Sudsy, Super-Awesome, Solid Shampoo

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Making eating simple!
My Simple Eating Voyage
March 4, 2014
Simple Living: Taking Better Care of Me… Inside and Out
March 25, 2014
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Sudsy, Super-Awesome, Solid Shampoo

The Trouble with Bar Shampoos

I’ve probably tried a dozen or more solid shampoos in the course of trying to find one that’s actually tolerable. Until this week, I’d been an abysmal failure. The bars I’ve tried not only didn’t suds up well, they literally coated every one of my fine, stick-straight hairs with a gooey film that REFUSED to be rinsed out. They left my hair feeling sticky and looking dirty. I love the idea of solid “bar” style shampoos. I love the fact that they are small, compact, not liquid and easy to use for travel (without the drama you get with liquids through airports these days). And now, I’ve found my solution…

The Vinegar Solution

To “fix” the yuck from solid shampoos in the past, I had to reach for the organic vinegar to cut the slime — which I hate to do. My favorite vinegar is great for internal use, it’s healthy and wonderful and worth the investment (over the standard grocery store variety vinegar without “mother”) — but on my hair, it’s gross. I have a super-acute sense of smell and even diluted, I keep getting whiffs of vinegar throughout the day and it “nasties” me out. It does work to take away the filmy mess, but I don’t want to have to do this every day and I certainly don’t want to smell like a pickle.

Lush

My son convinced me to go into a little shoppe called Lush, that provides hand-crafted beauty products. I love these types of places, and love home-crafted products enough that I now make my own solid bar lotion. I’m still perfecting the recipe, but it’s pretty close to perfect 🙂 I’ll share here on LivingSmall.com when it arrives at perfection.

My son encouraged me to consider a “bath bomb” product from Lush. He said it was awesome. I figured it was a waste of money, but I bought one mostly to satisfy him. It turns out that it was AMAZING. (The one I got was called “Dragon’s Egg.” You should try it if you want to have a 3-hour luxury bath like I did last weekend — and great-smelling, super-soft skin afterward… oh and glitter, it has glitter!) It was all very girly and awesome, even if I did have to “warm up” the water in our claw-foot tub three times to enjoy the full “soak-till-I’m-all-pruned-up” experience. I’m so gonna do that again soon!

I’d “simplified” myself completely out of soaks in the tub, opting for showers for over a year — mistake, HUGE mistake. I’ll remedy this with a regular hot soak from here on out. It’s worth the time.

The Shampoo Bar Discovery

Travel friendly tin for solid shampooAfter sniffing the bath bomb collection, and selecting one, I saw a display of solid shampoos. I wanted to get one, but they were VERY pricey. $11 for a small bar. Tiny by most standards (1.9 ounces and about 3″ in diameter). To shorten the story: After much mental back-and-forth and a short discussion with someone who worked there, I bought one. I also bought a tin (for $3.99) to keep it in so it didn’t melt away in the shower.

I figured I’d probably just fallen for another solid-shampoo pipe dream. I didn’t expect what happened…

The first time I used it, I wet my hair and scrubbed the bar all over my head (have I mentioned that my super-fine, long hair is also greasy?). I put the bar down and started to scrub my hair. The overabundance of suds took me by surprise! I had PILES of suds on my head. There was a whole mountain of thick, stand-up-and-command-attention lather sprouting out in all directions. I have NEVER had so much lather on my head, not from any product. EVER.

I learned pretty quickly that I needed to wet my hair and swipe once on the left side above my ear, one time above the right ear, and then a super-short swipe at the nape of my neck. Then I put down the bar and move AWAY from the shampoo. That tiny bit is enough to give me just the right amount of lather. Amazing lather and squeaky-clean hair.

When I got out of the shower, that first time, I was worried that I’d found a great lathering product  — but that it would coat and dullify my locks just like the others had. It didn’t look that promising with the wet hair. And it dried a little weird. I don’t blowdry my hair — EVER — so the natural drying process with the Lush shampoo left it a little stiff feeling. Once I brushed my dry hair, all that changed. My hair really was really shiny. I mean noticeably so. This stuff really REALLY works.

Beyond the Initial Experience

I’ve used the product every day for a week now. I love it more every time I use it. I hope it lasts as long as the sales lady said it would (80-100 shampoos). I think if I use it for “just enough” lather, it probably will. If it lasts even half that long, I’ll be buying more. It’s a good deal. Heck, it’s a GREAT deal.

The scent isn’t nearly as awesome as that bath-bomb was. It’s herbal. It’s not overwhelmingly herbal, it’s not one of those “Gosh your hair smells fantastic!” type of products, but that’s fine with me. I don’t like strong scents. If you like heavily perfumed hair products, this one won’t work for you.

I had the Honey Badger try it too. He has short, full, uber-thick hair. It’s about as opposite my own as you can imagine. I told him to put one stripe on either side of his head and that’s all. He looked at me funny, but did it. He was amazed with the amount of suds this tiny amount produced.

He’s notoriously grumpy about products and especially the “hippy-organic-handcrafted” stuff I like. With that said, he asked me the next morning if he could use my awesome shampoo again. So, it’s a hit for him as well. I plan to get him a bar of his own — there’s a version that helps with dry scalp that he would probably love. My greasy hair can’t take anything that moisturizes too much.

If You Want To Try It

You can get it online at Lush.com or you can order the Ultimate Shine Solid Shampoo from Amazon (but you will pay about DOUBLE for it there — and the shampoo tin is nearly TRIPLE the cost on Amazon of what I paid in the store). You can find a location near you  (which is what I recommend, since the experience and the smells and the tactile nature of their products is worth the trouble of visiting in person) by visiting Lush’s own location finder.

I’m not currently involved in the affiliate program with Lush — but I’m looking into it because I love the products enough to get behind them. They are truly lush — and awesome. *love*

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