Ahhh... Grapefruit and Lime Conditioner Bar product reviews

In our house, we are really big on trying to reduce, reuse and recycle and have recently turned our attention to lessening our plastic usage and consumption with things such as our bathroom and shower products including shampoo and conditioner. I liked the sound of the grapefruit and lime conditioner bar to accompany its shampooing counterpart of chamomile and grapefuit.

Lots of things appealed to me when requesting to try the Ahhh.... brand of conditioner bar, with some of them being that the products are New Zealand made and are ethical - cruelty-free and lots of organic ingredients being utilised in the making of the products.

Looking at the packaging first - it is really pretty and appealing as well as being super easy to spot the different types as the colours and graphics are quite different. The boxes themselves are recyclable, meaning there is no waste left behind. We actually used one of the boxes to put my daughter's hair ties into, and as it has the scent of the bar in it at the moment, my daughter is loving choosing one in the morning!

The conditioner bar itself is a lovely apricot (or pink grapefruit colour) and easy to distinguish from the shampoo one as it is very smooth. It smelt lovely as you opened the packet - sweet and citrus-y, but not overpowering which is great.

The instructions are really easy, but to be honest you probably could figure them out without having ever used a shampoo or conditioner bar. I personally prefer to rub the conditioner bar into my hands and then onto my hair, so that I do not over condition my fine hair, and weigh it down - but you can rub it directly onto your head as well of course!

I do not really have anything negative to say about this conditioner bar - only minor niggles like using too much weighs your hair down or that the scent does not remain very long - but in terms of does it work, does it do what it says and is it helping the planet - absolutely, and I will totally be buying these again as well as recommending them to others to try!

I adore how simple and effective the shampoo/conditioner bars are, and I am kicking myself for not trying earlier. I find my hair is not as heavy as it used to be and clogged down with product. I was lucky enough to try the lavender bar last allocation, but as much as I loved the bar itself I found my hair was very dry after just using the shampoo and I would have to use heaps of conditioner in order for it to smooth itself out. Looking back I was silly to request the fine/oily hair version but I am glad I got to smell that delicious scent.

This time around I got to experience The Manuka Honey and Almond Normal Hair Shampoo Bar with the Grapefruit and Lime Conditioner Bar. Unlike the lavender variety this Shampoo was awesome and worked perfectly with my hair type, so much so I did not have to use the conditioner every time but when I did it worked perfectly together and found my hair silky smooth and shiny.

The conditioner bar is not overly strong in a scent, unlike the lavender bar you have to actually smell the bar, but when you do, you are automatically meet with a citrus explosion. Its a nice orange colour, so you visually see an orchard of lime and grapefruit and I sense orange as well.

After shampooing my hair I pat just the ends of my hair and then pat the centre of my scalp. It lathers nicely and I comb it thru. I have not used it as a dry conditioner instead washing out after a couple of minutes - usually after washing my body and I am loving how soft it feels. My daughter loves applying it to her hair and although she pats her self at least a thousand times all of her knots have disappeared. As it is only her and myself using it I don't seem to worry as it says that it should cater for at least 50 - 70 washes and although we have been using now for over two weeks it is still looking pretty brand new.

I don't think I will ever return to shampoo and conditioner bottles as I am liking the feeling of knowing it has natural ingredients, its cruelty free and it just feels better for the environment as I am not using any bulky plastics. The rest of the family also praise the ease of it all. Definitely a winner in my eyes.

Id heard a lot of hype about shampoo and conditioner bars and was very keen to give them a try, it seems like a great way to cut down on plastic bottle waste and wasted products. We go through far too much liquid shampoo's and conditioners, either with the kids using too much or spilling it and the bottles always annoy me how you can't get the last bits out of the bottom of the bottle too. For me the soap bars are a great way of saving money on one side but just not having so much waste on the other and great for my young children learning to independentaly use these type of products in the shower.

I found after using the shampoo bar my hair seemed like it had been left quite dry, so I was quick to then use the conditioner bar rubbing the bar in my hands to work up a lather and then through my hair I could feel those moisturisers working quickly to make my hair feel soft again. Like with the shampoo bar the grapefruit came through quite strongly and was devine in fragrancing my hair. It worked through the hair quite easily but did require a bit more effort than liquid conditioners do working the bar through the entire lengths of long hair. Once I had worked it through enough it rinsed well and didn't leave behind any excess products like liquids can.

When my hair dried after washing I noticed it felt very clean and soft, I find with some liquids even after thorough rinsing they can leave behind quite a lot of product residue that leaves my hair feeling oily but this just felt clean and soft and had a great clean fragrance to it. I wash my hair every second day but I found even on the second day using these my hair hadnt started to feel as oily as it does with the traditional liquid format I'm used to. I think although it does require a lot more effort I could definitely get used to using these in future and save some money as the block would easily last us a few weeks with our family of five as opposed to a week with the bottles.

I like a good conditioner as I have shoulder-length hair and without a conditioner, combing can be an issue after some shampoos. I liked the look of the bar (bright coloured and easy to hold. I found it applied better by lathering in my fingers and applying to the ends rather than rubbing it on my hair like the shampoo. I found the result as good as the supermarket conditioners which was what I was comparing it to. I liked the fact it wasn't heavy afterwards and left my hair surprisingly easy to comb given how little I used. I would try this conditioner again (I used it for two weeks and you can hardly tell so it will be a while!)

I expected a stronger scent and looked forward to the lime aspect but I could not really identify it strongly. The grapefruit was almost there but I wonder if that was left over from the shampoo rather than the hair. It was a pretty box but it didn't react too well to getting wet (well handling it with wet fingers). I think a bit of planning around storage/draining/airing would go a long way. From the photo the conditioner is the shiny waxy item which got a bit slippery but otherwise I liked the presentation. The combination did look sweet in the shower and you use so little it would take a while to get through which is great.

I liked the packaging being so small and the ease of telling the difference between the shampoo and the conditioner. If I was to use these going forward I would probably tub them for travelling as they seem to be great volume-wise. These two products in tandem have enocuraged me to try other bars especially for when we need to share products (camping/holidaying/away for the night). I don't know that I would replace my salon products but I definitely like that these could sit in the shower space for guests (just need to work out some labelling plans). Definitely keen to try more Ahhh products and I need further experimentation with conditioner bars.

I received this conditioner bar as a pair to its shampoo counter part and found that I didn't like the box design quite as much as the other as this one is a bit more bold with the fruit images, however I do like that they tie in with each other in regards to the grapefruit but you're going to get a slightly different scent with each one. I decided to use this each time, following the shampoo bar. I found this this bar didn't foam up for me at all, making it a little harder to determine how much I had in my hair, it also felt harder to move around no matter if I tried doing it whilst my hair was under the water or not.

This bar didn't leave me feeling rubbery but I did find that it left my skin feeling a bit dry and not soft and nourished at all. I could only just smell the grapefruit, something which I found to be a shame as whilst my grapefruit tree was alive, it was a great past time to make fresh juice with it, and this just didn't give me that zing. I also found the lime was rather lacking and neither scent was one that hung around for a little bit as some soap scents do. The box was handy to pop this into, to let it dry but the box did deteriorate rather quickly, so I ended up trying to slot it into a small plastic bag (otherwise the kids wanted to use it as a regular soap).

Whilst better than the shampoo in some ways, this just wasn't a hit and won't find its way back into our shower,