Organixize Your Tresses

If you want to avoid buying shampoo with harsh ingredients like sulfates and parabens, where do you look? If you're picking up a product along those lines at Sephora or a department store, you're probably paying designer prices and going out of your way to get there. For lots of us, stocking up on shampoo means tossing a couple of bottles into your shopping cart between grabbing cat food and light bulbs at the nearest megamart. Unfortunately, that can make it a real challenge to stay away from some of the beauty world's most caustic ingredients.

Fortunately, the Organix brand offers shampoos and conditioners that are easy to find (at Wal-Mart, Target and many drugstore chains), inexpensive (at around $7) and filled with natural ingredients like organic fruit oils and silk amino acids. The entire line comes in bottles that are made from post-consumer recycled materials, with compostable corn-based labels printed with environmentally friendly inks. Of course, the line isn't tested on animals -- and is indeed sulfate-free.

It's a good thing this stuff is inexpensive, since choosing just one variety could be an insurmountable task. Each of Organix's products has a just-plain-delicious scent that's potent without being clawing, thanks mostly to the natural oils that serve as the fragrance base. Plus, they really do leave your hair smooth and squeaky clean. If you prefer a scent that's warm and calming, there's vanilla and coconut; if you like something a bit less subtle, there's a fabulous tea tree mint that also helps get rid of dandruff or a dry scalp. And if you really want to wake up each morning in the shower, there's the mocha espresso shampoo, which contains enough espresso bean extract for the bottle to smell like a deliciously invigorating visit to your local barista.

In the works for May is brand new scent: grapefruit-mango butter. Luckily, that fragrance, just like all of the brand's delectable offerings, is calorie- free.

Organix Mocha Espresso Shampoo. $6.99, ww.target.com.