Bar shampoo certainly has been having a moment. When anyone makes a list of things they do to live more sustainably, swapping to bar soaps, shampoos and conditioners is always top of the list. And I’d have been lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued by the idea. I always have bar soap in my shower, but I’d never tried bar shampoo or conditioner, so when it was time to replace my empty bottles, I opted for the bar variety.

Here’s How it Went

You’ve probably heard of the brand HiBAR before as it seems to be the most readily available option in most stores I’ve seen. I tried the “Maintain” version from them and together, the shampoo and conditioner cost me around $27, which is much more affordable than other shampoo/conditioners I’ve purchased in the past.

Because I’d never used anything like this in the past, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. To get a better feel of what each was like, I decided to try them out at different times and then together to see how they perform. I used the shampoo first and was impressed by it. My hair felt clean afterwards and the bar was easy to lather up.

I used that for a few days with my regular conditioner and overall liked the shampoo but I did notice that my hair needed some time to adjust as it got a little greasy at first. But over time that greasiness went away and my hair was back to normal.

The conditioner, however, was a different story. I understand how dumb this may sound, but I genuinely couldn’t figure out how to use this conditioner bar. I even posted on my Instagram to see if anyone else had run into similar issues as me. And it was a resounding yes!

Simply put, the conditioner just didn’t go onto my hair. I felt like I was trying to apply it foorrreverrrrrr each time. But when I got out of the shower, my hair felt like I didn’t apply any conditioner at all and it was very difficult to brush through. I eventually gave up on the conditioner and it’s been sitting on the wooden plank in my shower patiently waiting for me to reconsider.

From this experience, I would definitely recommend giving HiBAR shampoo a shot if you’re interested, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the conditioner unfortunately. I’m still on the lookout for a good conditioner bar option, though!