In Conversation with The High-End Hippie Wellness Company (or, How to Create Accidental Environmentalists with a Shampoo Bar)
What started out as a post to talk about how much plastic I’ve saved by switching to a shampoo bar quickly morphed into a meditation on the far-reaching positive impacts of supporting local businesses and why this particular shampoo bar goes beyond the fight against plastic pollution.
Happy Sustainability Sunday, readers! Today, I’d like you to meet Amy Hamilton, owner of the High-End Hippie Wellness Company and creator of salon-grade shampoo and conditioner bars. She’s creating what I’m calling a legion of “accidental environmentalists” through her products. Why accidental? You’ll see, read on!
About Amy
Amy is originally from Nova Scotia, where she grew up on a small, hobby farm. For her, “environmentalism” is a way of life. She doesn’t label herself an environmentalist per se, it’s just how she lives her life. Taking cues from nature and being in tune with the earth is her OS. “If I’m being honest, yes, I guess I am kind of an environmentalist at heart, but I’m not even really an environmentalist, it’s just how I grew up with being a naturalist living on a farm, close to nature.” (As she says this, I can hear the notes of her eastern Canadian heritage shine through, tickling my eardrums)
She relocated to Kelowna several years ago with her husband Chad, an incredible chef and father, and together with their son, they are promoting wellness, sustainability, and health in their own ways.
About the High-End Hippie
As with all things, the name “The High-End Hippie” itself has a backstory. The way Amy tells it, she was trying to work out a name for her company, and started by linking her personal style and values together. It wasn’t long before “The High-End Hippie” came to be.
The “High-End” piece refers to her experiences as an adult, working in high-end spa environments around the world, including time spent at The Fairmont where her love of luxury personal care products was born. “Hippie” draws on her experiences living on her family’s farm. “My family was very connected to the earth and non-industrial farming practices. Trips to the health food store, taking natural supplements and using alternative health care modalities were our norm,” she recalls.
The way Amy saw it, there were luxury hair-care products and there were environmentally-friendly products, but there was no middle ground. Why was this so? When we think of “luxury” we often think of excess, and of waste. Where was the middle ground? Well, Amy created it, with clean, low-waste, and professional products. The High-End Hippie was born. Its mission? “To make safe, non-toxic personal care products that can outperform the best professional brands, while being environmentally conscious.”
Why are high-quality, well-made hair care products so important to Amy?
I asked Amy this question as I was working on this story and her response was so perfect and hits at what I love about what she is doing with The High-End Hippie.
“To affect real change, you have to convert the skeptics and in our case, elevate how shampoo bars are perceived (especially in the hair industry). It’s a disservice to everyone when a product isn’t exceptional. It only adds to the waste problem and won’t shift behaviour long term. People will try something because it’s trending and move on when it doesn’t work. We are trying to create accidental environmentalists, by creating a culture where people use the products because they love the way it makes their hair look and feel, and they can rest easy knowing that they are investing in a company that is going the extra mile to safeguard the environment for the future generations.”
Amy Hamilton, The High-End Hippie
This perception, that things like shampoo bars are ineffective, or for self-proclaimed zero-wasters only, is a huge barrier to someone like Amy being able to break through into a larger market and make waves in the hair-care industry. An industry that presently, is dominated by companies selling us products in plastic bottles. At the same time, there is this idea among consumers that shampoo bars couldn’t possibly be as effective as a bottled product. Amy is trying to change that perception, by marrying two worlds: luxury and sustainability.
My Introduction to Amy & The Shampoo Bars
I connected with Amy in early 2020, through two friends (Shauna at the Vibrant Veggie & Allisha at Chickpeace Zero Waste Refillery – thank you!), after asking around for locally-made, high-quality shampoo bars. Here I was, advocating for plastic-free livin’ and what item did I not use? Shampoo bars! D’oh!
In full disclosure, I did try to use shampoo bars…years ago. I gave Lush a shot, and it made my hair feel squeaky. Then, I moved around a bunch and gave up on shampoo bars. Now, they’re the new hot commodity, with formulations running the spectrum of hair types. It turned out that Amy had just launched her company in late 2019 and was producing small-batch, hand-made shampoo and conditioner bars in the same valley as me! How much more local can you get?!
