# Shampoo bars for scalp psoriasis



## Nichola231 (Oct 26, 2014)

I've switched from store bought shampoo to hand made shampoo bars from experienced soap makers.

They haven't done much for my psoriasis so I'm going to make my own. Can anyone recommend any natural ingredients I should try?

Thanks!


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## Obsidian (Oct 26, 2014)

I would recommend neem oil. You only need 5% or so, maybe 10% if your psoriasis is really bad. Have you ever formulated a shampoo soap before? I have a really good recipe if you are interested.


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## cmzaha (Oct 26, 2014)

Personally I would formulate a surfactant type bar neem and maybe pine tar. Pine tar is an old remedy for psoriasis. There are actually some very good pine tar shampoos still on the market as far as I know. Been out of the hair business for 20 yrs so not sure what is still out there. I had a customer with severe psoriasis and her doctor prescribed green soap or tide. We went with the green soap and it did help her. Her doctor was very eccentric, but was also a Mensa member. Hair and scalp really do better with surfactant based shampoos. Nope I do not like Wen products either, it is all marketing with him. The PH of soap is to high for hair. Have you ever tried T/Gel by Neutrogena? It is very good. Nope I am not prescribing. It is just something I have had experience with


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## girlishcharm2004 (Oct 26, 2014)

I second the pine tar and neem oil. I have also heard a rumor that grape seed extract also helps with eczema and psoriasis, but don't ask me how to use it in soap! 

One more thing, I made a variation of this shampoo bar recipe from SoapQueen. 

http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/cold-process-soap/sudsy-shampoo-bars/

While I used different oils, I did use the citric acid in the recipe. I had customers telling a me how great it was. One man said he used it to wash his face before and after he shaved because he believed the citric acid made it more gentle. The pH comes out closer to a 7, instead of the 9 that most bars are. I think for sensitive skin/scalp, such as one with psoriasis, this may be a good addition to a bar. 

Just a thought!


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## DeeAnna (Oct 26, 2014)

This particular Soap Queen tutorial is one of the reasons why I am skeptical about most of what these folks have to say. In the comments at the end of this tutorial, Kevin of BB says to use a "a ph thermometer to test the ph balance..." This really makes me feel like I'm reading advice from an "expert". :thumbdown:

Basically the BB folks are writing a blog and creating tutorials to sell ingredients. The science behind the soap takes a back seat to marketing. 

Testing pH of soap is notoriously unreliable, so I honestly doubt your results are accurate. Your soap can't actually be soap if it is really has a pH of 7 -- it will be a soft mass of fatty acids, water, and salts.  

When you add citric acid to a properly made soap, the acid does NOT reduce the pH; it just starts to break the soap down into fatty acids. Up to a point you can "get away" with adding some acid -- your soap will still function as soap with a higher superfat. 

Past a certain point, however, too much of the soap is broken down and the result is a soft material that doesn't clean or suds. That's what you will have if you add enough citric acid to truly drop the pH to 7. 

The only way to add acid to soap but avoid the problem of the soap breaking down is to add enough extra lye to compensate for the added acid so the soap remains soap. 

VINEGAR (Acetic acid)
At a 5% acetic solution, 30 g of commercial vinegar contains 1.5 g acetic acid
Many people substitute commercial vinegar for half to all of the water called for by the recipe
1 oz (30 g) commercial vinegar neutralizes 1 g NaOH 
1 oz (30 g) commercial vinegar neutralizes 1.4 g KOH

CITRIC ACID
Recommended dosage is 10 g citric acid powder for every 1,000 g oils (1% ppo)
10 g citric acid neutralizes 6 g NaOH
10 g citric acid neutralizes 8 g KOH


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## cmzaha (Oct 27, 2014)

One more thing I will mention that I noticed in my years of taking care of hair. Dandruff and psoiasis will not do well with the oil in soap. Again I am not a doctor and not prescribing. Just observations over the years. Thank you for the vinegar information DeeAnna. I was wondering how much lye it would take to neutralize the vinegar. I can say I have noticed less scum in my shower since adding in my citric acid at 12 g in my 5lb batches and 7 grams extra lye. Hopefully I got it right. :grin: Sorry last sentence was a little off topic


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## girlishcharm2004 (Oct 27, 2014)

I'll admit, I did not test my soap for the exact pH. In the tutorial, it says, "the nature of soap is to clean, and these bars have a pH of around 7 (slightly less than regular cold process soap)." I believed what they said -- guilty.  

I do know that vinegar and citric acid unsaponify soap, which is why I disregard recipes for homemade "all-purpose cleaners" that call for Dr. Bronner's soap and vinegar in the same spray bottle.  

