The Top Line:

BUY. We love how HiBAR Maintain Shampoo and Conditioner makes our hair feel. We know that both components of the set are worth their while since we forgot to rinse with vinegar once and our hair was still silky smooth and lovely. The bars are plastic-free, zero-waste, and come in compostable/recyclable packaging. Ingredients are natural and use essential oil for fragrance. As a set, the duo is very affordable and has a flexible subscription model (though it’s not necessary). We are excited to try the other 2 types of hair washes.

Check out our Big Zero Waste Shampoo and Conditioner Bar Review on The Reduce Report.

The Breakdown:

• Cost & Products: $26.50 for the set of two bars. Otherwise, it is $13.95 each for the shampoo and conditioner. We bought ours from the HiBAR website and tried the set in ‘Maintain.’ Subscriptions save an additional 5%.

• Scent: The scent is very light, all made of natural fragrance, i.e., essential oils. Though the oils are largely citrus based, the scent is a bit more powdery (perhaps it’s the shea butter?) combined with citrus. We like low fragrance, so this is right in our wheelhouse.

• How ‘Clean’ Is This? Pretty clean. The conditioner does have a sulfate called BMS which curly haired girls will love since it moisturizes root to tip — and articles out there suggest (1) you need this ingredient, especially when going more natural and (2) not all sulfates are created equal.

  Otherwise, the products are fragranced with essential oils rather than chemically derived fragrances. Like. +Cruelty-free/Vegan, aside from trace amounts of honey in one of the conditioner bars.

• Packaging: Packaging was all compostable and recyclable paper. The ink is plant based!

• Purchasing & Shipping: Pretty straightforward on the HiBAR site - and shipped/arrived really quickly. Shipping is free on orders over $20.

• Note: Also available on Amazon.

  Subscriptions can be applied for a 5% savings, shipping every 30, 45, or 90 days.

• What’s Your Impact? US consumes almost 1 billion bottles of shampoo and conditioners per year. Based on our own experience and scouring the internet forums, we think the number is higher, because these numbers assume 2 bottles of shampoo per person per year.

  One bar of HiBAR shampoo and conditioner is equivalent to about 30 washes (we think it might be more, seeing as we haven’t made a dent yet). Us? We wash our hair every 2-3 days, and we’d be getting rid of at least 5-6 plastic bottles per year.

The Experience

Context: We wash every other day (or longer, if we can get away with it). Bottled shampoo that we used to buy were typically natural/SLS-free.

Hair: Long length, straight-ish hair that is conditioned with every wash. No blow drying (pandemic?).

• We used both the HiBAR shampoo and conditioner (we did not mix and match with other brands).

• We have used it with a vinegar rinse (vinegar diluted with water) and we’ve even accidentally forgotten the vinegar step once!

• When we tell you that our hair was amazing after the wash.. we are not kidding. EVEN when we forgot the vinegar rinse!

• Hair feels great and we did not need any kind of post shower serum for silkier hair.

• Holding the bar is a little strange at first since we are used to hockey puck type disks or standard rectangular bars. We aren’t sure if it helps or hurts.. it’s just different, we guess.

• Scent continues to be gentle and light.

The Cost

We assume you use between 2 to 3 shampoo bottles OR 4 ounces of a solid shampoo or conditioner bar per year. We also assume that each ounce of bars was created equal for our analysis. We compared plastic-free shampoo bars like byHumankind, Chagrin Valley, Public Goods, DuJardin and both Lush Soak and Float Shampoo and Daddy-O Conditioner in addition to traditional drugstore brands like TRESemme and Pantene. Pureology and Olaplex are liquid, SLS-free (and very expensive) options.

Money Report: HiBAR Shampoo and Conditioner bars are priced similarly to drugstore brands. There is a bit of a plastic-free premium.
Two other things we would point out: (1) the shampoo bar is not the cheapest bar shampoo BUT (2) the conditioner bar is the cheapest bar from our reviews. We personally like the set and find value in both products.

The Good:

✔ Makes hair feel fabulous.

✔ Scent is super light and lovely … powdery citrus from natural essential oils.

✔ Pricing isn’t bad for the set — the conditioner is the cheapest solid we’ve reviewed.

✔ Cruelty-free, paraben-free and phtalate-free

✔ No need for a vinegar rinse with this product!

✔ The set is very affordable and gets free shipping

✔ Flexible with subscriptions (30, 45, or 90 days).

The Bad:

✗ Other than the standalone shampoo is not the cheapest… nothing?

✗ Oh yea, one thing: the box smelled a little strange (like play-doh?). But not the shampoo or conditioner bars. Werid.

Our Recommendation:

BUY. We love how HiBAR Shampoo and Conditioner makes our hair feel. We know that both components of the set are worth their while since we forgot to rinse with vinegar once and our hair was still silky smooth and lovely. The bars are plastic-free, zero-waste, and come in compostable/recyclable packaging. Ingredients are natural and use essential oil for fragrance. As a set, the duo is very affordable and has a flexible subscription model (though it’s not necessary). We are excited to try the other 2 types of hair washes.

We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!