A fair point. I've encountered that with shampoo bars I bought from a store on there (wasn't the maker's fault). I fell into the now seemingly common trap of the whole, 'If you transition to a shampoo bar, you'll find that they're moisturising enough that you won't need condtioner! Follow with an ACV rinse, and you'll have lovely, healthy hair!' speal. This was backed by a plethora of reviewers saying the same thing, so I believed it. I did it this way for about a year and was forever wondering why my hair was ridiculously tangled, sandpaper-y and so brittle that it would snap without any force at all. At the time, I'd chalked it up to the 'transition phase' that everyone talks about when switching to the usage of bars. Because it was gradual, I didn't notice until about a year or less later that I actually had a significant amount of breakage, and a fair amount of it sits around my ears. I realised then that the bars I was using weren't doing me any favours, so when I'd used all of the batch that I bought from the seller, I decieded to switch to a brand who also made conditioner bars. Now, my hair is in a
much better state. I don't have horrendous tangles anymore, it's no longer snapping at nothing, and it actually feels the way I like it to feel. In the time since, I've done some research into how and why this happened in the first place. Here's what I learned:
I have pretty horrible hard water, so unless the bars have chelating agents in them like citric acid, those saponified oil shampoo bars (that have no other ingredients in them besides oils) aren't going to remove the minerals that are in the water, and that even an ACV rinse won't remove the buildup (it can slow it down, apparently, but it won't take off what might already be there), so I would say that was certainly contributing. To combat that, I pretty much
have to use a shampoo or bar that has some form of surfactant (or, as mentioned, a chelating agent) in it to clear away any mineral buildup. Also, I absolutely
cannot skip conditioner, no matter how much the maker's claim you don't need it. And I no longer touch my hair with a brush or comb while it's wet unless it's in the shower and coated within an inch of its life with conditioner. My hair and I are
much happier now, but I'm still nursing the breakage that happened back then. I thought about cutting my hair to a bob to fix it, but I can't bring myself to do that, as, while the breakage makes me sad to see whenever I look in a mirror, it's not so bad that it's full-on chunks that have snapped, nor is it overly noticeable unless it's windy (Hello halo!) - so right now, I'm just trying to be careful with it. I still use shampoo and conditioner bars, but now I'm a lot more conscious of what's
not in them that needs to be, and I now use a clarifying shampoo whenever my hair starts to feel unpleasant again, too. Using a shampoo bar with nothing but oils in it might sound great on paper, and they might work fantastically for some people (especially those who have a water filter or soft water or have shorter hair), none of those options are applicable to me, unfortunately, so I have to leave them for other people to use, because I shouldn't. Long story long, I've learned my lesson.
Re: Conditioner Bars
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Originally Posted by LittleQuill
And they're great for travelling, too!
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