Helpful Body Shop Shampoo Review

Almost all of us need to use hair shampoo (and conditioner), and it’s a product that we tend to use pretty frequently. However, get the wrong one and it doesn’t only negatively affect your hair. If your hair is dull, lank, frizzled or flyaway because you haven’t chosen the right hair product, it can affect your mood too! This Body Shop Shampoo Review can help you decide if they have a haircare product that is right for you.

However, if you’d like to find out more about these products, read my full Body Shop Shampoo Review to see my take on the pros and cons.

Vegan and cruelty-free

The Body Shop has several great ranges of vegan shampoo and conditioners, including:

• Shea – for damaged or dry hair
• Ginger – for itchy scalp and dandruff
• Moringa – for dull hair
• Banana – dry or frizz-prone hair
• Tea Tree – for oily hair
• Sleep relaxing hair and body wash

In addition, The Body Shop is accredited as cruelty-free by PETA and has the Leaping Bunny certification too. As a business, they have never tested on animals and The Body Shop is an active campaigner on these issues too, trying to ensure that animal-testing is abolished worldwide.

However, you need to be aware that not all Body Shop products are vegan, although it is very easy to filter on their website for vegan products. I have always found the in-store staff to be really knowledgeable on this subject too.

Some Body Shop products aren’t vegan because they contain beeswax, honey, lanolin and even shellac (an insect secretion). However, the brand is keen to state that they have not created any new products with lanolin or shellac, and are aiming to eventually remove all animal-derived ingredients EXCEPT for honey and beeswax.

Effective and easy to wash out

Let’s take the Shea shampoo and conditioner first.

Designed to repair and protect dry and damaged hair, the Shea range of haircare products look, smell and feel like luxuriant products. Both the shampoo and conditioner are thick and creamy which might make you think they are difficult to rinse out, but not so!

When my hair has been dry and brittle (I do a bit of swimming in the sea and in chlorinated pools), I have found that the Shea shampoo and conditioner can really help to repair it. My hair feels rehydrated, and because of the creamy texture of the conditioner, I can comb it through without causing more damage.

But because I have very fine, straight hair, I find the product a little too heavy for normal use. I prefer to only wash my hair every 3 days, but tend to find that it needs washing again on the 2nd day with this because it gets a bit lank.

This isn’t a problem for everyone though. My daughter, who has much thicker hair, found it was just right and didn’t weigh her hair down at all. So for those with thinner hair, like me, you may want to reserve its use for times when you really need it.

Moving onto the Ginger shampoo and conditioner, and the Moringa range too, I find I can use both these ranges all the time and I use the ginger even when I don’t have an itchy or flaky scalp. I really love the fragrance of the ginger too – not overly strong, but definitely recognisable!

The Ginger has a lovely, cooling feeling when you first use it and again, can be applied and rinsed out very easily. I am also able to leave my hair for 3-4 days between washes which is great.

The Moringa also smells great, and is good for frequent use.

My partner uses the Ginger shampoo now too. Previously, he had used T-Gel to treat dandruff but that is quite a strong product that is also not vegan or cruelty-free. He has found the Body Shop Ginger range actually more effective, and kinder to his scalp.

Refillable ranges

The Body Shop is promoting a range of their products that are refillable at many of their stores, so providing you don’t have to travel too far to get to the shop (or are going that way regularly anyway) this is a very environmentally-friendly purchase.

The aluminium bottles are hardwearing, attractive to look at and can ultimately be recycled themselves if the need arose.

It is important to ensure that you clean the bottles thoroughly before you get them refilled though. The store staff are under strict instruction not to refill a bottle that hasn’t been cleaned properly, presumably because of some sort of cross-contamination issue.

The Body Shop is gradually extending the refillable option to a wider range of their products as well which is great.

Some less ‘natural’ ingredients

By their own admission, The Body Shop does not claim to be creating completely natural products.

However, they have removed the use of things like microbeads, they don’t use Methylisothiazolinone (a controversial preservative) and state that their aim is to use natural ingredients wherever possible.

The Shea and Ginger haircare products for example contain 96% and 90% natural ingredients respectively. Unfortunately, they still use some forms of silicone, although these are more ingredients that they plan to phase out.

So, when you dig around in their FAQs, you do find that there are some ingredients used that, although considered safe, may have some environmental concerns. However, all The Body Shop’s stated aims are to improve in all these areas.

I believe The Body Shop is committed to doing this and I will watch with interest over the next 12 months or so.

Body Shop Shampoo Review Conclusion

I do like The Body Shop products, and their haircare ranges are no exception. I have enjoyed using the shampoo and conditioner ranges and they seem to provide the results they promise. The shea certainly helps to repair and rehydrate my hair when I have stressed it out in swimming pools and the sea! My partner now use the ginger shampoo all the time to help control dandruff and I use it to calm things down when I have an itchy scalp.

The moringa smells lovely, and as with some of the other shampoos in The Body Shop vegan haircare range, it makes my hair shiny and doesn’t weigh it down. I’ve found the moringa particularly useful for when I have to wash my hair more frequently for any reason.

I haven’t tried the banana shampoo, although it seems to get lots of very positive reviews – banana smells aren’t really my thing so I left that one out!

It’s a shame that The Body Shop products aren’t all completely ‘natural’, but they certainly avoid some of the nastier ingredients that you sometimes see in other brands of personal care products. They also have clearly stated aims about the ingredients they want to improve on, so I have been happy to use these lovely shampoos and conditioners. You can check individual ingredients too on The Body Shop glossary which tells you what each ingredient is, and why it’s necessary – quite reassuring and helpful if you really want to avoid specific ingredients.

From an environmental perspective, The Body Shop seem to be doing their bit too. They use recycled, and recyclable plastic packaging, create some products that are packaged in cardboard and paper, and some in aluminium. They also offer refills across some ranges and this is increasing gradually.

Strangely, I am old enough to remember when The Body Shop originally offered refills in-store (many years ago!). Presumably, it became unsustainable at the time. Hopefully, they have now come up with better processes and products to ensure this can become a permanent feature.

However, it takes two to tango as they say, and refill stations are great, providing people use them. I think they’re a great idea but I know some people find it all a bit inconvenient. I hope we all realise the price we will pay if we don’t start making more of an effort to use these solutions.

Overall, in spite of the improvements I have talked about in this Body Shop Shampoo Review, I like using their products, I think their website is very user-friendly, and the majority of in store staff have been helpful too.

I would happily recommend these products to anyone. They may be a little pricier than the standard haircare products you buy in the supermarket, but I believe the quality (and the environmental commitment) of The Body Shop products are worth paying for.

Discount code for The Body Shop

Readers of this Body Shop Shampoo review can use an exclusive discount code to get a massive 20% discount off any of their product ranges, not just haircare. Use code AFFVEGANMUM at checkout.

Where can you buy Body Shop products?

You can buy all Body Shop products direct from their online shop.

You can also buy many of The Body Shop products on Amazon too.

FAQ

Who owns The Body Shop?

Natura & Co, a Brazilian Personal Care Cosmetics Group, has owned The Body Shop since 2017, when it completed its purchase of the business from L’Oreal. Natura also own brands like Avon. However, at the time of publishing this Body Shop Shampoo review, it looks like this enduring brand may well get sold again.

The Body Shop was originally founded in the UK in 1976 by Anita Roddick who sold it to L’Oreal in 2006.

You can find out more about The Body Shop’s slightly chequered history on Wikipedia.