Have you ever considered using a zero waste shampoo bar and a zero waste conditioner bar for travel? As eco-friendly travelers on a mission to reduce our waste and simply our travels, we’ve come to love taking a conditioner and shampoo bar with us on our trips.
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These bars are becoming more and more popular and are now easier to restock even while we are on the road. There are lots of benefits to using zero waste shampoo and conditioner bars, aside from their obvious eco-conscious considerations.
Here’s why you should consider using zero waste hair products for travel, as well as our personal recommendations for the best zero waste shampoo and conditioners on the market!
Benefits of Zero Waste Shampoo and Conditioner
They’re Free of Plastic
One of the simplest yet most difficult ways to be more eco-conscious is to eliminate single-use plastic from our day to day lives. Sadly, it’s everywhere and is extremely hard to cut out completely from your daily life.
However, one easy way to use less plastic is by using zero waste shampoo and conditioner. Most plastic-free shampoos are package-free and many come in a metal or biodegradable container.
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They Never Leak
If you travel with shampoo and conditioner bottles enough times, sooner or later something will explode in your suitcase, leaving you with a sticky mess and nothing to wash your hair with. When we first started traveling, this used to happen to us all the time, but hasn’t been an issue ever since we switched to using bars instead of liquid shampoo and conditioners.
They Take Up Less Space
A standard size shampoo bottle takes up a lot of space in your bag. Zero waste shampoo and conditioner bars are small and ultra-concentrated. A typical shampoo bar contains as much product as three or four full bottles of liquid shampoo. This means that a bar will last a lot longer, saving you an errand or two on your travels.
They Don’t Count Towards Your Liquid Allowance on Flights
It’s always a pain to pack your liquids bag for airport security. Especially if you’re traveling carry-on only, fitting all the liquids you need in one bag can be almost impossible. Luckily, shampoo and conditioner bars don’t count towards your liquid allowance since they’re solid.
They’re Often Organic or All-Natural
Once you learn about sodium lauryl sulphate and all the other nasties that are often found in shampoo and conditioner, you’ll want to steer clear of them for good. The vast majority of zero waste shampoo and conditioner bars are just as good for your hair and body as they are for the planet. Most of the shampoo bars and conditioners are organic, all-natural, cruelty-free, and vegan.
The Best Zero Waste Shampoo & Conditioner Bars
Ethique
Ethique is a fairly new brand that creates shampoo, conditioner, and other beauty bars. They’re on a mission to get rid of plastic bottles in the beauty industry and have prevented 4.3 million of them from entering landfills since they launched in 2012. Ethique a fair-trade company based in New Zealand and all of their products contain no palm oil or preservatives.
Shampoo
The Frizz Wrangler shampoo bar from Ethique is one of their best selling products. It’s made with fair-trade and organic coconut oil harvested from a women’s cooperative on the islands of Samoa. The bar is perfect for dry or damaged hair and is equivalent to three regular-sized bottles of shampoo.
Conditioner
In our opinion, the best Ethique natural hair conditioner bar is The Guardian, a deeply hydrating bar filled with lots of coconut oil, vitamin B5, and lime oil. This bar is equal to five regular-sized bottles of conditioner.
This is the brand that we choose to bring on the road. These bars are small but mighty. Each bar lasts for over 4 months. We keep them neatly packaged in these awesome reusable containers that are perfectly sized for Ethique bars.
Aspen Kay Naturals
Aspen Kay Naturals is a Florida-based company created in the home kitchen of a passionate soap maker. All products from Aspen Kay are made with organic ingredients, are naturally coloured, and come in metal tins.
Their shampoo and conditioner bars are equivalent to three 6-oz bottles of shampoo or conditioner. All products are made in the USA.
Shampoo
The Solid Shampoo Bar is made with hibiscus, nettle, turmeric, and chamomile, and is perfect for all kinds of hair. The bar is soap-free and contains essential oils that make it smell great while nourishing your hair and scalp. It’s free from silicone, sulphates, and parabens.
This is one of our favourite Shampoo Bar brands on the market. It cleans well, doens’t leave a residue and smells really lovely! The bar is
Conditioner
To go along with their zero waste shampoo bar, Aspen Kay also has a Solid Conditioner Bar. This natural conditioner bar smells like lemongrass and sweet orange and is made with much of the same ingredients as the shampoo bar is.
Bossman
Bossman is the perfect choice for men who want to join the zero-waste shampoo movement. The Bossman bar can be used as shampoo, body wash, shaving cream, or an in-shower moisturizer. It’s full of great ingredients like organic coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa powder, and essential oils. Unfortunately, this bar does contain palm oil but it is stated to be organic. With a combination of rosemary, lavender, and patchouli oils, the bar gives off a crisp, masculine scent.
The Yellow Bird
The Solid Bar Shampoo Soap from Yellow Bird is a great alternative to traditional shampoo. It’s great for sensitive skin and is free of sulphates, parabens, and silicone. All their products are also cruelty-free and vegan.
Argan and Jojoba oils are used to nourish and replenish hair, making this a great choice for hair that is dry or damaged. Other ingredients like kaolin clay and sea salt help to cleanse hair of dirt and grime. The bar comes in two different scents: grapefruit-rosemary-lavender or peppermint.
Beauty and the Bees
We love the Voodoo Activated Charcoal Conditioner Bar from Beauty and the Bees. It’s good for more than 100 washes and is free of every bad ingredient you could think of, including sulphates, preservatives, parabens, synthetic fragrances, phthalates, and palm oil.
The bar incorporates beeswax and honey that revitalizes your hair and scalp. Made in Australia with only organic ingredients, this conditioner bar is a great addition to your travel toiletries bag. The only downside of these conditioner bars is that you can’t buy them without the tins and sadly, the tins do tend to go rusty after months of use.
J.R. Liggett
Founded in Nebraska over 30 years ago, J.R. Liggett is an all-natural soap company that has since branched out to make zero waste shampoo and conditioner bars. The bars are vegan with 100% biodegradable packaging and no artificial ingredients.
A variety of oils are used in the formulation, including coconut, olive, castor, sunflower, and argan. Unfortunately, palm oil is used as well, minimally and it is certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. The Old Fashioned Shampoo Bar Variety Pack contains three of the best selling shampoo bar varieties. There are three scents in the pack: jojoba peppermint, coconut argan, and tea tree and hemp.
If you’re looking to become more eco-friendly in both your day-to-day life and your travels, replacing your traditional bottles of hair care products with zero waste shampoo and conditioner bars is a simple way to do it.
Not only will you be caring for the planet, but you’ll also be using more natural ingredients on your hair and skin and saving money in the long run.
We personally love using these bars both at home and on the road, and we have no plans of switching back to liquid shampoos or conditioners.
