So I don’t know since when, but I’ve always liked the Lush brand mainly cause of their package-free / natural ingredients / handmade concept.
First confession – I’ve never stepped into a Lush Malaysia store before.
This is because I know the prices are ridiculously expensive and I would never buy from the Malaysia stores.
If I’m not mistaken, I got my first Lush shampoo bar early 2018 but only started using it about September 2018. My sister, Mel, was in Australia so I asked her to grab me some stuff from Lush Australia (it is still expensive but reasonably cheaper than Lush Malaysia’s).
It’s AUD 15.95 per bar from Australia ≈ RM 45 per bar.
But from Lush Malaysia, it’s RM 70 per bar. So I save like RM 25 per bar.
Seanik was my very first Lush shampoo bar. It was pretty long ago and I don’t remember how it felt, but I don’t remember anything good from it. The most significant thing I remembered from this shampoo bar was WC complaining to me how all the seaweed was getting stuck at the drainage. Hahah.
Jason and The Argan Oil was my second shampoo bar from Lush. I think I chose this because of Argan Oil? Cause Argan Oil is good for hair? Haha. Well nothing much to shout out about this too cause I don’t remember anything good from this either.
New is my third, current, and also will be my last shampoo bar from Lush. If I remembered correctly, I chose this because of the wordings on the bar, heh, and there’s also peppermint in it. I’ve been using it for about a month now and it doesn’t make me happy and I don’t feel the most comfortable in the shampoo-bar-washed-hair so I’ve since switched to Ava Puhi Moni Shampoo & Conditioner from Epoch.
The Things I Don’t Fancy About Shampoo Bars
I’m all for less packaging / packaging free and environmental friendly ideas, but these are why shampoo bars aren’t my thing:
1. It is hard the gauge the amount of shampoo used.
Do I lather it on my hand first? Or do I just swipe it over wet hair? I’ve tried both. I personally feel that swiping it over wet hair is the closest way you get to gauge the amount of shampoo used, with the least “wastage”. When I have longer hair I swipe 10-15 times, whereas when I have shorter hair I swipe around 5-8 times. On different parts of the hair yea!
Lathering the shampoo on your hand first is the most “shampoo wasting” method to me. Cause you’ll make bubbles over the whole bar, and once the bubbles are there you can’t get all of it off the bar and onto your head. If you get what I mean. And if you rinse your bar, and place a wet / bubbly bar back on its storage, then it’ll leave a lot of shampoo residue at the storage when it dries … which leads me to my second point
2. I have not found a convenient and easy method to store a shampoo bar in the shower.
No matter how you use the shampoo bar, it is always bound to be wet / damp. So if you dry it out to store it, definitely there will be some shampoo residue on the drying area after it is dry. So I’ve been placing my shampoo bar on a small dish in the shower. But when you’re sharing a shower with someone else, they wouldn’t bother if your shampoo bar dish is soaking wet / dry.
So yeah, I do always try to keep it dry but someone else uses the shower and it ends up getting wet again. And if I store it out of the shower, then it’s inconvenient cause I want to use it in the shower whenever I need to. And also cause sometimes I decide whether or not to wash my hair in the shower itself.
Right now on my 3rd shampoo bar, I’m storing it at the highest point in the shower, which is beside the shower head. It still gets damp occasionally, but not soaking wet.
3. It doesn’t really do my hair any good.
So maybe during the first few uses I feel damn syiok la cause new shampoo! Anything new definitely good right? Hahah. I don’t know how I brainwashed myself to buy a third shampoo bar. If I use a shampoo bar to wash my hair, I HAVE to use conditioner after, otherwise my hair will feel like grass a.k.a really coarse.
But if I use normal liquid shampoo, I can still go without conditioner and my hair would feel somewhat normal – not grass like.
So Lush claims that 1 shampoo bar can do the job of three 250g bottles of liquid shampoo / gives you 80-100 washes depending on hair length. I have not counted how many times 1 shampoo bar can last for me, but I definitely don’t feel like it has reached over 60 times.
And I do think that I the shampoo bar amount I use is much lesser than the usage of the people in the Lush shampoo bar commercial. So how do they hit 80 times?!
Oh before I forget! Point 4. When the bar gets smaller, it breaks easily and when it breaks is it really difficult to piece it back together like you could for soap bars. It is really not that convenient to use a shampoo bar, especially towards the end.
Maybe shampoo bars and I just don’t get along well. I’m sure there are people who swear by shampoo bars and I am kinda disappointed that it isn’t working for me.
On a side note, I do really like the Fairly Traded Honey shampoo and American Cream conditioner from Lush.
Thanks Mel for being my transporter for Lush items from Australia!
Image source: Lush Australia
