View attachment 56678
OK. The test bars I made were according to the original recipe. All percentages were the same. The only difference is that I switched out the hardener for each one. I used SCI noodles that never really seemed to melt, so there were little noodle pieces all throughout. The grey/purple one was made with BTMS 50, the pink one with BTMS 25, and the cream one with cetyl alcohol. No fragrance or any additives (other than a little mica to tell them apart). Each bar was about 15g. The mold is an ice cube mold from IKEA that I use for test size products of all kinds.
I gave each bar to my parents, and to my husband, and I used it myself. My father and husband gave rather generic, useless feedback ("it's shampoo", they said). My mother was more helpful. She also has a very different hair type than I do. So I will be including her feedback here. She kept comparing these to "the blue one", which she really likes and is currently my standard recipe. It has BTMS 25, coconut oil, cetyl alcohol, and stearic acid.
I used the shampoo by itself without conditioner to see the effects of the conditioning ingredients. I also used it as body wash, which I don't think anyone else did. I used each one at least once.
The first one (grey/purple) had BTMS 50. This one, my mother said didn't feel like it rinsed out well. She also said it didn't lather well. I felt like it lathered almost adequately, but it wasn't an impressive amount. She rubbed it between her hands and transferred the lather to her hair, I rubbed the bar on my wet hair directly. It did glide across my hair reasonably well without feeling draggy. My hair felt squeaky after rinsing and it was hard to brush wet (with a Wet Brush
https://www.amazon.com/Wet-Brush-Select-Original-Detangler/dp/B07CWQXQCY/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&). No detangling properties at all, and when my hair dried, there was a lot of static. So, I feel like the conditioning ingredients didn't adsorb onto my hair well enough to do very much. My hair felt dry and dull. Using as body wash, it didn't seem to get my skin as clean as I would like. On the plus side though, I didn't need to slather myself in lotion after my shower, so I guess that's good.
The one with BTMS 25 (pink) was a little better, but still didn't clean very well. Lather still unimpressive. Using this one as body wash still didn't get me feeling clean. The static with this one was still present. Still no detangling. I really am convinced that shampoo washes most of the conditioners down the drain.
The one with cetyl alcohol (cream) was a little better. My mother liked this one best of the three, but she still liked "the blue one" better. I think my static was the worst with this one. She has problems with frizziness and I have problems with static. This didn't help any and she still had to use her anti-frizz spray.
I still have not made the one with cocoa butter. I will do it when I feel up to it.
I also have a bar that is similar to my standard recipe that I used noodles to make. I am going to wash my hair with that one once or twice to compare, to see how much of the difference is due to the noodles, rather than the ingredient selection.