Founded by Karen Harvey MBE in 2014, Toiletries Amnesty is an award-winning NGO working to end hygiene poverty and divert beauty industry waste.
Supporting over 1000 locations, in 2024 Toiletries Amnesty provided access to toiletries and hygiene products for 6 million people around the world. Toiletries Amnesty works to support homeless shelters and hostels, women’s refuges, mental health services, end of life care hospices, food banks, NHS Trust services, refugee support services, LGBTQ+ groups, prison services, children’s centres, young people’s services, schools, colleges, community groups, and other organisations that need us.
We were the first organisation in the UK to tackle hygiene poverty and ours is the only public directory that allows individuals and businesses to see exactly where their donations are making an impact in their communities and beyond.
We work all over the world, supporting charities and organisations that need us, creating positive and practical solutions for beauty industry waste and sustainability issues, and connecting communities and consumers who want to see a change for good.
As a social, ethical and environmental organisation, our mission is to alleviate hygiene poverty while reducing waste wherever possible. It’s not just about supporting local communities and forming more understanding relationships in society, it’s about demonstrating that a small act can have a huge and positive effect on us all, as well as helping decrease our environmental impact.
We’re proud to have been recognised with several awards for our work. In 2024, Toiletries Amnesty founder Karen Harvey was awarded an MBE for services to people living in hygiene poverty, to considerate consumption, and to the environment, we were awarded Best Local, Community or Charity Initiative and highly commended in the Best Environmental & Wellness Initiative category at the Country and Town House Future Icons Awards 2025, with Karen named on the Future Icons Power People 2025 list. In the same year, Toiletries Amnesty was named as one of the UK’s leading social enterprises in the NatWest SE100 and received a Points of Light Award from the UK Government for inspirational service. In 2022, we received a Barclays Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award for positively driving social change through business, and back in 2018, we were awarded the Global X Foundation for Innovation.
We provide our services for free to the organisations we support and receive no government funding. If you’d like to support us financially (thank you!) please donate here.
Small actions make big changes. Thank you for getting involved.