Today I will give you a review of 3 shampoo bars review from Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve Company and my Rosemary Lavender Oasis bar from Ella Ganza. I am also giving you a 1,5-year update on how my low waste/low poo shampoo bar journey has been going.
Click here to watch the video, or click on the thumbnail above. Or if you prefer you can keep on reading…
This post is not sponsored. I paid for the shampoo bars from Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve with my own money. I was gifted the soap bar from Ella Ganza. The post may contain affiliate links. This simply means that if you make a purchase, I may earn a small commission without any extra charge for you.
In June 2017 I made a video about my transition to using shampoo bars. At the time I had only used shampoo bars for about 3 weeks, but now it’s been 1,5 year since I started using them. The bars I have tried since I made that first initial video has been so much better than the one I got from Rocky Mountain Soap Co back then.
Want to watch other shampoo bar videos?
- Watch my previous Shampoo bar-video to learn more about what to think about when you are transitioning to using an ‘all natural’ shampoo bar, as well as my first initial experience trying out the Rocky Mountain Soap company’s Rosemary bar. The post also contains a list of brands that sell shampoo bars.
- THE BEST… Zero Waste Shampoo bar & Conditioner? No sticky Residue! After writing this post I MIGHT have found one of the best shampoo & conditioner bars out there.. at least in my humble opinion. You can check out my review here.
The shampoo bars I have tried out:
Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve Company
- Rosemary mint charcoal shampoo bar is one of my favourites of the three shampoo bars that I tried from Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve. The Rosemary Mint & Charcoal bar is a natural shampoo bar that is enriched with moisturizing organic cocoa butter and coconut milk, and then the bamboo charcoal cleans, removes impurities and absorbs excess oils without stripping hair of natural oils. Rosemary essential oil is also one of the best oils for your hair it controls dandruff balances natural hair oils, promotes hair growth and stimulates the scalp.
I can really confirm that it’s been great for my scalp. I feel like it doesn’t make my scalp dry or itchy as I sometimes have had problems with in the past, nor does it feel disgusting like it did at times with my previous shampoo bar. Instead, it feels like it cleans properly without drying out my scalp at all. - Coconut Milk shampoo bar So the other bar that I tried from the Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve is the coconut milk one and that one is made with organic coconut oil, sweet almond oil and coconut milk, and it’s a really great deep conditioning shampoo bar that’s suitable for all hair types. I really liked this one but I didn’t feel “Wow” about it. However, as someone who has had very light blonde hair for the past couple of years (until I changed my hair colour around a month ago) and as I wasn’t a natural blonde my hair needed a lot of extra moisturizing. When using this bar I never felt like I needed to add any extra moisture. For example, I never felt the need to use a conditioner or hair oil when using this bar but I never felt any extra wow-factor compared to the other bars I tried out.
- Honey Beer Egg shampoo bar The third one I tried from Chagrin Valley Soap & Salve was the Honey Beer and Egg shampoo bar. I had very high hopes for this bar because it’s a protein-rich shampoo and that promises loads of creamy, rich and bubbly lather that adds shine, bounce and body to your hair. It smells really sweet and actually not smelling or beer at all! 😜
The reason I had big hopes for this bar is that when a shampoo offers body & volume I’m will want to try that shampoo. This is because I have very fine hair and I like to add body & volume to my hair as much as possible. Also, the reviews of this bar were really great and promising for what I was looking for. But when I first received this bar and tried it out I was actually really disappointed as it didn’t live up to my expectation.
Since I used up the two other bars fully around a month ago I decided to give this bar a go again… and now I LOVE IT! I didn’t expect to do. 😁 And I’m wondering if it’s something to do with the treatments I have done for my hair or anything else? I have longer hair now than I had before when I tried this bar out. Instead of a short blonde hair cut, I have now a little bit longer red-brownish hair. But my hair is also in the process of growing out on the sides – so maybe as my hair gets longer hair all around the experience of body & volume increases. Maybe that is why this bar works so much better on me now?
- ELLA GANZA – Rosemary Lavender Oasis soap bar so the fourth bar I tried since last year is made by my friend Felicia. She owns a brand called Ella Ganza and the bar I tried from her is the Rosemary Lavender Oasis Bar.
I tried this bar out this summer and I had great results using it, but once the season switch and the air got dryer here I found that I needed more moisture.
Some of the healing properties of this bar are that it’s stimulating hair growth, calming and soothing, relaxes the nervous system. The latter is definitely something that I have noticed using this bar!
It smells absolutely wonderful and it’s really relaxing to use. Every time I washed my hair with this bar I felt really relaxed and clean afterwards. You know sometimes when you really need to wash your hair and you put it off for a couple of days more than you normally would, and it just feels like you have a helmet of heaviness on your scalp (Or is it just me? 😅) Well, this bar gives you a feeling of that heavy helmet being lifted off my head. I don’t know how to explain it better than that! The hair and scalp feel really clean hair and you feel very grounded and relaxed.
This bar isn’t specifically designed for being used on hair, but I tried it after Felicia herself had tried on her own hair with great results. So I decided to give it a go as you already know I was really pleased with it in the summer. At the moment I’m not using it for my hair, but I use it to wash my face instead. The bar is also really good for acne and as my skin has been a bit funny lately (season changes) so I’ve been trying to keep any impurities and stuff off my face. This bar has also been very helpful for that!
Check out Ella Ganza’s Instagram here if you wanna check out my friend’s soaps. All her soaps are handmade, cold-pressed and feel really luxurious. They are so well made by someone who really knows the art of soap making!
All these four bars have just lathered so much better than that first bar I tried. As they lather better it’s easier to massage the shampoo on my whole scalp, and I also feel it makes it easier to wash out. That might be a factor why I no longer suffer from as much sticky residue as before.
When I made my previous video in June last year, I had a lot of problem with this sticky residue especially in the back of my head. I have barely had that issue since, and if I have had some sticky residue I have done some apple cider vinegar rinses, but it hasn’t been that often. And I mainly do ACV rinses if I feel my scalp needs something extra, or if my hair feels really dry to give it a bit of extra moisture.
Overall, I’m pretty pleased with these bars. I will probably repurchase the rosemary mint charcoal, and maybe the other two from Chagrin Soap & Salve in the future, but maybe not right now.
I want to try some other ones from Chagrin Soap & Salve instead including the Ayurvedic Herb and The Neem, Tea Tree and Body & Hair shampoo bar.
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Let me know in the comments below if you tried any of these bars and if you have any other favourites that you really want me to try out! I do not have much left of my current shampoo bar so I will need to get some new ones soon.
Let me also know in the comments below if you have tried shampoo bars! Do you have any favourites? What’s your experience – was it successful or not successful? I would love to hear from you!
