Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve - Extra Honey Beer Shampoo Bar

My first product review...actually Mr T's experience. I am still noting it here.

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered the Extra Honey Beer Shampoo bar from Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve among other samples. I ordered this for dry hair, my kind of hair, to help infuse it with some moisture. The ingredients sounded great:

Organic Coconut Oil; Organic Jojoba Oil; Organic Avocado Oil; Organic Sustainable Palm Oil; Water; Organic Castor Oil; Sodium Hydroxide*; Beer; Organic Cocoa Butter; Organic Canola Oil; Organic Honey; Organic Mango Butter; Organic Rosemary Oil Extract

And the product is defined as:

A moisturizing natural shampoo made with nutrient rich honey that nourishes and revitalizes hair. A natural humectant and emollient, honey is a great moisturizer and conditioner that imparts a lustrous shine to dull, dry hair. Its antibacterial and antifungal properties help soothe scalp irritations and may help thinning hair. The vitamin B complex and natural sugars in beer add body and shine to hair.

As mentioned earlier, Mr T's been experiencing some flaking for a while actually. More than an year now. His hair is medium brown with a slight wave. He likes to keep it short, low maintenance he says.

He had been using Dr Bronner's peppermint liquid shampoo and I suspected that it may not be the best product for his hair. So I suggested that he try this bar. He being a beer lover was quite enthusiastic. No, he did not expect it to smell like beer :) Just the idea of a shampoo bar being made of beer was quite interesting. 

The shampoo bar smells herbal. Actually to me, all the samples I had ordered smell herbal. No distinct smell otherwise. I have read that some of them have a more distinct smell once warmed up in the shower. I am yet to notice that. I shall the next time I use it.

He has been using it for a couple of weeks now. And would you believe it! His flakes have disappeared! Magic! His hair looks shiny, not as flat any more. We see some volume in it and the disappearance of those flakes has made him a happy customer :) So yay to that! He has decided to use it until the sample bar is mostly done and is more than likely to reorder the full size bar for regular use.

I am yet to try this bar. I actually did try it once but I had not washed out the previous day's shampoo out right, so I decided to wash my hair two days in a row. My dry hair was not very happy. It did not tangle or go crazy but I could feel the dryness. It could be because I washed my hair two days in a row. So, I shall give it another try and then give my verdict. But for now, we have one happy user of this amazing bar.

The first adventure - Dr Bronners

Three years ago, my husband and I decided to give shampoo bars a shot. My husband, Mr. T, went online, looked around and suggested Dr Bronners liquid soap. That it is all natural, no SLS, oil based soap looked like a very good starting point.

So the first time, I do my typical thing. I oil my dry hair, quite heavily, let it soak in before I shampoo my hair. I was genuinely surprised to see it so runny but lather quite well. I use it twice in one shower, that's how I usually shampoo and rinse it off well. It felt like all the oil had not washed away, but decided to let it dry before I gave the verdict. Well, after my hair did air dry, it looked like a greasy mess! Like I had not washed my hair at all! Like all the oil I had massaged it somehow managed to stay in my hair and with water on top of it, looked gross! :(

I was disappointed, honestly. Being a soapnuts gal for a long time, it was not my first oil-still-in-my-hair-after-washing moment. So, I decide to wash another time with the same Dr Bronners liquid soap, we used the peppermint back then. It was summer of 2011. Warm days called for peppermint, we thought. Anyways, the second time around was no better. It was still oily. Not just the scalp but along the strands all the way down my back. Arghh! I just did not like it. The worst thing was, every time I ran my hands along my hair, I felt more than a couple of strands coming out. And that did not stop all day along. Stressful!

Mr T, after seeing me so upset and hearing to my complaints, found this link: http://lisa.drbronner.com/?p=256 and we promptly ordered the rinse and the leave in conditioner. I persisted on with the liquid shampoo in the meanwhile. Looking like a greasy head at work :( Not my favorite moment.

