The Vine: May 14, 2007 #3
Dear Sars,
This might be a question for the readers! I’ve been thinking for a while about switching to organic shower products, specifically (for the moment) shampoo, conditioner and shower gel/soap. I’ve been googling it and reading articles and so on — but the articles don’t seem to mention which products are best I’ve found some suppliers online, but as far as I know, none of the products are sold in my town so I can’t check them out beforehand, and a lot of them are kind of expensive ( £30 for shampoo?!) which makes me wince in case they’re terrible. I was wondering if you or anybody had any suggestions.
My skin can be sensitive and highly perfumed things give me a headache but any recommendations at all would be fantastic. Even better would be if anyone knows of somewhere in Birmingham (or the West Midlands) that sells these things. Again, I’ve tried Googling but I don’t think I have the Google-touch anymore.
Thanks in advance!
Anna
Dear Anna,
I won’t be much help here, since I tend to use whatever 1) I get in my Christmas stocking, followed by 2) whatever’s on sale at the Body Shop, but actually, the Body Shop might not be a bad place to start. I don’t know for sure that they do offer organic products, but it does seem like the type of place that would.
Let’s see what the readers have to say.
Tags: Ask The Readers retail
http://www.lush.co.uk/
All organic & cheaper for you in UK than us in US!
I love Carol’s Daughter products – they’re the only hair care products I use. The haircare products are formulated for women of color, which may or may not work for this request, but all their products (face, body, pregnant belly, feet) are green; you’ll find ingredients like lavender, rosemary, and sea moss. The website is carolsdaughter.com, and you can also get their stuff at Sephora.
Himalayas Herbals, their stuff is non animal tested, possibly organic, very gentle on the skin and not overly perfumed. They have a website for the US where you can buy their stuff online, it’s worth checking out. http://www.himalayausa.com/
Re: shampooing, I’ve been off traditional shampoos for almost 4 months now. The two ingredients to avoid are SLS (sodium laureth sulfate) and silicone additives. Some people use the “no-poo” method with baking soda and apple cider vinegar, but I’ve been using liquid castille soap (Dr Bronner’s is the well-known brand) to wash my babyfine, straight, thin hair. My hair looks thicker than it ever has, and it smells nice too (the one I use is peppermint).
As far as soap, I like Kiss My Face olive oil soap, which is organic and can be found in any health food/Whole Foods type store.
I was just going to recommend Lush! Even though it’s pricier in the US, I don’t even care. Their chocolate “Heavenly Bodies” buttercream soap is completely awesome.
I was just about to recommend Lush as well—with the caveat that I don’t believe they claim to be 100% organic. Fresh, handmade, mad crunchy: yes; organic: no. Only some of their products, for example, have zero preservatives (in the US you have to go to their stores to buy those because shipping long distance would spoil them).
Still. I’m not talking you out of it, ’cause Lush makes goooood stuff. Just wanted you to be aware, some people get all holy-war on what constitutes “organic” or does not. If you can go to a Lush store instead of the website, their staff are always knowledgeable & friendly and can help you find stuff that matches your specific parameters.
Kiss My Face is great. Burt’s Bees is also wonderful, and tends to not be overly perfumed; my super-sensitive skin likes most of the Burt’s stuff. I don’t know how easy it is to get in the UK, though.
As a more general rec, look for oatmeal products to help soothe your skin, especially at the height of a) allergy season or b) dead-dry winter. Or you can fill a sock with oatmeal and steep it in the tub if you’re itchy.
Burt’s Bees products are very natural – most are 98% – 100% natural and very delicate. They also don’t test on animals. I use their shampoo and conditioner, and while the conditioner won’t be great if you have super dry hair, it is great if you just need mild conditioning.
I like Korres. It’s a Greek brand you can get at Sephora and Bath and Body Works Flagship stores.
Modern Organinc Products (MOP) pear baby shampoo and leave-in conditioner.
About 2 years ago my scalp went completely insane out of nowhere, and I had to stop using all my regular products and switch to natural. Some that I’ve had really good luck with, and aren’t very expensive, are:
Jason
http://www.jason-natural.com/
EO
http://www.eoproducts.com/
Aubrey Organics
http://www.aubrey-organics.com/
I must second the love for Dr. Bronners. Castile soap is one of the most pure soaps out there and works for hair, face and body. (I made my own baby wipes with it!) They have an unscented aloe formula and also Lavender, Tea Tree and Almond. I like to get the unscented and add my own oils.
