Sustainable Swaps: Cotton Rounds

Back in April, I wrote this post which documented some of the changes I had made in my every day life to try to be more eco-friendly. For the last 3 months, I’ve continued to have an eco-mindset where possible, and continually look for small changes or swaps that I can make that will have a positive impact.

One of the areas I was really aware that I needed to make some changes was in my beauty routine. As I use a micellar water and toner, I was throwing a way a huge amount of single-use cotton pads a day – and I felt awful about it. I decided to make the change to reusable cotton rounds to minimise my waste, but it’s actually also worked out as being much more cost effective.

Whilst there are quite a few brands specialising in reusable cotton rounds (Face Halo, Precious You), I found that the cost vs. the number of rounds received wasn’t very well balanced, so I’d either have to wash them every couple of days, or spend $50+ to get enough to last me a week. As I wasn’t keen to do either, I decided to support a small business on Etsy (here, UK Etsy option here) where I was able to buy 14 pads, one canvas box holder and 1 small carrying bag for under $25 which felt like a fair deal. The pads are made of 100% cotton towel on one side and canvas cotton on the other side and can be machine washed (although hand washing is recommended).

I’ve found the swap really easy to make and actually prefer using the reusable rounds – I feel like they remove makeup more thoroughly than multiple single-use pads. Sure, washing them is a bit more of a faff but it hasn’t caused me any major stress yet and I plan to purchase another pack so that it takes the pressure off a bit.

Would you consider making the change to reusable cotton rounds?