more shampoo bar questions

I've read that essentially you can wash your hair with any soap. While I've had a recipe for a shampoo bar for some time, I haven't actually made it yet.
But a few days ago a lady at the market asked me if I sold a shamp bar and that got me thinking about it again. I've put off making my own because all of the ones I've tried have made my hair dry and dull. However, now I know to use an acid rinse after.
Ive been doing co-washing but it often leaves my hair limp, mine is on the fine side and curly.
Anyway, I grabbed my charcoal bar and washed my hair, just to see. Followed up with a conditioner containing CA, so I thought that would sub the acid rince plus hydrate my hair. It was bubbly and felt clean, hair felt kind of weird like when you shamp with a sulfate free shampoo.
I got out, less hair fall, hair shiny and thick but oily looking somewhat. Like second day hair.
So next shower I thought I would use my salt bar to get through the oilyness. Feels fine going on BUT THEN I feel the back of my head and itch it, and there is a layer of sebum gunk, probably a 1/4 inch thick. It was so gross. So I had to bust out the sulfate free shamp then had a ton of hair fall and limp locks.
Anyone know why its not cleaning my hair.
Aren't shamp bars formulated to be more gentle than body soap? Then why is the stronger body soap still not washing my hair? My hair is not normally very oily. Help, because im tired of hair falling out and would love to be able to use a shamp bar.

my advice, based on about a year of soap for my hair.

Acid rinse helps with the greasies, and with combing out, and with shine. It neutralises the alkaline soap, and lets the scales of the hair lay flat and tight to the core of the hair.

Soap bars won't wash like shampoo, so you have to make sure you actually get soap all over....shampoo you can get away with washing the front and letting the suds run down the hair shaft and be pretty sure it will clean. I find with soap you have to wash the skin of the scalp, getting soap on the skin all over the scalp and any hair that you want to wash. Then I find it cleans properly. I dont' use a conditioner anymore, and I have used very high coconut bars with no problem, as long as I use an acid rinse.

One other suggestion: Try a different acid for your rinse. I like unpasturized apple cider vinegar, and my hair doesn't like citric acid much at all.

I had a similar experience but I discovered a bunch of reasons: my hormones were out of whack, my water is very hard so I need some coconut oil in my bars, and an ACV rinse helps immensely.

I am mentally working on a new recipe with citric acid to help with the hard water, some coconut, and a superfat that works with all these variables. Yikes!!

When I got my hair cut recently, the hairdresser just spritzed my hair down with water, and then commented that my hair was very dry. It actually wasn't, it was just that I was experimenting with some of my regular soap bars to see what effects they have, and I had some hard water (mineral) buildup making my hair seem dry. Research is challenging!

Soap queen has a recipe for one with citric acid. Too many oils for my liking but it sounds nice. Im also not entirely sure that lowering the ph will make much difference since hair like lower ph and you can't get soap to be acidic. But maybe it does help. Im not a chemist
Here's the link, I'm still thinking about trying it out.http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/cold-process-soap/sudsy-shampoo-bars/

It could be that your regular soap bars are too cleansing causing your scalp to go into overdrive and produce way too much oil. Also, a high SF will leave your hair feeling nasty and looking oily. salt bars wreck my hair and scalp, the high cleansing combined with a 20% SF just gunks up everything.
I use a modified version of genny's shampoo bar, I added 5% coconut so its a tiny bit cleansing but not too much. I also lowered to SF to 3 so there isn't too much residue left behind.

You need to make a regular shampoo bar and stick with it for at least two months before you decide if you like it or not. I think genny's recipe is really good for fine hair. I have crazy wild frizzy hair but its fine and gets weighed down easily. Its actually under more control and my curls are more defined sine I started using poo bars about 10 months ago.

Obsidian said:

I think genny's recipe is really good for fine hair. I have crazy wild frizzy hair but its fine and gets weighed down easily. Its actually under more control and my curls are more defined sine I started using poo bars about 10 months ago.

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I have fine hair but not baby-fine, and I have lots of it and I found Gennys recipe made it very fly-away. And static-y. It made me feel like I needed conditioner.

