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Regular price 14,90 €Regular price
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Regular price 14,90 €Regular price
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Regular price 16,00 €Regular price
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Regular price 14,90 €Regular price
A hair routine comes down to two steps
People often ask what it takes to replace an entire bathroom shelf. The answer is shorter than you would think: one shampoo chosen for your scalp, and a conditioner if your lengths tangle. Everything else is comfort, not necessity.
Step 1: the shampoo, chosen for your scalp
You choose a shampoo for your scalp, not for your lengths. The root decides how often you wash, whether it itches, and how greasy hair looks on day two.
"My roots are greasy in 24 hours"
Atlas
Shampoo bar for oily hair
Moroccan ghassoul and organic hazelnut oil. It absorbs excess sebum without stripping, so you can wash less often.
Discover →
"My curls are dry and rough"
Zéfir
Shampoo bar for curly hair
Fair-trade jojoba oil and white clay. Sulphate-free: it cleanses without weighing hair down and lets the curl redraw itself. The gentlest of the three.
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"I want one shampoo for the whole house"
Neptune
Spirulina shampoo bar
Spirulina and rice flour. Gentle enough for children, effective enough for everyone. The one to pick when you are unsure.
Discover →If you're torn between the three, I've written a guide on how to choose the best shampoo bar, including what the reviews don't tell you.
Step 2: do you really need a conditioner?
Not always. Shampoo works on the scalp, conditioner on the length: two different places, two different needs. Here is how to decide.
| Your hair | What you need | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Short, fine, quick to get greasy | Atlas alone | A length treatment would weigh down hair that does not need it. |
| Mid-length, normal, no tangles | Neptune alone | If the comb runs through without pulling, there is nothing to add. |
| Long, dry, curly, tangled | Zéfir + Horizon | This is where conditioner truly matters: it closes the cuticle and the comb glides. |
| Coloured or bleached | Zéfir + Horizon | Zéfir is sulphate-free, and it is sulphates that speed up colour fading. |
The routine, in five steps
Nothing complicated, but two or three details change everything, especially the first time.
- Wet your hair well, then the bar. A dry bar will not lather.
- Rub the bar straight onto your scalp, two or three passes, not on the lengths.
- Massage with your fingertips, never your nails. The lather runs down the lengths on its own.
- Rinse for longer than you think. It is insufficient rinsing, not the product, that leaves a filmy feel.
- Set the bar on something that drains. A bar that dries between showers lasts almost twice as long.
- On long hair, apply conditioner from the ears down, never on the roots.
"It takes three weeks to adjust", no.
You read this everywhere, and it is true of soaps sold as shampoo. Their pH sits around 9: it lifts the hair cuticle, the scalp panics, and it genuinely takes weeks to settle.
Our three shampoos are not soaps. They are built around sodium cocoyl isethionate, at a hair-compatible pH. There is no transition period to get through: the first wash already feels like the tenth.
One bar, around 60 washes
A 60 g solid shampoo holds roughly as much washing matter as two 250 ml bottles, without the water and without the plastic. At two washes a week, a bar lasts about six months.
Each bar is hand-moulded in our workshop in Drôme Provençale, in small batches. That is also why there are only three: I would rather have three formulas I know inside out than twelve I skim over.
Federica
Founder, Sternartica
If you are torn between two bars, write to me. I answer myself, and I would rather point you to the right one than sell you one that ends up at the back of a cupboard.
Frequently asked questions
The real ones, the questions people email me.