Anyhow, could you explain what the purpose would be to add citic acid or vinegar (and subsequently extra lye) to a recipe if the two are just going to cancel each other out?


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## sassanellat (Oct 27, 2014)

DeeAnna said:


> {...}Your soap can't actually be soap if it is really has a pH of 7 -- it will be a soft mass of fatty acids, water, and salts.
> 
> When you add citric acid to a properly made soap, the acid does NOT reduce the pH; it just starts to break the soap down into fatty acids. Up to a point you can "get away" with adding some acid -- your soap will still function as soap with a higher superfat. {...}



If you were interested in regulating the pH of the soap, you could, in theory, add a buffering agent at an amount that would stabilize the pH at something higher than the pKa of the sodium salts of the FAs that you used. I have no idea what the pKas of the FAs are without looking them up (probably pH 8 or higher), and that's right at the edge (or exceeds) of the easiest option, which would be to add a bit of disodium phosphate. I doubt that I'll actually try this anytime in the near future, but I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this?


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## cmzaha (Oct 27, 2014)

Here is a link to some discussions about using citric acid as a chelating factor in soap. If you just add in citric acid you up the superfat. DeeAnna has a fantastic explanation, check out thread #7 . It really does help stop some of the soap scum according to my shower. I now do this with all my soaps. 
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=47990&highlight=chelating


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## DeeAnna (Oct 27, 2014)

"...I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this?..."

That's not a direction I feel any need to explore. Assuming I wanted a cleanser with a pH similar to the outer layer of skin (about 4.7) or even something like a pH of 7-ish, I'd be formulating with detergents that have a normal pH in the desired range, not trying to force soap to be something it's not.

Research is showing that any sort of cleansing, even with "low pH cleansers" or just plain water, disturbs the pH of the stratum corneum (the skin's outer layer) for some hours after washing. Other recent research is starting to look at people with normal skin and the results show that most people most of the time are just fine with most soaps. Unfortunately a lot of dermatological research is done on people with unusually sensitive skin, not normal skin. Researchers are generally NOT interested in knowing about the average skin of most people; they are interested in finding statistically significant differences by testing people with highly sensitive skin.

The pKa of fatty acids commonly found in soap is 7.5 (pure lauric acid) to 10.2 (pure stearic acid) with the others lying somewhere in between. To explain, the term "pKa" is the pH of a special kind of soap mixture where there are equal numbers of molecules of a pure fatty acid and the soap made from that pure fatty acid. This isn't a "real" soap as we would normally think of soap because the amount of fatty acid is pretty high, but the pKa gives us some idea of the lowest pH at which a soap mixture actually starts to act like "real" soap. So even if you could make a soap from pure lauric acid, the very absolute lowest pH that you could get and still have something that's kind of soapy is 7.5. 

The other pure fatty acids ... and any mixtures of fatty acids as you would find in a normal handcrafted soap ... are going to have a pKa of just over 8 ranging up to just over 10. Again, remember the pKa is the LOWEST possible pH of a "soap" that is going to vaguely act like a soap, but it's not going to be a pleasant soap that most people would really want to use. If you want a soap as we would normally want it to be -- a product with good lather, decent cleaning, reasonably hard, not greasy feeling, etc -- then the pH of that product is going to be higher yet.

***

"...what the purpose would be to add citic acid or vinegar (and subsequently extra lye) to a recipe if the two are just going to cancel each other out?..."

Carolyn nailed it! They don't cancel out exactly; they create a salt. 

NaOH (sodium hydroxide, an akali) + HCL (hydrochloric acid) => table salt (sodium chloride, NaCl)
NaOH + Citric acid => Sodium citrate
NaOH + Acetic acid (vinegar) => Sodium acetate
NaOH + Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) => Sodium ascorbate

All of the chemicals on the right hand side of the => sign are "salts" that are produced when a base (an alkali) reacts with an acid. 

Salts can do different things for us that their alkaline and acidic parents cannot. Table salt can flavor our food or harden our soap, but its parents -- hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide -- will burn our skin terribly. Sodium citrate can prevent soap scum from forming if you have hard water.


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## girlishcharm2004 (Oct 27, 2014)

And all this time I thought vinegar neutralized lye... Is there a book you recommend?  I would love to study this further!

Secondly, with the Brambleberry shampoo tutorial... after running the recipe through a lye calculator, it would seem as if the lye is not increased to handle the additional citric acid.  I'm guess this means that the final soap actually has a higher superfat and the addition of sodium citrate.


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## DeeAnna (Oct 28, 2014)

Um, yes, vinegar and NaOH do "neutralize" each other. The product of an acid-base neutralization is a salt. What they don't do is "cancel" each other out -- instead they make something new. Maybe I'm hung up on using the words as a chemist would, but I just want to clear that up just to be ... clear. 