Bex1982 said:

Soap queen has a recipe for one with citric acid. Too many oils for my liking but it sounds nice. Im also not entirely sure that lowering the ph will make much difference since hair like lower ph and you can't get soap to be acidic. But maybe it does help. Im not a chemist
Here's the link, I'm still thinking about trying it out.http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/cold-process-soap/sudsy-shampoo-bars/

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Thank you. I don't actually want a less alkaline pH, but I had read that sodium citrate would be created during the lye reaction, and that sodium citrate helps with hard water. But it also reacts with lye, leaving more fat unsaponified, so that has to be accounted for. I'm not a chemist, so I am not able to figure out the exact reaction, so trial and error for me. Plus I wanted to use lemon juice instead of pure citric acid and there's only so much you can use before the soap doesn't make soap anymore.

Obsidian said:

It could be that your regular soap bars are too cleansing causing your scalp to go into overdrive and produce way too much oil. Also, a high SF will leave your hair feeling nasty and looking oily. salt bars wreck my hair and scalp, the high cleansing combined with a 20% SF just gunks up everything.
I use a modified version of genny's shampoo bar, I added 5% coconut so its a tiny bit cleansing but not too much. I also lowered to SF to 3 so there isn't too much residue left behind.

You need to make a regular shampoo bar and stick with it for at least two months before you decide if you like it or not. I think genny's recipe is really good for fine hair. I have crazy wild frizzy hair but its fine and gets weighed down easily. Its actually under more control and my curls are more defined sine I started using poo bars about 10 months ago.

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The weird thing was it was only on the back of my head. I don't think I got enough soap in that spot or something. Maybe I needed more soap. The SF was 6%, I think co and po where both at 2%, then I had caster 5% and she at 15% I think..

Bex1982 said:

The weird thing was it was only on the back of my head. I don't think I got enough soap in that spot or something. Maybe I needed more soap. The SF was 6%, I think co and po where both at 2%, then I had caster 5% and she at 15% I think..

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is "she" shea butter? I find that very "clingy" and dislike it in soap. 2% CO or 20% (which makes more sense to me)?

I think it's a technique issue rather than an oils issue (re the spot on the back of your head). Make sure you rinse well, since soap left in will be "gummy". Also, if you try an acid rinse, try a squeeze bottle with a small tip (like used for dye) and run the solution along your scalp. I found those two things made a big difference, too.

I would have said you need a break in or trial period, but once I tried an acid rinse, there was no "break in" at all, and I've never looked back. Prior to that point, I had greasy/heavy feeling hair when I used soap on my hair. I find it is the acid rinse that made the difference.

I don't know about using the acid in the soap itself, vs just rinsing to directly "chemistry" on the hair shaft, since as stated the pH can't go too low without the soap just not being soap anymore, and the hairshaft needs the acid restored after soap. I'm not sure how well the soap with additive compares to additives to adjust the water and then soap. My sense is that the additives being separate would work better, but I have never bothered to make shampoo bars once things started to work well for me (ie as soon as I started using vinegar)

I really wish I could use shampoo bars on my hair but they just don't seem to work . It sucks living with hard water, my hair feels a bit greasy and not clean with soap scum eww. Maybe I haven't found the right recipe but I want to be able to go without vinegar, it stinks. I don't care what people say, I can still smell it on my hair. Especially this time of year when I sweat it smells like pickle juice

CanaDawn said:

is "she" shea butter? I find that very "clingy" and dislike it in soap. 2% CO or 20%

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Yeah stupid typos shea butter and 20% co

MagicalMysterySoap said:

I really wish I could use shampoo bars on my hair but they just don't seem to work . It sucks living with hard water, my hair feels a bit greasy and not clean with soap scum eww. Maybe I haven't found the right recipe but I want to be able to go without vinegar, it stinks. I don't care what people say, I can still smell it on my hair. Especially this time of year when I sweat it smells like pickle juice

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Maybe my water is hard too. I know you can add citric acid to water, im just not sure the ratio (to use as rinse). Some people use lemon juice too.

