How to Be Vegan and Plastic Free At Home

Our guide to everything you need to be a plastic free vegan.

Get ready for Veganuary with these plastic free vegan essentials for your home.

It's the start of a new year and time to try out some new habits. We often get asked whether it's possible to live a vegan lifestyle and remain plastic free. While there are so many different vegan food options out there (many of which are wrapped in plastic), we tend to stick to those packaged in recyclable packaging - or make our own! But it's not just vegan food that can be a challenge, animal products are in skincare, dental care, cleaning products and makeup. Here's our guide to vegan products at home - that are also plastic free.

Vegan Bathroom

Traditionally lots of soap bars use Tallow derived from animal fat, in their creation. This can quite easily be replaced with a vegetable fat and produce an identical quality. My favourite vegan soap is the Red Clay Soap Bar, which comes packaged in cardboard. A simple easy swap. 

In my bathroom I also keep a vegan deodorant. You would like about all the place you find animal products, particularly in toiletries. While many natural deodorants use Beeswax, I use a vegan deodorant which swaps Beeswax for Sunflower wax to bind the ingredients into a bar. I recommend the Grapefruit & Mandarin Natural Deodorant scent!

Vegan Kitchen

There's no need to compromise on delicious snacks when switching to a vegan diet. My favourite Vegan Chocolate is made with coconut milk and tastes just as good as the cows milk version. It has the added bonus of coming wrapped in tin foil and paper, easy to recycle so there's no excuse for eating more and more.

A staple of a plastic free kitchen are beeswax wraps, but there is a just as effective vegan version in Wax Wraps made using food grade plant waxes. These are great for covering any leftovers, wrapping a sandwich or any snacks. I even use my wax wraps for storing loose salad in the fridge.

Vegan Haircare

It is really common to find Keratin in both shampoo and conditioner, a no-go for vegans as Keratin is derived from animal hooves, hair, horns and scales. Luckily there are lots of plastic free shampoo bars free-from this and other animal-based ingredients. My favourite vegan shampoos include Beauty Kubes and the Acai Berry Shampoo bar as both include enriching plant based ingredients, while my favourite vegan conditioner has to be the Solid Conditioner Bar.

The great thing about looking out for certain ingredients or values is that it often leads to you fulfilling other values by accident. For example, the solid conditioner bar is handmade locally in Cumbria, UK, is both a natural and vegan product AND it's packaged plastic-free. Tick, tick, tick.

Vegan Makeup

Makeup is the one area that is riddled with non-vegan products. While there was a large campaign against animal cruelty in beauty products, many makeup brands continue to use beeswax, squalene, gelatin, placenta and carmine (among other animal-derived ingredients).

It can be more difficult to be plastic-free when applying makeup but luckily a few brands have stepped up and introduced vegan options that are also plastic-free. I use the Mineral Foundation that comes packaged neatly in a tin. As it's a powder it's easy to use dry and wet by mixing with a bit of water and avoiding animal products. My second top tip for vegan makeup is Mascara Cake. With the mascara packaged in a tin, there's no need to stress about any unnecessary plastic.

Conclusion

There are so many different vegan options out there on the market, ready for you to make the jump - without compromising your plastic-free values! We've only mentioned a few here but there are so many more to choose from. We stock over 500 vegan friendly products for your home so you don't need to worry about the environmental impact when looking out for vegan products. 

Browse our vegan friendly collection.

What is your favourite vegan swaps that's also plastic free? Let us know in the comments below.