What Makes a Good Conditioner Bar
To understand what makes a good conditioner bar, we should cover what exactly it is first..
What is a Conditioner Bar
A Conditioner Bar is conditioner in solid form - the same liquid stuff that you will find from a plastic bottle, all except for the additional added water and the plastic bottle. Conditioners make your hair softer, easier to manage and style. Depending on the ingredients of some Conditioners, they can also make your hair less frizzy and reduce hair breakage and split ends.
The great thing about Conditioner Bars, it is so much lighter and smaller making it easier to travel with, and knowing that you are removing one more plastic from our environment. As Conditioner Bars are condensed into a bar, you get a lot more use out of them.
Most cleansing ingredients will form bubbles to remove oils and dirt from your hair. Conditioner bars on the other hand want to replenish the oils and moisture that your shampoo has inadvertently removed, therefore when using conditioners there be little to no foam or bubbles.
How is a Conditioner Bar Made
Most of the ingredients that are crucial to keeping your hair soft, manageable and healthy are found in dry form or powders. Mixing the perfect combinations together with a little bit of heat to bind them together, creates the perfect bars.
What is in a Conditioner Bar
To replenish the hair and scalp of good & natural oils and moisture, you will often find Coconut Oil, Shea Butter and other oils within the ingredients. Not only do these oils have their own benefits and vitamins, but they will normally be combined with other Vitamins or Proteins to revive hair and provide strength and sometimes volume.
You will typically also find perfume added to your conditioner (for obvious reasons) but more natural conditioner bars will go without any fragrance or use certain Essential oils. We have written a small blog on some great Essential oils that are beneficial to our skin, scalp and hair.
Having just oils to your conditioner bar isn’t going to be enough and probably too oily for most of us. Most of the magic happens when you add emulsifying wax to your bars, these highly conditioning ingredients nourish the hair, scalp and skin. You will notice these waxes from the ingredients under their systematic names like BTMS, Cetyl Alcohol and there are many others. They are also commonly found in body lotions and creams.
What to avoid and keep Healthy Hair
You should always look out for those ingredients that you have had an unwanted effect or experience in the past. But most ingredients in reputable conditioner bars are pretty much safe, and always look out if their products are CPSR certified (Only in the UK and EU). CPSR certified means that their product has been assessed by a qualified cosmetic safety assessor.
Be aware that Soap bars are not Shampoo or Conditioner bars. They are made very differently, and the majority of Soaps are high in Alkali which is very bad for your hair and scalp. Most reputable and good Shampoo and Conditioner bars are formulated to be kind to your hair and scalp, we call this being pH balanced. This is generally around the pH level of 5.5
Where can you buy Conditioner Bar
We can find a good conditioner bar in almost every high street now, which is great! The effort to reduce our plastic consumption is making good traction. There are also a number of good eco-shops that sell locally produced shampoo and conditioner bars, which in my opinion are better than the branded high street shops in terms of quality and carbon footprint.
If you want to try our Washla bars, particularly the Conditioner Bars; there’s a link below to our online shop where you can buy with confidence.
Have a look here at our very own Conditioner Bars
How to use a Conditioner Bar
If you have used liquid conditioner or conditioner bars, you will notice that they don't create bubbles.
Liquid shampoo and shampoo bars should lather quickly when applied to your hair. This is primarily to wash your hair clean. Dirt, unwanted oils & grease will cling to these bubbles, while the water rinses it all out of your now-clean hair.
On the other hand, liquid conditioner and conditioner bars want to retain the moisture and hydrating elements of the conditioner. There is little to no lather but it forms a nice creamy texture when applied to your hair.
When using a conditioner bar, ensure your hair is wet. Rub the bar directly into the hair, ensuring that you have covered the areas that you want to condition.
It does take a little longer than using liquid conditioner, but as the conditioner bar does not contain any additional water, there are more hydrating and moisturising properties going directly into your hair.
