Conditioner Bars

Conditioner Bars⭐

Recently, I have targeted my bathroom routine for reducing waste. This has included using bar shampoo, conditioner and body wash. In principle, all very similar products, however I found that they have all performed very differently. While I loved shampoo bars, and would recommend everyone tries them (see my last blog post), I cannot say the same for conditioner bars.

Why Try This Alternative?

As I have long hair, I can get through a lot of conditioner. I had seen conditioner bars and thought it would be a good way to cut another plastic bottle from my daily routine. Often the plastic bottles for liquid conditioner are hard to recycle, especially those using colourful plastics.

My Swap

So far I have tried two conditioner bars:

• 'Hey Mango' by Non Plastic Beach for £7.95 (50g, £15.90/100g)
• 'The Golden Cap' by Lush for £9 (65g, £13.85/100g)

When using liquid conditioner, I was spending about £1.65 per 100ml. Therefore, to make conditioner bars financially viable they would have to last 8-10 times longer. This is something I was sceptical of when using the first bar, but was impressed with and wanted to test further with my second bar.

My Findings

To test how long the conditioner bar would last compared to liquid conditioner, I measured out the equivalent amount and alternated between hair washes. By the time I could no longer get any conditioner out of the bottle, I had used only 26% of the Lush conditioner bar. Therefore lasting roughly 4 times longer. When looking into the cost of drug store conditioners, I found that many were a lot more expensive than my £1.65, with some household brands ranging from £5 to £20 per 100ml. If already investing in better quality conditioners than myself, it is easy to find that conditioner bars can be an equal or cheaper in cost.

However, despite them lasting much longer than liquid conditioners, I was left unimpressed, for two main reasons:

1. They didn't leave my hair feeling as nice
2. They were much harder to apply

I wasn't impressed with the lasting feel of my hair. Although I haven't seen any particular changes in the health of my hair, and there hasn't been much difference when dry, they haven't felt as nice in and directly after showers. So although the cost gap isn't as wide as with shampoo bars, and some environmentally friendly products, the quality wasn't as high as other sustainable alternatives. When paying £9 for one bar, you want the quality to reflect that. I didn't find this was as much of an issue with the 'Hey Mango' bar, and I'm sure this isn't true of all conditioner bars, however for the two that I have tried, there has been varying degrees of quality issues.

My main frustration with the conditioner bars, however, has been how hard they are to apply. Unlike the shampoo bars, they don't foam up, so don't spread very well. I found pulling it down every strand of hair tiresome and ineffective. This may also be contributing to the quality issue if you can't apply it all over.

Another side affect of the difficult application is is that showers take longer. I am not one for long showers, so this may be more of an issue for me than some others but other than a personal dislike of it, the longer showers have a small price implication too.

Various websites use different calculations of a cost per shower, so I took an average of five websites it worked out to be an extra 2.9p per minute. Assuming it takes one minute longer each shower and you wash your hair every other day, this adds up to £5.29 per year. The Lush bar is on course to last six months, so with the cost of longer showers added into the price, I makes the bar £11.15 which is £17.15 per 100g.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I cannot recommend this product. It's not so bad that I won't finish the bar I am currently using, however going forward I wouldn't buy them again. I'm sure there are some out there with better formulas that overcome these issues, but I have seen other plastic free alternatives that I would rather try instead. I cannot ignore the longevity of the product, I have long hair so for one bar to last 6 months is rather impressive, and will save at least two plastic bottles. Overall I am glad that I gave them a try, always worth trying something once, however I still cannot rate conditioner bars more than one stars.