The primary thing to consider when you’re looking to minimize your environmental impact is how much waste you’re generating (including material/resource waste as well as electricity waste) in your daily life. And with most of us working remotely these days due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of our days are spent inside our homes, where we are generating more waste than usual. 

If you’re looking to kick your plastic habit or even interested in working towards a zero-waste lifestyle, an area in your home where you may want to focus on is your bathroom. While your home office, bedroom, and entertainment space may all use more electricity than your bathroom, your bathroom, right after your kitchen, is the room in your home where you may be unknowingly generating the most unnecessary waste.

Concurrently, the bathroom is the last place most people consider when shifting towards a more sustainable lifestyle but should be considered when working toward sustainability. If you take an inventory of everything inside your bathroom vanity, it’s more than likely some of the items you’ll account for will be a handful of single-use, disposable, and/or toxic items you are probably using every day. This accounts for personal hygiene products (e.g., shampoo/conditioner, dental floss/toothpaste, and q-tips) and various cosmetics and skincare products.

However, there are many eco-friendly alternatives to the everyday products that go under your bathroom vanity, in your shower, and on your skin – including eco-friendly shampoo bars. Along with making it easier to reduce your plastic use and helping you cut back on waste, shampoo bars offer some other great benefits too: 

  • Save Money – By using a shampoo bar, you reduce the amount of water usage, in turn, saving money. Shampoo bars are more concentrated and not diluted with water like liquid shampoo, so you don’t have to use as much to clean your hair, requiring fewer trips to stock back up on shampoo items.
  • More Natural – Shampoo bars tend to be more natural and gentler than liquid shampoo, providing greater benefits in your bathroom and for your hair.
  • Satisfaction – Shampoo bars create more convenience for you. They are less messy and easier to transport with you since you don’t have to worry about leaks and/or spills. 

Now that you’re familiar with some of the top benefits of utilizing shampoo bars (as opposed to liquid shampoo), keep reading below for our favorite eco-friendly shampoo bars. 

1. Ethique Plastic Free Shampoo Bar 

Ethique is a New Zealand based company specializing in shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and deodorant all in bar form. All of their products are not only certified cruelty-free and vegan, but they are also free of palm oil, plastic, and use minimal, sustainable, and biodegradable packaging for everything, which you can easily toss in your compost bin. They’re a certified B-Corp, certified as climate neutral, and they donate either 2% of revenue or 20% of profit (whichever is higher) to charity.

2. The Better Soap Bar Company Shampoo Bar 

The Better Soap Company’s Better Bars are handmade, vegan, and are completely package-free. Everything is hand made by the owner, Sheri Fernandes, so you can feel good in knowing that you’re supporting the hard work of a small business owner. Sheri also ships every shampoo bar in biodegradable, recyclable, and/or reusable materials, helping achieve the zero-waste goal.

3. Beauty and the Bees Shampoo Bar 

All Beauty and the Bees bars are based on natural ingredients and are made in clean, chemical-free environments. The company has also been plastic-free since its inception 25 years ago. Their very first brick-and-mortar store was built using entirely recycled materials. Also, all of their packing material is recycled and biodegradable. While having limited product variety, Beauty and the Bees is still a great option for sustainability.

4. Sea and Clean Shampoo Bars 

Sea and Clean make natural, sulfate-free, and almost entirely package free shampoo bars. All bars are wrapped in paper and many of them have recycled paper labels that can be composted. Their shampoo bars are made from a variety of natural and nourishing materials like organic apple cider vinegar, molasses, hemp, kokum, and aloe vera.

Switching to one of these eco-friendly shampoo bars is a great way to help kick plastic to the curb and help create a more sustainable future for our planet. If you’re looking for other ways you can minimize your impact on the environment, be sure to continue checking out our blog. Don’t forget to browse through the Kiwi Energy website to learn about our innovative energy products.