Embrace your gray hair with confidence! Discover how to choose and use shampoo bars for gray hair with our eco-friendly guide.
Gray hair, don’t care! Shampoo bars don’t discriminate, and in this guide, we’ll show you how to create the perfect hair care ritual to embrace your silver locks with the best shampoo bar for gray hair.
If you’re wondering if shampoo bars work for gray hair, the answer is a resounding yes. With the right shampoo bar, you can keep any hair type looking fabulous while reducing waste. This guide will spotlight your hair’s specific needs and introduce haircare duos especially designed to keep gray hair looking and feeling its best.
From salt-and-pepper to snowy white, it’s the era to ditch the dye and embrace your hair’s shade of gray. Accelerated by the pandemic - when salon closures meant people, intentionally or not, had to embrace their hair’s natural hues - graying hair has shifted from something to hide to something to show off.
Pop culture has played a huge role in embracing gray hair, with hashtags like #silversisters boasting 500,000 posts on Instagram, and celebrities like Anderson Cooper, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Helen Mirren are proving that gray is anything but dull.
Read also: Thickening Shampoo Analysis
By letting gray hairs live, rather than grabbing the bottled dyes, you’re also making a sustainable choice by reducing plastic bottles of dye from ending up in landfills and minimizing harmful chemical runoff that comes from them. There’s never been a better time to switch to shampoo bars for gray hair for a sustainable and stylish hair care option.
As the demand for shampoo bars continues to grow, so do the options available. Formulas for every hair type are being crafted, and as bars become more popular, it’ll become easier than ever to find a shampoo bar formulated for your specific hair needs.
The Problem: Gray hair tends to be drier and wirier for a couple of reasons. Firstly, as we age, the scalp produces less sebum, the natural oil that keeps hair moisturized, making the hair feel rougher. It can also be due to the lack of melanin, which contributes to strength and moisture retention as well as color.
The Solution: Keeping gray hair smooth and soft requires extra hydration. Look for shampoo bars packed with nourishing ingredients like coconut oil, jojoba oil, and cocoa butter to help lock in moisture.
The Problem: Studies show that as hair loses pigment, it also develops a thinner protective layer (the cuticle), making it more vulnerable to heat and UV damage.
Read also: Is Dr. Organic Shampoo Right for You?
The Solution: Keeping gray hair smooth and soft requires extra hydration. Look for shampoo bars packed with nourishing ingredients like coconut oil, jojoba oil, and cocoa butter to help lock in moisture.
The Problem: Harsh sulfates can strip moisture from your hair, leading to even more dryness.
The Solution: Opt for sulfate-free bars to keep your gray hair hydrated and healthy.
Pairing your shampoo bar with a conditioner bar works great for gray hair! Since gray hair can feel coarse and wirey, pick a conditioner bar loaded with nourishing ingredients. To keep your hair silky and manageable, you can also add a deep-conditioning treatment to your routine once a week.
Viori has been a go-to natural bar shampoo for years and I’ve tried quite a few of the many varietals they offer. I love how raw these bars look and feel and that they’re rice powered! They source organically grown Longsheng Rice from the Red Yao Tribe, let me tell you, RICE is the GOAT of beauty secrets. Viori offers the most variety out of all bar shampoo brands, and I’ve tried five of the whopping 13 they offer: Sweet Musk, Citrus Yao, Terrace Garden, Native Essence and, most recently, Tea Tree Mint. I find that they give an excellent lather and all the scents are heavenly and noticeable but not overpowering. Each one is tailored to a specific hair type, but I find that all of them work for normal hair types. There’s absolutely no residue left over for me! I can confirm that these bars hold up well and do not break apart too easily (as long as you store them properly). Their solid conditioners are so easy to use compared to others and feel super moisturizing!
Read also: DIY Organic Shampoo Recipes
HiBar definitely is the most interestingly shaped bar shampoo out there. I was skeptical at first, but I get why they’re shaped like oblong cylinders. They can sit upright and I can keep a good grip on these bars. Plus, the diagonal surface lets me get into all the nooks and crannies. The downside I found to this is that I can’t cover as much surface area as the other bars I tested. This proved most annoying with the conditioner bar because I have veeery long hair. So probably not the best option for long hair or speedy shower folks. I get a good soapy lather from the shampoo bar but the conditioner bar pales in comparison to other creamier bars. It doesn’t soften easily and I have to put in a lot of work to get it to transfer onto my hair. I do like that HiBar has hair nourishing ingredients like coconut oil, rice protein and fermented date fruit extract and there’s a bar for every hair type. Overall, it does an excellent job at cleansing my hair and leaving it bouncy and healthier looking.
Soo, Kitsch’s bars are let’s say…interesting. The “S” shape of their bar shampoo is fun but not sure how practical it is as it didn’t do anything for me. I find that it’s on the drier side and takes a bit longer than other bars to lather up fully. It gives a decent cleanse but doesn’t feel as nourishing as other rice shampoo bars like Viori’s. Their bar conditioner is the complete opposite though! This is by far the creamiest, softest bar I’ve tried. That can be both good and bad, because it’s sooo easy to get onto my hair, but it also runs out quicker. I also noticed Kitsch has the simplest ingredients list compared to other natural shampoo bars.
