Durham Hare

Born from a passion for plastic free natural products that are not only kind to your skin and hair but also kind to the environment it made perfect sense that Durham Hare ‘sistered’ up Durham Soap Company. Durham Hare products tick all the boxes if you’re looking to reduce plastic in the bathroom and reduce the chemicals you use on your body. Our products are packed in reuseable/recyclable tins or biodegradable paper too.

So what is a syndet shampoo bar?

Firstly syndet stands for synthetic detergent which sounds really chemically and processed but really it’s a type of cleansing agent that is made from surfactants (an active agent that decreases surface tension between two compounds i.e. liquids and solids, so it helps them mix together). The main surfactant in our bars is derived from coconuts. The synthetic of syndet refers to the chemical process some ingredients go through and most of these ingredients are naturally derived from things such as nuts, oils, fats. Syndet shampoo bars are not soap, they are PH balanced for hair and are basically a concentrated version of liquid shampoo without the nasties, in a solid bar that works like a regular shampoo.

How to use a shampoo

It’s really easy and shouldn’t take much getting used to! Once your hair and the bar are wet all you need to do is rub the bar into your hair and you’ll feel it start to lather up straight away. Once you’ve got the lather you can use the shampoo just like the liquid ones you’re probably used to. When you’re happy that your hair feels clean rinse thoroughly and that’s it, you’re good to go.

Conditoner bars are a bit different and can take some getting used to but once you’ve got it you’ll feel and see the benefits! Conditioner bars don’t lather like the shampoo bars do so it’s a little harder to know when you’ve got enough on your hair. The best way to use them is to wet the bar and gently drag the bar through the ends of your hair first. The easiest way to do this is to hold the bar in one hand and hold your hair in the other and kind of clamp them against each other and gently pull downwards. This gets enough conditioner onto the ends of your hair and you can run what’s left on your hands through the front of your hair and across the top and that’s literally all the product that you’ll need for silky smooth moisturised hair. (We’ll be posting a video on this at a later date so watch this space). Once you’re done rinse thoroughly and that’s it.

It’s important to keep your shampoo and conditioner bars dry between uses, this preserves the bar and makes it last a lot longer. We recommend either storing them on a soap dish with holes in out of the shower.

Once you start using a shampoo bar you’ll realise just how little you actually need to wash you hair. Obviously it depends on how often you wash your hair and how much hair you have but our 60g shampoo bars last on average 50-60 washes so if you’re washing your hair every few days that’s about 4-6 months worth, that’s a lot of plastic out of the bathroom!