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?
Great info. Thank you.
Good to know where to donate beauty products for those in need.
Absolutely gorgeous article!! So grateful for everything that we have and so amazing and humbling to know there’s places like the ones suggested above.
Was not aware at all about these places or that we could do something like this so thanks so much for bringing up this article. Super helpful!! 🙂
A great idea, I donate mine to a local church that has free food ( they get Oz Harvest, excess foods from local cafes, and lots of people donate fruit/veggies from their gardens) for people to pick up. There are donations of personal care products too. The church also has herbs and veggies in the garden for people to pick. They also cook meals from the foods donations and keep it in the fridges and freezers for locals to collect. It’s such a wonderful support to the local community, as so many people are doing it tough.
Agreed it’s an amazing list. So glad got some different places to add to the list to donate! I’m definitely going to hit up ELBH soon, so I can give fresh samples that won’t be used.
A great idea to donate unwanted products, but you must remember they can’t be donated if they have been opened and used as this breaches health regulations in all areas. I think even nail polish would fall into that category.
Luckily I have a teenage granddaughter who gets anything that I have left over, new or used.
A great list! I wish there was a place for opened products though, I would think a lot of people have opened products that they no longer use.
Awesome article. Thank you for the information.
Such a good article. I have a few unopened products that I would love to donate, I just hope they are not out of date! Thanks for the article!
LGFB sounds like a great cause; cancer is so hard to deal with as it is without having to worry about how you look
Thanks for the info.
“All women deserve to feel beautiful” is so true, this is such a lovely article. I think there are many people out there (including myself), who have an excess of beauty products and have no idea what to do with them.
Great info & I hope this get reposted regularly as a reminder and a see if there are any new collection points. I have previously been bagged out about repurposing my hotel shampoos with people saying I should be donating them to Every Little Bit Helps. The closest collection point is 1,596.9 km from my house.
I would like to donate to people I know than to charities I just don’t trust them, in my opinion.
Thank you for this list. I have been thinking of starting to donate unwanted makeup instead of just throwing it out.
Like that there are so many options to donate. Thanks for sharing this list.
What a great idea! I always donated clothes and food but never donated any toiletries or skincare products!
This is a great resource! I wonder if they’re still accepting donations in these times of COVID though.
This is a great initiative, learned of new organisations I haven’t heard of before
This is indeed a great idea. I never thought about donating my makeup before.
I love this ❤️
Good idea to help out in time of crisis.
Love this
I’m the Operations Manager at The Beauty Bank and thank you for including us on this list. We are a small charity which operates in the Greater Sydney area of Sydney and don’t generally attract the big bucks in donations so really appreciate mention of what we collect. Although we are happy to accept via mail, we have a number of drop off points around Sydney and members only need to email me at thebeautybankau@gmail.com and I will send a list. Thanks!
What a fantastic idea, I will look up these websites and donate, if we all do a little it adds up.
Thank you for sharing. So good to be able to support other women through these initiatives.
Didn’t realise there were so many organisations to donate to! wow.
Thank you for this article. I donate sanitary pads to Share the dignity often but will be looking at donating to other organisations in this article
I’ve heard of Share the Dignity.
I didn’t realise you could donate to some of these organisations. Good to know. Some great causes!
Brilliant! I donated to It’s In The Bag with Share The Dignity at Bunnings and already have plans to do so again! I took a lot of care to include all the essentials and a few luxuries as well according to their specific guidelines. The lady at Bunnings was so impressed she showed me the donation pile and even gave me a blow up unicorn for my niece in exchange!! Lovely, worthwhile experience!
Thanks for sharing
Such a great way to help others and stop waste of products.
I’ve been searching for this as I have sensitive skin and a few gifts and samples packs/ boxes I’m unable to use. Perfect way to give back
My sister and I have been donating to Share the Dignity’s Its in the Bag for a few years now. Such a great way to give back during the festive season
I’ve reported the spam by lilycarter500.
I have shared the information about these charities in the forums many times. It is wonderful that Beautyheaven has finally written an article about them.
Thank you. Great thing to donate.
I’ve reported spam as well.
Very useful to know how we can help people. Thank you Bh.
Really good article , I am glad these are set up to help people in need including any situation.
Actually I think they would accept lots of items and if I had a spare lipstick in my home, I don’t think they would accept it.
Glad to see many organisations established to help others.
Such a brilliant idea for unused Makeup and Skincare as well as Hair Care Products. To go to Women who are going through a Very hard time.
Thanks BH for making me aware of the different Charities.
This is a good idea, one problem of course is that we often open products to see if they are right for us and then can’t donate them. If I get double ups or think something I haven’t specifically chosen (eg in goody bags) are not for me I try to test them hygienically so I can give them to people at work for them to try.
Such a nice thing to do and hopefully it puts a smile on someones face.
Really opened my eyes to things I didn’t know or think about.
I am going to set aside some time this weekend to go through my stash and create a hamper to donate . Thanks BH for the article will go through them and see where I could drop my stash to. A friend of mine volunteers for share the dignity and often I have given her stuff to put in the bags.
I don’t usually donate skincare products or makeup. If I don’t use it/like it I usually give it to family/friends. I donate a lot of clothes, shoes, toys (some still brand new) etc to the local op shops. But I did receive some makeup products I cannot use nor will family members, but I will probably just take them to the local op shop again.
This is good to know – thank you!