In the quest for plastic free living, one of products gaining traction this year are shampoo bars. We have been selling the full range from Beauty & The Bees for years now, one of our favourite Australian brands in store but it only this year that they have started to gain serious popularity.

Soap Bars are not designed to be stored in the shower in between uses

Whether it's shampoo bars or normal soap bars, the good quality bars made with saponified oils will turn to mush if they're left permanently damp in a humid shower. Depending on the household, the shampoo bar may get used twice a week, but 3 people having 2 showers a day will dampen the bar 35 times in a week. You can buy a fancy timber soap tray if you want to, but the best thing we have in store to do this is the Safix Coconut Fibre Scrub Pad.

At just $3.95, it will allow any moisture to drain from the soap without the bottom staying damp. It's also a scourer so you can clean your bathroom with it too. They last for months and can be put in with your compost when you're done as they're made from coconut fibre.

Solid Soap when travelling

The beauty of both these shampoo bars and standard natural soap bars is that when you're travelling, particularly on an aircraft, but even just in the car, there's no leaking liquid to be concerned about and no liquid allowance to worry about. You still need to keep the soap dry and protected in between destinations. We have two things in the store designed to carry food that are both waterproof and perfect for this job.

Stasher Bags are reusable silicone bags available in a sandwich sized square (pictured above) and a half sized rectangular size. Depending on how much you're carrying with you, the smaller size may be large enough, but you can also put your toothpaste and soap bars in the same bag and anything else you think might squirt out and leak in transit. (Check out Grants of Australia for mini tubes of natural toothpaste for travelling).

This muffin looks like it's wrapped in a piece of fabric which isn't going to do you much good with a damp soap bar while you're travelling, but it's actually in a waterproof cocoon because we're using beeswax wraps instead. If your soap is still a little damp and you just have to pack up and go, wrapping it in a beeswax wrap will stop it from wetting other things in your luggage until you can get to your next destination and dry it.

Once you have used a beeswax wrap for soap, we don't recommend using it for food again, mainly because the smell of the soap is probably going to linger for you.