MagicalMysterySoap said:

I really wish I could use shampoo bars on my hair but they just don't seem to work . It sucks living with hard water, my hair feels a bit greasy and not clean with soap scum eww. Maybe I haven't found the right recipe but I want to be able to go without vinegar, it stinks. I don't care what people say, I can still smell it on my hair. Especially this time of year when I sweat it smells like pickle juice

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Lemon juice or citric acid powder also work. (citric acid powder works very well for hard water, 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon in a quart although some people say that much in a gallon instead. Experiment. Less is probably better.)

Obsidian said:

For every 1000 grams of oils, you would add 10 g of citric acid and 6 g of extra lye to your water solution to create sodium citrate without extra superfat.

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Ok, I found some info online that said that lemon juice is 5-6% citric acid and that the juice of one average lemon contains about 3g of citric acid. My 2lb soap recipe has about 670 g of oils. Which would need 6.7 g of citric acid (the juice from two lemons) and roughly 4g extra lye? Does that math work? I'm on my phone so I can't use the calculator at the same time. I usually superfat at 6-7% so there's a good margin for error if I'm off by a gram of lye. I have some lemons in the fruit basket as we speak so I will try it tomorrow and see what I get.

I found something on the forum about adding citric acid to soaps which is interesting.

IrishLass said:

From all I've read, the main reason that some add citric acid (sodium citrate) to their soaps seems to be that it acts as a chelator which helps to cut down on the soap scum that forms in your shower/tub from using the soap. Adding tetrasodium EDTA will do that as well.


IrishLass

Edited to add- Was just doing some extra reading and found out that besides the chelating action, you can also combine sodium citrate with BHT to help prevent DOS (I don't know how much of each, though.....yet).

Also found out that there is a slight difference between sodium citrate and citric acid. Sodium citrate is citric acid that has already been reacted with lye. If you add just plain citric acid to your soap, it will increase the superfat because it will neutralize the lye some. But if you add Sodium Citrate, it will not mess with the superfat since it has already been reacted with lye. You can buy Sodium Citrate at LotionCrafters in liquid form.

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coffeetime said:

Ok, I found some info online that said that lemon juice is 5-6% citric acid and that the juice of one average lemon contains about 3g of citric acid. My 2lb soap recipe has about 670 g of oils. Which would need 6.7 g of citric acid (the juice from two lemons) and roughly 4g extra lye? Does that math work? I'm on my phone so I can't use the calculator at the same time. I usually superfat at 6-7% so there's a good margin for error if I'm off by a gram of lye. I have some lemons in the fruit basket as we speak so I will try it tomorrow and see what I get.

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Just to clarify, are you thinking of adding lemon juice or powdered citric acid?

CanaDawn said:

Just to clarify, are you thinking of adding lemon juice or powdered citric acid?

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Lemon juice.

Ok, this time I used my honey beer soap, its more bubbly than the other 2 I tried.
This time I parted it in 2, I washed the back of my head really well, then the front, top and sides.
I used a white vinegar rinse I had made a while back (not sure why I added witch hazel) and put conditioner on the ends (fried from coloring).
Almost no hair fall. Somd tangles but not bad. Hair super shiny and very soft, nicer than when I use shampoo, also less frizzy. Hair color intact. Clean no oil or grease. Verdict is I cant complain.
Now I just need to come up with a formula specifically for hair, but until then I'll just use the honey beer soap.

Bex1982 said:

Ok, this time I used my honey beer soap, its more bubbly than the other 2 I tried.
This time I parted it in 2, I washed the back of my head really well, then the front, top and sides.
I used a white vinegar rinse I had made a while back (not sure why I added witch hazel) and put conditioner on the ends (fried from coloring).
Almost no hair fall. Somd tangles but not bad. Hair super shiny and very soft, nicer than when I use shampoo, also less frizzy. Hair color intact. Clean no oil or grease. Verdict is I cant complain.
Now I just need to come up with a formula specifically for hair, but until then I'll just use the honey beer soap.

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sounds great. You might find the tangles lessen as you use this method, and the lifted hair scales lay flatter and flatter, so they aren't so "velcro"y.

witch hazel is astringent, so it might help with oiliness? I dont' know if it has hair specific properties (but I've always liked its odour!)