Affordability one of shampoo bars’ ‘mane’ perks

As I age, there have been very few physical changes that make me feel more confident.

COVID-19 stay at home measures further impacted my waistline, work attire, and hair. You may recall my article on the clothing mullet or #jammiesmullet. I also trimmed my own hair during quarantine.

Luckily, I was able to resist the siren-like call from boredom telling me to grab a red home box dye and cut my own bangs. I decided to try something else for my hair: “Bottleless” shampoo and conditioner.

I’d heard of bar shampoos and wasn’t convinced, especially since I was told that your hair needs time to get used to the bar (up to two weeks), to strip away the buildup from bottled shampoos. Enter COVID. With extra time on my hands, and no one really seeing me, I figured this was the time to clean up my act and stop pouring money (and chemicals) down the drain. (Terrible puns are also part of boredom.)

The benefits of shampoo bars (as I’ve just alluded to) include a lower per wash cost. (Especially given that I think that I use too much of the liquid shampoos and conditioners.)  Also, there is less of an environmental impact, as they contain few if any chemicals that can leach into the waterways, and less packaging heading to the landfills. I also really liked the idea that they would not count as liquids in my luggage for travelling, and bars are compact in a suitcase or in the shower.

I started with Lush. The company’s social stances impress me, as when I went to their website while writing this to remind myself of their headquarters, they have used the front page of their site to state Black Lives Matter and offer informational links as well. Below the fold, they also have a banner, Why Pride Matters. Even with their people-minded focus, though, I really wanted to source a product from Canada, so my Google journey continued.

That’s when I found Bottle None, founded by two Canadian women. I got the ‘be YOU’ Travel/Soap Dish set. The travel container is well-designed, with a grate that keeps the water off the bar. This is important because water erodes the bar. (I found this out the hard way with my Lush bars sitting directly on the edge of the shower or in plastic travel containers that acted like small swimming pools for my bars, melting away all my savings.)

I particularly like Bottle None use their suppliers’ packaging to create their travel cases, that the bars are vegan and cruelty free, and have none of the chemicals and fragrances that my spellcheck wouldn’t be able to validate even if I had spelled them properly.

Bar shampoos and conditioner do take some getting used to. It was similar when I switched to sulfate-free shampoo and I missed the big lather and bubbles. So far, I would say that the Bottle None experiment is a success.

If only someone had an equally easy change for other COVID issues. Top of mind right now is who knew that the 19 in COVID-19 referred to the number of pounds we’d gain while staying so close to the refrigerator all day long?

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