The Lush American cream naked conditioner bar is available in-store at Lush or online here!
I've used products from Lush for a while now. It might have even been a decade since I first came across Lush, which is a terrifying amount of time. On the whole, I really like Lush. My current ethical consumption goals are to be vegan and single-use plastic-free, which Lush accommodates well. There is also a Lush very close to my new house, maybe less than a 5-minute walk, so it's convenient. I have been sceptical solid conditioner bars because I have a faint memory of purchasing one before and not liking it. However, after moving into my new place and decided to go zero waste, I thought Lush would be the right place to start. My thinking was if I just got all the basics quickly and easily from Lush, I wouldn't have to buy anything in plastic while I hunted the market for others, and perhaps better, alternatives.
There is no particular reason why I picked the American cream conditioner bar over any of the other bars. I have since been told by an ex-Lush employee that I should have instead chosen the 'Big' conditioner bar, which I will try next time. I think I was drawn in by the bright pink colour of the American cream bar, more than anything else.
As soon as I used the bar for the first time I was disappointed because it didn't lather well. I don't really know how to explain it better than that, but I couldn't get the product off the bar and onto my hair. I tried rubbing it between my hands, but nothing came off. I tried scraping the product from the bar, and I tried rubbing the bar straight onto my hair, but again nothing happened. This was really frustrating because usually, I use so much conditioner.
For a while, I just didn't use the bar, but after not using conditioner for a few washes, my hair was in such bad condition. I decided I was going to try and melt the bar down into a liquid. To do this, I cut the bar into tiny pieces and put these pieces in a pan with some rapeseed oil... I would have used coconut or argan oil, but I didn't have any. It formed a liquid, and I thought I'd had a breakthrough. I put it in an old hair mask pot that was lying around and placed it back in the shower. However, the next time I went to shower, it had resolidified in the pot, which looking back seems like an obvious thing that would happen.
Again, for a while, I didn't use any conditioner. This was until I thought I'd try again at making it a liquid. This time I put hot water into the pot with the solid conditioner in and then placed it all in the microwave. This worked! I ended up using the whole bar, and I kinda liked it? It wasn't as conditioning or oily as I'd have wanted. I probably won't be repurchasing this, but I will try the other conditioner bars for Lush. I think they're sort of reasonably priced, but the whole effort of having to turn it into a liquid is just not ideal. To summarise, I'd give this product two and a half stars out of five. I wouldn't not recommend it, but I'd just emphasise the hassle of the DIY element of it to make it work it's best. I'd also give it a mid-range rating price-wise at £9, it is not super affordable, but it is not a luxury product either. It was an interesting start to my vegan single-use plastic-free conditioner journey, but I think I will find better that I can share with you.
If anyone has any suggestions of other vegan conditioner bars or plastic-free conditioners for my to try and review, please do message me on Instagram!
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