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Are there non-plastic alternatives on the books? I'm all for protecting nature, but these microbeads are useful as an abrasive element (meaning more thorough cleaning). Maybe sterilized sand?

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You mean, aside from the ones mentioned in the linked article: "natural alternatives like ground almonds, sea salt or oatmeal" (which is, I believe, what was used before microbeads were available).

Ah, missed that. Pretty cool.

I use a brand called Bulldog that uses ground up coconut shell's. It feels like it works better...maybe because its not made up of perfect little spheres of plastic?

The classic stuff that is extremely common is apricot scrub. They grind up apricot pits for the scrub.

I hope this is satire. "It might royally fuck up the environment, but I've been so manipulated by marketing, that if I don't rub microscopic plastic on my body, I just feel so... unclean... guys, guys? Where are you going?"

The 'sterilized' sand bit at the end was a nice touch too, alluding to the dominant scorched earth policy we have in regards to shaping the environment in ways we (mistakenly, deludedly) think will be most conducive to our well-being.

People wonder what happened to great nations of the past. When you have men(you'll understand my assumption,) whining about cosmetic products instead of plotting courses to the moon, there's your answer.

Oh but the two aren't mutually exclusive you say? I beg to differ.

It turns out lunar dust is an excellent exfoliant!

It was a serious question, and it received many excellent answers. Yours was not among them.

Abrasive elements are commonplace in soaps for auto shops and other places where most conventional soaps have a hard time with the gunk accumulated from automotive grease and such. The particulates help to actually scrape off that gunk (in a manner that doesn't cause skin injuries), rather than rely on the hope that soap's chemical properties alone will suffice.

Salt. I poor kosher or sea salt in my hand, then dish soap on top and rub that around. And I discovered that when I started buying sea salt body scrub from the store[0]. I can get pretty damn stinky and this is the best I have come across for a deep revitalizing clean.

[0]http://www.amazon.com/Alba-Botanica-Revitalizing-Hawaiian-Sc...

You can make your own with equal parts coconut oil and sugar. Searching for "sugar scrub recipe" yields dozens of homemade recipes for facial and body scrubs that are natural and relatively inexpensive. Depending on where the ingredients are sourced, they're fairly environmentally sound.

I've seen walnut shells used in similar products

Plain old clay.

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