In an effort to move toward being Green, my husband and I tried out some new hygiene products that are made of natural elements and utilize little packaging and, in some cases, made with Living Green in mind. My attention turned toward LUSHproducts because I already have LUSHLOVE. Their bathbombs and bath melts have turned my knees weak and my skin supple. I figured their products, particularly the Green products would be a great way for us to go. Handmade bath products can go either toward “Awesome” or toward “Very Bad Idea” but since I’m already very familiar with LUSH products, I felt pretty good about trying out there body cleaning products.

First let’s talk about going Green in the bathroom. If you already own products, it’s counter productive to throw them out in favor of buying handmade, all natural, dye-less or scent-less items. If you’ve already bought them, use them up. That’s what Going Green is all about anyway! Putting everything to use. So use up your products first. Then when it’s time to replace those items, you can go with their Greener brothers.

The first bar soap I bought was a scent called Alkmaar. It’s kind of grey and smells clean but a little too herbally. I smell like a hippie store, which, for all my Green talk, I actually don’t like at all. But it’s a good soap. The down side is that it is disappearing fast considering how much I paid for it. It was  $7.95, and my entire order was $9 shipping, which makes it the most expensive soap I have ever purchased. I knew when I bought it that the soap would be impractical for constant use, but I wanted to know if there was a big difference between natural handmade soap and the commercial soap we’d been buying. The truth? The handmade soap was smellier, but otherwise I saw no real difference except that in a week the handmade soap has dissolved by half, and that’s with us taking it out of the shower after every use. Considering that the shipping packaging, the fuel used in shipping, and the amount of time the bar lasts, this is not a Greener choice.

The shampoo I bought was called Ultimate Shine and it is a bar shampoo. A bar shampoo? This concept dazzled me. The website claims that a solid shampoo is better because it requires no preservatives and no packaging and lasts a very long time. They also point out that the bar can be used as a body soap and a laundry soap (though I suspect it would take too much of it as a laundry soap to be Green). For $9.25, I got 1.9 ounces of yummy smelly bar shampoo that was nothing like I thought it would be. It claims to be floral smelling, but that’s not what I got from it. I got a very clean, slightly bright and kind of citrusy smell from it. I loved it! The scent is very fresh. After scrubbing it on my head and lathering it up I was surprised at how much it did lather. After rinsing, I was alarmed that my hair felt kind of dry all of the sudden, but it did feel a lot more clean than it usually does. If I didn’t use a conditioner though, I’d have been pretty freaked out, I think.

Which is why I was happy that I bought a LUSH conditioner called Veganese. Lavender and lemon, holy crap. It smelled lovely and girly and even now, three hours later, my hair still has a bit of a girly scent to it. That never happens with typical shampoo/conditioners. I never sniff my hair throughout the day. This conditioner is totally Vegan, if that’s something that’s important to you (it’s not for me) but it had so many good reviews I couldn’t say no. I really love this! While Ultimate Shine made my hair shiney and clean, Veganese made it soft and silky. I love my hair right now, I’ve been asking everyone in my office to “have a sniff.”

Because the shampoo and conditioner lasts longer, they end up being a much better choice than the soap. Both products contain mostly (or all) natural/organic elements and I’m excited by the notion that it is handmade. No big plant is getting my money. And since I spend about $20 on a shampoo and conditioner each typically, I didn’t overspend to buy these.

While I’m still goingto have to hunt for a better soap, the shampoo and conditioner get my stamp of approval and even better? If you have a LUSH store in your area, you won’t have the burden of packaging and shipping costs (and fuel use) that those of us with no store have to shoulder in order to get these products.

What are your favorite Green bathroom products? 

p.s. Thank you WordPress for bringing spell check back. I was starting to panic on the inside.