Selfridges bans single-use wipes from beauty halls

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 27, 2019

As sustainability actions are accelerated at retailers and brands, Selfridges said this week that it's removing all single-use plastic-based beauty wipes from its department stores.

Single-use wipes have become heavily relied upon in the beauty sector and many consumers don’t realise that they’re made from plastic. Selfridges has been taking action in recent years to remove single-use plastic from its stores and beauty wipes are an obvious product on which to focus.

The new move means that single-use wipes won't be used by staff in the beauty halls but neither will they be sold there. The retailer will replace them with recyclable or reusable alternatives, which should reduce its overall eco-footprint and also help to educate its customers about the need for a more sustainable approach across their lifestyles.

The company has been announcing a raft of sustainability-focused initiatives in recent periods and many of its actions have been backed up by research among its customers. Of this latest move, it said that 19% of consumers were aware that it could take an entire century for a single-use wipe that's based on plastic to fully degrade.

Combine this with the research also discovering that around 20% of consumers use beauty wipes at least once a day, 35% see them as a necessity for their beauty regime, and 13% flush them down the toilet, and you have a major problem with waste.

The retailer’s Director of Sustainability, Daniella Vega, said: "“Single-use beauty wipes have been a staple of many beauty drawers, but they are incredibly harmful to the environment. During a recent Selfridges team beach clean, we saw first-hand the impact they have on our waterways and beaches and we were even more motivated to remove them from our stores.”