atiz
Well-Known Member
Haven't been here for a while, except for the occasional lurking... but have been making soap (some, not much), and quite a bit of syndets for personal use.
So here's some background to this experiment, which I'm sure many others have tried but I didn't find much info on it.
1) I really like cleansing conditioners. That's what I usually use (the home-made kind, mostly adopted from one of Marie's recipes at Hbnm). My hair is dry and quite fine; I don't need a lot of surfactants, but I also don't particularly like oily residue on my hair.
2) I also really like all kinds of shampoo bars and solid conditioner bars -- good for travel, etc.
3) I like having to use 1 thing instead of 2, and prefer that not to come from a bottle.
So, I was trying to make a solid cleansing conditioner bar, or at least, a 2-in-1 kind of thing. I did that by basically having a solid conditioner recipe unchanged, and adding about half of the amount of surfactants of what I would have in a similar size shampoo bar.
(So, I had: 60g BTMS; 15g butters/oils; 11g cetyl alcohol; 13g cool-down additives (so far this, + preservative adds up to 100); 12.5g SCS; 15g SCI; 10g coco betaine.)
I heated the "conditioner" ingredients and the surfactants separately, until everything melted. Then mixed them together.
The result: meh, although not sure yet.
After mixing, while waiting for it to cool down to add the cool down ingredients, the whole thing started to become extremely sticky. By the time I added the preservative, it was most like a bubble-gum. I forced it into the mold somehow, and froze it as usual. Now it's been out of the mold for a day, but it is still very sticky and I don't have high hopes for that going away. Anyway, will wait with it for a week or so and will see.
All the ingredients were ones I have used before, although not in this mixed kind of way. Maybe the BTMS or the oils don't do well with the surfactants here? (The originating idea was that basically the same thing is done in a traditional cleansing conditioner, except there everything is creamy so maybe the stickiness doesn't matter as much?)
If anyone has tried this before: is there any hope of this being useable eventually? Any other experience with solid cleansing conditioner bars? Is that possible at all?
My other idea was to make a "layered" shampoo/conditioner bar -- one side shampoo, other side conditioner. I wasn't sure though whether that would stay together. Has anyone tried? Maybe that will be my next experiment if this really failed.
So here's some background to this experiment, which I'm sure many others have tried but I didn't find much info on it.
1) I really like cleansing conditioners. That's what I usually use (the home-made kind, mostly adopted from one of Marie's recipes at Hbnm). My hair is dry and quite fine; I don't need a lot of surfactants, but I also don't particularly like oily residue on my hair.
2) I also really like all kinds of shampoo bars and solid conditioner bars -- good for travel, etc.
3) I like having to use 1 thing instead of 2, and prefer that not to come from a bottle.
So, I was trying to make a solid cleansing conditioner bar, or at least, a 2-in-1 kind of thing. I did that by basically having a solid conditioner recipe unchanged, and adding about half of the amount of surfactants of what I would have in a similar size shampoo bar.
(So, I had: 60g BTMS; 15g butters/oils; 11g cetyl alcohol; 13g cool-down additives (so far this, + preservative adds up to 100); 12.5g SCS; 15g SCI; 10g coco betaine.)
I heated the "conditioner" ingredients and the surfactants separately, until everything melted. Then mixed them together.
The result: meh, although not sure yet.
After mixing, while waiting for it to cool down to add the cool down ingredients, the whole thing started to become extremely sticky. By the time I added the preservative, it was most like a bubble-gum. I forced it into the mold somehow, and froze it as usual. Now it's been out of the mold for a day, but it is still very sticky and I don't have high hopes for that going away. Anyway, will wait with it for a week or so and will see.
All the ingredients were ones I have used before, although not in this mixed kind of way. Maybe the BTMS or the oils don't do well with the surfactants here? (The originating idea was that basically the same thing is done in a traditional cleansing conditioner, except there everything is creamy so maybe the stickiness doesn't matter as much?)
If anyone has tried this before: is there any hope of this being useable eventually? Any other experience with solid cleansing conditioner bars? Is that possible at all?
My other idea was to make a "layered" shampoo/conditioner bar -- one side shampoo, other side conditioner. I wasn't sure though whether that would stay together. Has anyone tried? Maybe that will be my next experiment if this really failed.
