LastSwab cotton bud

Over the years I have managed to successfully eradicate many single use items from my bathroom and beauty routines…. Cotton wool balls? Gone! Cotton wool rounds/pads? Also gone! But not forgotten… Face wipes? I don’t know her! But cotton buds? This felt like an item I just couldn’t say good bye to. They are so useful for little makeup or nail manicure mishaps, to help with cleaning jobs in awkward spots, or for that ultimate guilty pleasure, sticking them in your ears for a good old scratch. Okay okay okay… I know we aren’t supposed to do it, but show me someone who doesn’t and I’ll show you someone telling untruths….

For a long time it felt like way too many of those little plastic tubes with cotton on each end were being thrown away with gay abandon, and it did not sit well with me at all.

While researching alternative products, I was pleased to see that some big name brands in the personal care industry had started to adopt cardboard tubes in the design of their cotton buds, and while I was very encouraged to see this improvement, I found it wasn’t always so easy to tell just by looking at the cotton buds in their packaging, whether the variety I was stocking up with would be the new and improved cardboard tubes, or the ever problematic, plastic variety.

This is when I stumbled across LastObject’s LastSwab.

LastObject had designed a clever zero waste swab and had brought the product to life via successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding campaigns. LastObject are a Danish company founded by a lady called Isabel Asgard. Her profile on LastObject’s website describe her as a designer by trade, but with a frustration for the abundance of wasteful singe-use products. So she decided to do something about it. What a legend 🙂 LastObject now offer a wider range of zero waste products, check them out! https://lastobject.com

By the time I had stumbled upon this ingenious little product, it was already successfully in production due to the successful crowdfunding round, so I was lucky enough to be able to purchase the LastSwab easily via Amazon.

I noticed that there were two types of swab. One with little nodules on the bud tips, designed to mimic the use case of a traditional swab, and a second, with tapered smooth tips. This one designed for other use cases, such a makeup mishap handling.

As you can probably guess, I promptly ordered both.

First impressions…

Let’s begin with the traditional style swab…

The swab itself is fairly sturdy and comes in it’s own little carry case for storage and travel. Personally, I loved the addition of the case. I did a fair amount of work related travel pre-COVID, and so being able to carry zero waste essentials in a clean, hygienic and convenient way became super important to me.

One thing I did notice was that the “tube” on the swab, i.e. the part that you hold in your hand, felt a little slimmer than a traditional cotton swab, and at first I found it a little fiddly to hold. However I did get used to this quickly and had no issues using the swab.

The traditional swab cost me £9.95 at time of purchase, and was available in 6 or 7 different colours. I opted for the peach variety as can be seen in the photos above. I have noticed however, that the price can vary on Amazon, and I have seen these as low as £8.45 on lightning deals, so keep your eyes open for a cheeky deal, or punch the products Amazon URL into Camelcamelcamel to be alerted for any price drops.

Now onto the beauty swab…

The swab is pretty much exactly the same as it’s sister product, the only difference being that the swab tips are smooth and one of them is pointed, designed for more detailed application and usage.

Again it comes with it’s own carry case, is lightweight and you can buy it in matching colours to the traditional style swab, although currently, I can only see the preach, black and red available. When I made my purchase the swab was again listed on Amazon for £9.95 each, but at the time of publishing this post, they were listed for £7.46 each.

Final Thoughts…

So, are the swabs as effective as their traditional cotton counterparts?

Starting with the traditional style swab… absolutely! And truth be told, I haven’t looked back and I cannot imagine going back to the cotton variety ever again. The swab is super easy to clean, so not only is it zero waste, it’s also minimum effort to maintain, which I think is also important when you consider things like, ease of use and accessibility for end users. The fact that I was able to purchase it on Amazon was also fantastic, as I was able to buy a few items on my list and arrange an Amazon day delivery to reduce the number of courier deliveries to my home.

Now on to the beauty swab… this I found was less successful. I mainly used the swab for removing things like mascara smudges around my eyes, and for this purpose I found the swab fell short. It mainly pushed the offending mascara smudge further around my eye instead of removing it, and didn’t clean up as easily as the traditional swab, leaving the tips slightly stained with mascara formula, which is visible in the photo above. I can’t deny I was disappointed with the beauty swab, especially because the traditional swab was such a roaring success. I still hope to find some more successful, alternative uses for it, and if I do, I’ll share these in a comment on this post.

If you’ve tried LastObject’s LastSwab, or any of LastObject’s other products, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!