I Thought Shampoo Bars Would Feel like Soap…Nope!

Confessions from a Shampoo Bar Resister: By Caitlin Hofmeister

Confession: I’ve been avoiding shampoo bars. I want less plastic in my life – I gave up body wash years ago and I only buy deodorant that comes in paper tubes, so why have I resisted trying a shampoo bar? 

The truth is I thought shampoo bars were only for people with straight, shiny hair. I have curly, coarse hair that needs nourishment and moisture! Using a shampoo bar sounded like using a bar of soap to wash my hair, which would inevitably turn me into a giant fly-away frizz ball.

But people I like (with great hair!) kept telling me to try shampoo bars, so I finally caved and tried the Sun Basin Bloom shampoo bar from Good Store. I got it just before I left for a trip and rather than try to transfer my liquid shampoo into a tiny travel bottle, I just threw the brand new shampoo bar, still in the box, into my toiletries bag and decided I’d take my chances with my hair. 

I flew to LA in August for a film shoot* and it was… sticky. At the end of each day, I was drenched in sweat and immediately headed back to the hotel to shower. I didn’t care if I was going to wash my hair with a bar of soap, I just needed to feel clean. 

I rubbed the shampoo bar around in my hands and right away, it was sudsy. My usual moisturizing shampoos are heavy and can take a long time to get through all the layers of my hair, but this was light and let my fingers slide through my hair. In no time, my hair was literally squeaky clean. 

And, weirdest of all, my hair felt nourished. It felt light and clean, but not frizzy! So why didn’t it feel like bar soap? 

Turns out (and this should have been obvious to me) shampoo bars are designed to clean hair, not skin. Because of the chemistry involved to make soap, it’s naturally alkaline, but remember all those hair commercials from the ‘90s about “Ph balanced” shampoo? Apparently those commercials were onto something because while alkaline soaps help get our slightly acidic skin clean, soap damages the outer cuticle of our hair, drying it out and making it, you guessed it, frizzy! But Ph balanced shampoo doesn’t do that. 

And here’s a secret about Sun Basin shampoo bars in particular: a lot of shampoos you get in a bottle have sulfates in them, which can be great at cleaning your hair and creating a lather. But they can be hard on sensitive skin and dry out curly or coarse hair. So, my hair felt better after using my new Bloom Shampoo Bar because I wasn’t washing my hair with sulfates, but instead with a shampoo that contains butters and oils that nourish my hair without building up. 

I don’t usually shampoo every day, but I did during my trip to LA because it was so hot. And by the end of the week, my hair still felt clean and not dried out at all. After my last shower, I let my new shampoo bar dry, then put it back in the cardboard box it came in, and threw it in my toiletries bag, no sweat. ;) 

Now, my Bloom Shampoo Bar has a permanent home in my shower. But it still comes with me when I travel. 

*I was directing the first half of season two of Ask Hank Anything! Watch for it coming out in January 2026 on YouTube.com/Complexly.