NueBar is unique, effective and unlike any other solid hair and body bar brand on the market. We make the only 100% handmade and naturopathically formulated range of solid hair and body bars in the world. Our other unique features include our pH balanced formulation, our use of high-quality and highly beneficial ingredients, our transparency, the concentration of our bars and our support of eco-initiatives.

Naturopath formulated

Why is it important to choose a naturopathically formulated product for your hair or skin?

Naturopathy takes a holistic approach to wellness and aims to support the body’s natural capacity to heal. Naturopaths commonly utilise herbal medicines as well as positive dietary and lifestyle changes in order to support a person to optimum health.

The mindset of a naturopath when formulating a product for the body is generally different than that of a cosmetic chemist as the priorities will be different.

The highest priority for a naturopath includes avoiding any ingredients that may be harmful or irritating to the body, supporting the natural microbiome of the skin and scalp (another critical consideration and why pH is so important) and thirdly using herbs and botanicals that actively support the body.

Choosing a naturopathically formulated product for your skin and hair means that you are choosing a product that is gentle and supportive to health to your skin and hair and therefore your whole body.

Ph balanced

All of our solid hair and skincare bars are pH balanced. Why is this important?

Our products have been formulated to match the natural pH levels of the skin and hair so that they don’t disturb or damage the microbiome of our skin. While the research is still in its early days, choosing a pH balanced product may be helpful in reducing skin irritation and whilst not curative, is especially important for those that suffer various dermatological disorders such as acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, and atopic dermatitis.

For more about the importance of pH on the skin read this blog written by Katie Hennah, naturopath, formulator and founder of NueBar.

For the hair, pH balance is crucial to the way the cuticles on the hair fibre sit, with a pH balanced product helping to reduce frizz, tangling and breakage. We’ve written an in-depth explanation in our blog post about pH balance and the hair.

Keep an eye out for this one. There aren't many products out there that have taken the time to pH balance their products and it really can make a huge difference in the results you get.

Award winning

In 2020, NueBar's products were judged against competitors from 39 countries in The Beauty Shortlist Awards. The Beauty Shortlist Awards are one of the few awards that are completely independent, ad-free and sponsor-free. They are thus able to offer a truly level playing field where small artisan brands can compete head to head with large global companies. Every product entered undergoes thorough testing by industry experts in London, New York, and Sydney. 

NueBar are delighted to have not one but two of our Shampoo bars be finalists in the Best Zero Waste Product category of The Beauty Shortlist Awards for 2020. There were only four finalists in this category and NueBar occupied two of these spots with our Normal and Dry/Damaged Shampoo bars.

Not only that our Dry/Mature Face Wash was Editor's Choice Award Winner.

High-quality Ingredients with results

The ingredients we use in the formulation of our bars have been carefully selected to give you the best results for your skin and hair.

Argan Oil

The wonder ingredient. And we swear by it as the king of moisturising oils. We’ve included it in our shampoo for dry/damaged hair and our facewash for dry or mature skin. There are so many benefits that this oil provides that we recommend you read our in-depth post on this ingredient here but just to name a few, argan oil has UV protection and anti-inflammatory properties, antioxidant properties and helps to restore coloured and dyed hair.

Coconut oil (virgin, organic)

Coconut oil can absorb right into the hair shaft and  strengthens it by preventing protein loss. This means coconut oil promotes hair health, as  well as minimises the damage to the hair shaft when your hair is wet.

Colloidal oatmeal

 

Avena sativa (Oats), ground to an extremely fine soft powder is soothing and moisturising to the skin. Oats are especially suitable for sensitive skin as they help to reduce itch and  retain moisture, helping the skin to maintain a strong natural barrier, crucial to good health.

We use Oats in our range of fragrance free solid shampoo, body and face wash bars which you can find here. These products are especially suitable for those prone to atopic dermatitis, eczema and psoriasis.

Ghassoul clay (also known as rhassoul clay)

This extremely fine and mineral rich Moroccan lava clay has a smooth, almost lubricating feel on the skin. Its gentle, softening quality makes it suitable for even the most sensitive skin whilst it exfoliates and deeply cleanses.

These are just a few ingredients we’ve chosen to highlight here.

Each have their own unique properties and all are highly beneficial and promote the health of your hair and skin. For a full list of the ingredients we use, check out our ingredients page. The ingredients we’ve chosen to use in each product is also listed on it’s product page.

The chemicals we leave out

The chemicals and ingredients we choose to leave out of our range is just as important as the healthy ingredients we choose to include.

Our solid shampoo, conditioner, wash and face wash bars contain no soap, no sulfates (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate or Sodium Coco Sulfate) and no artificial fragrances or parfum, all of which can cause irritation and sensitivities in susceptible individuals.

What to look out for when choosing a product for you skin or hair:

  • SLS – Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
  • SLES – Sodium Laureth Sulfate or Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate
  • SCS – Sodium Coco Sulfate
  • Soap

Ingredients labelled ‘fragrance’ or ‘parfum’ with no indication of what these contain.

No sulfates

Sulfates are cheap; usually palm oil derived and produce a strong foaming and cleansing action. They’re the ingredients that create abundant bubbles in your shampoo and body wash, which, we admit, is satisfying, but these ingredients can cause excessive dryness  and irritation.

