East Bay sisters start environmentally friendly shampoo company

ALBANY, Calif. - While kids, teachers and parents are adjusting to distance learning, two girls in Albany are also learning about how to run a company.

Their mission to rid the world of plastic, one shampoo bar at a time.

"We really just liked the idea of getting rid of the plastic and telling our friends; you don't need this, you can get it in a concentrated form and it lasts longer."

Fourteen-year-old Tessa Rose-Scheeres and her 11-year-old sister Davia, are now in the shampoo business.

Their mom helped them create Sustainabar.

The research, and production is done in their kitchen, the packaging in their dining room.

"It's a little crazy," admits mom, Julia Tessa Rose-Scheeres, "my husband calls himself a bar widow because this is what we do now." 

It's a small company; they just celebrated the sale of their 1,000th bar, which means they have helped get rid of at least 1,000 plastic bottles.

"Even if people don't buy our bars, if they start thinking oh, I don't need to buy a plastic bottle of shampoo or conditioner, I can use a bar instead," says Julia, as she mixes up another batch, "that's what we want people to start thinking about."

The bars are made with natural ingredients, including coconut oil, shea butter and last about one hundred washes.

The girls are marketing the bars to local shops in their hometown of Albany, but you can order them on their website, or their Instagram page.

Each bar is hand-wrapped, and the plastic-free package comes with a hand-written thank you note and a joke.