One job · Not an everyday shampoo
Shampoo Bar
Saponified organic oils, with bhringraj, amla and brahmi
If your first plant colour did not take, this is usually why.
Henna and indigo bind to the keratin in your hair. They have to reach it first. Conventional shampoos and conditioners leave a film behind — silicones, styling polymers, oils — and that film sits between the pigment and the surface it needs to attach to. The colour goes on, sits there, and rinses away paler than it should.
Nothing is wrong with the colour. The hair was still wearing the last product.
This bar is a true soap — organic oils treated with alkali until they saponify, the way soap has been made for centuries. Soap strips thoroughly. That is a drawback for everyday washing, and it is exactly what you want once, before a plant colour.
The part we are less sure about
You will read that an alkaline wash opens the cuticle so pigment can get in, and that this is the reason to use it before colouring. Alkaline conditions do lift the cuticle scales — that much is established, and we measured this bar at pH 9.35.
Whether a lifted cuticle measurably improves how much pigment binds, we do not know. We have not found a study that tests it, and we have not run one. It is plausible and it is the traditional reasoning. What we are confident about is the residue — and residue alone is enough reason to wash this way before you colour.
Where it sits — our own readings
Everything else we make sits on the acid side, because that is where you want a wash you use regularly. This one does not, and that is the whole difference. It is the one product of ours we would not use every day — and we would rather tell you that than sell you more of it.
Use it
- The wash before a plant colour, to take off the film that would block the dye
- Especially the first time, if you are coming from conventional colour and conditioner
- Occasionally, to clarify, when hair starts to feel coated
Do not use it
- As your everyday shampoo. At pH 9.35 that is not what it is for
- In the 72 hours after colouring. Plant colour is still developing, and this will take some of it with it
- If you react to tree nuts or to lavender. Both are in the bar — see below
Certified, and independently listed
This bar holds COSMOS ORGANIC, audited by ECOCERT Greenlife.
COSMOS ORGANIC certifies products, not brands. Every formula is audited on its own file — where the ingredients were grown, how it was made, what is and is not in it. This bar has its own. So does each of our twenty-four colours, and each of our single herbs.
You do not have to take our word for any of that. COSMOS publishes a searchable register of every certified product in the world. Ours are listed under Radico — forty-five of them at last count, this bar among them.
- What it is
- A true soap. Organic oils saponified — coconut, castor, olive, sesame and almond
- Measured pH
- 9.35. Alkaline, and the only alkaline product we make
- Certification
- COSMOS ORGANIC, ECOCERT Greenlife — certified as an individual product
- Listed as
- Certified Organic Lavender Hair Shampoo Bar
- Herbs in it
- Bhringraj (Eclipta alba), amla (Emblica officinalis), brahmi (Bacopa monnieri), liquorice root
- Also contains
- Sunflower seed oil, lavender oil, tocopherol
- Allergens
- Almond oil — a tree nut. And lavender oil, a known contact allergen. Do not use this bar if you react to either
- Lather
- Yes, and plenty of it — unlike our saponin powders. This is soap, and soap foams
- Made for
- The wash before a plant colour. Not for daily use
Soap, and what it removes
Two things this bar does that our powders do not
Radico makes eight single-herb powders and one bar of soap. They clean by different chemistry, and the difference shows up in two places you can see for yourself: how much they foam, and where they sit on a pH meter.
| Our powders | This bar | |
|---|---|---|
| What cleans | Saponins the plant makes | Fatty acids, saponified with alkali |
| Surfactant type | Non-ionic — no charge | Anionic — negatively charged |
| pH | 2.1 to 4.9, acid | 9.35, alkaline |
| Lather | Thin, short-lived | Rich and persistent |
| Cuticle | Lets the scales lie flat | Lifts them |
| How often | Two or three times a week | Before colouring. Not routinely |
This one lathers, and that is not a contradiction
On our reetha and shikakai pages we make a point of the opposite: those powders produce almost no foam, and we say plainly that foam is not what does the cleaning. Both things are true.
