Waste Reduction: How Low Can You Go? -- Shampoo Bars

A popular low waste alternative is swapping liquid soaps for bars of soap. This can be done for hand soap, body wash or even dish soap, but today I’d like to dive into shampoo and conditioner bars.

The one con related to switching to solid shampoo is that sometimes it can take a few tries to find the bar that works well for your hair type. There are so many options out there for shampoo bars and everyone’s hair is different so there isn’t one recommendation that works for everyone. Other than that, solid shampoo is such a great low waste alternative that has other unintended benefits.

How does a shampoo bar work? Very easily, wet your hair, wet the bar and rub it all over your head/hair as the bar becomes sudsy! After you’ve transferred an adequate amount of suds to your head massage in and rinse out the shampoo as you would any regular shampoo.

This really is one of my favourite low waste alternatives, I’ve converted a lot of friends and family into shampoo bar fans. People of all genders and hair types have found a brand that works for them.

My personal favourite and one that a lot of friends of mine have found to work well is from Tiger Lily Spa, a business located in a rural community in Northern Alberta. This brand has worked for friends with curly hair, thin hair and thick hair. I don’t have any recommendations for kinky hair though there are some options in this article as well as The Afro Skin and Hair Co. with products for folks with afros.

You can also find solid conditioner bars! These tend not to be as popular as the shampoo because of the application. I have tried a few different solid conditioner bars and have had the most success with the one from Tiger Lily Spa. Conditioner bars are more difficult to apply because they aren’t sudsy, it feels like you have to apply the conditioner to each strand of hair as it doesn’t spread around the hair. This can be time consuming. That being said, each conditioner that I’ve tried made my hair nice and smooth, it was simply the application that was a bit annoying.

And as for those unintended benefits on solid bars, they’re amazing for travelling! They’re so much smaller than bottled products and they’re not liquid so if you’re flying they can be put in your carry-on. They also look really cute in the bathroom, much better than branded marketing content covered bottles.

I hope you give solid bars a try! Let me know how it goes!