As I mentioned in my What I Didn’t Buy in July post, one of the things I did buy was this Tangie Shampoo Bar from a farmer’s market in LA. I had some very expired-smelling travel shampoo and decided that I needed something else. So I was lucky to find these Tangie Shampoo Bars at the Waste-less shop stand. I was very skeptical at first of shampoo in the form of a bar soap but I was desperate enough to give it a shot and I am soooooo glad that I did. My life is changed.
You can find a little background about Tangie here and their shampoo bars here. But basically their shampoo bars are made with only a handful of ingredients and none of the many chemicals that are usually found in liquid shampoo. And I love that almost all of Tangie’s products have the option to be shipped without the packaging (I know it’s only saving a couple of cardboard boxes, but still it feels great to not have packaging). If you opt for no packaging, the bars are shipped wrapped in paper with a number and they provide a printout telling you what’s what (pic below).
I loooove love love the Tangie Shampoo Bar. It lathers up really well and it’s really easy to use. And I love how the shampoo bar smells, which is also quite subtle and not too overpowering. I feel like it cleans my hair just as well as a liquid formula (though if you are one to use a lot of product in your hair, this bar soap might not be able to get all the product out—you probably need a clarifying shampoo for that). But I find that this bar shampoo works great for cleaning regular day ‘ole (or sometimes two day old) hair, and the best part is that it doesn’t cause any scalp irritation. After pregnancy, for some reason the back off my scalp started itching and most shampoos I used were too drying and caused more itchiness. But not so with this shampoo bar and I love it! I’m also prone to dandruff and I find that this bar soap doesn’t lead to any flakiness.
One shampoo bar lasted me 4 months (while washing my hair about every other day). So $11.25 for 4 months of shampoo (and zero plastic waste) isn’t a bad deal at all.
Since I love the Tangie Shampoo Bar so much I decided to put in an order directly from the makers of Tangie to try out some of their other products. The next thing I tried was their Conditioner Bar and I have to say I’m not as much of a fan. It was a tad trickier to use (you’re supposed to rub the bar over your hair ends) and the unscented smell I tried had a scent that I wasn’t a fan of. My hair didn’t feel all that conditioned either, though I have to admit I’m not one to use much conditioner in the first place. Overall it just felt like my hair was a little more weighed down. I think for my fine hair, the shampoo is enough and I don’t need anything else to really condition my hair (especially since I don’t use hot hair styling tools nor products for my hair).
So I definitely love the shampoo bar and never plan to go back to liquid shampoo, but I probably won’t repurchase the conditioner bar. I think if my hair really needed conditioning I’d look for natural home diy remedies or maybe a hair oil.
Anyway, as I mentioned in August, I purchased a lot of their other bar soap items too (including their foaming hand wash soap and laundry detergent). So I’ll be doing another review later, but like I said I’m super happy with their shampoo bar and I’ll definitely be reordering that from them again.
{August 2022 update: Several months ago a reader of this post asked if I still used the shampoo bars and admittedly at the time I wasn’t (and told her so) because I’m suffering from some hair loss and was trying to use a shampoo to help prevent that. But once that shampoo ran out (and it didn’t work) I decided to go back to this bar shampoo. So I’m currently using this again until I get my second bottle of AB shampoo (which I think worked better for hair loss than I initially gave it credit for). But I have to say I took both the shampoo and conditioner bar with me on our Airstream road trip and though it was the perfect thing for it. The shampoo and conditioner bar (which yes I didn’t really like, but it does work if I spend the time to rub it over the ends of my hair and I’m warming up to it) are perfect for traveling. No messy bottles that might spill and you don’t have to worry about liquid bottle restrictions when traveling by plane. 100% worth it and now you can buy them at the zero waste shop I work at here. Get 15% off your purchase with the code fairlycurated and it comes out to $10.20 per bar}