[Kara] Review of Lush Shampoo and Conditioner Bars

A corollary to our minimalist travel lifestyle is that we can't carry a large amount of liquids.  However, we've stayed in a fair number of places that don't have shampoo (or don't have enough shampoo for five people including three girls with long-ish hair) or places that don't have hair conditioner.  In fact, since we've been in Morocco and Europe, none of our hotels or AirBNBs has had conditioner.  Do European women not condition their hair?  (They must, of course!)  Conditioner is a non-negotiable toiletry in my life.  So when I read other full-time travelers extol the virtues of solid shampoo and conditioner I was intrigued.

It just so happens that Lush (the most nose-assailing store in the mall) sells solid shampoo and conditioner bars and that there's was a Lush a short walk from our apartment in Paris.  I stopped in a couple of weeks ago to pick out my new--strongly scented--beauty products.

Lush offers several options for solid shampoo.  Most are in cute circular shapes, but the one that smelled most appealing/least offensive to me is Trichomania.  It doesn't come in a cute shape, so it doesn't fit in a correspondingly cute tin that Lush offers, but that wasn't my highest priority.

The Lush store I visited only had two solid conditioner options, so I read the online reviews of both while I stood in front of the options and picked the one that people dislike least:  Sugar Daddy-O.   Also, the scent of Sugar Daddy-O didn't clash horribly with the Trichomania shampoo.  (Can you tell I don't love the Lush scent marketing strategy?)

I've tried each of these a couple of times now and can tell you what I think of them.

Using the Shampoo Bar

This works just as a soap bar works.  You have to get it wet and lather it up.  But you have to lather it up again and again and again in order to get enough soap onto your hands and into your hair.  Picture how much lather you get when you wash your hands with a bar of soap.  Then picture how much lather you get when you wash your hair with shampoo.  And then contemplate how many times you'd need to wipe the lather from your hands into your hair in order to build up sufficient lather in your hair to be able to wash it.  It takes me about 8-10 hand latherings before my hair has enough shampoo in it.  This does take some time, but not too much time because the shampoo bar is relatively soft and breaks down in a nice, soap-ish way.

A note of caution:  The Lush website also says that you can rub the shampoo (or condition) bar directly on your hair.  Do not do this if you have long hair--or medium-length hair.  It created a tangled mess of hair on my head and it hurt, too.  I can imagine it would work fine if your hair is an inch long.

Using the Conditioner Bar

You use this bar just as you do the shampoo bar, but it doesn't react exactly the same way.  The consistency of the conditioner bar is much harder than the shampoo bar and so it doesn't break down as easily to transfer onto your hands and then your hair as the shampoo bar does.

The conditioner bar is made of ingredients that are much more like a skin lotion bar.  That makes sense, right?  (I've even used hotel-offered body lotion as hair conditioner a couple of times on this trip when I've been desperate.)  And it makes sense that it doesn't lather like soap does, because it isn't a soap, it's a moisturizer.  But that makes it more of a chore to use.

In the shower, the conditioner bar doesn't soften to the extent that the shampoo bar does, and it doesn't lather, but when I rub it in my hands I can work up a mildly foamy film that I can then wipe from my hands onto my hair.  The problem with the conditioner bar is that it's tough to get much of it onto my hands so I can put it on my hair.  It takes me about two minutes of quick scrubbing to break down enough of the conditioner bar to transfer enough conditioner to my hair.  When I used it last night, it took me 14 separate repeats of scrub-bar-vigoriously-and-wipe-hands-on-hair before I had enough conditioner in my hair that I could run my fingers through my hair without getting my fingers tangled.


How Well Do They Work?

To be honest with you, I have pretty easy hair.  I don't need special properties in my shampoo or conditioner.  I only ask shampoo to get my hair clean and conditioner to make it tangle free.  Both of these products work perfectly well in that respect for me.

Environmental Considerations

One of the benefits of using solid shampoo and conditioner bars is that they eliminate the plastic waste created by empty shampoo/conditioner bottles, but when I'm standing in the shower for two minutes actively working to get a sufficient amount of conditioner into my hair, that's two minutes of water running down the drain.  (Because I'm seriously not turning off the water in the middle of my shower unless there's a SERIOUS drought. I really, really hate interrupted showers.)  Pick your environmental issue, and the degree of discomfort you're willing to experience.

How Long Will the Bars Last?

I've read that these shampoo and conditioner bars will last over a month each, even being used daily.  I can't report on that, as I only use them as backup when I don't have liquid shampoo or conditioner.  I can say that they don't seem to break down very fast, as I've used both a few times and they are still pretty much the same shape and size they were when I bought them, so they very well might last through 30 or more uses.  Because they last so long, you could easily chop them in half and make them even smaller if you want to travel with them.

Storage

After I use the bars, I leave them on the bathroom counter and by morning they are dry enough that I can drop them into ziplock bags and then pack them in my luggage.  It's not a pretty solution, but it works perfectly fine.  Lush does sell shampoo tins that fit all of their circular dry shampoo bars, but the solid shampoo I picked isn't the right shape for that. The Lush store I visited didn't have tins the right shape and size for the conditioner bars, so I don't know if Lush offers tins for the conditioner bars.

Conclusion

These solid shampoo and conditioner bars work perfectly well for my hair and I like these bars for traveling because they aren't liquid and they allow me to carry a relatively unlimited amount of shampoo and conditioner with me.  However, I can't say I'll keep using them when I get home because they are a lot more work to use than the liquid forms of shampoo and conditioner.