Lush Shampoo Bar New Hair > Reviews (11)

I rarely spend very much money on beauty products or cosmetics as they don’t especially float my boat, and the only time I set foot in Lush is to pick up stocking fillers at Christmas. However, a friend who was going away recently passed some cosmetics and toiletries on to me that she couldn’t take with her and among them were no less than four of these shampoo bars! (By the way, my friend isn’t going to prison…I just realised that’s what it sounded like!)

When I first went to use it I realised I had literally no clue what to do, but after a quick google search I garnered some tips! I know that it’s a bit much to actually explain to someone how to wash their hair, so I’ll keep this brief – I’ve found that the best way to use this is to hold it under the shower stream for just a second, then drag it in straight lines of a few inches from the roots of your hair on your forehead, backwards towards the ends. I have long hair (to the middle of my back), but it’s quite thin, so about six or seven rubs of the bar is plenty.

I have seen quite a lot of people recommending that you should use a zigzag motion to get a decent foam, but all this does for me is tangles up my hair, and straight lines are more than adequate.

The bar foams up tons more than I would have expected, and I get a really thick, rich lather. It spreads through my hair very easily, within just a few seconds. I honestly think it does a better job of foaming than any liquid shampoo I’ve ever used.

The smell isn’t honestly my favourite. I can smell rosemary and cinnamon, and it’s all a bit warm and spicy for my liking – I tend to prefer fruity or light scents when it comes to hair products. However, the scent doesn’t really stick around on my hair so it doesn’t bother me at all.

When I rinse my hair, it fells really squeaky clean, and I’m definitely confident that it is getting a good wash. There’s no sense that any residue or anything is being left behind which is great. I have quite oily hair, and this doesn’t really make a difference, but then nothing ever has so I’m not penalising it for that! I usually follow with a conditioner, but as it happened I reviewed mine the other day and left it in the living room, so I have used it once without conditioner! To be frank I was perfectly happy with my hair on that day, and it made me wonder whether I should cut back and not use conditioner so often – and I’ve never thought that before! I was really impressed, my hair wasn’t static or flyaway at all and it didn’t tangle any more easily either.

One downside to this product is that it just comes in a paper bag with no ingredients, allergen information, instructions or anything. I realise that this is good for the environment, though, and if you buy the product yourself in the shop then you can get all that information there. It’s all on the website too. So it’s not a big disadvantage, more of a minor inconvenience. A bigger thing that irritates me is that it has stained the edge of my bath! I just left it on the side of the bath when not using it, and I noticed it was leaving pink rings of foam and product on the bath, so I decided to put it in a soap dish as it looked a bit messy.

When I moved it though and went to clean the pink rings, they had left stains on the bath. For me this is extremely irritating, as I never dreamed it would do that – I thought it would just be like soap!

Another inconvenience is that if you get it wet between uses, it won’t last as long as parts will sort of disintegrate and come away. Really for convenience I do want to keep this next to the shower, but it’s obviously going to get a bit splashed.

In other ways, though, this is more convenient than a liquid shampoo. It’s very compact and you wont have to worry about leaks, so it’s perfect for taking away on short breaks or to the swimming baths or to the gym. There’s no fiddling about with a bottle cap in the shower, and you won’t have to worry about spilling any.

At £5 for one bar, this isn’t the cheapest. I tend to buy whatever’s on offer, and usually spend around £1.50 to £2 on a bottle of shampoo. I use this every other day, and I’ve been using it for about four weeks. I’ve still got over half of it left, so I think this will last a bit longer than a bottle of shampoo usually will. That probably puts it on a par with full price shampoo when it comes to value for money.

So to conclude, I still haven’t decided how many stars to give it! If it hadn’t stained my bath, I might have been tempted to give it five because I’m so happy with how it works and how long it’s lasting. But, it did stain my bath, and it’s also a bit expensive for me (I’m a cheapskate), so I’m giving it four well deserved stars.