Amy was quick to respond to my myriad questions about which bars to consider based on my hair type and scalp concerns (I deal with dry skin on the reg). She gave me all sorts of information about her bars, and provided recommendations on what to try, given my unique mix of hair requirements. I hadn’t even touched the product yet and already, I was basically sold.
And then COVID hit! So fun. But no matter: when it came time to (finally!) placing my order, Amy generously offered to drop off my bars in town with her husband Chad, as he was going to work. On the appointed day, I met Chad and he kindly handed off two simple, brown paper bags filled with my order.
Tiny Bars, Big Impact
As I was driving away with my shampoo and conditioner bars in hand, the weight of what just happened hit me like a ton of beautiful bricks: I just bought a product that virtually everyone goes to the grocery store for. There, products are faceless. There is no story.
But these bars are different. They are unique, warm, soft, and fragrant. They smell real. Human hands touched their raw materials, turned them into a beautiful product. The story of plastic-free shampoo bars is so much more than a story about how much plastic we’re saving. It’s about the abundance of everything else that is real and good in this world.
This, of course, made me laugh and want to cry with glee – that I just connected with real people over a hair-care product; had multiple, one-on-one conversations with the business owner; and received customized care.
Energy Exchanges
There is an energy to this exchange that I find so difficult to put into words. When I finally got around to using the shampoo bars, it was such an incredible experience and not just because the bars themselves smelled like heaven and actually worked for my hair*. No, it was like I could feel the energy that Amy puts into crafting her products; the good vibrations that come from a small business owner who is living her dream. She made these products with her own two hands and I, the lucky recipient, was able to share in this energy exchange. And the best part is that I get this experience each and every time I wash my hair. Every time, a little dose of humanity and real connection.
Try getting that same experience in the shampoo aisle at your neighbourhood big-box grocery store. I’ll wait.
*Quick review (and no, Amy didn’t put me up to it! ;D): the bars are a wonder for my hair and actually make me feel like I’ve just had a trip to my hair salon. I feel like I’ve been duped my whole life by crappy shampoo and now have seen the light. Huzzah!
What About the Plastic?
It’s said that one bar of shampoo replaces upwards of three plastic bottles of liquid shampoo. Most companies, including The High-End Hippie, claim that around 2 – 250mL bottles are replaced by one bar. I love a good claim, but I myself am not sure how much shampoo I go through, so I won’t try to quantify the amount of plastic I’ve saved by switching to a bar. There are just too many variables: a) I have thick hair, so on one hand, I might use more product than someone with thin hair. I also only wash my hair once a week. In that way, I might actually use less product on a weekly/monthly/yearly basis than someone who washes their hair more frequently.
I really can’t say for certain if I consume two plastic bottles of shampoo in one year.
One Shampoo Bar Lasted Me Over One Year!
What I can say is that based on my use, I’ve been able to use one bar of shampoo for over one year. I first purchased my bar in February 2020 and it’s now April 2021 and, although the bar has crumbled, it’s still holdin’ on. HOORAY!
What I’ll also say is, as I’m using up the last bits of my shampoo bar, it is endlessly satisfying to realize (again and again) that when the final crumbles of this bar are massaged into my hair and rinsed out…that’s the end of the bar. There is no bottle to rinse and recycle. Even if my shampoo bar only replaced one bottle…that’s one less bottle floating around out there, taking up space. Once the bar is gone, it’s g-o-n-e. And, because the ingredients used in Amy’s bars are high-quality and safe for people and the planet, I feel comfortable knowing that even the bars’ ingredients going down my drain are not leaving a negative footprint on my local watershed.
It’s a dream come true.
Shampoo & Conditioner Bars, over one year later 
Conditioner bar is holding up!
Fast Forward to Today
Since I first met Amy and was introduced to her bars, she’s made some seriously epic changes to the High-End Hippie and it has been so exciting to watch her company accelerate into the stratosphere. Amy is positioning the High-End HIppie to compete at the level of other eco-luxury brands, with a target-market focus on hair salons. Not only have the bars gotten a formulation upgrade, but so too has the packaging and the company at large!
Why The High-End Hippie Shampoo Bars Go Beyond Mitigating Plastic Pollution
For Amy, her products go beyond simple plastic mitigation, and she’s doing that on purpose. She sees The High-End Hippie as a platform for making big changes.
