Cosmetics and skin care are a luxury that most of us are fortunate enough to have access to day to day.
Filling in our brows, adding a sweep of bronzer or cleansing our face are more than just a superficial way to improve our appearance. They can provide us with the confidence we need to tackle the world while feeling our best.
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All women deserve to feel beautiful, but those coming out of crisis situations whether it be domestic violence, cancer treatment, human trafficking and general hardship don’t always have access to product that most of us consume in excess.
These situations often result in a loss of self-esteem and appearance-related sensitivity.
So if you’ve got unneeded beauty products, toiletries and sanitary items that are crying out for much needed homes, we’ve listed a group of charities and organisations that will connect you.
Look Good Feel Better
LGFB, run by the Cancer Patients Foundation is dedicated to teaching cancer patients how to manage the appearance-related side effects caused by cancer treatments.
They offer physical and virtual workshops, covering both skin care tips (dry skin and sun sensitivity are common with treatment), as well as makeup techniques on how to correct redness, sallowness, pigmentation and dark circles. These also include how to draw on eyebrows and advice on headwear, such as styling wigs.
Alongside these workshops, attendees are gifted a ‘Confidence Kit’ full of skin care and makeup products. The same kits are also home delivered for those unable to make the workshops.
Each kit incorporates a range of brands, divided into cooler and warmer shades and tailored for light, medium and dark shade complexions.
If you’d like to make donations, please consider soft and neutral colours only. For further information, please see the LGFB page, here.
Image credit: @lookgoodfeelbetter
New Day Box
What started as a small scale idea amongst a group of friends and colleagues, New Day Box now works with amazing women every day, who are finding safety and rebuilding their lives after domestic violence.
New Day Box distributes boxes filled with skin care, cosmetics and treats to women in crisis accommodation.
How to donate? Fill an empty shoe box with hand cream, mascara, nail polish, bronzer, blush, perfume and drop it off or post it in.
For full details see their website, here.
Pink Cross
Pink Cross provides support for women and men in the sex industry.
Items to donate for womens pack are, but not limited to, cosmetics such as lip balms and eyeshadows and toiletries including shampoo, conditioner and deoderant.
For more information on what to donate, see here.
Every Little Bit Helps
Did you know that many shelters which offer basic showering facilities don’t have access to any toiletry products? Well, this 100 per cent volunteer-run charity is working to change that. Every Little Bit Helps collects, packs and redistributes care packages (including unwanted hotel toiletries, makeup, cosmetic samples and sanitary items) to the homeless, asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence and youths across Australia.
Click here to find your closest drop-off location.
Share The Dignity
Share the Dignity is an Australian Charity bringing dignity to women and girls experiencing homelessness, domestic violence and period poverty through the distribution of sanitary items.
As an organisation, Share The Dignity hosts several initiatives including:
Dighnity Drive, where sanitary items are collected and donated to registered charities which supply homeless, at-risk women.
It’s In The Bag, which happens each November. Handbags are filled with personal care products, which become Christmas gifts through partner shelters and charitable organisations.
Dignity vending machines, which place free pads and tampon vending machines in schools and public places where they are needed most.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can get involved, check out the website here.
The Beauty Bank
The Beauty Bank provides packed bags with essential toiletries and small gift items for mainly women, but also men and older teenagers leaving places of domestic violence of hardship.
Aiming to provide quality essential hygiene items and a touch of luxury to those in need.
All products must be new, unopened and in date.
Items to donate include:
- Roll on deodorant
- Sanitary pads and tampons
- Toothbrushes
- Shampoo and conditioner (no larger than 400 mL)
- Hairbrushes and combs
- Soap
- Hand cream
- Lip balm
- Skin care items
- Makeup items
For the full list, check out The Beauty Bank website, here.
Pinchapoo
Pinchapoo (short for pinch-a-shampoo), has been encouraging the ‘pinching’ of hotel toiletries for over a decade, in support of disadvantaged men, women and children. Labelling themselves the “modern day Robin Hood”, Pinchapoo have redistributed more than 8.5 million personal hygiene products to hundreds of thousands of Australians each year.
The organisation is currently in urgent need of any roll-on deodorants, face washers, single-use soaps, kids toothpaste or toothbrushes, but they also accept skin care, makeup, fragrance, haircare and more at any time. To check out the full list of accepted donations or to send something directly to their Victorian HQ, see their website here.
Image credit: @pinchapoo
Main image credit: Getty
Have you got excess beauty products you’d like to donate? Have you ever donated to any of these organisations?
I was literally just thinking about this the other day. Such a timely post!!
I’ve noticed that portable little toiletries are on their way out in motels etc as those refillable eco-friendly dispensers are getting more popular now. So Pinchapoo might be in some trouble.