Nuebar still uses surfactants to create our wash and bubbles (which will be just a little less than you may be used to) but we choose from a gentler class of products and blend them effectively in order to create just enough wash, whilst being gentle on the skin and hair.

The main offenders to look out for are SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate), SLES (Sodium Laureth Sulfate/Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate) and SCS (Sodium Coco Sulfate). There are so many products on the market that use harsh sulfates, so always, read the label and watch out for the ones listed above.

No soap

Soap is alkaline. That means that on the pH scale, it’s quite different from the pH level of our skin (see the first feature of NueBar) which makes it potentially irritating and drying, and if it’s included in shampoo bars it can leave a waxy-feeling residue and straw like dryness (we can’t name any names but some of the most popular shampoo bars out there include soap 🤭).

If you have tried a Shampoo bar and felt like your hair felt “dirtier” than before you washed it, or excessively dried out, then you have probably been using a soap-based shampoo bar. Soap based shampoo bars are generally cheaper and are extremely common so don’t let this experience put you off your plastic free goals, try soap free, you won’t be disappointed with the result!

Check out this blog by Katie on soap and the ill-effects of it’s inclusion in shampoo bars.

NueBar is Soap free

No artificial fragrance or parfum

Do you know what makes a shampoo smell like vanilla and strawberry? Is every fragrance ingredient listed on the label? We'll bet it's not. Under Australian Law, the formulation of artificial fragrances are considered a trade secret and do not need to be disclosed. Manufacturers only need to put 'fragrance' or 'parfum' on labels. 

So how will you know if there is something in a product that you may be allergic to?

Unfortunately you just can’t tell, but with NueBar, we list every ingredient we use and we use NO synthetic fragrances. Only pure essential oils are used to scent our bars and only in mild quantities so that our scents aren’t overwhelming.

We hide nothing behind the label of 'fragrance' or 'parfum' and if you need to know exactly what's inside our bars, all you need to do is take a look on the back of the box or on the product page on our website.

We're transparent so you know that you can make the right choices for your hair and skincare. For more on the detrimental effects of artificial fragrance we highly recommend the book “The Case Against Fragrance” by Kate Grenville.

PS: For those super sensitive folks whom prefer no scent at all, we have included a range of Fragrance Free products. Click here to view the range. 

Palm oil free

Palm oil is a hidden component of 99% of Shampoos and body wash products on the market and by far the most difficult thing to remove from our products! Palm Oil is contributing to the rapid deforestation in Sumatra, raises  serious concerns about forced labour, child labour and violations of worker rights on some plantations and is a contributor to the rising levels of greenhouse gasses. 

NueBar is proudly palm-oil free and after many hours of research and testing, we've found alternatives to use in our formulations that are just as good and if not better than including palm oil.

Value for money

NueBar shampoo contains 80% more shampoo than a liquid shampoo bottle

Because our bars don't have any water in them, you get 3-4 x more product out of each bar than you would a regular bottle of shampoo or conditioner. 

Because our bars don't have any water in them, they are surprisingly concentrated and when cared for properly (drained well and dried between use) they will last and last. In our testing we found that each shampoo bar lasted the average person a minimum of  80 washes, 3-4 x more washes than shampoo from a plastic bottle.

As much as 80% of a regular bottle of shampoo is water, which means there's a measly 20% worth of ingredients to clean your hair inside the bottle (and if it's a regular bottle of shampoo, a lot of that 20% will be harsh sulfates).

What's the point when you're already in the shower and you're already wet? So, when you increase the ingredients to 100% and the water to 0%, you get a whole lot more shampoo in a bar than what's inside a plastic shampoo bottle. This carries across to our solid wash bars and our solid face cleansing bars as well.

Our bars plastic-free, water-free and very mighty!

Supporting ocean clean-ups

NueBar have partnered with Tangaroa Blue as our charity of choice. Tangaroa Blue is an Australian registered charity founded in 2004 that coordinates the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI).

They are a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the removal and prevention of marine debris and rubbish.

We love the way that Tangaroa Blue works at all levels of the ocean plastics’ problem and that is why we donate 10% of profits, or 1% of revenue (whichever is greatest) annually to this highly effective and practical organisation.

Plastic-free

See how beautiful plastic-free can be. From our bars, to our packaging, we've taken away the need for plastic packaging and plastic bottles and have created a complete system that is sustainable and biodegradable.

Our packaging is made from recycled material, printed with soy-based inks and is compostable, and our accessories have been carefully selected and designed to not only prolong the life of your bar, but also to reduce the use of single-use and plastic bathroom accessories.

Never get mixed up in the shower again

When we were looking at developing the NueBar range and experimenting with various bar products on the market, one of the problems that we kept running up against in the shower was getting confused with which bar was for what! When you have multiple bars and people using a shower it can get very confusing.

To try and solve this problem we instigated our lettering system (read our blog on the Typography of NueBar here) to help you to find your way. We also made our letters nice and large so that you could read them easily without glasses, feel the shape if you have visual impairment issues (read our blog on inclusive product design here) and they would last well.

Granted they don’t last forever so we also use colour, shape and smell to assist and now we have introduced our little matching draining bags that also carry our lettering system AND help your bars to last longer!