Zero waste, simple composition, adapted to your skin and your tastes... Homemade cosmetics have many benefits.

Shampoo, conditioner, hair mask, face mask, scrub, shower gel, moisturizing milk, day cream, night cream, concealer, mascara, lipstick... Beauty products pile up in the bathroom, but do they all really do our skin and look good? Are they all really necessary? "No," say the proponents of minimalist or zero-waste cosmetics. Here's why you should consider making your own beauty products.

To control the composition of what you put on your skin

The lengthy composition of the majority of these products, with complicated ingredients and barbaric codes, is a strong clue: just like ultra-processed foods and their additives, commercial cosmetics, including those sold in pharmacies and praised by dermatologists, contain too many ingredients to be truly skin-friendly. Not to mention that these ingredients are sometimes only used to preserve the product, not to nourish the skin or hair.

Some ingredients in deodorants, shampoos and especially make-up are even downright dangerous for your health: aluminum salts, triclosan, mineral oils, parabens, etc. Especially when they add to each other and environmental and food pollution. Making your beauty products at home allows you to use fewer ingredients, raw basic products, organic, risk-free and which will have a real beneficial effect on the skin or hair.

Read also: Saying goodbye to chemicals with minimalist cosmetics

To reduce the number of products used

By multiplying the products, we also multiply the ingredients and the risks of allergies and the accumulation of polluting substances. You can make several products yourself with few ingredients: a vegetable oil adapted to your skin, a plant hydrosol, shea butter, aloe vera gel...

And when you use these natural substances, you no longer need to moisturize skin with one product that you have previously stripped with another. By respecting the real needs of your skin (and hair) and using more raw products, the balance of the skin or hair is respected and the need for additional care is unnecessary.

See: A Solid Shampoo Recipe for Oily Hair

For the pleasure of making with your hands

Who hasn't loved playing the little chemist as a child or making a fake fuss to play? If making your own cosmetics obeys strict hygiene rules, it also brings the joy of creating something useful and good for you. There's nothing like homemade to feed your creative power.

To produce less waste

Making your own care and hygiene products allows you to stop buying them and therefore reduce packaging and waste. It can also allow for the use of recycled, glass or recyclable plastic containers. As long as you don't have to make multiple purchases to equip yourself, and therefore opt for minimalist cosmetics instead, homemade cosmetics are part of an ecological and zero waste approach.

In addition, as we choose the ingredients we put in it, we can also favor organic and local ingredients and further reduce the carbon footprint of homemade products.

Read also: 10 simple actions to reduce our waste

To have personalized and adapted products

A bergamot deodorant is impossible to find in the supermarket or pharmacy, but it is easy to make yourself! And if you find solid shampoos quite easily, you don't necessarily find the one that is most suitable for your hair type. By making your own shampoo, you are guaranteed a product that will present both the best ingredients for your hair and the smell you prefer.