Lush are you kidding me

So lush got a visit and I have to say the selection was huge and extremely confusing. A lady did her best to sell me some products but I was just overwhelmed and needed to get away after seeing the prices. When I looked at the shampoo bars I expected bottle shaped shampoo sticks but instead it was small round bars that she said gets 60-100 washes??? This I must question I have kids that would just leave them in the bath and it would dissolve in seconds all for the lush price of £8. Now personally I could not use any shampoo due to the chemicals SLS and MI so it would be no good me buying them as my skin would be flared up. 

I think with this shop there was too much on offer for me to get my head around but I have been there  and got prices. Maybe as my journey continues something might be needed from there.

This was interesting to me as my sunblocks all come in plastic bottles
I would give this ago just to see. Factor 30

Shampoo bars 

The soap collection, you buy this in 100g bars and some were priced high its makes me think though  as I use Dove soap at £2 a bar and it’s packaging is in a box do I need this Lush? 

This item is £5 you put your soap  inside it to make it a scrub apparently the soap lasts longer using a bag. Well I can crochet one for less but I liked the idea.

£2 for one reusable pad again I feel I should  have ago at making my own that can be washed. 

Conditioners contain the chemicals  that react with my Ezcema so again no option for me to buy plastic free at the moment. 

Scrubbing soap absolutely fantastic 

 

This I would buy amazing and my skim felt and smelt lovely

Just the amount to choose from amazes me

Brilliant

free from the chemicals I react to

When I think of £10 wow that's a lot but my shampoo now and creams rang from £8-£9

I will try to make my own by crochet

sold per 100g you would not get a huge amount

Check out me eggs

EGGS 4.07.19

Day 4

I went to three places to compare 12 eggs. I don’t know about your home but we can get through 24 eggs a week. We use them in breakfasts, dinners, pancakes and baking.

These prices are based on 12 eggs

What I found

Tesco 12 eggs = £2.40
Farm shop 12 eggs = £2.70
Local butcher 12 = £3.98

Tesco 

Compared egg sizes the butcher ones are much bigger  

Farm shop against butchers egg, butchers eggs are much bigger 

It makes me wonder why locally farmed eggs can be so different in colour outside shell and inside shell than the ones you get in supermarkets. Comparing weight, sizes and freshness due to colour these must be better. Tell me if I missing something? 

I never knew you could choose larger eggs so looking at the price this seems to be the winner some even have two yokes inside one e

Day 4 Summary

4th July 2019

So I decided today to venture out and about to investigate the options of plastic free alternative buying.

I drove to kidderminster to Eat.Love.Yoga and the shop assistance was really helpful and supportive of my quest to become a plastic free family.
Looking at the negatives I can only see part of my weekly shop here and maybe need to look at logistics of how to fit a visit there once a week.
When I stood infront of the products I will admit to being a little pessimistic when I looked at the prices but now after working them out they either work out cheaper than my brands in plastic or more expensive to my usual buys. Take a look at my blog from today. (Its been a busy day post)
I can however see the benefits way out the negatives, people say it's more expensive going to these kind of shops but the benefits are that you only buy what you need and it's plastic free. Supermarkets offer great prices but they also sell alot more to you per visit. You always end up with buying more products than you planned leading to more waste. I am definatly leaning towards a plastic free buying lifestyle using good quality, organic, eco friendly and generally knowing what i'm buying is quality, locally brought suplliers and not plastic covered rice for instance from abroad thats cheap.

I went to Merry Hill to visit Lush as this was also recommended to me, my skin allergies and intollerences need to be certain chemical free. The shampoos here all contain the chemcals i can't use like SLS and MI.

For shaving products, suncreams, hair gels, soaps, moisturizers it all looks good but i do need to price it all up and i'm feeling a little deflated on this one, so i'm going to leave it till tomorrow. In fact the prices scared me. lol My arm though where the moisturizer was sampled is soft and still smelling lovely but i need to see if my skin reacts first before I invest my money.

Tonight the children had spagetti on toast and I made a paella for the adults then the kitchen turned into a fun baking household. One thing this journey is teaching me is that convienent food such as biscuit packets are easy to grab and run back to the ipads/computers/Tv's etc. But  my house has no convienent food left and if they want to snack then we make/bake it. We laughed and enjoyed ourselves too.

The egg buying was an eye opener check out my eggs post to see why.

My black bins are now emptied and power washed ready for my reduced waste throughout the next 2 weeks. I have the before bin photo and look forward to the after photo.

Tomorrow I plan to start a fast acting composter from a video I watch on you tube, wish me luck.
enjoy the photos below

However it does create more dishes to wash lol

One active kitchen tonight

Got eaten before they had chance to decorate lol

She makes it look easy

It's been a busy day 4 I feel a little deflated with shops

Day 4

4th July 2019

Today has had it's high's and low's regarding just how difficult a task I have started. I decided to act on some advice that I have received from my Facebook posts.

The advice was where to shop so I visited Kidderminster's Eat. Love. yoga shop and then went onto Merry Hill to visit Lush. (I will do a new Blog for lush products as I have not worked it out yet)

What I now know is a mixture of pros and cons and here they are.

Eat.Love.yoga

This is a vegan shop offering a selection of things I could use.

Positives are that the staff are incredibly helpful when I asked loads of questions as my worry is my sensitive skin when using their products.

products that I can use from :-

So here is All purpose cleaner from Eat.Love.yoga 700g = £2.10, so my cleaner from Tesco Detol surface cleaner 750ml = 700g = £2.50 I am aware there are cheaper alternatives to surface cleaners but this is what i have thats the most expensive in my cupboard.

