It’s official. We are obsessed with bar soap. It’s a fantastic way to avoid plastic packaging! As part of our #2x12reductionchallenge for the month of August we made two sustainable swaps – both relying on bar soap.

Bar Soap for Shaving

Last month, July, we began using a safety razor to avoid plastic cartridges and handles. No more disposables for us! Going sustainable with our razor primed us to rethink our approach to shaving cream. Mike had been using a classic shaving cream in a mixed material can and I had been using a creamy version that came in a plastic bottle. We knew we could do better!

After some thorough internet searching we found a shave bar that ticked all of our boxes. The peppermint shave bar from Rocky Mountain Soap Co. was made of safe, natural ingredients and the came without any plastic packaging. This Canadian company really has a great conscience – they don’t test on animals, and they are really trying to use sustainable packing whenever possible. You can read on their website about their commitments to creating products that are safe for our planet.

The peppermint shave bar smells amazing. It takes a moment to lather up, but it works really nicely. For a demo see Mike’s video below. Rocky Mountain Soap Co. can be found in stores all across Canada. We had to order ours online, but now that we know we like it, we’re going to order a bulk soap slab next time to reduce the number of shipments that we require.

Bar Soap for Dishes

The bar soap mania continued all the way from our bathroom to our kitchen. We are now using bar soap to hand wash our dishes! We do a lot of hand washing because we pack all of our weekday meals in various containers and many of the lids are plastic, so we don’t want to put them in the dishwasher.

Enter the No Tox Life Vegan Dishwashing Block! Ta-da! Another form of bar soap helping us on our journey to lower waste living. A sweet little bonus is that this soap is made by a mother and daughter team. It can be ordered online, or in our case we are able to purchase it locally at a refillery (Nada Shop in Encinitas or Sonora Refillery in Oceanside). We keep our dishwashing block on our kitchen counter next to the sink. Currently, it’s sitting on a small plate because we haven’t found a soap dish that we like, and it’s working well.

This was a bit of an interesting swap for us since we have always used a liquid soap. After making the switch, Mike remarked that we used to waste a ton of liquid soap because it was in a squeeze bottle. This problem is similar to the phenomenon that ketchup marketing executives discovered: if you give kids ketchup in a squeeze bottle, they will use more of it.

The bar is a great way to ensure we use only as much soap as we need. There are couple short video tutorials on how to use the dishwashing block with a sponge or a scrub brush. Basically you just rub your sponge/brush directly onto the bar, get it a little wet, and BAM! You’ve got suds! Easy peasy.

Bar Soap is the Best, Bar None

Join our bar soap craze! It’s a simple way to avoid plastic and purchase items that haven’t already been diluted – think about it, buying liquid soap is essentially just buying bar soap with added water. Go for the concentrated, plastic free, amazingness that is bar soap. Do it! You’ll never turn back!

xo, Nicole