Hygiene Poverty Charity: " We couldn't ever imagine the situation would get this bad"
We spoke to the charity Beauty Banks following new data around hygiene poverty
A local spokesperson for a charity which tackles hygiene poverty has told us they never expected the problem to be this bad when the charity was started
Nearly a fifth of adults in the UK said their household had gone without hygiene products such as toilet roll and deodorant in a recent survey.
The latest survey for charities The Hygiene Bank and In Kind Direct found 41% of survey respondents experiencing so-called hygiene poverty were doing so for the first time this year.
Jo Jones MBE from Staines-Upon-Thames co-founded the charity Beauty Banks in 2018 alongside Sali Hughes MBE.
Both were honoured with their MBEs at this year's King's Birthday Honours
Jo told us however when they first started the charity, they never expected the scale of demand to be this high
"When we started the charity, the demand was great. Now, eight years later, the demand is off the charts. We have 15 charities contacting us every week, 15 new charities wanting to work with us, wanting our support, and we have about 150 charities currently on our waiting list.
We couldn't ever imagine that the situation would get as bad as it has."
Jo added the new statistics don't come as a surprise to her and the charity
"No, it doesn't, because the demand for our support has hit record levels. There are sadly a lot of charities that are forced to close because the cost of living and inflation also affects the cost of running a charity.
So that means a lot of charities are actually forced to close their doors, which then puts pressure on other charities like us to pick up the slack. So no, it doesn't surprise me.
We hear a lot from schools and teachers about children going to school without being able to be clean. And again, that is something that they are seeing an increase in. So sadly, no, it doesn't surprise us."
The online survey of 3,042 UK adults online by Savanta in early June found that of the 18% in hygiene poverty almost half were most likely to skip buying toilet roll (47%), followed by deodorant (43%), shampoo (39%), toothpaste (34%), and laundry and cleaning products (38%).
Beauty Banks takes unused self-care and hygiene products and gives them to charities who distribute them out to those in need, whether that's registered food banks, domestic abuse charities, homeless shelters, NHS trusts and care leaver associations.
Jo tells us why she thinks so many people have got behind their mission
"Imagine going through your day or sending your child to school without being able to brush their teeth and without being to wash their hair or clean their body or wear clean clothes.
Just imagine how that would make you feel, because that feeling can be incredibly crippling for someone who can't afford the very basics that we all take for granted every day."