I love that The Earthling Co’s bars are pH balanced, all natural, and free of sulfates, parabens, silicones, phthalates, soap, artificial fragrances & dyes. They have seven varietals that differ only by scent - so basically one bar that works for all types including curly and color-treated. Every Earthling bar works to increase volume, reduce breakage, and promote stronger healthier hair without the use of sulfates, drying alcohols, and silicones. I love that it has a good number of certified organic ingredients, which is a sign of high quality, and there are interesting actives high in antioxidants and nutrients like elderberry and marshmallow root. This does a great job at cleansing my scalp and removing oil and buildup. Vanilla lovers can rejoice too, because this is the only shampoo bar brand that has a vanilla scented bar that actually smells good! It’s not super strong, but I can notice it and I find it enjoyable.
Rowe Casa Organics’ bar shampoo is the only one made almost entirely of organic ingredients. Plus, if you’re concerned about residue, I found Rowe Casa’s shampoo bar never leaves me with any residue. The complex blend of essential oils may not be great for people who are sensitive to EO’s, but I love the therapeutic scent from yang yang, cedarwood, rosemary and lavender. It gives a great, rich lather and leaves my hair squeaky clean for days and my scalp feeling super duper refreshed. The only downside is that it’s on the pricier end (even though it is larger than most at 4 oz) and they only have one type of bar. I also love that they come in their own aluminium case to protect them from moisture and water.
I find Odacite’s 552M Shampoo Bar to be great for oily scalps! This leaves my scalp squeaky clean without any residue or buildup and lasts a little longer than the other bars I’ve tried. They’re made in California with natural and organic ingredients just like their skincare line. I find that it lathers super quickly into a creamy, rich luxurious lather. The one thing I didn’t like is that it comes wrapped in plastic, which defeats the purpose of making a truly sustainable “plastic-free” product.
I’ve tried a handful of clean color toning shampoos and Ethique’s is the first solid purple shampoo bar I tested. I find that it’s suuuper concentrated in pigment, which makes it more effective at toning than other bars that are less pigmented. It gives a creamy, soapy lather like all Ethique bars do, and after letting it sit in my hair for 5-10 minutes my brassiness has noticeably faded. Highly highly recommend as an eco-friendly purple shampoo alternative.
I was surprised by how huge Ethique’s clarifying shampoo bar is compared to the conditioner bar. (I found it a bit weird that their solid conditioner is so much smaller!) The shampoo provides the best value compared to other bars and can replace three plastic bottles. Ethique is one of the best sustainable brands out there in my opinion. They’re not just jumping on the solid bar bandwagon because plastic-free bathroom products are trending. Their bar shampoo lathers up very fast and provides my hair with a really good cleanse. Not sure I can detect any scent at all from it though. I was less impressed by their conditioner bar. It feels very similar to HiBar’s conditioner - sorta waxy and crumbly as it transfers. I can still get it onto my hair alright, which is already a plus, but it just doesn’t feel as creamy as some others.
Brixy makes one of the largest vegan and plastic-free bar shampoos on the market and for an affordable price! They have the typical shape of a soap bar while the conditioner bar is a smaller square. I find the shampoo bar cleans my hair super well and lathers very quickly. But Brixy’s conditioner bar pales in comparison to other natural conditioner bars I tested. It has a sorta waxy texture to it and I find it that it doesn’t transfer onto my hair well. This is a bar that would need to put in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes to soften up. My main gripe with these bars is that they contain phenoxyethanol.
One of the few shampoo bars specifically manufactured for gray hair. The Oasis shampoo and conditioner deliver a cocktail of deeply nourishing natural oils, proteins, and botanical extracts to strengthen, smooth, and protect gray and/or aging locks.
Why We Love Them: Formulated with coconut oil, kukui nut oil, jojoba oil, cocoa butter, and more.
If you have mature skin and hair that needs extra moisturizing, you may also enjoy a Simply Shea shampoo bar, Marshmallow and Aloe shampoo bar, or Wheat and Honey Almond shampoo bar.
The essential oils added to some Grey Hair Shampoos are known to help with scalp health and some may darken gray hair over time. However the results from consistent use with these shampoos is a brightening and revitalizing of gray hair (including new growth), not a darken of grey hair. If you specifically want darkening, the essential oils need to be exposed to hair for a longer period of time than with the normal shampooing process.
When shampooing you can create and leave a sudsy lather on your head for longer (30+ minutes) before rinsing out, this allows the essential oils to penetrate deeper for enhanced benefit. For additional help with the darkening of grays in hair, try combining your Grey Hair bar with a scalp massage. Take a few drops of essential oils such as rosemary and clary sage, mix with a carrier oil (2-3 tsp) then massage into dry hair and scalp. This can be left on for an hour, or even overnight before being shampooed out with the Grey Hair Care Shampoo bar. This process gives a more concentrated application of essential oils known to help with the darkening of hair, and a longer period of time to infuse into the hair and scalp.
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