This chemistry we're talking about is all basic stuff -- any freshman chem book will cover acid-base reactions. If you want to learn more, I'd look for an adult ed class in chemistry rather than just read a chem book. Kevin Dunn's Scientific Soapmaking book covers basic soapmaking chemistry in as readable and enjoyable a way as one can be when talking about chemistry. That said, this book will be slow going if chemistry was a subject to be avoided at all costs in high school.

I agree with your point about the BB shampoo recipe. The argument they make about this recipe is that it "works" because they managed to make something that looks like bar soap after repeated tests. When people try to explain in the comments about what's actually happening with this recipe, the BB folks avoid any effort to show that they understand the chemistry involved. Erm.....


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## Bubli (Oct 28, 2014)

So when people are saying they are adding citric acid (but not adjusting lye to counteract it), they are really just upping their superfat which is why the are believing it is a more mild soap and why BB says that shampoo bar in their tutorial is so soft?


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## DeeAnna (Oct 28, 2014)

Yep that's right, Bubli, the soap will have a high superfat. The more citric, the softer the soap should be and the less effective it will be as a cleanser.


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## girlishcharm2004 (Oct 29, 2014)

I was wondering (and hoping) you'd recommend Scientific Soapmaking. It's in my wish list on Amazon and was hoping you'd confirm that he would address such a topic. I do love chemistry. I was in AP chemistry in high school and took two chemistry classes in college -- the first one being intro (and basically a repeat of my high school course), the second (organic chemistry) was definitely more enjoyable. However, while chemistry may not be *completely* lost on me.... It sure has been a while....


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## boyago (Oct 29, 2014)

So is the basic goal when adding citric acid to our soaps to create sodium citrate as a means of reducing soap scum for those with hard water? 
and
Where I most often see the addition of citric acid in bar soap is when people are talking about shampoo bars. Usually while on the topic of shampoo bars people say they get "straw hair" after a while and take care of it with a vinegar or citric rinse to take care of that.  Is "straw hair" just soap scum on the hair?  Does the sodium citrate help with that?  Will it grow my hair back making this conversation relevant to me as a soap user?

p.s. I got here after a couple of link so sorry if it's less relevant to the OP.


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## DeeAnna (Oct 29, 2014)

"Straw hair" is when the cuticle of the hair is not lying smooth against the hair shaft. Alkaline (pH above 7.0) products will cause this roughening. Some hair is more sensitive to this type of damage than others, which is why you'll hear some people advocate an acid rinse and others don't see much benefit. 

Non-soap shampoos have a pH typically between 3.5 and 7 to manage this problem. You cannot possibly get a soap-based shampoo to a pH that low unless you add so much acid that the soap doesn't function as soap anymore. Using an acid rinse AFTER shampooing with soap will help to manage this roughening.

Sodium citrate in soap is included to help with soap scum, which can make hair feel sticky even after a good rinse.

***

"...while chemistry may not be *completely* lost on me.... It sure has been a while.... "

You'll do fine, GC! AP chem ... yep! It will come back to you.


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## ade (Nov 5, 2014)

Nichola231 said:


> I've switched from store bought shampoo to hand made shampoo bars from experienced soap makers.
> 
> They haven't done much for my psoriasis so I'm going to make my own. Can anyone recommend any natural ingredients I should try?
> 
> Thanks!


Hi Nichols
Had the same problem with psoriasis/dandruff for 5 years.
Tried every shampoo avable,got sent to a dermatologist by my Dr.
Dermatologist gave me a steriod lotion that worked,but when I stopped  using the psoriasis came back.
Made home made soap shampoos,and did ease the problem.
Pure olive oil soap worked the best for me,but it just eased it no cure.

My pet cat been had fighting this year,and I got a product to stray on his wounds.
Sprayed the product on my scalp,and my psoriasis went.
Turns out the product was also a cure for ring worm,a fungal infection the same as athelets  foot.
None of the Doctors spotted this.
You have nothing to loose could be worth trying a ring worm cure.


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## kasia zielinska (Dec 10, 2018)

Obsidian said:


> I would recommend neem oil. You only need 5% or so, maybe 10% if your psoriasis is really bad. Have you ever formulated a shampoo soap before? I have a really good recipe if you are interested.



Hi Obsidian!  I would be very much interested in the shampoo soap recipe you mention... Any chance you are still willing to share?
Greetings.


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## Obsidian (Dec 10, 2018)

kasia zielinska said:


> Hi Obsidian!  I would be very much interested in the shampoo soap recipe you mention... Any chance you are still willing to share?
> Greetings.



I do have the recipe but I no longer recommend it. Lye soap absolutely destroyed my hair and many others. You would be better off applying the neem directly to the patches of psoriasis.


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