Why Ethical Consumerism is no longer an oxymoron.
It’s the invasion of the futuristic oxymoron – ‘smart phone’, ‘auto pilot’ and ‘virtual reality’- words that really don’t seem to make sense when coupled up are now part of common parlance. (Don’t get us started on ‘targeted spam’). But pairings like these are on the up. Phones do an awful lot for us, cars are driving themselves, and reality, well, sometimes it’s probably just easier to deal with virtually!
Here’s another oxymoron that inspires us at SOAPER DUPER:
Ethical Consumerism - or the act of buying responsibly to ensure a sustainable future. Because all of us - as global citizens and as a result of our collective unconscious consumption - are now saddled with the problems of landfill, climate change, plastic in our oceans, water shortages, pollution, unsustainable ingredients, fish eating our exfoliators, and antibiotic resistance. Ouch!
And at Soaper Duper, we believe it’s our responsibility to do things differently. So we set out to create a range of incredibly commercial bath and body products (to kick off with) that are also ‘good’, in big, simple, (mostly) recycled and recyclable packaging. To make affordable products with ingredients that are naturally-derived and great in both texture and efficacy - because recent technologies, and a couple of brilliant chemists - have made it possible. At Soaper Duper, we sell fantastic products loaded with naturally derived ingredients, without the usual suspects, without charging a premium and manage to do some good in the world. Yes, we believe we can have it all.
Our goal is to present another choice and help try to raise awareness around challenges like the environment and our water supplies, through doing what we do every day! Sound simple? It wasn’t. But we absolutely got ourselves an ethical education in the process!
So what else - besides stocking your shower with Soaper Duper - can we all practically do every day to be ETHICAL CONSUMERS? Here are FIVE easy actionables for everybody:
1. Choose products that have as minimal, simple and recyclable packaging as possible. We get that that multi-layered foiled-gold lipstick container looks glamorous, but it sits in landfill FOREVER; and the more layers it has glued together, the less likely it will EVER be recycled.
2. BYOB (bring your own bags). Everywhere. The why is obvious.
3. Reduce food waste (think about the gas that builds up when you put that old lettuce into a plastic bag and it gets thrown into landfill). Even better, if you can, create your own compost pile!
4. If you can pick something to wear that’s cotton or wool over something synthetic, natural is always going to trump ‘neo’ (likely you’ve read about the microfibres that get into the water supply, now found also in the stomach’s of fish, that are coming from washing polyester fleece clothing).
5. While the use of plastic microbeads (you’ll sometimes see them as polyethylene on ingredients lists) has been banned as of the end of 2017 (in the UK at least), there are still cosmetic and grooming products out on shelves that are loaded with them. If it’s on the ingredients list, buy something else!
