Non-profit Beauty Banks to tackle hygiene poverty
NewsPosted by: Dental Design 15th February 2018
As reported on BBC News, Beauty Banks, a non-profit, has been launched in order to provide hygiene products, like oral health products, to those on the streets or living in homes on a below-the-breadline budget.
The launch comes after In Kind Direct released their 2017 Impact Survey, which has revealed that 37 per cent of the UK have had to go without hygiene or grooming essentials due to lack of funds.
Sali Hughes, journalist and author, teamed up with Jo Jones, beauty director at Communications store, is behind the creation of Beauty Banks. Sali said to the BBC: “Some people don’t have enough money to survive, so what’s going to go? The thing that you don’t need to stay alive. But I don’t think having clean teeth is a luxury. Having clean hair isn’t being spoiled – in 2018, in Britain, it’s a right.”
Beauty Banks are teaming up with brands, retailers and the wider community to gather as many toothbrushes, razors and tampons in order to ease the burden of so many in the UK.
The non-profit has plans to set up a women’s refuge and a food bank in Staines in Surrey, a homeless shelter in Cardiff and another in Ladbroke Grove, a stones throw from Grenfell Tower.
Sali, who has written about her prior experiences of homelessness, has said decisions like whether to buy products like shower gel are ones that we, as a society, take for granted. For some, she says it can make a difference between “being clean and not being able to eat.”
Jo Jones said she thought of the idea to donate unwanted and surplus toiletries to food banks about six months ago after realising the huge demand for non-food items.
Donations parcelled up by Beauty Banks will be sent to each of the five locations supported by the Trussell Trust, which co-ordinates a nationwide network of food banks.
Head of operations, Samantha Stapley, said research conducted with the University of Oxford found more than half of people using centres could not afford toiletries. She told the BBC: “No one should be left struggling to wash their hair, brush their teeth or afford tampons because they’ve been hit by something unexpected like redundancy, sickness or delayed benefit payment. This is a dignity issue.”
Sali has asked that people do not donate money, but send in spare toiletries they have lying around, specifically products such as deodorant, tampons, toothbrushes and razors.
Email beautybanks@tcs-uk.net to find out more.
