We are always very chuffed with ourselves when we reach the end of a product, resulting in an ‘empty’. But even more pleasing and satisfying is the idea that we can then buy a replacement to slip, screw, click or pour into the original packaging, rather than having to throw out perfectly decent pumps or jars or bottles.

So, hurrah for the brands that are embracing the concept of refills, flying the flag for sustainability. The refill.org.uk website has a huge amount of info about this, including details of an app that can signpost you to places to shop, eat and drink with less waste. (You can also download their toolkit, here.)

This is important stuff: less than 2% of packaging is reusable – a shameful figure, we think. Yet three out of four people say they want access to reuse and refill options.

With tomorrow being Global Refill Day, we thought we’d flag up 20 great brands which offer refills for their haircare, skincare, bodycare or make-up. For now, it’s generally a handful of products within each brand’s range that can be refilled – but the more we support them by buying refills, the wider the choices will become.

• Beauty Kitchen

• Chanel (fragrance)

• Charlotte Tilbury

• Diptyque

• Fenty

• Fussy (deodorants)

• Giorgio Armani (fragrance)

• Hairstory

• Hourglass

• Isle of Paradise

• Kérastase

• Kiehl’s

• Kjaer Weis

• L’Occitane

• MAC

• Molton Brown

• REN Clean Skincare

• Rose Inc

• STELLA by Stella McCartney

• UpCircle

 Can we just add: we are great exponents of the idea of using products right to the end of the jar or bottle. It’s a sign that the product has been used diligently, as designed by the brand – rather than chopped and changed, which doesn’t give a product the chance to work its magic. It saves on clutter in the bathroom. It saves money. And it helps to ‘save the planet’.

Or to put it more bluntly, the human race – which we’d quite like to be able to thrive here, for generations and generations to come. And actions like these might seem like a drop in the ocean – as it were – but collectively, they can make a huge difference.

refill.org.uk

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