Lather is what happens when a surfactant traps air. Cleaning is what happens when it surrounds oil. A surfactant can do one well and the other barely at all. Saponins clean without foaming much. Soap does both. Neither fact tells you how well the other job is being done.
There is no SLS in here, and no foam booster. That is not only our word for it: COSMOS ORGANIC prohibits both, and this bar is certified on its own file. A soap that lathers this well without them is a formulation question, and the audit is the part that confirms it independently of us.
If you have used our powders and found the lack of lather strange, this will feel more familiar. That is a difference in chemistry, not in quality.
We measured it at 9.35
Soap is alkaline by definition. It is made by treating fat with alkali, and what comes out carries that character — a bar of soap typically sits somewhere around pH 9 to 10. This one is no exception, and we would rather show you the number than describe it as “gentle” and leave it there.
Hair’s own surface sits at 4.5 to 5.5. This is well above that, and it is why soap-based shampoo largely disappeared — alkaline conditions lift the cuticle scales, and lifted scales catch on each other, so hair feels rough. Every other product we make sits on the acid side for exactly that reason.
We are not going to argue that this is somehow gentle. It is a strong wash, used once, for a specific job. Use it that way and the alkalinity does not matter much; use it every day and it will.
What it is actually taking off
Henna and indigo bind to keratin. Anything sitting on the hair between the pigment and that keratin is in the way — and a lot of modern hair care is designed to sit on the hair and stay there.
- Silicones. Dimethicone and its relatives are in most conditioners and many shampoos. They coat the strand deliberately, to make it feel smooth, and they are not water-soluble. A mild wash does not shift them.
- Styling polymers. Anything that holds a shape leaves a film. It builds up.
- Oils. Coconut, argan, leave-in treatments. Useful otherwise; a barrier here.
- Hard water minerals. Calcium and magnesium deposit on the strand over time.
This is the single most common reason a first plant colour comes out paler than expected, and it is entirely fixable before you start. One wash with this bar, then colour.
If you have never used silicone products — if you have been washing with plant powders, or with a silicone-free shampoo — you may not need this at all. We would rather you knew that than bought a bar you have no use for.
The three herbs in it
Bhringraj, amla and brahmi are milled into the bar, alongside liquorice root. All three are also sold on their own, and their pages go into far more detail than we can here.
- Bhringraj Eclipta alba A scalp herb. Its principal compound is wedelolactone
- Amla Emblica officinalis Naturally acidic, and the one of our eight that touches colour
- Brahmi Bacopa monnieri A scalp herb. Not the same plant as gotu kola
What we will not tell you is that these herbs survive saponification unchanged, or that they deliver vitamins into your hair from a bar you rinse off in two minutes. Saponification is a hot, strongly alkaline reaction, and we have not found work establishing what comes through it intact. They are in the formula, they are organically grown, and that is what we can say about them.
Two allergens, named plainly
Almond oil. One of the five oils saponified into this bar is sweet almond, listed as sodium almondate. Almond is a tree nut. If you have a tree nut allergy, do not use this bar.
That is worth stating clearly, because elsewhere on this site we point out that reetha — the soapnut — is not a nut at all despite its name. This bar genuinely contains one.
Lavender oil. Also in the bar, and a known contact allergen: the compounds in lavender oil oxidise on exposure to air, and the oxidation products are among the fragrance allergens the EU requires to be declared. Most people are fine with it. Some are not. It is in the product’s registered name for that reason — we are not hiding it in an ingredient list.
Patch test on the inner forearm 48 hours before first use, and stop use if irritation develops. If you have a diagnosed allergy to either, speak to your doctor before using this.
What we will and will not claim
That soap is an anionic surfactant, that it is alkaline, and that alkaline conditions lift the cuticle are all established chemistry rather than health claims. The pH figure is our own, on a handheld meter, and it is a number you can check yourself.
What we have not measured is whether washing with this before a plant colour produces a measurably better result than washing with something else. We are confident about the mechanism — residue blocks binding, and soap removes residue — and we have not run the comparison. We would need one to claim more than that.
We are not claiming this bar treats any scalp or hair condition, that it promotes hair growth, or that it delivers nutrients into the hair. In the United States a cosmetic may not make those claims, and we have not found evidence that would support them here in any case.
