Sunday, July 18, 2010

Plastic Reduction: Emz Blendz Shampoo Moons


I've posted about our increased efforts to reduce plastic use, inspired by our viewing of the movie Bag It!. One of the changes under consideration was switching from shampoo in plastic bottles to shampoo in the form of shampoo bars. But I never quite got around to sending off for any shampoo bars.

Himself pointed out that we have a fine independent soap purveyor, Emz Blendz, a fifteen-minute walk away. We went in, and indeed there were shampoo bars - referred to as "shampoo moons", because they're formed in a nice faintly irregular ball shape. And they're wrapped in paper. I bought one Mandarin Mint and one Tree Hugger shampoo moon, and started using the Mandarin Mint.

I can't tell you how Tree Hugger is, because what seems like dozens of shampoos later, Mandarin Mint is not appreciably smaller than it was when I bought it. And, yes, it's working - five or six swipes on my long hair are enough for a head full of soapy bubbles. The writeup in the store states that conditioner is "optional" and, yep, I don't have that "oh, no, I forgot to use conditioner" experience when I brush my hair out afterward.

The scent of Mandarin Mint is a nice, clean, quiet almost-edible mint, like the best versions of those little soft mints that they used to offer at restaurants. Comparing it against actual mint plants, it makes me think more of Corsican mint than peppermint or spearmint, though it doesn't seem like a dead ringer for any of them. (Maybe that's the mandarin, shifting the mint spectrum a little?)

So the shampoo bar experiment is a success, and I'd definitely recommend the Emz Blendz version.

Image: By Immanuel Giel. Wikimedia Commons.

4 comments:

  1. I've never heard of shampoo bars. That's actually a really cool idea.

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  2. Yeah! Even though I wanted to try them, I had some vague notion that they wouldn't work. But they work great.

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  3. Shampoo bars? Have you been drinking?

    It sounds good, but I'm not sure. That said, I don't really care what I use to wash my hair, as long as it's quick!

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  4. Hey, TIG! They work, really they work! And no bottles to squeeze the last drops out of.

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