Refilleries Explained: The Eco-Friendly Way To Shop Without Waste

Have You Ever Visited A Refillery?

When I visited my first refillery, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it just be a giant room with random products everywhere? How would I purchase items such as soap in bulk form? Is it more expensive than what I buy today, and does it matter?

The answer to my questions was found almost instantly upon walking into Joyfill, a refillery shop in Denver. Phew, what a relief. After speaking with the salesperson and getting a quick tour of the shop, I spent about 20 minutes meandering through the store. Snapping photos of items that I want to purchase at a later date. I was 100% not prepared to purchase today.

In addition to bulk sale items of soaps, lotions, shampoos, and more, they also have products for sale, like bottles you can use for refilling, reusable shopping bags, dry shampoo bars, and much more! They fit many products in a small space beautifully.

This post will cover what to expect when you visit a refillery and my favorite products!

How Refilleries Generally Work

To begin shopping at a refillery, your journey starts at home. You will need some sort of vessel to put your items in - old shampoo bottles or glass jars from the store. If you are in the "sustainable" mindset, you are sure to find a few vessels around your home.

Many refilleries do offer bottles, jars & pumps for sale as well. Some even have a "jar library" where people donate their old bottles, and you can snag a bottle for free.

When you want a product at the refillery, you weigh your container, ensuring you weigh with the lid/pump so you get the true weight. Note that weight down. If you forget to add the lid/pump back when weighing, it's not a problem, you'll just want to ensure at checkout that you weigh your container the same way you weighed it empty. So, if you weigh it with the cap, then put the cap on at checkout.

Then, you fill your container and put the lid/pump back on. When you are ready to check out, the refillery will weigh your container and will need to know your starting weight. That's how they determine how much product you are buying.

Are Refilleries More Expensive Than Buying Non-Sustainable Items?

Before I get into the cost breakdown of a few items, I want you to think about why you want to be more sustainable. Think about the products you use today. Are you creating waste by purchasing a new hand soap every month? Does that bother you? Are you buying the lowest cost product, and are you OK with spending more to meet your sustainable goals?

Below, I have compared a few items I found at local refilleries. I will say that I have found the same product at different stores and at different prices. I encourage you to first visit 1 refillery, get a feel for how it works, what they sell, etc., and snap some photos of what you want to buy at a later date. Maybe you will decide instead of refilling items, buying sustainable products is a great place to start, or maybe you'll dive right into swapping your toothpaste for toothpaste tabs!

Cost Comparison At A Refillery

When shopping at a refillery, I find the refillable products to be higher quality than I usually purchase for myself.

For my cost comparison, I added in the cost for shipping unless I could find the item on Amazon. Sure, I could shop around and probably find something that is a closer cost to the refillery price, but that takes effort.

Place	YaYa Maria's Hand Soap	Dr. Bronners Castille Soap	Rinse Aid
Cost/oz Online	$1.16	$0.53	$0.58
Cost/oz Refillery	$0.50	$0.60	$0.20

As you can see, generally, refilling saves money when comparing the same item to the same item. I personally don't buy these name-brand soaps today, so I searched for the soap I do buy. Softsoap is $0.22 per oz, which is half the cost of refilling. This is when I have to think about why I want to be more sustainable, what's in the product I'm using today, and what else I'm refilling when I visit the shop.

For me, I think about how often I am buying hand soap, a bottle of hand soap may last me 4-5 months. Doing some quick math, I find that the total extra cost is $0.78 per month to refill my soap. Will that $0.78 a month really impact my monthly budget? For me, no, it won't. I prefer knowing I'm doing my part to live more sustainably.

Final Thoughts On Visiting A Refillery

From what I see at the refilleries I visit, the products offered are almost always higher quality than what I buy today. Meaning, better ingredients going into the product and fewer ingredients going into the product. A label I can actually read and know what is in the item - that is important to me.

If you are looking for something to read while you wait for my next post about sustainability, check out my Attainable Sustainable Pantry review.

Will you visit a refillery? What products will you look for? Let me know in the comments below!