Pacha Soap Rosemary Eucalyptus Shave/Shampoo Bar {Review}

Overview

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars
Price Tag: Varies (my soap cost ~$3 USD)
Where to Buy: In local co-ops, like New Pioneer Co-op; online at Pacha Soap

I’ve had my eye on the Pacha Soap display at my local co-op for a while. I adore bar soap, with their earthy colors, scents and waxy textures, but can’t use them due to chronic dry skin. On my latest trip to the New Pioneer Cedar Rapids location I discovered the Rosemary Eucalyptus Shampoo Bar. I thought it might work for my hair, but I picked a small bar due to negative past experiences with traditional bar soap.

Unless you can find it locally, the Pacha Rosemary Eucalyptus soap is only available online as a 2 lb bulk log. Pacha Soap is considered a local brand here in Iowa since the company is based out of Nebraska, because Nebraska totally counts as local (and I’m located on the opposite side of Iowa from Nebraska).

Pacha Soap is a cruelty-free brand that uses Rainforest Alliance fairly traded palm oil and most products seem to be vegan friendly.

Packaging

The soap itself is not packaged. At my co-op, the bars were pre-cut and arranged by scent on a large display, along with scented bath salts.

There are little bags you can use to transport your soap bars home. If you want to see ingredients, you’ll need to go online to verify them.

Rosemary Eucalyptus Shave/Shampoo Bar

Formulation

The Rosemary Eucalyptus soap has the same consistency of basically every bar soap I’ve ever tried: drying. The ingredients are standard for bar soap.

The rosemary and eucalypytus scent is very invigorating and the soap has a pleasant, earthy orange color.

Ingredients as stated on product page:

Organic Palm Oil*, Organic Coconut Oil and/or Organic Palm Kernel Oil*, Water, Cold-Pressed Olive Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Unrefined Shea Butter, Castor Oil, Eucalyptus Essential Oil, Rosemary Essential Oil, Moroccan Red Clay

*Rainforest Alliance Certified™

That’s a pretty bar of soap.

Performance

I had very high hopes for this product, but I just can’t get it to work for me. Before I recount my attempts with the soap, I will describe myself as having the thin hair that is common for natural dirty blondes.

The first time I tried the shampoo bar, I had washed my hair with traditional shampoo the day before. I was left with weirdly textured hair, kind of like I hadn’t washed it at all. Kind of worse than not washing at all. I let it sit on my head for a few minutes but that seemed to stiffen my hair (due to the Moroccan clay perhaps?). I had to put in conditioner afterwards because my hair and scalp felt really stripped after rinsing. My hair didn’t look as bad on the second day, but it still felt weird.

I let my hair sit a few days without washing and tried again. This second attempt was definitely the worst. I did not feel that I could get enough shampoo to lather my hair and again resorted to using conditioner (I rarely use it normally). Blow drying helped, but it still looked and felt dirty. I had to put my hair up because it did not look good down. On the plus side, I tried wearing a fabric headband and it actually stayed on my head. Normally my hair is far too slippery for accessories to stay put.

I tried washing the next day to see if waiting more than a day was too much. While it was much easier to wash my hair this time, I still didn’t feel like my hair was clean. I let it air dry and put it up, but it still looked kind of dirty and had an odd texture.

At this point I’m done. I don’t think my hair likes shampoo soap bars any more than my skin does. I tried the shampooing every other day thing for half a year and absolutely hated that, so I thought this might be a compromise to the whole “no poo” movement. I’m convinced my thin hair type doesn’t fit well with infrequent shampooing.

My husband has tried the Rosemary Eucalyptus shampoo soap bar as well and enjoys it. He likes that it makes his hair more textured and he doesn’t have to use as much styling wax to keep his hair in place. So there’s his alternate experience.

At New Pioneer Co-op, the sign only listed it as a shampoo bar, and didn’t mention that it could be used as a shaving soap. Since my skin is super dry all the time and bar soaps are painful for me to use, I won’t be trying the product as a shaving soap. I generally use hair conditioner for shaving.

Product Images

Final Thoughts

Pros: Scent; economically priced; fairly traded palm oil
Cons: Drying; did not cleanse hair well

I really wanted the Rosemary Eucalyptus Shave/Shampoo Bar by Pacha Soap to work. But as with typical bar soap, I experienced a lot of drying on the scalp and my hair felt super stripped. I didn’t care for the persistent unclean feeling either.

While I did not personally like this product, I think my thin hair and dry skin are probably the reason I had difficulties with the soap. Those with thicker, and more textured, hair might have better luck.

 

Have you tried a shampoo bar soap before? Let me know in the comments below. And don’t to forget to like {makeupfu} on Facebook!