Beauty refills to save the planet – and your pennies!

Bath foam. Deodorant. Even rechargeable lipsticks. We pick...

D OES your bathroom bin constantly overflow with empty compacts, lipsticks and shampoo bottles? These little luxuries run out too soon — and, often, the packaging isn’t recyclable.

Yet more and more companies are realising consumers want options that are kind to the environment and easier on our purses. And one answer to the problem is products you can refill.

Refills clearly use less plastic than buying another new product — but just how green are they? Do they actually save you money? And how easy can it be to transfer bath foam from a five-litre flagon into a 200ml bottle, or to switch out a bronzer pan without crumbling it? Here,

CLAIRE COLEMAN road-tests the refills . . .

THE LIPSTICK

Hourglass Confession Ultra Slim High Intensity Refillable Lipstick, feelunique.com A SUPER-PIGMENTED lipstick available in more than 30 shades. GREEN PLANET? The refill comes packaged in plastic, but as you keep the gold metal base of the original, it’s definitely less wasteful than buying it again. ORIGINAL: €37.20 for 9g. REFILL: €24 for 9g. SAVING: €13.20 or around 35 per cent. HOW EASY IS IT? A doddle. The refill comes in a simple plastic case, like a no-frills lipstick. You take off the lid, pop out the lipstick tube, then do the same with the original and replace. 5/5

THE BATH FOAM

Tropic Tahitian Vanilla and Coconut Luxury Bath Foam AS PART of a pilot scheme, Tropic offers refill pouches for two of its products — a hand wash and a bath foam.

GREEN PLANET? This is a good scheme. To ensure the pouches are recycled properly, if you collect five empty pouches and send them back, they’ll send you a free refill.

ORIGINAL: €21 for 260ml. REFILL: €31 for 520ml, or €15.50 per refill. SAVING: €5.50 or 26 per cent.

HOW EASY IS IT? Don’t make my mistake and try to refill the bottle without removing the plastic inner cap. Once I’d used a blunt kitchen knife to prise it out, the nozzle of the refill fitted perfectly inside the bottle and filled it with no mess. Then you just slide the inner cap back in and it’s done. 3/5

THE POWDER

Estée Lauder Golden Gator Compact With Translucent Powder, arnotts.ie AN ELEGANT metal powder compact filled with translucent

powder that mattifies the skin perfectly.

GREEN PLANET? The compacts are heirloom quality — I still use my grandmother’s! — so you could keep refilling this beauty for decades. A good buy. It’s one of the most eco-friendly refills as there’s no plastic in the replacement .

ORIGINAL: €46.80 for 2.8g.

REFILL: €25 for 2.8g. SAVING: €21.80 or 53 per cent.

HOW EASY IS IT? As with the other powders, the pan is held in with a magnet, but a clever indent allows you to get a pin underneath and lever it out, so you can pop the new one in. 4/5

THE BRONZER

Jane Iredale Bronzer, janeiredale.co.uk A MINERAL-BASED bronzer (left) that comes in four shades: the Duchess of Sussex apparently favours Peaches And Cream. GREEN PLANET? The compact can be refilled with foundation, bronzer, powder — so, yes, it’s greenfriendly, even if bronzer suddenly goes out of fashion. ORIGINAL: €51 — €37 for 8.5g of bronzer, €14 for the compact. REFILL: €37 for 8.5g.

SAVING: €14 or 27 per cent HOW EASY IS IT?

Super simple. There’s a magnet in the case and a small hole in the bottom. Stick a pencil through to dislodge the empty pan, then drop the refill into place. 4/5

THE SHOWER OIL

L’Occitane Shower Oil, loccitane.com THE French brand sells plastic pouch refills for about 15 of its products. GREEN PLANET? Really very good. The plastic pouches (above) use up to 80 per cent less plastic than the original packaging. ORIGINAL: €22.50 for 250ml. REFILL: €24.50 for 500ml, or €12.25 per refill. SAVING: €10.25 or 45 per cent

HOW EASY IS IT? Although the plastic pouches feel a little unwieldy, they have a harder plastic spout that makes it easy to pour. You just unscrew the lid of the original and pour in the replacement. 4/5

THE SKINCARE

Dior Capture Totale, dior.com DIOR’S entire anti-ageing skincare range is available as refills that are lighter on plastic than the original packaging. We tried the day cream.

GREEN PLANET? One report found that all Dior’s Capture Totale refills together save 11.6 metric tonnes of waste each year. ORIGINAL: €163.50 for 60ml. REFILL: €139 for 60ml. SAVING: €24.50 or 15 per cent. HOW EASY IS IT? You push in a clip to release the empty pot, but it’s hard to get purchase to slide it out — in the end, I had to use a blunt knife, although the replacement slid in and clicked easily enough. A bit fiddly. 2/5

THE DEODORANT

Salt Of The Earth Deodorant, hollandandbarrett.ie THIS unscented deodorant gets rave reviews.

GREEN PLANET? Even though they’re plastic, using these large bottles to top up your smaller spray bottle will definitely cut down on plastic waste.

ORIGINAL: €6.19 for 100ml. REFILL: €27.99 for 1 litre, enough for ten refills, so a refill will cost just €2.79. SAVING: €3.40 or 54 per cent. HOW EASY IS IT? In theory, very easy. You unscrew the pump and top up from the larger bottle. The smaller bottle is best done over a sink. 3/5

THE BODY CREAM

Rituals Cream, rituals.com RITUALS offers refills of many of its most popular products.

GREEN PLANET? Rituals says using its refills saves 70 per cent in carbon dioxide emissions and 65 per cent in energy and uses 45 per cent less water

ORIGINAL: €18.50 for 220ml. REFILL: €15.50 for 220ml. SAVING: €3.50 or 18 per cent.

HOW EASY IS IT? Tricky. You have to get the inner tub out of the main container, but I couldn’t do it without using a kitchen knife and wiggling it between the two to prise it out. 1/5