Once we received the rinse, I tried it. Followed the instructions to the T. When I ran it along my hair and used my fingers to work it in, I pulled out quite a few strands! It helped with the greasy head situation a little but not a great deal. The leave in conditioner felt good for a second but very quickly looked greasy. I had to tweak the amounts and let my hair get used to it, I thought. And kept at it for another couple of weeks. I could not handle the dirty scalp for long. So I went back to my Giovanni tea tree shampoo and felt happier than ever! Some people opined that the shampoo bars were better than the liquid shampoo but I could not muster the courage to go through it all again. And decided to stick with semi-SLS and almost-no-SLS shampoos. Same old story, first couple of washes, find it great! Then it either would dry out my hair like crazy or weight it down by day 2. And the search continued without much practical application.

Looking back, I may have quit while my hair was yet to adjust to the new routine and turn into that movie star like tresses. But I freaked out, no other reason. I was struggling with hair loss and crazier looking hair freaked me out. That's all.

After much thought, time and browsing the net, I came across various blogs that discussed what would happen when switching to a more natural hair care routine. Some links: http://www.overthrowmartha.com/2014/03/shampoo-bars-are-they-better.html, a product website http://www.chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com/idascorner/shampoo-hair/success-with-shampoo-bars/my-hair-is-having-trouble-adjusting-to-the-shampoo-bars and many others google would come up with. So I decided to take the advice and give it a more earnest shot.

And oh, Mr T stuck with Dr Bronners and discovers more uses for the liquid every now and then. But he has had a persistent flaky scalp. After much prodding, he has agreed to try some other products.

The diary begins here

So, as the title suggests, this blog is about the trials I conduct and failures I encounter along the way to finding the perfect hair cleaning method for me. I worry about my hair. More than an average person does, I guess. I do quite some research, not that I put most of it into practice. I usually go back to what my mom suggests, using more easily available at home items to be used on my hair.

I decided to chronicle my journey, I am yet to find the HG method. These chronicles are likely to help me in deciding what has worked for me or helped me with a particular problem at any stage or why a product did not work for me. So I do not repeat the same mistake twice! And for anyone out there, who is interested, I hope it is an interesting read at least and maybe informative too! :) I would like to find a method or a product that cleanses the scalp well without over drying my dry hair and helps in retaining some moisture without causing excessive hair fall. Ah, one could always wish, can't one?

A little background about my hair,  being an Indian, I have typical very dark brown to black hair, fairly thick and unfortunately dry. I have some grays too now. I have had it long all my life, from waist length to almost knee length at one point.  But I have not been greatly successful at battling frizz, dryness and flyaways. I used to use soapnuts and shikai on my hair. For at least 20 years straight since that is what my mom would use at home. Shampoo was a strict no-no. That it contained SLS which dries out hair, causes hair loss or in fact causes gray hair :) So soapnuts it was! I would oil my hair most of the time with coconut oil, at times herb-infused coconut oil. Braid it all the time, leave it down my back. Use hair masks at times may be - henna or fenugreek seed paste. It worked for a long time. Then it stopped. I moved to a place where soapnuts is a rare commodity, almost non-existent. And honestly, soaking soapnuts and using them to wash my hair was never a quick task. It takes time and effort unlike shampoo. So I started using shampoos. And never found one that I was happy with. Most would work the first couple of times and then I would go back to being unhappy. Tried generic brands, non-SLS brands, organic brands, expensive ones, inexpensive ones, medicinal ones... but am back at square one. Three years after I tried shampoo bar/liquid soap without much success, I have decided to give shampoo bars and alternate methods another shot. And decided to note down my observations.

My haircare routine currently includes oiling my hair and washing it every 5 to 7 days. It tends to look terrible by day 5. If I can drag it to day 7, I would do that else wash on day 5. I usually braid my hair or just use a hair claw. Ponytails tend to tug at my scalp so I try avoiding those usually. But otherwise I use a few drops of argan oil or jojoba to smooth out flyaways or give my hair a little moisture.

Quite a few blogs online mention about these alternate methods. Quite a few brands out there sell products to suit various needs and hair conditions. Much choice! I have my raw materials on hand, I mean, some samples from a couple of these brands. So my posts will be initially about these brands.