Sustainability & Style in the Bathroom

I'll show you how to swap environmentally harmful disposable products for stylish, plastic-free bathroom furnishings. This will elevate your bathroom to a new level, transforming it into a space that expresses your personal style while ensuring everything coordinates perfectly. Say goodbye to colorful, unsightly plastic packaging and overflowing trash cans, and discover that your bathroom can be a truly inviting and comfortable place.

Reusable instead of disposable

The first step towards sustainability is switching from single-use to reusable products. Often, it's precisely the items we use every day that end up in the trash at the end of the day, creating a huge amount of waste in the long run.

Particularly common cosmetic and cleaning products that are thrown away immediately after use include cotton pads, cosmetic wipes, feminine hygiene products, disposable dust cloths & floor cloths, and plastic bottles of cleaning agents.

For each of these products, there is a more sustainable use or alternative:

cotton pads	Reusable makeup remover pads (made of bamboo/cotton)
cosmetic tissues	washable cloths and towels
Women's hygiene products (pads, tampons)	Cloth pads / washable panty liners / menstrual cups
Disposable dust wipes & floor wipes	Washable textile cloths & mop attachments
Cleaning product bottles	Refill used cleaning product bottles with low-packaging cleaners instead of throwing them away and buying new ones.

Besides their sustainability, another advantage of reusable and washable alternatives is that they are gentler on your skin.

Cotton pads, makeup remover wipes and conventional sanitary pads can contain harmful substances and microplastics, which can cause skin irritations, redness, pimples and other intolerances - especially if you use them daily on such sensitive areas of your body.

Goodbye plastic & hello aesthetics

Another way to do something good for the environment and at the same time make your bathroom more beautiful is to replace the unsightly colorful plastic packaging of shampoo, shower gel, detergent, body lotion, etc. with stylish and uniform soap dispensers or bottles.

When choosing containers, consider the different properties of the materials: while glass is particularly suitable for contents you want to display, such as colorful bath bombs, laundry beads, or glittering hair oils, there are also contents you'd rather hide...

For these, I recommend ceramic or dark-tinted glass. These materials not only conceal their contents, but also add a splash of color to the room and are easy to clean in the dishwasher. If you're storing dry products, you can of course also use wood, bamboo, fabric baskets, or even cardboard containers.

Once the plastic packaging is gone and only your beautiful containers are decorating the room, you no longer have to hide them behind a cupboard door, but can use them as decorative accents in your bathroom.

Labeling & Organizing

Don't forget to label the beautiful containers afterwards, so you can find your way around the bathroom and also make it easier for your guests to find certain products.

Since we introduced a uniform labeling system in our bathroom, it is enough to open the cabinet to find what you are looking for - all products that cannot be identified by their nature are organized and labeled.

Of course, you can also make the labeling very simple or even invisible: For containers that are particularly visually appealing or contain things that are easy to remember, we opted for "invisible" labeling, where we attached the labels to the bottom of the containers.

Thoughtfully designed bathroom for your dreams

Switching to a more sustainable bathroom setup can be exciting and thrilling - you discover new products and alternatives for things you've used your whole life and enjoy more visually appealing containers than the wet and sticky shower gel bottles behind your shower curtain.

However, like any major change, this one should be done with care and consideration: Even if the decision to live and reside in a more environmentally conscious way is already irrevocably made, it is not advisable to make all the changes in your bathroom at once.

Suddenly disposing of all products and buying new ones instead is also an environmentally damaging action, as you are throwing away perfectly functioning useful or consumable items and using up Earth's resources with the new products that you did not really need at that time.

Therefore, I recommend taking small steps: Replace items that break with more sustainable alternatives and carefully consider the materials you choose and how long you expect the item to last when making new purchases. Even if it's a long process, you'll be doing yourself and the environment a huge favor.

Choose more environmentally conscious materials:

Hairbrushes, combs, toothbrushes	Bamboo & wood instead of hard plastic
Toothbrush holders, soap dishes	Ceramics & glass instead of plastic
Soap dispenser pumps	Stainless steel instead of plastic

If you're in the ideal situation of just starting out with your home furnishings and household setup, then take the opportunity to think about sustainability and a cohesive style beforehand. Plan your bathroom in advance and end up feeling like you're in a chic hotel where everything follows the same design style and is stylishly coordinated.

A consistent color and style scheme is particularly important for this uniform look: Match the color of your towels to that of your shower curtain, or pay attention to similar colors and materials when buying storage and decorations.

Your color scheme should have no more than three main colors, at least one of which—ideally two—should be neutral and simple (e.g., white, black, gray, beige). This will give your bathroom a neat, clean, and, above all, balanced look. The same applies to materials—therefore, use no more than three main materials that are repeated throughout (e.g., glass, ceramic, bamboo).

There are many other ways to become more environmentally conscious when using bathroom products. Here are a few options that you can easily integrate into your life without major changes. If you have any other ideas for a sustainable bathroom, please share them in the comments – the more tips we implement together, the better for our planet.