When you think about reducing your environmental footprint, you probably picture big lifestyle changes. Driving an electric car. Installing solar panels. Eliminating single-use plastics. But sometimes, the biggest impact starts with something much smaller.

Like the bottle sitting in your grooming tote.

Whether you're bathing your horse after a trail ride, washing your dog after a muddy adventure, or rinsing off after a day at the barn, every bottle of shampoo has an environmental story long before—and long after—you use it.

The good news? It's a story we can change.

It Starts with Plastic

Most liquid shampoos come packaged in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. These plastics are technically recyclable. But "recyclable" doesn't always mean "recycled." 

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only a fraction of plastic waste is ultimately recycled, while much of it ends up in landfills, incinerators, or the environment. Even when plastic is recycled, the process still requires energy, transportation, and additional resources.

For horse owners, the numbers add up quickly. Think about how many bottles you might go through in a year:

• Horse shampoo
• Dog shampoo
• Human shampoo
• Conditioner
• Detangler
• Fly spray
• Coat polish

Now multiply that by every horse owner, every boarding barn, every training stable, and every grooming salon across the country. That's a lot of plastic.

Plastic Doesn't Disappear

One empty shampoo bottle might not seem significant. But plastic doesn't simply "go away." Even when discarded properly, it may remain in landfills for hundreds of years before breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces known as microplastics.

Those tiny plastic particles have now been found in:

• Soil
• Rivers
• Oceans
• Wildlife
• Rainwater
• Even the air we breathe

While a single shampoo bottle isn't responsible for this global issue, millions of small choices collectively make a meaningful difference.

Shipping Water Isn't as Efficient as You Think

Here's something many consumers never consider. Most liquid shampoos are made primarily of… Water. In many formulations, water is listed as the very first ingredient. That means manufacturers are producing, packaging, storing, and transporting large quantities of water around the country. Water is heavy. Heavy products require:

• More fuel to transport
• Larger packaging
• More warehouse space
• Greater shipping emissions

Every bottle travels from the manufacturer to a warehouse, then to a distributor or retailer, and finally to your home or barn. That's a long journey for something that could be much more concentrated.

The Hidden Environmental Cost of Packaging

The bottle itself is only part of the equation. Liquid shampoos also require:

• Plastic caps
• Shrink wrap
• Labels
• Shipping boxes
• Protective packaging
• Pallets
• Stretch film

Each layer requires raw materials, manufacturing, and transportation. By the time a bottle reaches your tack room, it has accumulated a much larger environmental footprint than most people realize.

Why Shampoo Bars Are Different

A shampoo bar changes the equation. Instead of packaging mostly water inside a plastic bottle, a shampoo bar is a concentrated product with very little excess packaging. That means:

• Less plastic
• Smaller packages
• Lower shipping weight
• Less storage space
• Fewer materials used overall

It's a simple design that delivers the same cleaning performance while generating significantly less waste.

One Bar Can Replace Multiple Bottles

Because shampoo bars are concentrated, they typically last much longer than many people expect. One Bex Bar provides approximately:

• 12–15 full horse baths
• 20–30 medium-sized dog baths
• 60–70 human hair washes

Instead of replacing bottle after bottle, one compact bar keeps working. Less packaging. Less waste. More value.

Smaller Products Mean Lower Transportation Emissions

Transportation is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The more weight and volume a product has, the more energy is required to move it through the supply chain. Shampoo bars are:

• Smaller
• Lighter
• More compact

That allows more product to fit into each shipment, improving transportation efficiency from manufacturer to retailer to customer. While one shampoo bar won't solve climate change, choosing concentrated products helps reduce unnecessary transportation impacts over time.

Less Waste in the Tack Room

Horse owners know how quickly barns accumulate clutter. Feed bags. Supplement tubs. Medication containers. Fly spray bottles. Shampoo bottles. Every product brings more packaging into the barn. Choosing products with minimal packaging helps reduce:

• Trash
• Recycling
• Storage needs
• Clutter

It's one less empty bottle to throw away—and one less thing rolling around in your grooming tote.

Better for Travel, Too

Anyone who's packed for a horse show knows space is valuable. Unlike liquid shampoos, a shampoo bar:

• Won't leak in your trailer
• Doesn't require bulky bottles
• Takes up very little room
• Is easy to store between uses

That convenience is good for horse owners—and it also reduces the amount of packaging required to protect liquid containers during shipping.

Small Changes Create Big Results

It's easy to feel like one person's choices don't matter. But sustainability has never been about one giant action, it's about millions of people making better decisions every day. Using reusable water bottles. Recycling feed bags when possible. Turning off the hose while grooming. Choosing products with less packaging. Selecting concentrated formulas. Each decision may seem small on its own, but together, they create meaningful change.

Why We Created Bex Bar

At Kensington, we wanted to create a grooming product that was better for animals—and better for the environment. Bex Bar is an eco-friendly shampoo bar formulated for:

• Horses
• Dogs
• People

Made with nourishing ingredients like shea butter, cocoa butter, jojoba oil, panthenol, and hydrolyzed rice protein, it delivers a rich lather, rinses easily, and helps maintain healthy skin and coats. Just as importantly, it helps eliminate the need for another plastic shampoo bottle in your barn. It's a small product with a much bigger purpose.

The Bottom Line

One shampoo bottle may not seem like much. But every bottle represents raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, packaging, and waste. By choosing a concentrated shampoo bar like Bex Bar, you're making a simple switch that benefits more than your horse's coat. You're helping reduce plastic waste, shipping emissions, unnecessary packaging, and clutter—all while using a product designed to nourish skin and leave coats clean, soft, and healthy. Because caring for our horses also means caring for the places we ride, the trails we explore, and the environment we all share.

One bath at a time.