The BEST Shampoo Bars for Curly Hair!

The BEST Shampoo Bars for Curly Hair

If like me, you’d like to be a bit more eco-friendly, swapping out regular shampoo for a shampoo bar sounds like an easy place to start. However, everybody’s scalp and hair react differently to different products, and it can be really hard to find the right shampoo bar for your hair- especially when you have coily or curly hair! I’ve tried lots of shampoo bars and I’m ready to share what has worked for my afro-textured hair, so keep on reading this battle of the shampoo bars if you want to find the right shampoo bar for you!

What are shampoo bars?

If you’re not familiar with shampoo bars, they’re shampoo in solid bar form. They basically look like a bar of soap. Personally, I prefer this form because when travelling, they don’t take up any of my liquids allowance, and I find that they last longer than liquid shampoo!

To use them, just lather it up in wet hands and massage the foam into your scalp.

Shampoo bars are generally plastic-free because they can be packed in cardboard packaging; all of the ones listed free are either zero-packaging or low waste paper-based packaging.

Although I clearly love shampoo bars, I recognise that there are lots to choose from- and some definitely aren’t curly, kinky or coily hair friendly!

Ok, so now onto the reviews! I’ll share with you my thoughts on several different shampoo bars I’ve tried, and I’ll let you know which ones I recommend the most.

Grüum Simply Coconut Bar 55g (£8)

3/5

Grüum Shampoo Bar Review

Grüum 3 shampoo bars listed on their site: Simply Coconut, Cocoa Butter and Lemon and Sweet Almond. I bought the coconut one as it was listed as nourishing, and with dry hair and scalp, I need all the nourishment I can get!

The bar smells faintly of coconut (it’s not overpowering at all), and is quite small. Despite this, the website says that you get up to 60 washes in every bar, but this was not the case for me at all. I got about half of that (maybe I use a lot of shampoo??). This bar foams up quite a bit, which I know some people really like, and it rinses clean. For me this was a bit of a problem because it leaves you feeling SO clean- my scalp felt totally stripped.

When using this shampoo bar, I needed a lot of moisturising products.

Would I recommend this shampoo bar?

No. Overall, it was pricey and stripped my scalp and hair. Perhaps people with very oily scalps might enjoy this one! However, I really wouldn’t recommend it to people with coily or curly hair.

Lush Honey I Washed My Hair 55g (£8)

5/5

*Disclaimer before I begin this review: I’m currently boycotting Lush because of Lush UK’s transphobic practices*

Mmm, as I write this, I can almost smell this shampoo bar… it smells THAT good. It’s got a fragrant but fresh honey scent which my partner and I love. Lush have many different shampoo bars, but this is the one I always repurchase because it’s meant to be moisturising, but mostly, I just love the scent! In the past, I bought this bar plastic-free from in-store, just taking one of their paper bags to protect the bar on my journey home.

This bar is the same size as the Grüum bar, and claims to last between 60-80 washes. I again don’t find this to be the case, so I do find this one pricey as well. It doesn’t lather too much, but this isn’t really an indication of how well a shampoo works. In general, shampoo bars don’t lather as much as regular shampoo.

The Honey I Washed My Hair bar really works for my hair, so I can’t be mad about the price (well, only a lil bit). On my afro-textured, it cleanses and rinses away clean without stripping or drying out my hair and scalp. My scalp feels untouched/rebalanced.

Would I recommend this shampoo bar?

Yes! I recommend this to all hair types, but especially to us curly-haired folks who can find shampoo bars too drying.

Natural World Argan Oil Shampoo bar 100g (£3.50)

4/5

Ok, now I’m getting excited- If you’re a budget baby like me, this might make you happy. It’s substantially larger than the Grüum and Lush bars but it’s a fraction of the price (and is perfectly decent considering the price difference).

This bar comes in paper packaging, and I was able to get it from my local Tesco. For me it lasted a long time because of its larger size. It has a light floral fragrance, but doesn’t smell too strong. It doesn’t foam as much as other shampoo bars, but it still cleanses well. It doesn’t leave any residue behind, but it doesn’t leave my scalp feeling as rebalanced as the Lush bar- my scalp feels a bit dry. However, it’s not too bad at all.

This bar is enriched with argan oil and it claims to moisturise and nourish, smooth and repair hair while adding shine and softness. I would say that most of these claims are true; my hair does feel smooth, soft and shiny after use. I wouldn’t say it feels nourished though, but it doesn’t feel bad either! My hair likes it much more than the Grüum bar.

Would I recommend this shampoo bar?

Yes! Definitely. It’s a great affordable option for those who want to make a more sustainable swap but are on a tight budget- like me! It’s a no-frills shampoo. It does the job and it does it well!

Nut and Noggin Moisture Rich Shampoo Bar 150g (£15)

4/5

Nut and Noggin Shampoo Review

*Disclaimer: I received this shampoo complimentary for review on my Instagram, but I was not asked to post any review and all these thoughts are my own*

This shampoo bar is as fun as shampoo bars can get! It smells of delicious pomegranate, and it has an awesome cylindrical shape. I’ve never seen this in a shampoo bar, but I quite like it because it makes it easy to hold onto and use, or rub directly onto your scalp if you like to use shampoo bars that way. This bar is absolutely massive, I was blown away by the heft of the thing when I first received it! Nut and Noggin claim this lasts 60-80 washes and this could be the case for some. My partner and I have been using this bar for months now and it’s still going; I’m kind of amazed.

If you avoid sulphates in your haircare, you might be interested in this shampoo. It also contains flax seed oil to moisturise and beer to add shine. It also comes in a nice cardboard box which you could totally use as a carry case when travelling, as long as you let the bar dry fully first.

I think this bar cleanses well without stripping the hair at all, but it leaves some residue behind on my scalp. Sometimes I feel the need to double cleanse my scalp. Because it doesn’t rinse 100% clean, this isn’t my favourite shampoo bar I’ve tried so far.

However, I really appreciate that despite the fact that Nut and Noggin are a small England based brand, they donate £1 from every order to youth mental health charities. I also think that £15 for shampoo is pricey but because the bar lasts for ages it’s worth it; it has worked out to about £1.50 per month for me.

Would I recommend this shampoo bar?

Overall, I would! I think this is a nice beginner shampoo bar because it’s so fun, and it’d be great for gifting if you want to introduce someone to shampoo bars. It lasts ages and it’s a nice alternative to liquid shampoo.

Bonus tips

If you switch to shampoo bars, here are a couple of tips on how to look after your bar to maximise their use. In between uses, don’t allow your bar to come into contact with water- if it gets wet, it’ll dissolve. I leave mine on the edge of the bath, on a soap dish.

I also recommend buying a cute little shampoo bar tin. These are super handy to protect your bar when you travel. You can buy them online or in certain stores, but personally, I don’t recommend buying the ones from Lush because they’re very small!

…..

So, these are my thoughts on the shampoo bars that I’ve tried out. I hope this helps you figure out which shampoo bars would be good for you and your particular hair type! Shampoo bars were one of the first beauty related sustainable swaps I made, and I don’t look back at all! Whether you’re looking for sulphate free shampoo bars, or ones suitable for coily or oily hair, there are bars for everyone.

Comment below with your favourite shampoo bar! I’m curious to discover your recommendations.

Bye for now,

Jazmin

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: