Unwrapped Life Shampoo + Conditioner Bars Review: Easy-to-Pack Products for Great Hair

There's a 95 percent chance Senior Editor Christine Sarkis is thinking about travel right now. Follow her on Instagram @postcartography and Twitter @ChristineSarkis.

Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

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Price and Where to Buy: Unwrapped Life Bars are $35 to $40 for a travel set that includes a shampoo bar, a conditioner bar, and travel tins for each.

Unwrapped shampoo + conditioner bar travel set with tins — Unwrapped

How Unwrapped Life Shampoo and Conditioner Bars Rate:

Usefulness: 10/10. Shampoo and conditioner bars are the ultimate travel tool because they allow you to pack weeks or months of shampoo and conditioner into a tin the size of a bar of soap. And since they’re not liquid, they’re perfect for carry-on-only travelers. If you haven’t tried shampoo and conditioner bars lately, it’s time to give them a try again: they’ve come a long way. Unwrapped Life’s sets cater to different hair types (including curly hair, damaged hair, and color-treated hair), and all are vegan and cruelty free.
Value: 8/10. At $35 to $40 for a set of shampoo and conditioner bars plus tins, this isn’t as cheap as most drug-store brands. But the quality is significantly higher, and the bars last up to 75 washes, which is the same as two to three bottles of shampoo and conditioner—making the overall cost quite a good value.
Durability: 10/10. Shampoo and conditioner bars aren’t going to puncture and leak. If they happen to break in half (I threw mine on the ground to see what happened; they held strong in one piece), you can still use them. And they last for a long time.
Cool Factor: 10/10. I used these bars exclusively for three weeks. My (complicated, curly, and not terribly adaptable to new products) hair looks shiny and frizz-free, but not oily or weighed down.

Final Verdict: Formulated with clean ingredients to keep all sorts of hair types looking great, these travel-friendly shampoo and conditioner bars are a perfect addition to a well-traveled toiletry kit.

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Editor’s Note: Reviews are based on usefulness, portability, durability, value, and “cool factor.” Some review products are sent to us to test free of charge and with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions, positive and negative, and will never accept compensation to review a product. If you have any questions or comments concerning our reviews or would like to suggest a product for review, please email us at editor@smartertravel.com.

We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review products. All items are in stock and prices are accurate at the time of publication. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.