Oh, and Dr. Bronner’s is now Fair Trade certified as well as organic.
I use Avalon Organics shampoo and conditioner, which I get at my local grocery co-op. The requestor might also check out her local farmer’s market (or equivalent) – a locally made organic product is devoutly to be wished in my book. Locally made soaps, at least, are generally pretty easy to come by.
LUSH! Definitely. I use lip balm, face wash, toner, moisturizer and soap, and my boyfriend uses thir solid shampoo. I’ve also used the face masks which are awesome, and have tested several yummy scrubs, lotions and other things. Fantastic!
Kiss My Face is another good one, if you find LUSH too steep, but… by far, the latter has the better products.
As someone who has a sensitivity to fragranced products I would nix both Lush and The Body Shop. Both of them use artificial fragrances and dyes and will give you a monster headache if you are sensitive to fragrances. I made the mistake of buying a body scrub from the Body Shop at Christmas (I used to love their stuff and sometimes forget why I don’t buy it). I had a headache for three days and I can’t even walk into a Lush store because of the fragrance. I’m not saying their products aren’t good, only that they are not appropriate for anyone with a sensitivity to fragrances.
I’ve been using fragrance-free/organic products for ages. The ones that work best for me (and my budget) are the Pure & Natural line by Carina (carinaorganics.com)–affordable, effective, not 100% organic but good enough for me. Some of their lines are available in the UK, but I don’t know about this one.
I’ve also used Aubrey Organics, which are good but pricey and can go off. I’ve used Druid shampoo but found it to be awful for my hair (fine and long). I didn’t have much luck with Castille soap, but I live in an area that has really, really hard water which affects how well shampoo works.
I generally avoid Jason and Kiss My Face products because they tend to be rather strongly scented and contain some ingredients that I prefer to avoid. Your mileage will vary depending on how severe your sensitivity is and what ingredients you’re willing to use.
Goddessgarden.com is an organic bath and body company in the states. I use their sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner and my hair has never looked better! They also have an amazing skin care line used in spas, massage oils, and sunscreen. They have four different fragrance lines – fire, sky, earth, and sacred, which is my favorite. Delicious!
Dr. Bronners Castille mint soap (the bottles of DrB’s products also double nicely as bathroom reading material).
And ANYTHING that KissMyFace makes, I love. I don’t find their scents objectionable at all, and I have a very fussy nose.
I’d suggest Kiss My Face (www.kissmyface.com). I use a lot of their products and love them. I’m on the West Coat and have found their products in GNC, Hi-Health, and some local grocery stores. Good luck!
The Duchy collection stuff at Waitrose is organic and fairly cheap (about a fiver) but none of it is unscented, I don’t think.
I’ll second the recommendation for Modern Organic Products. I’ve used several of their shampoos and a conditioning treatment, all with good results. In the UK, try http://www.mophair.com
If you just get a headache from highly perfumed things but are not allergic, I’d still say to give Lush a try. For a lot of people (including me) it’s *artificial* scents that really bug you, and since Lush uses natural perfumes, I like their products. They have ingredient lists on their website to help you decide. I love the solid shampoo bars!
If you’re going the LUSH route in terms of bath products, I’d suggest going for the ones designed specifically for sensitive skin – Dream Cream (lotion), Dreamwash (bath/shower gel), Dream On (bath bomb), In the Nude (bath melt), and Fresh Farmacy (soap – supposedly for the face, but I think you can use that all over if you want). These products aren’t too scented and they have all the good-for-you stuff you might need.
Dr. Bronner’s liquid soaps are available at drbronners.com – and jbp isn’t kidding about the reading material. Their bottle blurbs are really funny. I haven’t used the soaps in my hair, but it’s purported you can do anything with this stuff, including laundry and household cleaning.
The Environmental Working Group has a pretty useful database of products and ingredients, and tells you which ingredients to be wary of:
http://www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep2/?key=nosign
I’ve been making soap for about five years now ( http://www.bluedragonbeauty.com ) and can tell you that all natural, preservative free shampoos, gels and other liquid products are a little problematical to make. Lotions and conditioners can be especially hard to stabilize as bacteria go nuts over the combination of oil, vitamins and water. (This is why Lush only sells many of their masks at local retail shops.)
