Plastics have become a huge problem, both for the environment and for people’s health. However, plastic is seemingly everywhere and extremely difficult to eliminate from use altogether. Instead, focusing on small swaps that reduce plastic use in your day-to-day life is a more realistic step to take. One of the most prevalent uses of plastic is in shampoo bottles, and this can be swapped for a shampoo bar, which is much like a bar of soap.
Shampoo bars are a solid form of shampoo packaged in plastic-free materials, such as paper. Switching your shampoo to bar form from a plastic bottle will help cut down on unnecessary plastic in the environment, in landfills, and subsequently in microplastics that evolve over time. These microplastics are smaller than what the human eye can see, so they easily slip into soil, air, and water. Eventually, we consume them, which is obviously not good for human health.
However, even before these plastics break down into micro pieces, they are harming human health. Many plastics leach chemicals into what they are holding, so in this case shampoo. Those chemicals, such as BPA and phthalates, can then be absorbed through your skin. Chemicals from plastics have been proven to disrupt the human endocrine system, which regulates hormones and fertility. The scale of this problem is only now coming to light, and it is estimated that fertility will be reduced to nearly zero by 2050.
The solution is to stop producing and using so much plastic. Unlike swapping plastic food storage containers to glass or stainless steel, finding a plastic-free solution for shampoo is often seen as more difficult. That’s where the shampoo bar comes in.
There are a number of benefits to using a shampoo bar beyond the reduction in plastic use. For one, you get more washes out of a shampoo bar than out of a bottle of liquid shampoo. This is because the shampoo bar is more concentrated. Not having to ship the weight that comes with liquid shampoo also reduces the price per wash. That’s a rather large amount of cost savings over time, and it’s less of a strain on the environment in terms of shipping and fossil fuel use.
Another benefit of a shampoo bar is the lack of added chemicals and remaining chemicals. During the saponification process, or turning the shampoo into a shampoo bar, certain strong chemicals are used up. Through this chemistry, the shampoo bar is safer for your body, skin, and hair than liquid shampoo. It is also much easier to keep shampoo in bar form out of a child’s eyes than a liquid shampoo.
Using a shampoo bar is quite simple: you wet your hair, wet the shampoo bar, and swipe the bar against your hair a couple of times to get the desired application. A little bit goes a long way because the shampoo bar is concentrated. Lather as you would a liquid shampoo. At this point, the bar shampoo mixes with the water and liquifies, acting exactly as a liquid shampoo would act. You just rinse it out as normal.
Store the shampoo bar as you would a bar of soap. To get the most use out of it, keep it from the running stream of shower water and allow it to dry out between uses.
Swapping your liquid shampoo for a shampoo bar couldn’t be simpler. It is cost effective, better for the environment, and better for your health.