The Top Line: If you’re already on the Grove Collaborative membership plan, then paying an extra $3 per year (as compared to standard QTips), per person might be worth the zero-plastic option — as long as you go for the bulk option. However, byHumankind is just a bit too expensive for us.

The Breakdown:

• Cost & Products: Grove Collaborative $3.95 for 180 swabs (bulk option: Grove Collaborative $7.99 for 540 swabs) and byHumankind $10 for 225 swabs (save 15% on future 2-pack orders when you subscribe)

• How ‘Clean’ Is This? Grove Collaborative’s swabs are made of organic cotton (which we’ve also written about here when considering a cotton coffee filter replacement); byHumankind is a made of bamboo and cotton. No plastic on either!

• Packaging: Grove Collaborative came in a more familiar rectangular, recyclable box while byHumankind came in a cooler, round recyclable (though probably a bit excessive material) container.

• Purchasing & Shipping:
  Grove Collaborative We have now ordered twice on the mobile site. The mobile site is so finicky that we ended up not ordering exactly what we wanted. The desktop site is a little better, but still not intuitive to navigate, since they have duplicate products listed.

  byHumankind Clean design, but some links can be buggy. Shopping and shipping were pretty straightforward and very fast for us.

• Good to know: Refill and subscription is the name of both Grove Collaborative and byHumankind’s game. The companies try to use limited ingredients, with emphasis on plastic reduction via packaging, especially when it comes to byHumankind.

• What’s Your Impact? A few ounces of plastic are not produced per package per year. Plus all packaging is recyclable while swabs are compostable. Bamboo is more sustainable to grow as it grows faster and requires less resources.

The Experience

We use cotton swabs for ears, makeup, cleaning small corners… you name it.

Testing these two brands was actually pretty straightforward.

• Both brands did a good job - comparable to pharmacy brand names

• Cotton on both were tightly woven and did not fall apart and was the right size

• We liked the look of the bamboo sticks from byHumankind a little bit more - but honestly you can’t really see them in the packaging itself

The Cost

We compared byHumankind and Grove Collaborative cotton swabs to brands like Up&Up from Target, Q-tip from Johnson&Johnson as well as some “greener” brands like Bambaw and The Humble Co. We assumed you use about 1 swab per day for the yearly cost.

Money Report: It’s a bit more expensive per year to be green here — especially with byHumankind. For an extra $3 per year, we might switch to the no plastic bulk option with Grove Collaborative.

byHumankind

Grove Collaborative

The Good:

✔ Cotton & Bamboo

✔ No plastic in packaging/Recyclable

✔ Compostable swabs

The Bad:

✗ Crazy pricey option — even with a subscription

The Good:

✔ Cotton

✔ No plastic in packaging/Recyclable

✔ Compostable swabs

The Bad:

✗ Slightly pricier than drugstore — and you need a subscription to Grove Collaborative

Our Recommendation: If you’re already on the Grove Collaborative membership plan, then paying an extra $3 per year, per person might be worth the zero-plastic option — as long as you go for the bulk option. However, byHumankind is just a bit too expensive for us.

We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!