What is the Shampoo Bottle Size?

If you’re planning on traveling, you have to make sure to bring all the toiletries you can’t purchase at your destination. That means bringing enough shampoo to keep your hair and scalp clean while you’re away. So, what bottle size does shampoo come in?

A standard 16-ounce bottle of shampoo will stand between 6 and 9-1/2 inches. A larger 24-ounce bottle might be around 10 inches tall, whereas 32-ounce shampoo bottles are around 10.5 inches in height.

In this guide, I’ll talk about the common shampoo bottle sizes, how much shampoo you’ll need for your trip, how you can safely take shampoo with you on flights to other countries, and how liquid shampoo compares to shampoo bars.

Shampoo Bottle Sizes

When it comes to shampoo, you’ll have a fair share of sizes to choose from. You might be accustomed to purchasing 16-ounce bottles, but there are several more size options out there.

The table below will describe common shampoo bottle capacities and sizes.

As you can see from the table above, the exact measurements per bottle size are completely random. This is due to the fact that the volume of a bottle isn’t just affected by its height but also its width and depth—2 figures that aren’t used very often when measuring shampoo bottles.

So, if you’re going to take shampoo bottles with you on a trip, the best thing you can do is manually measure their height or take a look at their capacity since that’s what the TSA does.

How Much Shampoo Can I Bring on a Plane?

If you’re going to fly to your destination, you have to be mindful of how much liquid you can bring on the plane. The TSA has limited it to just 3.4 ounces per container, though we can bring as many containers as we want, provided they will fit inside a 1-quart resealable bag. On average, you can squeeze 9 3.4-ounce bottles inside a single 1-quart bag.

This raises the question—how much shampoo should you bring? Well, it depends on how long you’re going to be traveling and whether or not you have time to buy shampoo. However, you should also take note of how much soap, conditioner, and other liquids you want to take with you from home since they are all subject to the same 3-1-1 rule.

Assuming you are going to fill the resealable bag with 9 3.4-ounce bottles of shampoo, that means you’re legally allowed to bring 30.6 ounces of shampoo—nearly twice as much shampoo as a regular-sized bottle can hold.

See also: What Is the Travel Size for Soap?

How Much Shampoo per Shower?

The exact fluid-ounce or milliliter figure of how much shampoo you use per shower depends on how sudsy you want your hair.

However, the typical 16-ounce shampoo bottle should be good for 25 to 35 showers, which is roughly 1 month if you shower only once per day. So, if we divide 16 ounces by 35, that means each people use roughly 0.5 ounces of shampoo per shower.

Remembering that we can bring up to 30.6 ounces of shampoo on a plane in 3.4-ounce bottles, you’ll have enough shampoo to last you for around 2 months. The individual bottles should provide enough shampoo to get your hair nice and bubbly for 6 showers before you need to crack open a new bottle.

Are Shampoo Bars Any Good?

Have you ever heard of shampoo bars before? If not, you’re not alone. Shampoo bars were invented back in 1987, but they didn’t become nearly as popular as their liquid counterpart.

However, there’s one huge benefit to using shampoo bars of liquid—the TSA doesn’t count it as a liquid since it’s technically a solid. That means you can pack an entire suitcase with shampoo bars without raising too many eyebrows.

Now, as to whether or not shampoo bars are just as good or better than liquid shampoo, that’s a matter of personal preference. Some have argued that shampoo bars are better for the environmentally conscious since they don’t come in massive plastic bottles that will end up in landfills. That said, if you reuse your shampoo bottles, you can reduce your carbon footprint and not have to be as worried about polluting our planet.

Another argument that has been made is that shampoo bars are longer-lasting. It would take you 2 or 3 bottles of liquid shampoo before a single 110-gram bar nears the end of its life.

How to Travel Safely with Shampoo Bottles

I’ll share a few personal tips on how you can safely travel with shampoo bottles in your backpack or suitcase.

Tip 1—Bring only as much shampoo as you need

According to the calculations above, you’ll only need 0.5 ounces of shampoo per shower. So, if you’re the type of person who showers twice a day and will be gone for 3 days, you should pack at least 3 ounces of shampoo.

Tip 2—Double-pack your resealable bag

If you’ve gotten shampoo all over your belongings in the past, odds are you didn’t close the bottle’s lid tight enough. Or maybe the plastic resealable bag used to house all your bottles of liquid was punctured during your trip. In either case, you should prepare multiple 1-quart resealable bags for your trip. That way, your belongings will be extra-protected against your viscous toiletries.

Tip 3—Use shampoo sachets instead

Don’t want the fuss of pouring your shampoo into individual bottles? Get shampoo sachets instead! The shampoo comes pre-portioned in 0.35-ounce sachets, and you’ll only need 2 of them to get the full sudsy experience.