Harsh shampoo bars

[satsuki]

I always make CPOP soap. I got a request from someone to start making shampoo bars and so I have been experiementing. What I basically did was go into soap calc and play around with different oils and try to get as good conditioning properties as possible while keeping good cleansing and OK hardness.

First I had a lot of castor oil in my recipes but the bars came out harsh and lye-y to the touch (despite 8% lye discount). After reading that castor oil content should be restricted I came up with a recipe that seemed pretty good, with only a little castor oil, hemp oil, coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil, shea butter, beer and silk. It felt really good when I tried it as a hand soap but then I tried it on my hair this morning and even though it apparently has improved my dry scalp problem it was not pleasant to wash my hair with it. It felt lye-y again, and my hair felt very unsmooth while washing, the shampoo hurt more than it should when I got some in my eyes. I really thought I had nailed the recipe this time and yet it turns out like this! My hand soaps feel softer than my shampoo bars, and I don't know how to get this softness in there! I've sat hours with soap calc trying to optimize my recipes - sigh!

Another thing that worries me is that I don't know if I have exactly those fats that are listed in soap calc. I'm in Sweden and we can only buy one type of coconut fat here, and how do I know whether or not it has the same properties?

I just feel really discouraged now, trying to come up with my own recipes.. How do you guys do it? How can I make a good shampoo bar?

 

[RockinRodeoChick]

I don't think I can offer you much help there. I'm still a newbie. Heh. I havn't tried a shampoo bar yet, myself. Just wanted to tell you not to get discouraged. It may take a little help from the experts, but you'll get it figured out and hit on an awesome recipe.

 

[satsuki]

Thank you! Earlier I have mostly started from recipes I know that worked and maybe exchanged an oil for another one, and that has worked. This is my first from scratch recipe..

 

[Sunny]

I have never tried a shampoo bar before either - but I have washed my hair with castille soap and I hated the feeling. It may be that you need a rinse afterward and then you would get that smooth feeling? Your bar might be just fine... =\ chin up!

 

[dagmar88]

Maybe your scale is off?

 

[carebear]

Don't know about the lye-y part. But yes, most hair doesn't like "real" soap. MOST. There are exceptions.

Anyway, here's why.
- The high pH of soap lifts the cuticle on the strands of hair (it's like scales), leaving the surface rough. Which makes it harder to rinse out, allows your hair color to be washed away more easily, and leave hair not feeling slick and smooth. As a very understated demonstration, take a strand of hair and pinch it between your fingers. Run it through your fingers from top (root) to bottom. Feel the glide? Now flip the strand over and run it through botton to top. It'll be rougher. It's like fabric with a nap. Now with a high pH product you are lifting that nap so that it feels rough in both directions.

- Soap, in the presence of hard water, forms soap scum. Which is sticky and hard to rinse away. Think about how hard it is to clean it off your shower walls... that's not rinsing out of your hair easily.

A diluted acid rinse (citric, vinegar) helps somewhat for some people. I've never found it does enough.

Commerical shampoos are detergent products. They have a neutral or more likely slightly acidic pH and don't form soap scum. And are nicer to hair.

 

[satsuki]

Thanks for the replies! My scale does work fine for other soaps so I don't think it's that.

I now tried it as a body bar and it feels like it strips my skin of all oils. Not very nice. Here's the recipe:
- 112 g guinness beer (boiled once and left to cool in fridge for ~4 days)
- 38 g lye
- 1 sq.inch silk fabric (removed the bits that didn't dissolve)
- 40 g palm oil
- 15 g castor oil
- 75 g hemp oil
- 75 g shea butter
- 15 g coconut oil
- 75 g olive oil
- essential oils

(water as percent of oil weight: 38%, Super fat/discount 8%)

So does anyone do shampoo bars or is it a lost cause?

 

[LotusFlowerSoap]

I do them, use them, and love them. My recipe has olive, actually a pretty high percentage of castor, wheat germ, avocado and some others (don't have it in front of me right now).

I will say that no, it doesn't leave my hair all smooth in the shower like commerical shampoo and conditioners do, but it's not a big deal to me because my hair is straight and is easy to comb out afterwards. If you have curly hair or something, this could be more of an issue.

I've never had to use a rinse to get rid of build up and we have pretty hard water. My hair is shiny and smooth after I comb it out.

One thing that is very true is that it doesn't protect color nearly as well as the salon products I usually use for my color. My last color job didn't last nearly as long. But again, I'm okay with it. I'm just going to move away from drastic colors (my last one was a bright red, which is tricky to get to stick anyway...) and go with colors that are more near my natural color (if I can figure out what that is any more!)

I live in a very very very dry climate, so I think the extra conditioning is good for this environment. When I first moved here, my hair, skin, and fingernails, litterally were just dry, breaking, flaky messes - and don't even get me started on my feet! But using my own soap, creams, lotions and shampoo has helped with all of that.

I think shampoo bars are one of those love 'em or hate 'em kind of things, though, and depend a lot on conditions where you live and what type of hair you have.

 

[satsuki]

I would love to try a recipe that works just to see if I'm doing anything wrong. So if anyone would like to share their recipes it would be most welcome.

 

[LotusFlowerSoap]

There are tons of recipes online, but I found this one at Soapnuts, which is pretty simple.

/quote/
Barbara's Shampoo Bar Recipes
I've had lots of e-mails about my s/poo bars so I thought they could go in
the library, they are very basic but we like them.
CP Chamomile s/poo bar
20 oz sunflower oil
6 oz coconut oil
4 oz castor oil
4 oz lye
11 oz very strong chamomile tea ( with 2 sugars added) or
4 oz water (to add lye to) and 7oz very strong chamomile tea( with 2
sugars )
I don't recommend using a stick blender for this as it traces very very
quickly. I usually make in a morning and cut as soon as it is set, I don't
insulate either.
/endquote/

You might try this one and if you make it work, go for one that has more ingredients, or substitue some other oils that you think would be good for hair (wheat germ, etc).

