View Full Version : CO and/or Shampoo Bars
salamander
June 6th, 2008, 05:43 PM
Right now I CO, and I like it a lot. I'm sensitive to SLS, so moving away from shampoo was a really good thing. However, I'm having a fit of environmental guilt, and I feel bad about using all those plastic bottles. I need something really moisturizing, so baking soda is not going to work here.
Shampoo bars seem like a good solution, because they usually involve less packaging and I hear they are more moisturizing. What I want to ask you is, has anyone out there who liked CO a lot had success with bars? Can I get similar levels of moisture? My hair isn't as dry as it once was, but I still use heavy conditioner. All those plastic bottles, though...
Riot Crrl
June 6th, 2008, 05:50 PM
I haven't tried... Mehandi has shampoo bars now and keep going on about how awesome they are. "You don't need conditioner with this!!111" I am skeptical though :(
My conditioner bottle is recyclable at least...
Lamb
June 6th, 2008, 06:30 PM
It depends a LOT on your water. Mine is semi-hard (pretty hard IMO) and my shampoo bar experiment didn't end well. Lots of soap scum left in my hair, and yes, as RiotCrrl said, they can be drying. ACV only made it worse.
Recycling is an option. Diluting conditioner is an option to make that bottle last longer. Also, have you looked into SLS-free shampoos? They are not cheap, but if you only use a little each time you wash your hair the expense wouldn't be so great. (If your hair is sensitive to SLS, and you do well with CO I guess it doesn't need too much of the SLS-free variety to remove the sebum.)
danacc
June 6th, 2008, 10:20 PM
Lush (www.lush.com) has a conditioner bar called Jungle. I haven't tried it (although I've tried other Lush products and have either loved them or hated them). I have no idea if it will work for CO. But if you're concerned about all of those bottles, it may be an option for you.
Note: I am in no way associated with Lush except as an on-again-off-again customer.
Nevermore
June 7th, 2008, 01:34 AM
Have you tried buying in bulk? Sam's Club and other places like that sell things like Suave in gallon containers, so you could keep COing (if they carried your brand), buy more cheaply and use fewer plastic jugs.
Also, is there recycling in your area? Where I live, there isn't, but if there were, my conditioner bottles would be in a recycling bin.
salamander
June 7th, 2008, 01:50 PM
Thanks for your suggestions, guys. I do recycle my containers, but honestly not everything we put in the recycling gets recycled, and anyway damage was already done by the making of it. I'd prefer to reduce if I can.
danacc, thanks for linking to the Lush bar, it has SLS in it because Lush has a crazed desire to put that damn chemical in everything, but it's clearly possible for them to make conditioner bars, so I think I might e-mail them and ask them to start making conditioner bars without SLS. They responded to consumer pressure with the shampoo bars, so I could get somewhere here!
Buying in bulk is a good idea. I should check around where I live for a place that sells bulk containers. I've got the small containers lying around, and if I keep using them then they aren't trash! There must be a bulk goods store around.
I wonder how my hair would do with oiling and shampoo bars. My hair isn't dry enough to need oiling and CO anymore, but maybe if the shampoo bars turn out to be more drying, some oil would make up for it? Worth a try anyway.
Teresa9000
June 7th, 2008, 01:59 PM
The first and only time I've used a shampoo bar was around 5 years ago, and it left my hair sticky, yucky looking, and feeling full of residue, even after a few more washings with my regular shampoo/conditioner. I may not have used the shampoo bar right (if there is a wrong way to use one??), but that experience has kept me away from them, at least until I'm better informed. Maybe they work better with your hair type, though. I'm sure lots of people do NOT have the same results as I did.
danacc
June 7th, 2008, 02:20 PM
...
danacc, thanks for linking to the Lush bar, it has SLS in it because Lush has a crazed desire to put that damn chemical in everything, but it's clearly possible for them to make conditioner bars, so I think I might e-mail them and ask them to start making conditioner bars without SLS. They responded to consumer pressure with the shampoo bars, so I could get somewhere here!
...
Argh! SLS in a conditioner? I didn't even think to look. Well, at least Lush is completely up-front with its ingredient lists. There are other conditioner bars out there if you google it, but if the ingredients were published, it wasn't in an obvious place. You could e-mail the companies and ask it you think this might be a solution for you.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.3 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.