If you want to go all natural stick to bar soaps or liquid Castille soaps like Dr. Bronners.
Depending on your hair type, a good bar soap can work well, you may need a final rinse of one part vinegar to 4 parts water to remove any lingering residue. Steep dried lavender or rosemary (best for dark hair) or chamomile (for light hair) in the vinegar mixture to sweeten the fragrance and improve hair tone and color.
I use Magick Botanicals and Pure Essentials shampoo/conditioner. Both are fragrance free.
Nature’s Gate shampoos are among the few that don’t make my head itch. Avalon Organics are very good products as well. I find Lush so strongly scented – whether natural oils or not – that I can’t use them.
Have to second the Burt’s Bees recommendation.
Also, for shampoo specifically, Giovanni Tea Tree Triple Treat is my personal favorite. It has a nice, light scent, and it makes your scalp tingle subtly. It’ll really wake you up too.
For shampoo/conditioner, I would recommend MOP – a pricey brand but you use just the tiniest amount so, although you have a layout a lot upfront, they last for ages so work out quite reasonable.
For showering, L’Occitaine have an organic range, and Liz Earle might be worth a go.
I came across Soap in the Slope products by accident at a festival in Baltimore and have been using them since. I have extremely sensitive skin; prone to flipping out and getting extremely dry, so it still amazes me that I can use a bar soap that actually moisturizes and isn’t made of 50 weird chemicals. Anyway. Their products are inexpensive, they smell awesome, and the ladies that run the site are super-nice and attentive.
Whole Foods has an entire aisle devoted to organic bath/beauty products. I’ve used their in-store brand (I think it’s called 360) for shampoo and conditioner, and it had a very mild citrus scent. It’s also really cheap for an organic shampoo; around $2 a bottle I think.
They’re opening a Whole Foods in Kensington this summer, and the company appears to run stores called Fresh & Wild in other areas. Check it out at http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/UK/index.html.
Good luck!
Just popping in to say two things:
1. Love Lush. I use Big shampoo, and it’s great, but heavily scented. I like it though, and it leaves a nice lingering fragrance. But, again, probably not so good for the fragrance sensitive.
2. Big fan of Dr. B’s soaps, but be ye warned: using it to wash hair is NOT recommended (says so even on the bottle.) If you have oily or very curly hair, you can sometimes get away with it, but I am shocked beyond belief at the person with thin, straight hair who says it worked for her. YMMV, of course, but the stuff turned my very healthy, straight blonde hair into a sticky, tangly, stripped mess. Works great on bodies, though. Although, my fiance hates the peppermint… makes his bits go all cold.
I’ve been doing the “no-poo” thing that Catherine mentioned (4th comment) for almost six months now. Almost every shampoo I tried used to cause painful breakouts on my scalp.
I wash with a couple tablespoons of baking soda (I don’t measure, just dump it in a plastic cup) mixed with water to make a paste or thick liquid. I comb it through and leave it on while I wash the rest of me, then rinse it out and follow with an apple cider vinegar rinse to restore the pH and prevent static. Just a little splash of vinegar mixed with lots of water works best for me – too much and my hair goes limp.
Sometimes I mix both the baking soda and the vinegar with chamomile, peppermint or rosemary tea instead of water. If my hair’s feeling really oily, dissolving a couple aspirin tablets along with the baking soda helps. A bonus is that all these ingredients are much cheaper and easier to find than SLS-free specialty products.
I also recommend Dr. Bronner’s – I like the fragrance-free liquid baby soap; it doesn’t seem as drying as the other varieties. The peppermint can be harsh on sensitive areas, and the almond irritates my skin as well.
I went to a lecture last summer about the environmental impact of personal care products, and got this very useful link:
http://www.cosmeticdatabase.com/index.php
You can look up different products and see whether they’re considered environmentally friendly. The site is pretty strict about what’s good, but the general point is, you can see if something’s better than what you have now, and whether it’s likely to irritate skin, or has fake fragrance in it, etc. I found it really useful when looking for shampoos/conditioners with no cocomidopropyl betaine in them (it irritates my skin).
