Making sustainable beauty choices is no longer a sacrifice, but a great way to get even more from your favourite brands…

The beauty industry contributes a whopping 120 billion units of packaging a year according to some estimates, and that’s just one of a long list of areas where change needs to be made for us to become truly eco-friendly. 

But, being kinder to the planet doesn’t always require drastic life overhauls and can even be enjoyable and kinder on your purse strings. 

Slowly but surely, our favourite brands are taking steps to make it easy for us all to contribute with new, innovative products and adjustments to make-up bag staples. 

The average person spends £400 a year on beauty products in the UK, so it’s only a fair trade that we give back to planet in exchange for glowing skin.

Here are our top five easy ways to make your make-up bag more sustainable (that you can literally start today), without having to cut out the good stuff…

Get ready to double up your favourite lipstick shade as a cheek tint and your clear mascara as a brow product and flyaway hair tamer, because not only is making products multi-use going to save you a pretty penny – it’s great for the planet too. 

You’ll be using one product for up to three different jobs, meaning two-thirds less plastic, and money to go out and show off your fresh new look. 

Plus, you’re going to be saving space in your kit, which means less to carry around. That’s what they call a win/win.

When it comes to being more conscious of our make-up bags, we often overlook the impact of blazing through perfume bottles.

Luckily, some of our favourite fragrance brands offer refillable perfume options in an effort to combat this. 

Just take Mugler. The fragrance house have been ahead of the game with their cult-classic scents like Alien Goddess available in refillable bottles and ready to be topped up on demand.

The fragrance stalwarts have also made themselves the number one refillable fragrance brand by making it as easy as popping into store and heading to the Mugler refill fountain to top up your bottle, something they’ve been championing for over 30 years.

Equally, you can simply purchase one of their refill bottles online to keep your original scent topped up all year round at home.

It can take at least one hundred years for a single make-up wipe to decompose. Think of every make-up wipe you’ve ever used and, well, that’s a lot of years. 

As well as not being recyclable, make-up wipes aren’t actually great for your skin either… so, why are we still using them? 

Thankfully, double-cleansing with the likes of gel and oil products becoming a huge trend has helped slow their usage, but skincare experts and environmentalists alike are hoping we’ll soon drop them altogether.

There are so many re-usable alternatives available now, including micellar water, gel cleaners, and Face Halos that do an even better job of gently scrubbing off the day… and don’t block up the sewage pipes. 

Upcycling your empties is a great way to breathe new life into them. 

Lip balm containers can quickly become a new home for hair grips and serum bottles can become chic mantelpiece accessories. 

It’s not just the mystical amber scents of your favourite perfume that can be refilled either, make-up is always an option too. 

Favourites including YSL’s Pure Shots Reboot serum, and Rosso Valentino lipsticks now come in refillable packaging, so you can top them up and fall in love with them all over again. 

Perfect if you want to keep an at-home stash when you’re running low, without going panic-buying last-minute. 

A shampoo bar is one easy swap that makes your haircare routine zero-waste. 

They’re still packed with the same ingredients you’re used to for glossy locks, but come with no packaging and last far longer than the traditional bottle. 

It’s estimated that a woman is likely to use between 420 and 500 bottles of shampoo/conditioner over her life, which makes for a scary amount of plastic, particularly when only 9% of plastic that’s ever been made has been recycled.

Some of our favourite traditional haircare brands have taken the plunge and created solid versions of their best-sellers. 

Just lather onto wet hair, and rinse as usual – no hard work needed. 

Make your make-up bag more sustainable and discover the UK’s number one refillable fragrance brand at mugler.co.uk