Sustainable bathroom essentials to buy and refill

Break up with plastic pollution one step at a time

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photo: Team Woo
Hero image in post
photo: Team Woo

Break up with plastic pollution one step at a time

By Eve Walker11 Nov 2022
4 mins read time
4 mins read time

Beauty brings so much joy to our life, so much self-expression and fun. But the beauty industry is the biggest contributor to global plastic pollution, producing over 120 billion units of packaging every year. A lot of this is not recyclable, and even when it is, research from Garnier found that a whopping 56% of Brits don’t recycle their bathroom products, and with most beauty products having a shelf life of six to 12 months, you can imagine how many beauty routines end up in landfill.

Sustainable beauty brands play a vital role in the fight against climate change. Sure, it’s down to systemic change within huge brands, prompted along by governments, to do the heavy lifting on making our planet greener, but smaller individual steps- like switching to refillable bathroom essentials - can make a huge difference. Plus, your space will look better than ever with cute matching bottles crafted from eco-friendly materials in sleek designs.

Fiils is a leading refillable beauty brand founded by people behind Dior and Nars and it’s making serious impact as a carbon-neutral company. Not only do they provide refillable beauty products alongside containers but they even plant a tree for every purchase made. So far they’ve planted over 11,000 trees (removing 67.64 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere), saved 59,077 bottles and 472kg of plastic pouches from ending up in landfill.

You can choose out of four gorgeous bottle colours – silver, copper, rose gold and black, and simply fill with refillable pouches that you can return to Fiils afterwards. All products are cruelty-free, vegan, and made with 99% natural ingredients, leaving your hair and body feeling and smelling equally delightful.

We spoke to Anna Priadka, founder of Fiils, to learn more about sustainable beauty.

What inspired you to create the brand?

Working as a make-up artist and on the product development side for brands such as Dior and Nars, it suddenly struck me the sheer amount of waste produced in the industry. My mum had lived a relatively low-key lifestyle and had always shopped in zero-waste stores before they were a thing, I also follow a holistic diet and have forever favoured second-hand clothes over fast-fashion, so it made sense for me to be responsible, answer to the environment as well as the beauty industry. I was also fed up with unclean, unnecessary ingredients and excessive single-use packaging. Fiils addresses a problem in my own beauty routine, too, starting with the basics.

Can you tell me a bit more about planting a tree per purchase?

We are working with Ecologi [a Bristol-based organisation that plants trees and funds the world’s best carbon-offsetting solutions] to build our very own Fiils Forest and are also supporting them on reforestation projects in Madagascar. With every Fiils purchase you make, they will plant a tree in the Fiils Forest. This way, when purchasing a Fiils product, you are helping to not only join a carbon positive family but to regrow our planet.

How has the beauty industry changed during your time working in it?

There have been some good and not so good changes in the beauty industry over the last two decades. One amazing change is inclusivity. In the early 2000’s, it was impossible to find as many brands that catered for all skin tones but now, thankfully, beauty is a lot more accessible for all. A negative side of the industry is overconsumption, the sheer volume of brands that have cropped up without any focus on sustainability.

What do you hope the future of the beauty industry will look like?

I hope that we progress to more transparent standards across sustainability claims, and the industry moves towards a more collective approach where brands work in sync to improve the industry.

Do you have any advice for people struggling to know where to start to become more sustainable?

Start small! It’s impossible to change every area of your life at once. Start by swapping one element out every few months, such as switching your shampoo/conditioner or cleaning products to refills.

All products are selected independently by our editors. If you purchase anything through this article, Woo may earn an affiliate commission.