This year I didn’t participate in plastic free July. It’s so much effort on our part to avoid plastic despite the increase in sustainable companies. This month, last year I spent so much time focusing on avoiding plastic. I even felt guilty when I needed to use a plastic fork (I felt a lot of pressure to do plastic free July perfectly). We live such busy lives, so how do we do our part in saving the planet without compromising our precious time?
If you’re not participating in the challenge like me, plastic free July is the perfect time to learn about and experiment with some plastic free alternatives. I’m a long time lover of Lush beauty and when I learned about their “Naked” collection of package free beauty products, I had to try them. I tried a bar shampoo, bar conditioner and bar body butter for a month and here is my personal review of each of the products.
Bar Shampoo – winner!
I’ll admit, I was really skeptical about trying this for a few reasons:
- I thought this would leave the film/sticky feeling that bar hand soap leaves behind on my hair
- I was worried that it would clog my hair pores and develop acne
- I thought it would be more difficult to wash out, being in solid form
None of these happened! First, I lathered the bar in my hand until I had a good amount of product in my hands and ran it through my hair. I have the Jason and the Argon Oil bar and it smells SO good. It rinsed out like typical shampoo and I felt like it cleaned my hair even better than my liquid shampoo. After a few shampoo sessions, I had the same thoughts and no acne developed. I have a few shampoo bars from other brands that I will be trying later, but I’m definitely keeping this plastic free alternative past July.
Bar Conditioner – stick with your regular program
Unfortunately I don’t have the same positive experience with bar conditioner as I do with the shampoo. I used the Big conditioner bar from Lush. Getting the product to become conditioner in my hands was near impossible, so then I tried rubbing the conditioner bar directly onto my hair. Very little was coming off and a little does not go a long way, so it took approximately 5 minutes to get just half my head conditioned. On average it takes me 1-2 minutes to condition my entire head. When half of my hair was conditioned I tried to run my fingers through, but the conditioner consistency and moisture wasn’t there. I gave up, smoothed on my normal conditioner and have not attempted the conditioner bar again.
Context: I have very thick and a ton of hair. If you have less hair, this might work better for you!
Bar Body Butter – moisture like a body oil
I tried the Buffy exfoliating body butter since it is summer and I’ve been using a lot of self tanner. I needed an exfoliant and thought this was a nice and convenient combination! Lush’s website recommends you use this on wet skin (so in the shower). It’s definitely very exfoliating and feels nice on the skin. I only applied this on my arms and legs, but I think some of it melted off and did make my bathtub a little slippery. The moisture for me is more similar to a body oil than an absorbent lotion. I like it though, since I typically use vitamin E on my body after I shower. With this bar, I don’t need to apply lotion after showering.
Hopefully this post has inspired you to give plastic free hair care and beauty a try!
xo,
