I've made melt and pour soaps for a little while so thought I'd try a melt and pour shampoo. Its made by Stephensons and I bought a 100g to try it. I know purists will argue melt and pour soaps aren't proper soap making, but I do a ton of crafts already without venturing into cold process soap.
Since myself and Him Indoors would be using it I fragranced it with lemon essential oil, added after melting the chunks in a microwave. It's then a matter of pouring it into a mould and leaving to set.
I wash my hair each day, as apart from smelling like sheep, I also workout six days a week so it's very sweaty, naturally I use a lot of shampoo in a year. My first impression of this was I found it hard to get enough lather to actually get in my hair. Whilst my hair isn't very thick, it is long and I really struggled, eventually rubbing the bar on my hair.
When I rinsed I can only describe my hair as feeling dried out but claggy, like it hadn't all come out. I didn't say anything to Him Indoors about what I thought but he felt the same when he tried it, like his hair was stripped but product remained in there. I also tried it as a body soap and had the same feeling - like my skin was simultaneously stripped but somehow not properly clean, not a great feeling.
I note some people say your hair needs to get "used" to it, which I think is utter nonsense. It's a cleanser, it should clean the same way the first time as the five hundred and first. Your scalp shouldn't need to be pumping out excessive oil to compensate. As for needing to rinse with vinegar, I really think most times I'd get in the shower and forget to make up anything like that, so it's not exactly practical.
Neither of us wanted to use it again as our hair felt so horrible afterwards. I noticed one of the ingredients was Aloe Vera which seems a strange thing to put on your hair and I don't think it's as moisturising as people say, soothing is more apt. I'm afraid I can't recommend this and won't be buying it again. I know there are other shampoo bars available but it's mostly mail order, post and packing for one bar possibly outweighs any environmental benefits. Plastic free alternatives need to be available more freely in shops, because it means more people would actually use them.
So, unfortunately, we'll be sticking to bottled shampoo until a better alternative comes along, and we are looking at other ways to cut plastic use.