 

[satsuki]

Thank you! I may try this.

 

[Woodi]

I use my soap bars (olive, coc, palm) on my hair, but we have super-soft water. We had a water-softener installed on our well water system, cuz the well water is so very hard.
With hard water, as my daughter has in the city....my soap bars don't work at all on hair. Leaves it feeling limp, lifeless, and dirty.

So it could be hard water that is causing your problems?

 

[ToniD]

There are tons of recipes online, but I found this one at Soapnuts, which is pretty simple.

/quote/
Barbara's Shampoo Bar Recipes
I've had lots of e-mails about my s/poo bars so I thought they could go in
the library, they are very basic but we like them.
CP Chamomile s/poo bar
20 oz sunflower oil
6 oz coconut oil
4 oz castor oil
4 oz lye
11 oz very strong chamomile tea ( with 2 sugars added) or
4 oz water (to add lye to) and 7oz very strong chamomile tea( with 2
sugars )
I don't recommend using a stick blender for this as it traces very very
quickly. I usually make in a morning and cut as soon as it is set, I don't
insulate either.
/endquote/

You might try this one and if you make it work, go for one that has more ingredients, or substitue some other oils that you think would be good for hair (wheat germ, etc).

When I was looking for shampoo bars, I found this same one and planned to make it, but I checked on this forumn first and below are the replies from Carebear that I copied and pasted in red. I checked the recipe on soapclac and It turned out to be 66% sunflower.

66% sunflower will be prone to rancidity.



I can tell you that it's typically best to start out with half liquid oils and half solid and then to mess about - try things - see what you like and what you dont' and what is a complete and utter failure.

soapcalc would scream about my 75% coconut/25% cocoa butter soap, and it thinks 100% olive oil is apparently not soap at all (trust me, it DOES cleanse and DOES get rock rock rock hard - in time).

there are no rules.
OK, there are rules of thumb for when you are starting out, but the only ones I still follow are to keep soybean and canola oils pretty low (say 10%) if I use them at all, and if I use safflower or sunflower I go for the high oleic versions otherwise they should be kept low too - all this regarding DOS/rancidity.

oh, and you MUST superfat or have a lye discount. I'd never go below 3% except for a laundry soap. (most typically I soap with a 6-15% lye discount)

rules? more exceptions than rules!
_________________

 

[rubyslippers]

I thought my life would not be complete if I did not try a shampoo bar so finally made one; my hair responds nicely to it but I also use my regular soap bars with much success. There are some of my bath bars that work better on my hair than others - just keep trying different recipes.

I don't mind sharing my shampoo bar recipe so here it is:

2 oz avocado oil
4.5 oz castor oil
10 oz coconut oil
2 oz jojoba oil
8 oz olive oil
6.5 oz palm oil

Superfat at 7%; goat's milk was 1/3 of the water and I added sugar and salt to the liquids.

 

[dagmar88]

Thanks for the replies! My scale does work fine for other soaps so I don't think it's that.

I now tried it as a body bar and it feels like it strips my skin of all oils. Not very nice. Here's the recipe:
- 112 g guinness beer (boiled once and left to cool in fridge for ~4 days)
- 38 g lye
- 1 sq.inch silk fabric (removed the bits that didn't dissolve)
- 40 g palm oil
- 15 g castor oil
- 75 g hemp oil
- 75 g shea butter
- 15 g coconut oil
- 75 g olive oil
- essential oils

(water as percent of oil weight: 38%, Super fat/discount 8%)

So does anyone do shampoo bars or is it a lost cause?

I would definatly not reccomand making test batches that small.
Just 2 grams of lye too much can ruin the whole batch.
Your recipe is very low in cleansing; so as far as I can see the only reason it's harsh is that there's too much lye.
Make sure next time you use a minimum of 500 grams of oils and butter.

 

[satsuki]

Thanks for the input everyone. I guess my test batches are on the small side. I just feel bad ruining so much material, but if you're right Dagmar then it's ironical that I may ruin more by doing such small batches. I thought I'd be on the safe side with my lye discount but maybe you're right.

About liquid vs solid oils: the recipes I have with high solid oil content are very good. Hadn't really thought about that before but it's good to know!

And it's good to hear that sometimes bath bars may work as well or better on hair. When I'have been researching shampoo bars on the internet I never understood the actual difference between shampoo bars and body bars. Recipes vary so much and there is definitely overlap.

 

[satsuki]

Ruby, thanks for sharing your recipe. I know many people add sugar, but what is salt good for?

I will try your recipe and see if I can get it to work.

 

[rubyslippers]

You are welcome Satsuki! Hope it works for your hair if you do try the recipe. I might add that I have soft water and as I said in my earlier post I use my bath bars on my hair with great results.

The salt is suppose to help in producing a harder bar.

 

[theBrewMeister]

If pH is an issue as carebear says or even hard water, what about using some sea salt in the recipe? Water softeners use salt to soften the water and salt water is known for being too soft to form lather with some soaps. Just a thought.

 

[carebear]

that's a though. i've not tried washing my hair with salt bars but if I can find one I just might try it.

i do like (sacrilege, I know) Lush's BIG shampoo which is very very full of salt. http://www.lushusa.com/shop/products/ha ... ampoos/big

But that's detergent based, so don't know if it's even remotely connected LOL.