The Top Line:

It depends: if you don’t mind squeaky hair or want a bit of texture AND you already have a Public Goods membership, then BUY the Public Goods Shampoo bar. Perks: Zero waste, natural ingredients, extremely affordable and spa-like unisex scent.

Using Public Goods Shampoo bar was similar to our experience with byHumankind: a little too ‘squeaky clean’ and/or a ‘waxy’-like. This was not enough to get us to switch from our current favorite, DuJardin’s shampoo bar.

Read Our Big Zero Waste Shampoo and Conditioner Roundup.

Note: we did a Public Goods Roundup Review here!

The Breakdown:

• Cost & Products: $5.50 for a 3.25oz bar on Public Goods

• How ‘Clean’ Is This? As clean as it gets … no plastic and made of 100% natural ingredients and uses RSPO certified palm oil.

• Packaging: Recyclable paper — and honestly, this could be reduced too.

• Purchasing & Shipping: The website is cleanly designed and ordering is a straightforward. The free shipping threshold seems a little on the high side at a minimum of $45. We get it though. Limited shipments = Lower carbon emissions.

• Coupons: $10 off your first order with ‘BLOG10’ and membership is free for your first two weeks.

• Good to Know: Their blog is pretty honest and sometimes very helpfl. This post discusses how to use a shampoo bar properly.

• What’s Your Impact? US consumes over 550 million bottles of shampoo per year. Just shampoo! But based on our own experience and scouring the internet forums, we think the number is higher than just 2 bottles of shampoo per year.

  One bar of shampoo is equivalent to two to three plastic shampoo bottles. So that’s how much plastic each person removes by switching just shampoo.

The Experience

Context: We wash every other day (or longer, if we can get away with it). Shampoos on the shelf are natural/SLS-free. Long length hair that is straight-ish that is conditioned with every wash. Used both liquid conditioner to isolate the effects of bar shampoo and also with the bar for the whole plastic-free experience.

• We loved the herbal scent.

• Solid shampoos have to be rinsed with an acidic rinse (vinegar or lemon juice diluted in water).

• Using Public Goods Shampoo bar was similar to our experience with byHumankind: a little too ‘squeaky clean’ and/or a ‘waxy’-like.

• We used it both with and without a homemade rinse and even though the rinse helps a lot, we don’t like the textured effect for our air-dried hair

• The acidic rinses change the smoothness of the hair shafts (kind of amazing), but not enough to get us to switch from DuJardin’s shampoo bar.

The Cost

We assume you use between 2 to 3 shampoo bottles OR 4 ounces of a solid shampoo bar per year. We also assume that each ounce of bar shampoo was created equal. We compared shampoo bars like buHumankind, Lush, Chagrin Valley, and DuJardin (our favorite) in addition to traditional drugstore brands like TRESemme and Pantene. Pureology is a liquid, SLS-free (and very expensive) option.

Money Report: Shampoo bars are an affordable option when switching to green - even when compared to drugstore brands. Public Goods Shampoo bars are no exception.

The Good:

✔ No chemicals, SLS-free shampoo bar

✔ Really lovely unisex herbal scent (lavender and rosemary)

✔ Zero waste, no plastic whatsoever

✔ Very affordable to switch to green

The Bad:

✗ The ‘squeaky clean,’ somewhat waxy feeling when we air dry is annoying to us

Our Recommendation:

It depends: if you don’t mind squeaky hair or want a bit of texture AND you already have a Public Goods membership, then BUY the Public Goods Shampoo bar. Perks: Zero waste, natural ingredients, extremely affordable and spa-like unisex scent. Using Public Goods Shampoo bar was similar to our experience with byHumankind: a little too ‘squeaky clean’ and/or a ‘waxy’-like. This was not enough to get us to switch from our current favorite, DuJardin’s shampoo bar.

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!