“It’s coming back to values and investing in companies that are addressing a bunch of different issues and also products that serve a bunch of different needs. I’ve tried to be really intentional about that when I make anything.”
Here are the major, global issues that The High-End Hippie is tackling through its products:
On Climate Change…
- Amy joined up her packaging printer’s Carbon Neutral program, which was developed in partnership with Offsetters. This partnership enables The High-End Hippie to neutralize their carbon footprint by investing in renewable energy and cleantech projects. The Great Bear Rainforest Carbon Project in Haida Gwaii, BC, is one such project!
- The bars themselves: are lighter than traditional liquid shampoo, resulting in fewer emissions from the shipping of bars to customers.
On Deforestation…
- The High-End Hippie recently partnered with TreeEra, a Canadian-based social venture that works with businesses and individuals to plant trees in BC, Ontario, Africa, and Costa Rica. For every two bars purchased, one tree is planted! (Note: it’s important to first stop the incessant industrial logging happening across the world. But, replanting trees is also invaluable work that helps sequester CO2 emissions (long term) and protects our fragile climate.)
On Soil Degradation and Biodiversity…
- The High-End Hippie only uses ingredients that are either organically farmed, sustainable, COSMOS-standard/ECOCERT, or readily biodegradable. (Why does this matter? Traditional farming practices use heaps of pesticides, which negatively impacts microbial communities and reduces biodiversity)
On Water Preservation…
- Because shampoo bars are essentially a concentrated product, significantly less water is needed to manufacture the bars. This saves precious freshwater resources!
On Packaging…
- In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear the bars are plastic-free 😉 replacing upwards of 2 – 250mL plastic bottles of shampoo
- The bars are packaged in custom boxes created and printed by the only Green-E-certified* printer in Canada.
*What does it mean to be “Green-e-certified?” Companies that are certified must contribute Renewable Energy Credits towards cleantech projects every year. The ultimate goal is to make energy consumption more sustainable across North America. Additionally, green e-paper certification is only applied to paper manufactured at mills using 100% renewable energy. As well, to use the Green-e logo on a project, the printer stamping the packaging must also be Green-e certified (and be able to prove that its printer was powered using 100% certified renewable energy).
Currently, The High-End Hippie’s printer contributes credits towards the Persimmon Creek wind farm project in Oklahoma, USA. This project is providing renewable energy to the community (vs. traditional fossil fuels). As well as fostering more local energy resiliency to communities, these projects also create jobs, yahoo!
So what about this “accidental environmentalist” thing?
At the beginning of this story, I mentioned that Amy is creating a legion of “accidental environmentalists” through her products. By now I hope it’s obvious what that means! By creating a product that actually works and that makes her customer’s hair feel amazing, Amy is creating a customer base who will purchase her product because of the way it makes their hair feel. That Amy is using The High-End Hippie as a platform for talking about all the above-mentioned issues of the day, is the accidental environmentalist piece. The High-End Hippie is, as Amy puts it, appealing “to people who might not be environmentally conscious: they’re switching because of the product. They don’t have to care about all the other stuff, I can take care of all that and they can buy it because they love the way it makes their hair feel and that’s really what I’m trying to do.”
Phew – can you believe all of this awesomeness lies in one, 65-gram bar of shampoo?!
I obviously love the product that Amy is creating through The High-End Hippie. It saves on plastic and preserves water resources, while also giving our heads a good clean. But what I really, truly love about what Amy has done with The High-End Hippie is that she’s making this world a better place, and in the process, leaving all her customers feeling better, too. The environmental movement is rife with the notion that we must “give up” something in order to be sustainable. I would say for us in the developed world, that’s certainly true…to a point. It’s encouraging to watch small businesses like Amy’s work to bridge the divide.
When I asked Amy what her hope is for the future, she responded that she wants to “keep educating [and] revolutionizing the hair care industry and change how shampoo bars are perceived. Collectively, we will be able to repair the damage that has been done to the water, air and land for my son and future generations.”
If you’re looking to connect with the Amy at The High-End Hippie, there are a few ways to do so:
- Follow along their journey on social media @the_highend_hippie_wellness
- Join their mailing list https://thehighendhippie.ca/
And, I’d love to hear from you – do you use shampoo bars? And, what do you think about this idea about not having to give something up to still save the planet?
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