If you’d look in the showers of most homes in America, you’d find them lined with plastic bottles. Sure, they make it easy to squeeze or pump out our favorite personal care products, but this convenience comes at a cost—especially for our planet. Helping turn single-use into zero-waste, solid shampoo and conditioner bars have revolutionized the way we care for our hair, but are they good for it?
Spoiler alert: bars of shampoo and conditioner are just as effective as their plastic-contained counterparts. In fact, they’re superior in many ways. Here’s why.
Why We Need a Planet-Loving Lather
Plastic is one of the main reasons many are making the switch to sustainable hair care products. Our wash-rinse-repeat habits typically require a few single-use plastic bottles. Often, these are used up within a relatively short period of time. As they’re difficult (or, sometimes, impossible) to recycle, they tend to end up in landfills.
In fact, every year, around 550 million empty shampoo bottles are thrown away in the United States alone. Together, they could fill 1,164 football fields. If we were to add conditioner, we could assume that more than one billion plastic bottles are taking up precious landfill space, heading to the incinerator, or, worse, polluting our oceans and rivers.
The biggest problem is that we don’t even need bottles to contain our favorite shampoo and conditioner! Quite often, if you were to look at the ingredient list, you’d see that one of the first ingredients is water/l’eau—a totally unnecessary ingredient if you consider that you add water in the shower!!!
In fact, this is the basis behind many solid shampoo bars and solid conditioner bars. They pack in all of the essential hair-loving ingredients, without adding the unnecessary water.
Shampoo and Conditioner Bars: Do They Work?
But are shampoo bars good for your hair? Because they look and feel so different, many are skeptical about their efficacy. But rest assured, when you bring the best shampoo and conditioner bars into your hair care routine, you can support our planet while still achieving lush locks. Here are a few facts to give you some peace of mind.
Shampoo and Conditioner Bars Can Be Optimized to Meet Your Needs
Like liquid shampoo and conditioner, many solid versions are designed for specific types of hair. For example, HiBAR has shampoo and conditioner sets to help maintain the health of hair, moisturize dry hair, volumize flat hair, support healthy curls, or soothe damaged hair.
But are shampoo bars good for thinning hair? Because harsh products and over-treating hair with chemical-based shampoo and conditioner may contribute to hair thinning, shampoo bars can be considered a safer alternative. Often found in many solid shampoos and conditioners, ingredients like biotin, niacin, caffeine, and essential oils (peppermint, lavender, thyme, lemongrass) may promote hair fullness and make it less prone to breakage.
Solid Shampoo and Conditioner Uses Superior Ingredients
When you buy a shampoo bar and conditioner bar, you’re not just cutting out the plastic waste, you’re often getting something that’s free of harsh, toxic ingredients like sulfates, silicons, dyes, parabens, foaming agents, and palm oil.
More consumers are becoming aware of the dangerous detergents found in many shampoos. Additives like ammonium lauryl sulfate and sodium lauryl sulfate can strip the hair of its natural moisture. Shampoo bars can help return hair to its healthy, shiny, voluminous state by removing some of the chemical residues from conventional shampoos.
The shampoo bar from Long Wknd (previous Habitat Botanicals), for example, uses compostable, biodegradable, local, and even food-grade ingredients! Grapeseed oil, aloe vera extract, and black Brazilian clay nourish your hair and scalp, promoting growth and keeping your hair’s natural oils in balance.
Bars of Shampoo and Conditioner Can Really Go the Distance
Try the zero waste shampoo and conditioner bars from Corvus Botanicals and you’ll have salon-quality hair care—that lasts a long time. Offering at least 80 washes, you can expect just a single bar to last at least twice as long as the bottle! This makes it a cost-effective way to wash.
Zero Waste Shampoo and Conditioner Leaves Your Hair Feeling Great
But, are conditioner bars good for hair? Formulated with ingredients like plant oils, aloe, and clays, a conditioner bar will keep your hair feeling soft, shiny, and silky—naturally.
However, you might find that after a few washes with shampoo bars, your hair’s natural moisture has been revived so much that conditioner isn’t even necessary!
Without the Bottle, There’s Nothing More Convenient
Not only are there some 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner bars that can really simplify your hair care routine, but across the board, solid shampoo and conditioner is amazing for travel. You won’t have to worry about TSA liquid limits, nor an unsealed bottle leaking in your carry-on luggage.
How to Use Solid Shampoo and Conditioner Bars
Unfortunately, there’s no hard and fast answer to the question, “how often should I wash my hair with a shampoo bar? “ We’re all different. You can start with the same frequency you would use with liquid shampoo, or try to wash every two or three days.
Because shampoo bars are packed with hair-boosting ingredients like plant oils, they won’t dry out your hair, making them suitable for even daily use (unlike conventional shampoos).
However, if you’re new to natural hair care products, your hair may require an adjustment period. Hair produces excess sebum to make up for that which is stripped away by traditional shampoos (another good reason to make the switch to shampoo bars!). That said, it may take some time for yours to get used to gentle, natural ingredients. Be sure to give your hair at least 2-3 weeks to adjust.
Also, if you feel a waxy residue, it may be because the healthy saponified oils (cleansers) are leaving a byproduct in your hair. Fortunately, addressing this is simple—and may make your hair even healthier! After washing, just rinse with apple cider vinegar. The scent quickly dissipates and you’ll be left with more shine afterwards.
Make the Switch to a more sustainable alternative
So, are shampoo and conditioner bars better? YES! They’re not only better for our planet and our wallets, but they’re also a superior way to show our hair some love. At Green Eco Dream, we’ve got all the eco-friendly products you could need to maintain that magnificent mane of yours, and protect our planet in the process.
To help you with transition to a more sustainable hair care, use code BLOG10 to save 10% on your first order!
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