I didn’t plan to become someone who thinks about ingredients. Or packaging. Or whether something came from a factory or someone’s kitchen. It just kind of… happened. Slowly. Accidentally. Mostly because I ran out of things and got curious instead of buying the same stuff again.
It started with toothpaste. I was brushing one night, and for some reason, I actually read the label. Not the front part that says “whitening” and “24-hour protection,” but the back—the ingredients. I didn’t recognize half of them. That felt weird. Not scary, just weird. I’d never questioned it. Why would I? Toothpaste is toothpaste, right?
Anyway, the tube ran out a few days later, and instead of replacing it, I googled alternatives. That sent me down a rabbit hole of powders, pastes in jars, tablets, and baking soda people swore by (I’m not there yet, but I see the appeal). I tried one in a glass jar. It was fine. A little salty. A little weird. But it worked. My teeth felt clean. The jar looked cool on the shelf. It didn’t roll around in the drawer like a tube.
From there, things spiraled—again, unintentionally.
The face wash I liked got discontinued. Instead of looking for something new in the same category, I went with something that had, like, five ingredients. No fake citrus smell. Just a creamy, milky cleanser that didn’t foam but somehow made my skin feel less angry. I wasn’t trying to be “clean beauty” or whatever. I just wanted something that didn’t sting.
And then there was the time I ran out of shampoo and decided to try a shampoo bar natural formula I saw at a local market. I didn’t expect much. In fact, I expected to hate it. But it was this creamy, earthy-smelling thing that lathered more than I thought it would. No plastic bottle. No fake fruit scent. Just a bar. My hair didn’t freak out. I kept using it. It’s still in my shower.
At some point, I looked around and realized a lot of my products had changed without me making a grand decision. I didn’t say, “I’m switching to low-waste living.” I didn’t declare, “Only natural products from now on.” I just started using different things because they felt better. And the ones that didn’t? I didn’t buy again. No big deal.
Like deodorant. I had tried every drugstore version—roll-ons, sprays, gels, those weird clear solids that melt in your armpit. Half of them gave me a rash. The other half just didn’t work. One day, someone said “buy this deodorant cream” and handed me a tiny tin that smelled like clay and citrus. I was skeptical. You apply it with your fingers, which felt odd at first. But it worked. It actually worked. And for once, no burning. No mystery ingredients.
There’s something kind of satisfying about a product that doesn’t overpromise. It doesn’t shout at you from the shelf or claim to change your life. It just… does the thing it’s supposed to do. You don’t think about it again until it runs out, which in some cases takes forever. These things last. That deodorant tin? It took me five months to finish it. The shampoo bar is still going after three.
That’s another perk I didn’t see coming. Less restocking. Fewer “oops I’m out of toothpaste” moments. You start buying things less often, and when you do, it feels like a decision, not a reflex.
I’m not saying I’ve gone fully minimalist or that everything in my bathroom now fits into a shoebox. I still own things I don’t need. I still buy the occasional gimmick. But overall, things feel calmer. Simpler.
There’s also less trash. Not zero, but way less. No more handfuls of bottles and tubes at the end of the month. No more “what bin does this go in?” guessing games.
And yeah, it’s a little more effort sometimes. You might have to stir your face mask. Or refill a jar. Or apply your deodorant with your hand instead of a stick. But honestly? It’s fine. Kinda nice, even. It makes you pause. Touch the product. Think for two seconds.
It’s not about being eco-friendly or part of a movement. It’s just that—when you take a minute to try something new—you sometimes find that it makes more sense than the thing you were doing before.
I never thought I’d care about the ingredients in a cleanser or the packaging on a toothbrush. But here we are. The switches didn’t feel like sacrifices. They felt like upgrades. Quiet ones. Small ones.
The kind of changes that don’t scream, they just stick around.
