If you’re like me, you’re often looking for ways that you can eliminate plastic consumption in your life. One such area that I’ve attempted to change is the shampoo products that I use to wash my hair. I’m a pretty basic gal when it comes to my shampooing, and typically I use Head & Shoulders Oil Control. (Gotta keep that dandruff under control, you know? For more about the serum that I use to keep the flakes away, check out my review of Briogeo’s Charcoal + Tea Tree Scalp Treatment.) Head & Shoulders doesn’t dry out my hair, and it does a good job of getting rid of excess oil. But is there a shampoo bar out there that could do the same AND allow me to ditch the plastic bottle? I decided to pop Trader Joe’s Peppermint & Tea Tree Shampoo Bar in my cart to see if it could do the trick!
Ingredients
Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Glycerin, Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Decyl Glucoside, Sucrose, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Menta Piperita (Peppermint) Oil, Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) Leaf Oil, Eucalyptus Dives Leaf Oil, Mint Leaves, Titanium Dioxide
This bar is mainly made up of saponified oils, a term that, quite honestly, I had to do a little research on before I wrote this! (This article is a helpful read should you want to find out more about the process.) Saponification is, in a nutshell, the transformation of oils into soap when they are mixed with lye. Coconut oil, olive oil, and castor oil are used in the greatest amounts, and jojoba oil, peppermint oil, tea tree oil, and eucalyptus oil are added as well.
Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine is a synthetic detergent that creates the sudsiness that we all associate with shampoos. It is used in place of sulfates, which typically are the source of our shampoo suds. Decyl Glucoside is a glucose-based surfectant that is good for people with sensitive skin. It functions as a foam booster as well.
Usage
Trader Joe’s Peppermint Shampoo Bar is easy to use, which I appreciate. It’s not difficult to get a lather going, and you don’t have to roughly rub it on your hair. I gently massage it all around my head, and I’m able to get plenty of suds going. Rinsing it out though, is an entirely different story.
As I begin to wash the soap out of my hair, I notice a distinct squeaky clean feel starting to develop. It gets to the point that I can’t even run my fingers all the way through my hair anymore, which is not a pleasant sensation. My hair doesn’t tangle easily, but I feel that if it did, this could possibly make for an unpleasant, tangly situation.
It does at least smell nice, like the minty scent you get from mint chocolate chip ice cream!
Results
In short, this bar does NOT make my hair feel good. Like, at all.
When I get out of the shower, I can already tell that my hair looks dull. It gets frizzier and pouffier when it dries, and at the same time it still feels oily at the roots. I have fine hair that is easily weighed down with oils, and I feel like I can’t even get to a second day without washing when I use this bar.
Even though my normal shampoo does have sulfates, it’s not nearly as rough on my hair as this bar is. In fact, normally my Head & Shoulders leaves my hair fairly soft and manageable.
To its credit, this bar does seem to hold up well in the shower. I keep it stored far away from the streaming water, and it seems to stay in one piece over there. Unfortunately for me, I think it’s going to last for way more washes than I want it to. It’s bad enough that I’m honestly a little tempted to toss it. But I hate waste, so I’ll probably try to grit my teeth through at least a little more of it.
I don’t think that I could ever in good faith recommend this to someone. Sadly, the extreme drying that I get with this bar completely outweighs the positive, plastic-free packaging aspect of it. My search for a plastic-free alternative for my current shampoo will have to continue because this bar most definitely was not it.
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Try Dirty Diva bar soaps. Find them on Etsy. They even have sample sizes, perfect to give it a try without the waste if you don’t like it. They also have a conditioning bar that’s great
Thank you so much for the recommendation!! ^_^ I will definitely be checking them out!
I had the same experience. I used the rest of the bar to wash the dishes and it works great for that. Dish soap in bars are sort of expensive, so this will be my new alternative to liquid soap inplastic bottles.
This is such a fantastic idea! That soap bar has still been in my shower, staring accusingly at me from the other side of the tub XD Thank you so much for sharing! ^_^