If you're shopping for a natural shampoo, you've probably come across both Based Bodyworks and Noun Naturals. Both brands avoid sulfates and synthetic ingredients, but they're built on completely different philosophies about what makes a great shampoo. Here's how they compare and why it matters for your hair.

The core of any shampoo is its surfactant system. Surfactants are the ingredients that lift dirt, oil, and product residue off your hair so water can rinse it away. This is where the two formulas diverge.

Noun Naturals built its formula around two complementary surfactants: Decyl Glucoside and Lauryl Glucoside. Both come from coconut and corn, and they're designed to work as a team. Decyl Glucoside is exceptionally gentle and creates a light foam that cleanses without irritation. Lauryl Glucoside brings more cleaning power and ensures everything rinses away without leaving a film. Together, they handle everything from sweat and sebum to clay and pomade in a single wash.

This wasn't an accident. It took ten months of reformulation and testing with our chemist Phillip to dial in the exact ratio that delivers professional-level cleaning while staying mild enough for everyday use.

Based Bodyworks uses just one surfactant: Coco-Glucoside. It's gentle and plant based, but it doesn't have the same cleaning strength on its own. If your hair gets oily quickly or you use any kind of styling product, you might find yourself washing twice or dealing with buildup that never fully disappears.

The difference becomes obvious when you're trying to wash out a clay or a balm. One surfactant struggles. Two surfactants handle it easily.

Based Bodyworks is trying to do two things at once. It's a shampoo and a treatment rolled into one bottle. The formula is packed with conditioning oils like Avocado, Coconut, and Argan, plus Hydrolyzed Keratin and Vitamin E. The idea is that you get some nourishment while you wash.

The downside is that oils don't rinse out as cleanly as water-soluble ingredients. You might get softer hair, but you also might notice your hair feels heavier, looks a little dull, or starts to feel waxy after a few days. Fine hair and oily scalps tend to suffer the most from this approach.

Noun Naturals keeps things focused. Our shampoo cleans. That's it. We include Aloe Vera Juice for hydration and Glycerin to help your scalp retain moisture, but we don't load it up with oils that sit on top of your hair. Everything rinses away completely, leaving your hair light, clean, and ready to absorb whatever you put on it next.

If you want deep conditioning, that's what our COSMOS certified conditioner is for. It has AminoSensyl HC, a breakthrough plant based conditioning agent that repairs damage and smooths the cuticle without silicone buildup. Pair it with oils like Shea Butter, Jojoba, and Black Seed Oil, and you get salon level softness and strength.

Separating the two jobs means each product does what it's supposed to do without compromise.

Here's a detail most people miss: not all peppermint oil is created equal. Noun Naturals uses Japanese Peppermint Oil, which has a higher menthol concentration and a cleaner, more refined scent. When you lather it up, you get that cooling sensation without it feeling harsh or medicinal. Users tell us all the time that it feels more luxurious than other natural shampoos they've tried.

Based Bodyworks uses regular peppermint oil. It still cools and tingles, but the quality difference is noticeable if you've used both.

Beyond peppermint, Noun Naturals includes Turmeric Root Oil and Black Seed Oil. Turmeric is a proven anti inflammatory that calms redness and irritation. Black Seed Oil contains thymoquinone, which soothes the scalp and creates the right environment for healthy hair growth. These aren't just nice additions. They're active ingredients that make a difference if you deal with dandruff, itchiness, or sensitivity.

Based Bodyworks leans on Aloe Vera for soothing, which works but doesn't have the same depth of therapeutic action.

When you look at the ingredient lists side by side, Noun Naturals is shorter and cleaner. Every ingredient has a job. Nothing is there for show. The formula is ISO 16128 compliant, which is the international standard for natural cosmetics. We also add Gluconolactone and Sodium Phytate to improve stability and make sure the formula stays effective over time, even if your bottle sits in a hot shower.

Based Bodyworks has a longer list because it's trying to do more in one step. More emulsifiers to hold the oils together. More conditioning agents to offset the weak cleansing base. It's not a bad formula, but it's more complicated, and that complexity shows up in how it performs.

If you style your hair with clays, pomades, oils, or texture powders, curl cream, leave in, etc, Noun Naturals is the obvious choice. It removes everything in one wash without stripping your scalp or leaving buildup behind. If you have normal to oily hair, or if you've ever felt like your hair never gets fully clean, the dual surfactant system solves that problem.

If you want a shampoo that includes some conditioning so you can skip the conditioner step, Based Bodyworks might work for you, especially if your hair is very dry and you don't use styling products.

But if you care about premium ingredients, long term scalp health, and a shampoo that actually does what a shampoo is supposed to do, Noun Naturals is built for that. We didn't rush this. We spent ten months testing every possible combination until we had a formula that cleans better than anything else in the natural space while staying gentle enough to use every single day.

That's the difference.