Radico Organic Shampoo Bar is a cosmetic product for external use on hair and scalp. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition. Contains almond oil and lavender oil. Keep out of the eyes.
In practice
How to use it, and what to do afterwards
This is a strong, alkaline wash. What you do after it matters as much as the wash itself — and the answer is different depending on whether you are about to colour.
Before a plant colour
This is what the bar is for.
- Wet the hair thoroughly, then work the bar into a lather between wet hands and apply that to the scalp. Rubbing the bar directly on the hair works too, but uses more of it.
- Massage into the scalp for a minute or two, then draw the lather down through the lengths. It will foam readily — that is what soap does.
- Rinse completely. Longer than feels necessary. Soap residue left on the hair is the usual reason a soap wash feels waxy afterwards.
- Do not condition. Anything you put on now goes between the pigment and the hair, which is the problem you just solved.
- Colour on damp hair, or towel-dry and colour. Either works — but do not use a hair dryer if your shade contains indigo.
Once is enough. If your hair has years of silicone on it, a second wash will take more off — but a single thorough one is what most people need, and there is nothing gained by stripping further than that.
If you are not colouring afterwards
Some people find their hair feels smooth straight out of this wash and want nothing else. Others find it squeaks. Both are normal, and the difference is your hair rather than the bar.
If it squeaks, that is the alkalinity: the cuticle scales are standing up, and standing scales catch on each other. The fix is acid — which is the traditional answer to washing hair with soap, and the reason acid rinses exist at all.
The two-step
Mix the powder thin as a rinse-out wash, or thick as a fifteen-minute treatment — either brings the pH back down. This is not a new idea: soap and an acid rinse is how hair was washed for a very long time before pH-adjusted shampoo existed.
Using it while you move away from synthetic shampoo
This is the other reason people buy the bar, and it needs more explanation than the first.
Our own view is that hair does not need to be washed as often as most people wash it. A scalp produces oil, that oil travels down the strand, and it is what makes hair smooth in the first place. Left alone, the system tends to find its own level.
What we see in customers moving away from strong detergent shampoos is that the level takes a while to find. Scalps washed daily with a powerful surfactant often feel oily again within a day, and the obvious response — washing again — keeps the cycle going. Several weeks of gentler washing usually settles it.
We should be careful how strongly we put that. The idea that frequent washing drives the scalp to produce more oil is widely held and matches what we hear from customers, but we have not found it firmly established in the research literature. It is our observation and a common one, not a measured fact.
If you use this bar during that transition, use it sparingly and not daily, and follow it with the treatment powder if your hair squeaks. At pH 9.35 it is not a bar we would want anyone reaching for every morning — our reetha and shikakai powders sit on the acid side and are made for regular washing.
Looking after the bar
- Let it drain and dry between uses. A bar left sitting in water softens and dissolves away. A dish that drains, or a rack, will roughly double how long it lasts.
- Keep it out of the direct spray. Somewhere in the shower where running water does not hit it.
- Do not store it sealed while wet. Soap needs to dry out.
There are no synthetic preservatives in this bar — COSMOS ORGANIC prohibits them. Proper soap does not generally need them, because the pH and the low water content see to that. But it does need to dry between uses.
Three things to keep in mind
- Not after colouring. Henna and indigo keep developing for up to 72 hours, and a strong alkaline wash inside that window will take some of the result with it. Wait two to three days.
- Not every day. At pH 9.35, regular use will leave hair rough. This is a wash for a purpose, not a routine.
- Contains almond oil and lavender oil. Almond is a tree nut; lavender oil is a known contact allergen. Do not use this if you react to either. Patch test 48 hours before first use, and keep it out of your eyes.
The rest of the range
One bar of soap, eight single herbs, and twenty-four organic colours.
Organic Shampoo Bar Hair Treatment Powder See all 24 shades
COSMOS ORGANIC certified by ECOCERT Greenlife — this bar holds its own certification, listed separately from our colours. No SLS, no synthetic preservatives, no foam boosters.