How To Choose A Shampoo Bar?
Reduce your plastic waste without charging for your hair. A shampoo bar works just as well and won’t spend 100 years in the ocean. We are all trying to do our part: carrying a reusable water bottle while traveling, bringing our glass coffee mug to our local cafe, recycling, composting, etc. But, of course, there are many other easy things we can do to reduce our consumption of plastic.
Beauty products, especially shampoos and conditioners, take up a lot of landfills and oceans around the world. It is extremely easy to replace a large plastic pharmacy bottle with an effective, plastic-free small shampoo bar. Solid shampoos are great for travel, most of them contain only natural ingredients and are easy to find online and in local health spaces.
What does pH mean?
The word pH or potentia Hydrogenii (the potential of hydrogen) is used to measure the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution at 25 ° C. It is measured between 1 and 14 in general. The pH scale is logarithmic and inversely indicates the concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution (a lower pH indicates a higher concentration of hydrogen ions).
For example, a pH value of 7 is considered neutral and values less than 7 are considered acidic and greater than 7, which is considered basic or alkaline.
The pH of the scalp and its natural protection
Our scalp is a special skin type, with sebaceous and sweat glands covered with hair. The sebum and sweat secreted by these glands create a protective coat called “protective acid coat”, with an acid pH of about 5.5. This coat acts as a protective layer outside the epidermis and serves as a barrier against bacteria, viruses and other potential contaminants.
It is therefore important to maintain the balance of this protective layer. Many factors can interfere with the delicate balance of this protective acid mantle, such as products that come into direct contact with the scalp, such as solid shampoo.
The interaction of solid shampoo on the scalp and hair
When we wash our hair with a solid shampoo, we also wash our scalp. It is important that the solid shampoo used respects the protective coat of the scalp. How to respect the scalp? It is important to use a solid shampoo with the same pH as our scalp, i.e. a pH below 5.5. As for the hair, it is negatively charged. It is recommended to have an ision point for the hair when washing with a solid shampoo. And this ision point is reached at a pH value of 5.5.
If we want to respect the scalp and hair, it is recommended that the solid shampoo has a pH between 4.5 and 5.5, according to dermatologists and scientific studies. The pH of the solid shampoo may vary slightly depending on the hair treatment and the hair type. For example, it is ideal to have a pH of 4.5 for colored hair and the pH values should be adjusted according to the extent of environmental damage to hair and other conditions.
Here are the 3 recommendations for choosing the best solid shampoo for your hair:
1. Find product’s range
Find the range of products offered by the brand and check if there are different products for different types of hair. Avoid generic solid shampoos. For example, a product for all hair types
2. Consult the ingredients
Consult the list of INCI ingredients. If you identify harmful ingredients from the list of ingredients, it is best to avoid. In addition, if you have a smartphone, you can use these 3 apps to check the ingredients. Yuka , INCI Beauty , What a cosmetic.
3. Check the pH value
Check the pH value of the solid shampoo by looking at the packaging if it is mentioned or on the brand website. If the pH of 5.5 is mentioned somewhere, it’s better. However, we sometimes talk about neutral pH or balanced pH, which can be misleading, because neutral pH sometimes means 7 or 5.5. For example, avoid solid saponified shampoos, which have such a high pH and which will dry out your hair and could cause dandruff.
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Polygonum Shampoo Bar
$14.99$11.99
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Ginger Shampoo Bar
$14.99$11.99
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Bio Seaweed Shampoo Bar
$14.99$11.99
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Bamboo Charcoal Shampoo Bar
$13.99
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Discussion
So far, there are no rules for mentioning the pH value of the cosmetic product, so it is not easy for the consumer to verify it. We sometimes think that products containing natural ingredients are always good, but after reading this blog, you would have noticed that natural ingredients are not enough.
Regarding liquid shampoos, many products in Brazil and India have a pH greater than 5.5 according to Gavazzoni Dias, de Almeida, Cecato, Adriano, & Pichler, 2014 and Tarun, Susan, Suria, Susan, & Criton , 2014 .
Conclusion
PURC offers professional solid shampoos with a high precision formulation for each type of hair. We do not believe in offering a single shampoo bar for all hair types. We consider that there are different types of hair that we must carefully formulate for each hair type with precision. And therefore, we have specific individual products such as solid shampoo dandruff , the solid shampoo for colored hair , the solid shampoo for curly hair , the solid shampoo for oily hair , etc.
Our solid shampoo recipe is inspired by Organic Chinese plants and our production method is very precise, carried out in a solid homemade shampoo and handmade.