In an effort to use less plastic and make more sustainable and healthy choices for personal care, a few years back I switched to bar shampoo. I’ve tried a few brands — HiBAR, Good Time, and LAMISSAPPLE — so I thought I’d share my experiences here.

In all cases below, I ordered the moisturizing hair products, but all of these brands carry products for different needs. All of the products in this review, which I purchased myself, are cruelty-free.

HiBAR

These bars look like little sculptures. They are tapered at the top for easy application. Launched in 2018, HiBAR was founded by some parents whose kids attended school together in Minneapolis. I bought these from Target, though of course we are not shopping there these days.

Key Ingredients: Coconut oil, Vitamin B5, rice protein (for detangling). These ingredients are in both the shampoo and the conditioner.

Scent: There’s several types of citrus peel oils in these bars — orange, lime, lemon grapefruit — plus ginger root oil. This gives these a light fresh scent, which I find pleasant. However, if you are scent sensitive, HiBAR also makes a fragrance-free version.

My Experience: No complaints here. The shampoo lathers lightly. With the conditioner, there’s not much lathering, so you have to trust that when you’re rubbing it on your hair that it’s applying. My hair does feel soft after using these. I found the conditioner bar lasts longer than the shampoo.

Good Time

This is the sister brand to Who Gives a Crap, a certified B-Corp, which I am a fan of. (My review here). Plus, their products won some awards, including an Allure beauty award.

Key Ingredients: In the shampoo: coconut, glycerin, birrea seed, jojoba oil, shea butter. In the conditioner: shea butter, coconut oil, and Vitamin E.

Scent: These had a strong, perfumey smell. When the package arrived, I could smell the scent even before opening up the box! Strangely, other people have called the scent “delicate” in their reviews but I found it strong.

My Experience: I didn’t even want to try the product given the strong smell, but in the name of bloggery I did. However, I only tried it once. The shampoo bar felt like a soft pebble in my hand, and it lathered fine. But I could not tell you how my hair felt and behaved afterwards because the scent bothered me enough that I had to immediately rewash my hair with another shampoo. So yeah, a big no from me.

In any case, it looks like Good Time, which launched in 2022, closed recently. A statement on the Who Gives a Crap site says that they’ve decided to focus on their core business of toilet paper and their goal of ensuring that everyone has access to clean water.

LAMISSAPPLE

I first came across this California-based, made-by-hand brand at zero waste store Fillgood in Berkeley, CA. I get the sense that LAMISSAPPLE is a very small operation. In addition to hair care products (which have a muffin-like form factor), they also make eco-friendly cleaning products.

Key Ingredients: The entire ingredient list for the shampoo is: mango vegetable butter, SCI, sodium coco sulfate, mineral water, organic urucum powder, B5 protein, mango essential oil.

Ingredients for the conditioner bar are: castor oil, BTMS (short for behentrimonium methosulfate, an emulsifier that hydrates and contrary to its name, is not a sulfate), coca butter, cetearyl alcohol, coco-glucoside, absolute of Tahitian gardenia, almond extract.

Scent: The shampoo bar has a light, powdery, almost sweet scent. It smells just like what I’d imagine a small batch operation of bar shampoo to smell like. The conditioner bar, which is a newer offering, smells sort of like chocolate.

My Experience: The shampoo lathers up really nicely. It takes just a couple swipes of the bar on my hair to create a foamy lather. The conditioner bar, similar to the HiBAR one, doesn’t really lather up that much. My hair feels clean and soft after use.

One nice thing about this brand is that you can purchase a travel-size piece for $5, so you can try before committing to a whole bar. As a repeat customer, I also automatically received a discount at checkout.

A side note: I’m confused by the name. The logo reads “LA Miss Apple” but the text on their site and in emails says “LAMISSAPPLE” in all caps. I’m not sure if I should be pronouncing this brand as one word or three. Lamissapple? La Miss Apple? LA (as in Los Angeles?) Miss Apple?

My Favorites

For the conditioner bar, it’s a tie between HiBAR and LAMISSAPPLE in terms of performance, though I have a preference for the citrus scent of the HiBAR. When it comes to the shampoo bar, LAMISSAPPLE is my favorite. Both HiBAR and LAMISSAPPLE give me clean, soft hair, but my hair might be a touch softer with LAMISSAPPLE. Plus, I enjoy the luxurious lathering of their shampoo bar more.