Bathroom
Disclaimer: what I will say below is certainly not meant to be a blueprint for fellow humans. What works for me might not work for someone else. If a fellow human wanted to live with less in their bathroom and asked me how to approach it, I would most likely say that it's best to put some of the items in a box and try out living with less for some time.
When I was much younger, I was fascinated with my grandmother's bathroom. She had all kinds of creams, tools, and shampoos in there. There were so many bottles and jars!
When my fellow humans visit my home, they often wonder, where is everything? Where is your makeup, perfumes, creams?
A fellow human came to see the flat we lived in previously. She and her partner were considering living there. She walked around, went to see the bathroom, and asked: but where do you keep all your personal care items, especially You [looking at me]? But there were barely any items. And there was no storage space. Most of the items that we were not using daily (such as the shaving foam, nail scissors, or nail clippers), we kept elsewhere.
In the picture above is everything we have in our bathroom, excluding the toilet brush and our decorations (the sand jar and the stones we brought home from Bornholm). We live with:
- Toilet rolls made from recycled paper. We'd be glad if they came in paper packaging, but they come in plastic. We use these plastic bags for plastic waste.
- Baking soda that we use for cleaning. We refill our baking soda jar from a very large bag.
- Laundry sheets. They are unscented. My skin seems to tolerate these laundry sheets well.
- Nail scissors. This is the only tool that I use for my nails.
- Crystal deodorant in cork packaging
- A tin of vaseline. I've tried to live without vaseline in the past, but it lasts a very, very long time, doesn't go bad, and it's the only product that I can use on my skin when I have a flare up or when my skin is extremely sensitive (I live with an autoimmune skin condition).
- Toothpaste
- Toothbrushes in a jar. The jar came with pasta sauce.
- Sunscreen in paper packaging
- Shaving foam that my partner uses. I use soap instead.
- Multi-purpose soap that we refill. This soap is unscented. We use it for our hands, bodies, face, and even for cleaning the bathroom and other spaces in our home.
- Razor blades
- Heads for one of the toothbrushes
- Shampoo. We had a shampoo and shower bar before, but it didn't last as long as this shampoo does. Very often, I wash my hair with water only.
- Cream and face wash that my partner uses after shaving
- Hair styling wax. It's made here in Denmark from beeswax, shea butter and olive oil by a small Danish company. My partner uses it occasionally.
- Razor and shaver
- Nail clipping tools
- Floss. It goes inside a tiny glass and metal container that is elsewhere in our apartment.
- My partner's comb