We Are One With Sustainable Salons Australia

It’s 2023 and the need to become a more sustainable and ethically conscious salon has never been so important, and we would love to let you know how we are doing our part.
We are so excited we could shout it from the rooftops (but telling you in a blog will have to do).

At the end of 2019 we started our research to find how we could become more sustainable only to find that in Brisbane and much of Australia there was no one place that we could take our waste and know that it is being recycled, repurposed or even disposed of in a way that won’t hurt our planet.
We did however discover Sustainable Salons thanks to a number of hair salons in our community.

In January 2020 we begun our partnership with Sustainable Salons Australia to up our sustainability game and minimise the footprint we leave on the earth as a salon.

Who are Sustainable Salons?

Founded by hairdresser Paul Frasca and partner Ewelina in 2015 after they travelled Australia, visiting salons and, like us, found that salon waste had nowhere to go.

Sustainable Salons take 95% of our salon waste.

They then repurpose and recycle it, diverting it from landfill.
Our plastics go to local plastic recyclers where it is made into outdoor furniture, landscape supplies, NBN cable covering, new packaging and many more things.
Aluminium, metals, cardboard, our wooden spatulas, paper, magazines etc are sold for recycling with the profits going to OzHarvest.
All salon chemicals such as leftover tint and lash lifting solutions are treated, turned into recycled water and used in roadworks and construction.
Sustainable Salons also works with hair salons where they do other cool stuff like using hair clippings to make booms to soak up oil spills and ponytails are made into wigs for those suffering from cancer or alopecia.
Sustainable Salons also gives us so many opportunities to volunteer and give back to our local community in so many different ways.

What happens to the other 5% of our waste? This 5% is made of up our disposables which is predominantly tissues, cotton pads and cotton tips.
This is where our research begun before discovering Sustainable Salons.
Did you know most tissues and cotton pads aren’t biodegradable?! They are so processed and chemically treated that they don’t breakdown in landfill. It also takes 400 to 600 years to biodegrade (think of that next time you clean your ears).
We have made the switch to the more expensive but biodegradable tissues, cotton pads and cotton tips (made from cotton and recycled sugar cane) which are disposed of in fully biodegradable/compostable bin liners.

In the salon you won’t notice much difference. We separate the waste into different bins as we work and there’s a new Sustainable Salons newspaper (The Green Chair) you can read while you wait to learn more about them.
There is a $2 Sustainable Salons fee added to you invoice which goes to…
- Resource collection and redirection
- Implementing green practices
- Supporting the community
- Researching recycling solutions
- Awareness and education

What can you do?

Every little change makes a difference. Have a look in your bathroom cupboard and make simple changes like we have with our disposables. Cut out your microplastics (did you know if the microbead plastics used in scrubs was around during The Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago they would still be here today!). Bring your empty products back to the salon where we can dispose of them in our Sustainable Salons bins and leave the cardboard packaging with us when you make a purchase.
Simple changes make big differences.

We make ethical choices at Miss Luxe

We have always sourced Australian brands for both professional and retail use. All of our retail products are cruelty free and we have a great selection of vegan products. We are so proud of a number of the brands we stock who have been awarded the Australian Made and Owned logo (Makeup Weapons brushes which are also vegan and Esmi Skin Minerals).

We are committed to continuing to find ways to make our salon ethical and sustainable and are so excited about these changes to the salon this year. We hope that you are excited too.