How much effort do you currently put into cleaning up our world’s polluted oceans? On a totally related note, are you satisfied with your hair care routine?
Photo by Ben Duyker
SeaBar is a Whatcom County-based company that aims to help you improve the answers to both of these questions. They produce zero-waste, natural shampoo and conditioner concentrate bars that massively reduce the amount of plastic bottles in your shower. In addition, when you buy SeaBar, your purchase helps fund trash pickups that have removed more than 30,000 pounds of plastic waste from the ocean.
Founder Greg Dayley started SeaBar after a couple of experiences left him determined to make a change. The first was an experience he had while free-diving in Hawaii. He saw a sea-turtle tangled in trash, and knew he wanted to make more conscious choices for the environment.
“For about five or six years, about the extent of me doing something about it was choosing paper over plastic,” says Dayley. “But it was always in the back of my mind.”
The second came when he was working with his cousin’s Instagram marketing agency, partnering with “some of the largest hair-related accounts in the world.”
“Through that whole process, as I kind of fell into the beauty industry, I was like, ‘Man, there is so much waste,’” he says.
During those days, he was trying out hair products in his own home, and realized most shampoos and conditioners were made up of mostly water. He’d heard of shampoo bars, solid products which didn’t need to be housed in plastic bottles, and asked his sisters and cousins if they’d consider switching to them. The answer was a resounding “no.” Thus began the attempt to create a better concentrated hair-care product.
“I played around with a bunch of things,” says Dayley. “I made some shampoo pastes that were like 10% water. … I probably made about 100 different versions of SeaBar before I [perfected] it.”
Eventually, he made a concentrated product and put it into old deodorant containers, and sent it to his esteemed council of sisters and cousins. They all came back with glowing reviews.
What makes SeaBar great for your hair? It comes down to ingredients and form. SeaBar’s Moisturize Shampoo ($16) uses three gentle surfactants which are either biodegradable or Ecocert COSMOS certified. Together, they effectively cleanse your scalp and hair without stripping them to the point of harm.
The Moisturize Conditioner ($16) is such an intensely concentrated conditioner that Dayley says it’s like using a deep-conditioning treatment every time you apply. He says customers attest it leaves their locks silky soft. You can thank the solid form for this concentrated punch!
SeaBar comes in a plastic holder the first time you buy, and refills cost $14 and come in compostable cardboard tubes. Using plastic at all may seem suspect, but Dayley says that plastic is the perfect material for the moist, slippery environment of the shower—as long as we don’t treat it like cheap trash. One plastic bar holder over dozens of plastic bottles is a pretty good trade!
Each purchase of SeaBar helps fund Dayley’s clean-up initiative, Clean Ocean Alliance (previously Pavati Ocean Pickup). The first week-long pickup recovered 30,000 pounds of trash. They’re aiming for their next pickup to be a month long, and recover “100,000+ pounds of trash.”
If you’d like to contribute to that cause, or try out these eco-conscious hair products, you can find SeaBar at their website, or at local stores like Pumped Bellingham, Living Pantry, and at the Bellingham Community Food Co-op. Bellingham, seabar.com, @seabarcleans
