Best Body Washes Made With Organic Ingredients, for a Clean Shower Routine

There's nothing quite like winding down an action-packed day with a steamy, indulgent shower. But if you've never given your bath products much thought, it could be worth starting to read ingredient labels. Many conventional body washes, for instance, include certain ingredients that that can dry out your skin and disrupt your hormones and the environment.

Why would body washes contain chemicals in the first place? Well, many potentially toxic ingredients make your shower more enjoyable on the surface. Surfactants, for instance, help liquid soaps spread more easily. Foaming agents help body washes work up a lather. Synthetic fragrances make bath products smell great, and parabens can prolong the product's shelf life. However, these ingredients have been connected to various negative health effects; plus their wastewater is far from planet-friendly.

If you're seeking a clean shower, the body washes and bar soaps below are the way to go. Each of the body washes on this list contain organic ingredients — though note that none of them are 100 percent organic, as it's nearly impossible for a personal care product to be entirely organic. That's because soaps are made with lye and other chemical ingredients which cannot be certified organic. (Remember that chemical doesn't always mean bad; many chemicals, such as water, are safe.)

They'll also all produce a refreshing, pleasant-smelling clean that'll help jumpstart your day (or, if you're me, lull you into dreamland). And some of them even are even sold in plastic-free packaging.

The vegan Beauty By Earth Shower Gels — which come in your choice of sweet Vanilla Coconut or menthol-y Peppermint Tea Tree — use several certified organic ingredients including their main ones: skin-soothing aloe vera, chamomile, and green tea extract. The cruelty free brand is committed to planet-friendliness, and its plastic packaging is recyclable. "Lathers and rinses well, and lingering scent is light and refreshing," a customer wrote.

This vegan body wash by Credo Beauty specializes in hydration thanks to seed oils, including an organic argania spinosa kernel argan oil. It even foams up due to a coconut-based foaming agent. Flower extracts soothe your skin, resulting in the freshest clean possible. The formulation includes a few organic ingredients, comes in three scents, and is sold in an eco-friendly aluminum bottle.

For people who love liquid body wash but hate single-use plastic bottles, there's this body wash bar from Primal Life Organics that packs all the lathery goodness into a solid that's supremely travel-friendly, too. Organic palm oil, organic olive oil, and organic lavender blossoms are a moisturizing triple threat that make it more than just your average soap bar. Choose between soothing Lavender or Zen scents to help you wind down before bed.

Surely, this bottle looks familiar. It's by the beloved Dr. Bronner's brand, and it contains castile soap, an all-in-one cleanser that makes for a fine organic body wash. This one is unscented and made with more than over 70 percent organic and fair-trade ingredients — like organic palm oil from fairly paid Ecuadorian farmers (Castile soap is always vegetable oil-based) — and comes in a bottle made of post-consumer recycled plastic.

This Uni body wash has plant-based surfactants to thoroughly cleanse without drying out your skin, botanical exfoliants, and ingredients like sea kelp and aloe to moisturize, soothe, and protect the skin barrier. Note that this formula actually only contains one organic ingredient — glycerin, which is the first ingredient on the label, after water.

The formula comes in an aluminum bottle that you can return to the company, where it'll be washed and reused. Uni offers a subscription model, too, so you can replenish your products on autopilot.

Bar soap fans, here's one of the best organic options on the market. EcoRoots' organic body soap is a zero-waste solution for lovers of creamy, hydrating, all-natural body wash that's vegan, cruelty-free, and contains almost all organic ingredients. Choose from eight natural scents, including tangerine lavender, lemongrass, and spearmint sage.