I give mine to family and friends if there is anything I don’t want.
Wow. This is the first time i heard about beauty product donations.
Great companies with familiar initiatives! Love how we can give to those in need especially when getting luck of draw make up and having no one to give it to
I donate all sorts of stuff that are no longer needed to my local Op Shops.
I was wondering why there is an organisation like Pink Cross for women and men in the sex industry ? Don’t they make enough money to buy skin care and makeup products themselves ? In fact, they can make more money in one session than a person who has a normal job.
bh has a tendency to be a lot like that – sometimes I think they are reading my mind!
I’ve heard of the LGFB campaign and I actually have one of their makeup brushes.
This is a really helpful compilation, thank you!
I take mine to an op shop; needy people shop there
Awesome article. I hate wasting products!
Fantastic article, and its great to help those in need
Most of these organisations I haven’t heard of but I’ve donated to Share the Dignity.
Thanks darasparkle.
I didn’t realise that sex trafficking is still very prevalent nowadays.
My apologies. No offence intended.
That is great use
Nice to see people being kind to each other and generous too.
Great article! Thanks for including so many good places to donate to. I’ve donated before to the Share the Dignity but hadn’t heard of some of the others.
I checked out Pink Cross and their mantra is the following:
“With your help, Pink Cross can provide much-needed support for women and men in the sex industry, and fight human trafficking.”
So, it’s definitely a two pronged approach charity.
Sex industry workers don’t necessarily have a stable income, they could say make 500 one month and none the next. It also depends if they are in a regulated company or not, not all sex workers will make enough money to survive.
In addition, something to keep in mind calling other jobs as normal can be seen as continuing the stigma for sex work because by labelling other jobs normal than in that same way you are meaning sex work is ‘abnormal’.
Plus all the sex workers that have become sex workers due to force (i.e. sex trafficking) can certainly require/need help and assistance getting back on their feet and/or out of their circumstances.
Such a great article, thank you.
Brilliant article
Very useful information , I will keep that in mind.
Or if you know of a local homeless shelter/women’s refuge just drop them off. I worked across community services in Perth so giving direct to agencies I know makes sense to me.
A very helpful list, this is great.
Wow thank you BH. Didn’t know for most of these organizations. Will see what is in my area to donate directly. And see if they need a hand when I am free.
Great Article!
Me too, waste is awful and not only for beauty products
What wonderful charities. I have given to a friend who passes on to one of these charities. It must be awful to find oneself unable to afford these sort of things.
Unfortunately, The Beauty Bank closed at the end of last year. After 7 years of operation running on the smell of an oily rag and being heavily reliant on the general public for donations, this volunteer run organisation sadly was a casualty of all that happened last year. We started the year in a reasonable position, but with floods, fires and COVID-19 our usual sources of income dried up and we made the hard decision to close for good. During our 7 years though we directly assisted around 17,500 individuals and presume many shared the contents of their gifts, thus making the number higher. We finished operating with our heads held proudly high.
I buy beauty boxes and take out what I want. After my family and friends take what they want, I then pass the remaining to a friend who works at a charity. These products are gratefully accepted by women who have to flee their homes without the basic necessities.
Great idea! I had no idea these organisations even existed.
Love this so much!!! Thank you for sharing!!!
Love this, what a fantastic idea!
Bookmarking this article.
Thank you for this information. I didn’t realise there was so much need for toiletries.
Me too.
Great list – I’m sure we all have products we can donate.
I didn’t even know these donation places existed. What a lovely and sensible idea.
My work does a collection at Christmas to give to women in need. Thanks for sharing, now I know where I can give items throughout the year.
I used to contribute towards New Day Box. Now I contribute towards Share The Dignity – I love collating multiple bags of beauty products for their collection at the end of each year.
This is fantastic! I’ll definitely have to rummage through my stash to see what I can donate
I’ve donated to The Beauty Bank in the past. I hadn’t heard about some of these other ones. Great article, Bh!
Some great orgs to donate too.
I knew of several and have donated through a couple of these, but pinchapoo is a new one to me – love the name 😀
Good to find out about, although the expiry dates would need to be factored unless donating relatively new.
I occasionally buy extra basic products (like deodorant) specifically to donate.
this is an old article, they haven’t updated it. I know that Look Good Feel Better doesn’t take personal donations, only commercial ones.
Thanx BH! I have a lot of products from when my daughter passed away recently and wanting to do something to help others with it all as we both love giving back. Great believers in karma.
LGFB were marvellous when I was going through my cancer treatment many years ago. Some amazing ladies gave up their time to run the workshops and we were all given some fabulous products to take home. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough. I missed out last year but hope to be able to donate a bag of goodies to the Share the Dignity “It’s in the Bag” appeal this year.
Me too!