Evergreen Collective in St. Paul helps customers make small, eco-friendly swaps

Progress over perfection. It's a motto Taylor Hall wants customers at The Evergreen Collective in St. Paul, Minnesota, to embody when it comes to sustainability.

"We have our little sign that says 'progress over perfection' on the corner there, and that's what I want everybody to feel when they walk in," she said.

Hall is the owner of The Evergreen Collective, a shop on Grand Avenue that helps customers make small, sustainable swaps in their everyday lives.

The store offers household essentials such as dish soap, hand soap and laundry detergent, along with personal care products including shampoo, conditioner, lotion and body wash.

Many products are available in refillable or plastic-free options. Customers can bring their own containers into the store and fill them with products from the shop's refill stations. The container is weighed before and after filling, so customers pay only for the product they take home.

The store is a dream come true for Hall and the culmination of an interest in sustainability that began in high school after she read "The Story of Stuff," a book examining the environmental and social impacts of consumer goods.

She said she spent years researching more sustainable and ethical products before eventually deciding to create the kind of store she wished existed.

Now, she is sharing that research with her customers.

"I just kind of started me on a journey of finding things that I could buy a little bit more ethically, a little bit more sustainably, and nothing existed at the time," Hall said. "And so I just kind of decided to start my own."

Halls says she aims to make sustainability simple.

"I really want it to be more accessible and more simple for our community members because, I mean, we all live such busy lives," she said. "It can be really hard to maybe make the swaps that you want to make because we're all set, like stuck in our routines."

Hall said she wants the process to feel approachable, especially for people who want to live more sustainably but aren't sure where to start.

"I really just recommend waiting until you run out of something and then starting to swap there," Hall said. "It's really just like one at a time."

That philosophy is reflected throughout the store. Customers can find reusable cotton rounds, refillable deodorant, solid shampoo and conditioner, plastic-free dishwasher tablets and other alternatives to common disposable products.

On top of eco-friendly and sustainable, Hall also shops for products that are ethically sourced, second-hand and local whenever possible. She's proud to sell products from HiBAR, a St. Paul based company selling plastic free soaps and deodorants. Another local find: Sustain Yourself, natural deodorant and Minneapolis based company.

"If I wouldn't buy it, I don't put it in my store," Hall said.

Hall makes one product in house: refillable candles. She makes and sells concrete candle vessels in-house, along with the candles that go inside them. Customers can keep the vessel and return for a new scent instead of throwing away or recycling a candle jar.

In September, Hall will celebrate four years of The Evergreen Collective — and she's hoping to celebrate with an addition to the store thanks to a nearly $7,000 Green Business grant from Ramsey County. The addition will revamp the refill process, making it even easier.

Instead of customers filling their own containers, Hall plans to install a tap wall and have employees handle the refills. Customers will be able to order what they need at the counter, similar to ordering at a coffee shop, while employees fill their containers.

The new system is coming to the store this fall. 

Hall said she hopes customers don't feel pressured to completely overhaul their lifestyles.

"Nobody needs to be perfect," she said.

Instead, she wants The Evergreen Collective to make sustainable choices a little easier — one swap at a time.

The Evergreen Collective is open Wednesday through Sunday. Products are also available online, with free shipping in Minnesota and Wisconsin.