Shampoo bars

[BigStripeyBastard]

Evening all.
Has anyone successfully made the transition to solid shampoo bars? I'm a week in and my hair is akin to waxy, disgusting hay. I know it's supposed to take a while and I dont wash my hair more than 3 times a week but....... bleurrrgh.
Do I wash it more often? Less often? Try the diluted apple cider vinegar rinse?
I mean, I can tie my hair in a bun for work, it smells fine, I'm not, you know, Jennifer Aniston 😊 but it just feels so horrible.
Do I stick with it? Will it get better?
I'm basically trying to limit the number of plastic bottles I get through but at this point,I am just really hankering after my old, Tresemme- swishy hair instead of this waxy birds nest on my head......

Blleeaarrgh.

As a slight aside, I've often wondered why we can't get shampoo in glass bottles? Glass is prolific as a food container, jam, Branston, drinks etc, why not shampoo? Is it the danger of breaking in the shower and injuring people?

Nacreous, I already have eliminated single use coffee cups, water bottles, plastic cutlery..... take my own lunch in reuseable containers, have hessian shopping bags etc. I'm fairly low on general plastic use..... always choose tins/glass over plastic.... my bathroom is sadly where I produce most of my plastic waste so it's a work in progress and have tried to start by eliminating shampoo bottles.

We have a refill shop in my town. It does hand soap but not shampoo. It sells shampoo bars but at £10 each or similar.

Muriel, that is a valid point. I would buy shampoo in a glass bottle. Yes, I'd probably drop the bugger on my foot and break a toe or slice my foot open but I'm aclumsy oaf generally so that's a risk I would be willing to take.

I use a Lush one, has a slice of lemon on top but I've forgotten what it's called. I stopped using conditioner when I switched to shampoo bars. Now when I use normal shampoo my hair looks rubbish!

We have a refill shop that does shampoo. The other option is to be your own refill shop and buy your shampoo in the largest container available. Have a look online - there’s a fairly large choice.

Too I’ve got that one!
Also the honey one and the purple conditioning bar.

Taswama.... radical thought..... (forgive my ramblings, I have had wine) is hand soap not just..... well soap? Is shampoo different to soap? Could we not just use soap to wash everything? (Not face though, I am very particular about my face potions.... luckily, a lot come in glass these days)
To be honest, at this point, I'm not sure Fairy Liquid would make my poor hair any less icky.......

I have had to wash my hair with washing up liquid in more impoverished times, it looked ok but smelled quite obviously washing up like...

It was supermarket value brand washing up liquid, not Fairy!

TooMinty... my dad used washing up liquid to wash his hair for years. He once requested my mum get him a new bottle of shampoo (and it was all of about a 35p bottle of co-op basic brand) she jokingly informed him he was getting far too fussy and spoiled in his old age.

I'm now picturing us all in a bath with the pots in with us, a la Old Man Steptoe. Time to put the empty wine bottle in the recycling and head for bed, maybe 😂

Just a heads up if you use the lush ones and have dyed hair, they strip colour.
Lush confirmed this to me but admit they have no plans to introduce a colour friendly bar. Shame as 'new' was my favourite shampoo ever.

In japan many of the brands sell refill pouches for shampoo etc. Still waste, but less of it. Plus you can buy products in pump bottles which I’d gladly refill.

I tried about three different shampoo bars over several months trying to avoid the Lush ones, and my hair was so waxy (although it looked quite good) it made me want to cry, it just felt disgusting, I didn’t want to even touch it. That was also with using a diluted cider vinegar rinse. I decided to pick my battles and that no plastic was a good enough start so switched to a lush bar (jason and the argon oil) and haven’t looked back, I love it, lasts for ages and with the vinegar rinse (which I think is amazing, and I have long very thick hair) I won’t be going back to bottles.

MadSweeney I'm going disgracefully grey so no hair colour here. But my silver streaks looked a lot less, well, doglike with proper shampoo.
At the moment, I feel like a collie dog that accidentally fell in the sheep dip.

I'm another one who is fine with Lush bars but can't use the more "natural" ones because of the horrible waxy buildup.

What are the lush conditioner bars like?

I really wanted to like the lush conditioner bars as I love the shampoo bars but the conditioner bars did nothing for my hair.

I've got the Lush ones, the honey and the argon oil one.

I found the honey one easier to use, but both gave me a horrific dry flaky scalp. What is it that's in the Lush ones that people are trying to avoid?

At the moment I'm trying to 'reset' my scalp with some E45 shampoo I already had. Then I'll use it alternately. Too expensive to chuck!

Conditioner wise I've just got a massive bottle of conditioner.

Just had a look at the lush website and its probably the SLS drying my scalp out. The Jason and the Argon oil has less in it than their other bars though.

I'll try to get through the waxy stage of an alternative!

You need to avoid conditioner! The shampoo bars will not wash it out which will leave you with the waxy residue.

Wash your hair with normal shampoo next time to get rid of the silicones from the conditioner. Then you can move into the shampoo bars.

Bear in mind any silicones in products too will not be successfully washed out by your shampoo bar (assumings it's SLS free, which most are).

Dd and I use shampoo bars from the Yorkshire soap company. They have lasted ages. Dd is very fussy about her products ( she is 12) so they must be good.
Don't use conditioner, and my hair doesn't feel as silky while I am in the shower but once it's dry it's great.

The Lush ones have palm oil which a lot of people are trying to avoid, and SLSs.. But they're the only ones that worked for me - I'm in a hard water area and just could not cope in the end..

I've gone back to getting refills of Faith in Nature..

I see it's been mentioned already, but if you really can't deal with shampoo bars (and I couldn't due to had water, although I've yet to try a Lush one) then Faith in Nature do HUGE containers so you can run a home refill service. Their rosemary shampoo is lovely.

That said, for those concerned about sls in Lush bars, I think the majority of normal shampoo has sls too, so it's not the be all and end all.

@BigStripeyBastard in your bathroom plastic reduction endeavours, have you found a decent plastic free face moisturiser? I'm always on the hunt but they all seem quite thick and make me spotty!!