It’s been just over a century since the first commercial shampoo was invented by Kasey Hebert in 1914. But since that time, we’ve gone from creating a pH-balanced formula in the 1930s to creating numerous solutions that claim to prevent the damage caused by the advances in shampoo technology.

But as new inventions lead to more and more shampoos relying on ingredients created in labs, we’re getting further and further away from what’s healthy and natural. In fact, the hair industry – both commercially and individually – has created a considerable carbon footprint over time.

We know that nourishing your scalp is so important. There are easy ways to take care of your scalp like using a scalp brush to stimulate blood flow and remove product build-up. (Here are a few tips on how to exfoliate your scalp!) While caring for your scalp is an important part of any hair care routine, are we unknowingly washing our scalps with products that do more harm than good?

Shampoo's Environmental Impact

It seems innocent enough – a product designed to clean your hair. It removes the dirt and oil, leaving your hair shiny and full of life. But is shampoo bad for the environment?

Well, if you read the ingredients on the back of a shampoo bottle, you might be surprised. Many shampoos are filled with harmful chemicals you’ve never heard of and aren’t able to pronounce. These chemicals may not only be harmful to you, but they can also harm the environment. Plus, they strip your hair of natural oils, forcing you to purchase a separate, often equally harmful condition to replenish the oils you’ve lost.

In addition to harmful-for-everyone chemicals, many shampoos are sold in plastic bottles that are often only partially or totally unrecyclable. These bottles have already caused a tremendous amount of waste and done extensive damage to our planet. They’re dumped in our landfills and oceans, harming our atmosphere and our wildlife while they take thousands of years to decompose.

Shampoo Pollution: How Does Shampoo Pollute The Water?

Unfortunately, shampoos have done lasting damage to our water supply in two major ways: their ingredients and the plastic containers that hold them.

One of the major environmental impacts of shampoo comes from the simple act of rinsing your hair. As the shampoo leaves your hair, the chemicals are sent down your drain and out into the water supply. These chemicals have been found in a variety of environments, including wastewater, surface water, sediment, groundwater, and drinking water.

Luckily, our drinking water is treated so you’re not ingesting those chemicals (another process that can be harmful to the environment), but our lakes, rivers, and oceans are not. These chemicals can harm both aquatic life and the animals that drink from these bodies of water. Research has shown that the chemicals in personal care products can change the hormone levels in aquatic organisms, which can cause a variety of health problems, including damaging their ability to reproduce.

Then there are the plastic bottles used to hold your shampoo. Many of them are either only partially recyclable or cannot be recycled, so they end up in our oceans and landfills. About nine million tons of plastic are thrown into the ocean annually, which is about one garbage truck of plastic every minute. These plastics can survive in water for thousands of years if they’re not consumed by marine life. When they are ingested, the chemicals in the plastic can injure or poison the animals. Those that don’t make their way into the bodies of these animals become floating waste, serving as transportation vehicles for invasive species, which can upset and damage very delicate habitats.

Dumping plastic in a landfill is equally dangerous. As they’re buried deeper into the pile and begin to decompose slowly, they can leach dangerous chemicals that eventually make their way into our groundwater and our air.

In the United States alone, 550 million empty shampoo bottles are thrown away every year, enough to fill 1,164 football fields. This number does not include conditioner, body wash or other bathing products – only shampoo bottles.

In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, there are 520 million plastic bottles. Consumed worldwide every year 1,4 milijard disposable body wash bottles. This number is based on an average of 6 bottles of body wash per year, excluding shampoo or conditioner bottles.

As the world’s population grows (the number of people on the planet is projected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030), these numbers will also only increase.
2016 Euromonitor census data show that only 50% of all plastic bottles are collected for recycling and only 7% of those bottles are actually recycled into new bottles. While we feel much better throwing something in a sorting container rather than in the trash, the sad reality is that these products often end up in the same place.

Did you know that You can help reduce waste from plastic bottles too?

You just can:

• Replace liquid soap, shower gel, or shampoo with solid soap or shampoo. There are many creators in Lithuania that produce handcrafted soaps with natural ingredients. It is a luxury at hand – handcrafted natural soap

  instead of a mass-produced product in a plastic bottle. Sounds good, right?

• Replace liquid products packaging with reusable dispensers that adorn the interior of your home, and can be supplemented with coconut-based soap flakes– free of animal fats, mineral oils, parabens and SLES.

This option shoots “multiple bunnies in one shot”:

• You won’t have to pay for plastic packaging when you buy a new top-up;
• There is no plastic waste left because soap packaging is usually made of paper or recycled paper and can be sorted or decomposed naturally;
• The dispenser decorates the interior – currently there is a really large selection of dispensers in stores, both in terms of color and materiality. So you can find the right one for all your tastes and interiors;
• The skin enjoys a natural cleanser – the handmade soaps we sell are made in Lithuania using natural oils and dried herbs, self-grown or harvested, and seasoned from the most remote corners of the country from the lavender fields of rural Provence to the Indian cinnamon groves. tropical islands overgrown with palm trees. These ingredients are carefully selected for their beneficial properties: protection of the skin from the environment, moisturizing, nourishing, rejuvenating, firming. The addition of 100% natural essential oils gives the soap a delicate aroma and properties for healthy skin.

– Soap is natural and safe for humans and the environment.
– The materials from which the soaps are made are of the highest quality.
– You will not find dyes, synthetic fragrances, preservatives or other harmful ingredients in the soap.

So maybe you should try replacing one plastic bottle of shower gel with an environmentally friendly, body-friendly natural soap shampoo or soap flakes?

Let’s change habits together.