Eat.Love.Yoga

So the hot chocolate I was delighted to see but the price I have to admit surprised me however once the ingredients were explained I could see why the price was the price. So here are the ingredients Coco £1.50 per 100g
Vega chocolate £1.89 per 100g
Coconut sugar 93p per 100g
So I brought after sampling a delightful hot chololate made with homemade Oat milk
54g coco, 38g vegan chocolate, 31g Coconut sugar = £1.82
I will get four servings of quality hot cocolate that serves 6 people per time. 24 cups in total not bad and at least i know what i'm feeding the kids as its made from scratch.
I was informed i could also make oat milk myself which may help my goats milk plastic issue and my doggy skin and intolerences.

I paid £3.18 for 854g of organic brown rice
knowing very well rice can be cheaper in supermarkets when buying organic
its not dearer. Tesco organic for 500g is £2.00 meaning its about the same but without plastic.
plus brown rice is heathier too

ingredients to the shampoo

My shampoo is a difficult one as I buy Medicated sampoo in 200ml bottles at £7.49 per bottle.
This bottle above does not list the ingredients I am intollerent too so again 200ml = 250g so this would be cheaper in my refillable bottls too at £1.56 

The hair conditioner ingredients are also are free of my chemical intolerences I usually buy Dove conditioner at 350ml/500g £2.70
This conditioner above would be £2.60

Comfort is my bottle brand 3L at £6
The above works out for 3L at £7.20 with reusable bottle

Again my usual brand is Harpic toilet cleaner at £1.75 for 700g
the above works out £2.24 with my own bottle

My usual brand is persil non bio
6.5kg 100 washes = £10
For the same it works out about £24 this is
a rough estimate but the product is eco friendly to the planet.



450g = 450ml
Tesco £50
This one above £1.67
 



This is some of the other things they offer in the shop

Summary day 3

Day 3 Summary

Not a hard day today in fact I had a rewarding day handing out items to up-cycle then my husband returns home from the supermarket totally plastic free. My kids are supporting my journey to plastic free and one way came to light tonight when my 12 year old shows me his up-cycled the squash bottle with diluted new squash to put in the fridge.

Ice pops are back in for tomorrow after school and trifle has been eaten. The kids are getting used to homemade treats and my kitchen is becoming a social place where kids are cooking and discussing tomorrow treat ideas. The dinners are getting eaten and food waste is down.

I’ve started listing shopping ingredients and the difference in the costs, where I have brought them in the past and waiting to see where I buy them in the future.

My house is becoming organised and people are benefiting from it and I’m meeting people in the process.

I will keep going, I’ve had some great comments with ideas on Facebook but could you comment on my blog instead so others can see them. Plus follow by pressing the follow button.
Thanks

Tomorrow I clean out my black bag bin (general waste) it will be interesting to see what goes back in it over the next fortnight. Tomorrow it’s collected with 3 bags from 2 weeks,  hopefully it will be less in two weeks time.

Over the last year I have been reducing this waste, before they would both be full  going to landfill or being incinerated

The husband went to the supermarket hilarious

July 3rd 2019

I get a phone call from my husband who has passed by Aldi to get himself some beers after his hard day at work. I said in my previous post how amazed I was at the kids going plastic free and supporting this challenge.
Well the husband called to ask what the signs on the back of the packaging mean as he wanted dry roasted peanuts to go with his beer. Guess what he didn't buy any as they were all in plastic but what he came home with was truly amazing and so supportive. From the pictures below he found chocolate without plastic wrapping, bottled beers which were more expensive which he liked to point out and my tinned larger in a box and not a plastic ring. £15.85 spent

I'm so proud of him and the kids were delighted to get chocolate back in the house.

I will price this up against the others I used to buy and it can be viewed later.



kids loved it

reecycled material inside

no plastic in sight love him

again this would be at least £30-£40 normally when hubby shops

Day 3 menu

Day 3 menu fun

July 3rd 2019

So breakfast was easy as we are using up the cereal and my son 8 years old decided he wanted an omelette on toast.

Lunch was sandwiches with the bread i needed to use up from the freezer and the filling/salad was what I needed to use up from the fridge.

Another thing to add to my list when I replace it is cucumbers that are not wrapped in plastic. I am going to add a shopping list page to my blog so that you can see day by day what I’m stumbling upon to replace with a plastic free alternative.

Dinner was fab, as for the first time ever I made Cornish pasties from scratch with home made chips. This might not seem difficult to some people but I always brought them in packaging. The kids loved my pasties so I’m delighted and one successful dinner I will add to my success list.

Pudding this evening is trifle my last box in the cupboard so again the alternative will be making my own. Finding out how replace jelly that’s not wrapped in plastic will be interesting too next how do I make jelly.

I’m loving the fact that my kids are taking my challenge on board, they are so supportive and remind me daily that they did not use or buy plastic either.

Tonight my son ran to the freezer to try out the home made ice lollies and I have not heard from him since but can hear the sucking slopping noise you hear when a child is enjoying what they are eating. Again another success.

I think this week is going to be my easiest week of July as the food is all here needing to be used up from my shopping in June. Replacing, reusing and cooking from scratch is the challenging parts of this Plastic free July.

Keep your ideas coming on the comments section below so others can see and get ideas from you too.

Homemade coleslaw

Homemade Chips

squash ice pops

Homemade Cornish pasties

My spends this week, one item from Tesco 69p spent its usually about £80 every time I walk through their door, £14.60 in total. winning so far bank account wise

my last Trifle box from the cupboard I had to use it as I did not want to waste it.