What to include in a great shampoo bar recipe?

[froggybean37]

Hiya guys!

I keep getting bugged to do a shampoo bar and honestly - I have no idea where to even start on what to include! Everyone's hair is so different I haven't wanted to get into solid shampoo, but have decided to take the plunge and trial some recipes on family hair :shifty:

What should I include? I feel like a shampoo bar should maybe have a high superfat and maybe not include coconut oil to help prevent it from being too drying...?:think:

Have you delved into shampoo bars? What are the "must haves"?

 

[Obsidian]

I've been using shampoo bars for about a year now, this is my go to recipe. You want low cleansing and low SF, a high SF will leave your hair gummy and weighed down. If you don't want to use neem, you can replace it with olive oil and you can use coconut instead of palm kernel flakes.

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s216/...7470a146566c/6e09c0d1c19bc422dbe85682e043ebaf

This is another popular recipe on the forums, created by Genny. I like it a lot too but found it wasn't quite cleansing enough.
http://www.evernote.com/shard/s216/...87ccc0d6cf14/0dda5284f1d82627e4fdcb159431c203

 

[froggybean37]

Thanks for the great recipes! That makes sense about the SF! I've never used egg/egg yolk in cp - any considerations? Also is there anything soybean oil potentially be swapped out with?

 

[Obsidian]

You don't have to add the egg yolk if you don't want. If you do, you want to mix is very well with a little warm oils and then add it slowly to the rest of the oils blending very well before adding the lye. If you just dump the yolk in, it will cook and leave icky egg bits in your soap.

Soybean has a shorter shelf life and may contribute to DOS. I don't use it because I feel its a cheap filler that does nothing for the soap. You can replce it with more OO or avocado, any liquid oil really should work in its place. I tried sunflower once though and didn't care for it. Now I replaced it with 5% neem and 5% palm kernel, my next batch I will replace it with coconut to see if it will be easier to clean my sometimes oily scalp.
I suppose a harder oil like palm or lard would work well too.

 

[froggybean37]

Yea, I'm not a fan of soybean either - thanks! The egg sounds really neat, I think I'll try it out!

 

[Obsidian]

I like to push my yolk through a sieve, it gets all the membrane off the yolk that way.