5 Tips for a Zero Waste Hair Salon
Going to the salon is all about comfort and beauty, but there is an uglier side to most salons and it’s easily overlooked. The ugly? It’s salon waste. Every highlight service means foils tossed into the trashcan, every haircut helps fill the trash bags that will sit in landfills for hundreds of years, every gorgeous style is achieved using bottles that can take up to 1000 years to decompose in a landfill. Crazy right?
We built Rage & Mane based on a zero-waste mindset. We aim to reduce the amount of waste we contribute to the landfill, we recycle, and even compost! Zero waste is a lifestyle that aims to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills, reuse any resource to its fullest capacity, reduce general waste, and recycle. It’s hard to avoid waste in the salon, but we are finding new ways to achieve this every day.
A small disclaimer from us: we have included links and names for products we fully support but are in no way directly affiliated with any of them. We are not being paid to endorse these products in anyway, we simply believe in them and hope to encourage you to do your own research on them because we believe you will love them just as much as we do!
Here are 5 easy tips for a more zero waste hair salon:
1. Switch your shower head!
Did you know the average shampoo bowl uses about 90 gallons of water each day? Ouch! If you switch to an EcoHead, waste at the shampoo bowl is reduced up to 65%! Our customers love the way it feels because it is designed to deliver high water pressure, and it filters the water that runs through it, delivering better results with every wash without sacrificing!

2. Switch your paper products!
Paper is such a huge waste of precious resources, and to make things worse, it usually comes in plastic which we will add to the landfill. We have sought out eco friendly alternatives to reduce paper waste. The first switch we made was using a software that offered paperless receipts. Simple enough right? When a customer checks out, they can choose to receive a paper receipt, no receipt, or have it emailed or text to them. 9 times out of 10 we can avoid printing a paper receipt just by allowing them to choose an alternative option.
Toilet paper is another big waste item, we switched over to Who Gives a Crap toilet paper. You can choose from premium bamboo toilet paper or toilet paper made from recycled paper. It has a catchy name and the packaging is super eye catching and recyclable! We even display it on an open shelf in the bathroom and our customers compliment it all the time! Check them out for yourself by clicking here.

3. Buy responsibly resourced hair products
There are literally millions of hair products to choose from across the world, but unfortunately many of them participate in things such as animal testing and between their carbon footprint from production and the waste produced by their packaging, they’re a huge no-no for those leading greener lives. Fortunately, there are still some professional products out there that are striving to change that. Look for products with smaller carbon footprints, vegan friendly, and made from recycled materials. Bonus points for supporting a company with philanthropic roots! Our top picks are Kevin Murphy and Verb hair products!

4. Measure, Measure, Measure!
This one is suuuuper simple and doesn’t require you to change much of anything other than how you mix your chemical products. When we work with products for a long time, we tend to become so comfortable with them that we no longer feel the need to measure them out with a cup or a scale. A scale is the absolute most accurate way to measure your products from proper mixture, it prevents you from needlessly wasting product, and most importantly it delivers the best results possible. Another source of product waste is mixing too much product at once. It can be monotonous to have to keep running back to mix product over and over, but when you mix an entire tube at the beginning and end up throwing away half the mixture, not only are you needlessly adding harmful chemicals into the landfill, you’re also throwing away money. Try mixing lightener and color 1-2 ounces at a time, you’ll be amazed by how much longer your products last.

5. Compost Hair!
Everyday salons are sending pounds of hair clippings straight to the landfill, but why? Hair is fully compostable! Human hair is actually a great source of nitrogen and is a perfect addition to any compost pile. I know what you’re thinking, compost is kind of gross right? We agree, we don’t want a compost bin hanging out around the salon either. Which is why we use a service that picks up our compost from the curb each week, very similar to a trash pick up. We use an eyevac on the salon and all the lint, dirt, and hair clippings we collect in it, get tossed into a compost bucket for pickup.

There are tons of ways to make a salon more zero waste, these are just a few! We love hearing about everyone’s ideas on zero waste, connect with us on Facebook and share your ideas and suggestions!