quick exfoliation, coupled with an invigorating massage that kick-starts microcirculation in the legs and sloughs off dead skin from the surface. A moment of pure relaxation and detoxing. After your shower, dry off your skin and apply a skincare product. With your newly-refined skin texture, it will be more easily absorbed.

A homemade scrub

Like skin brushing, exfoliation makes it possible to rid the skin of dead cells and enhance the effect of the skincare products subsequently applied (moisturising or slimming treatments). If you don’t feel like using a conventional scrub you can go down the home-made, natural route. To make it happen, just take a look at what’s in your kitchen cupboards. What are the star ingredients? Course rock salt for the tougher areas like the legs, and sugar (or coffee grounds) for the more delicate areas (like the arms). You can just mix the exfoliant with a plant-based oil (olive, coconut or argan). Always start with your feet and work your way up the body so as to stimulate venous return. Focus more on the rougher parts, then rinse liberally.

Seek out solid preparations

This year, there’s a trend towards responsible, solid beauty products. Shampoo, deodorant, make-up remover… You can now find solid versions of all your “standard” products. The idea being to cut down on unnecessary packaging, use products that are as natural as possible and aim for zero waste. So we are easily sold on the comeback of cleaning the body using real soap.

The oil option is a natural one

Whether a dry oil or one that feels greasy, oil brings a different kind of sensory stimulation into your beauty ritual. As well as hydrating like a milk, these gentle, natural formulations are high in vitamins, and leave the skin supple and nourished. The right way to use an oil: apply it to your skin when it’s just barely damp after a shower. This will enhance its “beautiful skin” results even more.

Two in one, the “eco-friendly habit”

If you’re not keen on oily textures, you can also go for body-and-face creams, to rein in the number of products you buy.

And when it comes to sunscreen, go refillable!

This year we’ll be sold on zero-waste sunscreen milk, in a format designed without plastic packaging under the Cozie brand. The sunscreen comes in a bottle that’s returnable, refillable and… Re-usable! 

• Sunscreen milk, SPF 50, Cozie Bio, €23,50.