To get started with solid cosmetics, pick one product based on your priority: a soap if you want to simplify your skin routine, a shampoo bar if hair is your first concern. Change one product a month, never everything at once. A gradual switch avoids waste and lets you find the products that actually suit you.
Every week I get messages from customers who want to switch to solid cosmetics but don't know where to begin. Too much choice, a fear of getting it wrong, questions with no answers.
After several years formulating organic solid cosmetics in my workshop in Drôme Provençale, I've guided hundreds of people through this switch. Here's what I wish I'd read when I changed my own routine.
Why switch to solid cosmetics now?
The most obvious reason ispackaging. A bottle of liquid shampoo is on average 80% water , and it creates plastic waste with every purchase. A 90 g shampoo bar contains nothing but concentrated actives. Wrapped in recycled paper. Zero plastic.
But the reason I prefer is what your skin feels. Liquid cosmetics need preservatives to stabilise the water in the formula. Solid cosmetics don't. Fewer irritants, fewer allergens, more comfort.
Which solid cosmetic should you start with?
Start with a soap. It's the simplest way in: the same gesture as any soap, nothing to learn, results you can see from the first shower.
If you also want to change your shampoo, add one, but not both in the same week. Changing one product at a time lets you understand what works for you, and avoids muddling everything up if something doesn't suit you.
Your skin type
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✓Sensitive, allergy prone skin, babies → Clair de Lune , fragrance free, essential oil free, suitable from birth
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✓Combination or oily skin → Elixir (activated charcoal) or Amaraterra (double clay)
- ✓
Your hair type
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✓All types, the whole family → Neptune , universal, enriched with spirulina
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✓Curly, frizzy or damaged hair → Zefir , sulfate free, with fair trade jojoba oil
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✓Oily hair → Atlas , with Moroccan ghassoul, so you can wash less often
How do you use a shampoo bar for the first time?
For soap, the technique is exactly what you already know. For a shampoo bar, there's one step a lot of people miss:
- Wet your hair thoroughly
- Glide the bar directly over your scalp (not down the lengths)
- Massage to work up the lather
- Rinse thoroughly , far longer than you usually would
An incomplete rinse is the number one cause of hair that feels heavy or "not clean" after the first wash. It isn't a question of adjustment: it's a question of technique.
Do you have to change your whole bathroom at once?
No , and it's actually counterproductive. Changing too many products at once stops you understanding what works. The method I recommend to my customers:
In three months you'll have transformed your bathroom without stress, and without throwing anything away because you didn't know how to use it.
