The "cotton" rounds might appeal to my partner, and I'll ask what she thinks... We've gotten quite accustomed to a delicates bag with our cloth masks in the laundry, it seems like a reasonable thing.
I don't think that I would use the swabs mainly since the negative reviews about comfort resonate with me, and I like the absorbency of the cotton swabs.
I'm also imagining the "best case scenario" for this company/product... being that total adoption of it worldwide = 7 billion "forever" swabs! I know that's extreme and unlikely, but I'm not so sure even one billion of these doohickeys at their end of life, is any better than all the single-use swabs made from cotton and paper.
Their end of life to me seems imminent, and eminently better, just burn or compost them.
There's other uses of the cotton swabs that this "cleanable" version doesn't seem as appealing for, or suited to at all... such as applying
medicinal ointments and not transferring the ointment or the problem somewhere else, or all the cleaning tasks... which can include unwinding some cotton to adjust the size or using the paper stick as a tool...
Cotton swab production could be "greened up" maybe by not making the plastic stick version of the swab (although plastic might have a medical or industrial benefit) not using bleached papers for the sticks, or using bamboo sticks and fibers, or the sourcing of the cotton, and definitely by
eliminating all plastic from the packaging.
This last one, eliminating the use of plastics in packaging seems to be more pressing of an issue, and is both the "lower hanging fruit" and "the tougher nut to crack" since there's SO much driving it. Desire for customers to "see" a product (often in a clear plastic package), merchandising small packaged items on hooks in the store (rather than in bins, or on shelves, or loose and unpackaged), portioning versus bulk purchasing, no accommodation for using one's own reusables for packaging (both infrastructure and regulation), the shift towards untrained store clerks that scan barcodes...