Serpentine Hair for grate yay! and Lush...not so much.

My big discovery lately, body product wise, has been Serpentine Hair. I've been intrigued by the idea of sulfate free shampoos for a while. The sulfates (both sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS, and ammonium lauryl sulfate) are put in shampoos to create lather because somewhere along the line, people became convinced that shampoo had to lather up big to get your hair clean. The problem is that in addition to getting rid of dirt, shampoo with sulfates strips your hair of all of its oil, which you then have to turn around and replace in the form of a conditioner.

Thanks to the evil_enabler community on LJ, I read about Serpentine and checked them out. Their shampoo bars are free of all sulfates and are similar to plain cold processed soap (made with lye and oils). They're pretty, they come in cool scents and they're reasonably priced, so I bought an Original Sin (bergamot, neroli, vanilla and a little musk) bar to try.

When I first used it, I wasn't sure it was really getting my hair clean. I thought it might be some residue, something they warn can happen, and used a vinegar/water solution to deal with it. My hair felt clean but it was also a little streaky, like it had too much oil in it. And then I got my hair cut and since my hair was so short, I switched over from using the bath puff method and just rubbed the bar right on my hair a couple times before working the resulting lather into my hair. And it works fabulously! I do it once per shower, not twice like you're supposed to with conventional shampoo, and I don't use conditioner at all. The bar is nice and hard, and because I use a wire soap dish and set it right next to the window in the sun, I'm losing very little of the bar to melting.

The whole experiment makes me happy for several reasons. One, fewer chemicals. Two, much less packaging--the bar comes wrapped in a single layer of shrink wrap as opposed to two plastic bottles. Three, I won't really know until I use the whole bar, but I suspect it's cheaper than the relatively inexpensive Clairol I was using. Four, it smells utterly fabulous--not enough to clash with my perfume, but just a little hint of yummy smell. Five, I'm patronizing a small, woman-owned business. Six, shorter showers mean using less water.

Seven, my hair feels and looks fantastic--soft and silky and shiney and much less frizzy than it was.

So yeah, this stuff is pure win all the way. The only people who might have problems with it are people with really oily hair, although I suspect that the vinegar/water rinse (a couple of tablespoons of vinegar for each cup of water; use lemon juice if you're a blonde of any sort) would help there.

Moving onto a company I'm less impressed with...Lush.

I know that a lot of people think of Lush as the second coming, and I'll admit that I like their style. They appeal to the hippie chick in me. The problem is...I'm not wild about the way their stuff smells.

My second Lush order arrived yesterday. It was just the large size tub of Ocean Salt this time, but with it I got two tiny samples of their "buttercream," a somewhat oiler than normal soap, that's supposed to be great on your skin. Both scents--one almond/citrus and one violets/clove-- should have been right up my alley, but they smell oddly chemically and to be honest, kinda gross.

I actually don't like the smell of the Ocean Salt much, although Nancy does. However, I'm willing to forgive a lot because it really is fabulous on my skin; my face has felt so much better lately. I use it about every other day; it's a little too rough to use daily.

I kind of liked the Sexy Peel soap I ordered from Lush last month, but it wasn't the best thing ever and at $5.40 for a 3.5 oz chunk, it just didn't cut it. If I want to spend that kind of money on soap, I'll patronize Villainess or Magic Hands or Arcana or one of the other small businesses whose products can be found at The Soap Box company. Or I'll just stick to my very nice oatmeal and almond bar that I pick up from the Natural Foods Co-Op for $2.50 a bar.