I have super sensitive skin and I just discovered this amazing line by Lavera (German, I think) which is available in the States but also in the UK. It’s designed for sensitive skin and all of the products are paraben-free, organic, and most are vegan. I first found it at Whole Foods, but they have a much wider selection on their site (in Britain, http://www.lavera.co.uk/) with different lines for skin with varying degrees of sensitivity.
I think Original Source is organic [the website suggests as much], and I’ve read very good things about it in ethical shopping guides. It’s cheap, available widely here and they make pretty much everything you could want. Some of it is perfumed, but they tend to do some ‘milder’ options as well. I have sensitive skin, though, and I’ve never had a bad reaction from anything they make.
I second Lillian’s suggestion of Giovanni’s Tea Tree Triple Treat Shampoo ( http://www.giovannicosmetics.com/WLine/PROD_teatreeshampoo.php ). It does have some fragrance to it, but it’s mild to me, anyway. Giovanni also has some other less scented shampoos and conditioners.
I also have to chime in with everyone who has recommended LUSH products. My skin and hair have never been better since I switched over to them.
Ho. Lee. Crap. I just checked out the cosmetic database link above and it’s horrifying. I’ve been paying wayyyy too much for the much touted La Mer face cream, and every single danger box is checked, from cancer-causing ingredients to reproductive toxicity. Now I’m running through the rest of my standard product list and it’s really surprising. The Body Shop as a brand, by the way, has every single danger box checked as well – Lush (as a company) doesn’t have a single check mark. What a terrific resource – I’m not buying another product without checking this out first – thanks!!
I’ve found this website to be very useful for finding all kinds of organic beauty products: http://www.theremustbeabetterway.co.uk/
There is a website called makeupalley.com where one can check out user reviews for just about anything cosmetics-related, including hair care products. If I’m up in the air about a product, I usually go there. The reviews are sometimes very helpful.
I use baking soda and apple cider vinegar to wash my hair most of the time, then a fancypants expensive shampoo and hair mask once every two weeks. The shampoo and hair mask I use are not organic, but since I use so much less of it (a bottle of each lasts me up to 9 months) I don’t feel too terrible about it.
http://www.drugstore.com
has a special natural beauty products section which includes reviews by other customers, details on what percent organic everything is, etc. Plus you get credits there for free shipping, and you can shop from former lists. My favorites for shampoo/conditioner are Avalon organics and kiss my face.
I highly recommend the solid shampoos at Prairieland Herbs: http://www.prairielandherbs.com They’re located in the US, but they do ship internationally. Check the FAQ for details.
I don’t believe they’re organic, but their products are entirely natural – they provide ingredient lists for everything. It’s all simple stuff that’s very good for your skin and hair. My hair is great since I’ve started using their shampoos. I don’t even need to condition anymore, since they don’t contain any of the stripping ingredients that commercial shampoos use. Also, most of their products are scented with essential oils only, and the stuff that uses fragrance oil is clearly marked. I don’t know how strong your sensitivity is, but the scent for the stuff I’ve used has been distinct but gentle; you have to get your nose near them to smell them, rather than smelling them a mile off.
If you use solid shampoos, you do want to do a vinegar rinse. I tried to get away without it, but it didn’t work. Don’t let them fool you into buying their expensive rinses, though, since you can just get a bottle of vinegar and mix your own up in an old bottle right in the shower. And you won’t go around smelling like vinegar, either. The smell (which, since the vinegar is so diluted, isn’t that strong to begin with) fades as your hair dries.
I don’t use their soap, though, since I’d already gotten hooked on Villainess: http://www.villainess.net They use fragrance oils, and the soaps can smell strongly at first, but again, nothing that’s crazy in-your-face strong. Showering with them, I have to sniff the soap or the lather directly to really get a good strong whiff. Like PLH, they’re not organic but are natural, and list the ingredients. The difference in my skin was noticeable when I switched to Villainess. Commercial soap dries me out, but Villainess makes my skin softer.
I second Carol’s Daughter products, Mostly all I use these days.
When I get stressed out I get severe seborrheic dermatitis on my scalp – to the point of bleeding. The ONLY thing I have found to do the trick is Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap. And I have gone through everything on the market. Yes, as a reader posted above, it WILL dry out fine hair, but if you can find a nice organic rinse to follow, it works well. I have also found it to be especially helpful in removing excess hair product (I was in the Drama Club in college). Good luck!