Welcome to a weekly feature on my blog – Ben’s Zone. Written by husband… Ben. A foodie, coffee obsessed, ex-smoking, ex-drinking and Ridgeback loving Dad. Who is also seriously into his fitness. You can find him on the blog (mostly) on Sundays. Enjoy!
Gruum Shampoo and Conditioner Review
It’s been a long time since I had a haircut, over a year in fact, and now my hair is getting really quite long. This puts me in something of a quandary, on one hand I don’t bother with hair styling products any more because it just requires brushing but on the other I have to wash more frequently as I have upped my exercise and sweaty hair is no fun at all.
Once I started to wash more frequently the issue of plastic waste started to play on my mind. Shampoo bottles can be put into the recycling but they’re made of hydrocarbons in a fairly energy-intensive process. Furthermore, the recycling process only allows these bottles to be turned into lower grade plastics such as plant pots or road covering.
Thankfully, as I started having these worries it seemed my Facebook feed got filled with vendors offering hair products in bar form, like soap which neatly side steps the plastics problem. So I decided to give them a whirl and the next add I saw was for Gruum, so I bought some of their shampoo and a conditioner bar to go with it.
Delivery was pretty swift and I started out with two shampoo bars and a single conditioner. It came to about £15 but that was down to me combining a couple of offers I had seen on Facebook. I also got a little tin to store the bars in, but this was really just to tip the order over the free postage threshold.
Performance wise I was impressed. The shampoo lathers up really well, smells nice and does a great job of cleaning my hair. I’m glad I did go for a conditioner because I think that with my relatively thin and brittle hair it would be tough to brush.
The conditioner performs well but is a pain to apply. It takes a lot of working to get enough to go through my hair (maybe I’m putting on too much, who knows) but once it’s on it’s decent and it washes out well. It keeps my hair nice and soft without feeling greasy.
I ordered my bars in January and now, at the end of April, I’ve just reordered. In truth I have a decent sized bar of shampoo still remaining and about 1/3 of a conditioner bar left. When I re-ordered I was sufficiently happy that I subscribed, which significantly reduces cost. I think my bars came to about £6 each and there’s no delivery charge for subscription.
So I’m very happy. Postage is cheap, bars last for ages and perform pretty well. The bars themselves come in cardboard boxes which can be recycled, so it’s all good. If you into the idea of ditching shampoo bottles I would certainly give this a go. Another point to note is that I have relatively sensitive skin and have had no problems at all with the Gruum stuff, so it’s a win all round.
