Shampoo Bar recipe - or just really moisturizing soap?

[Gryfonmoon]

Hi folks!

Wanted some feedback on this attempt at a shampoo bar (is it even a shampoo bar?)-

Pomace OO - 70%
Coconut oil - 26%
Shea Butter - 4%
SF- 10%

The SoapCalc ranges look pretty good (see pic). The recipe seized/soapcano'ed the first time I attempted it but that was mainly because I'm an ***** and wasn't paying attention to the temperatures. The second time it came out smooth and off-white and it's almost hard enough to pop out of the molds.

Thoughts?

Edit: Wow, that screengrab is really tiny. Let me just post the numbers instead:

Hardness: 34
Cleansing: 17
Conditioning: 63
Bubbly: 17
Creamy: 17
Iodine: 64
INS: 145
Charisma: +7 against orcs

 

[Lindy]

The Coconut oil is going to strip the hair in my opinion.

 

[Gryfonmoon]

The Coconut oil is going to strip the hair in my opinion.

Okay, what do you think would improve it? Shall I decrease the coconut and increase, say, the shea butter?

I'm an odd one, my skin doesn't strip with high amounts of CO, I'm oily So to me the CO is actually on the low side of what I normally use (100% CO with 20% SF). Do you think that increasing the SF without altering the CO would work?

Thanks for your help!

 

[melstan775]

If you have oily hair I would add a touch of some sort of surfecant, sodium laureth sulfate (not lauryl). Non surficant shampoo isnt strong enough to lift oil off the scalp and you'll just end up over working your hair and causing breakage at the root. You need something to lift the oil up and away from your scalp, and laureth is the gentlest shampoo surfecant.

 

[Lindy]

melstan775 for me the whole point of a CP bar is to get away from surfactants entirely. But there are people who swear by their syndet shampoos...

Gryfonmoon add in some castor oil at a minimum of 20% and either Tallow or Palm oil (I use tallow) at 40%.....

 

[Gryfonmoon]

A surfactant isn't entirely out of the question for me as long as it's a natural one, but I'd like to avoid it if possible.

Lindy, if I do castor at 20%, and Palm/Tallow at 40%, would I still use shea butter and olive to cover the other 40%?

 

[melstan775]

Surfactants are not a problem. Even rubbing alcohol on m&p soap to break surface tension is a surfactant. I'm a hairdresser and it is my personal opinion that the dangers of surfactants are overrated. Without them, your shampoo won't lather and you will use tons more product trying to work up enough suds to cleanse your scalp. In the end that much work at the root will cause a lot of break damage because your hair is weakest when it is fully water saturated. Surfacants make the shampoo process gentler and faster to lift oils away quickly and efficiantly. If the idea of a surfactant bothers you that much, I suggest adding a high sudsing oil to your formula.

 

[Gryfonmoon]

Like I said, I really don't have a problem with a surfactant. I simply have never handled or used one in any recipe. Do you have any suggestions on how to use a surfactant in a recipe?

 

[melstan775]

I don't know how much surfaces you would use in a bar recipe, but a quick check of the shampoo on my work station show sodium laureth sulfate as the second ingredient, so I am guessing it's weak and you need a lot of it to get a big lather. But you don't necessarily need big lather to get clean so it's a mystery.

 

[Gryfonmoon]

Honestly I've tried the bar and my hair comes out so nice and shiny. But I will take your suggestions into account with future recipes.

 

[Genny]

If you're looking for a non-cp surfactant shampoo bar recipe, Susan has some good recipes & instructionshttp://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/search?q=shampoo+bar
Or Scenter Square has a nice kit http://www.scentersquare.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=14&products_id=115

But I'm going to be honest, the shampoo bar recipe that I posted a couple weeks ago, I have no problem getting lather with it. I actually get more lather in a shorter time with that, than I do when using regular shampoo.

As for how much surfactant to use, it matters what kind you want to use. I have not used surfactants in any of my CP recipes, so I don't know how they perform.

 

[judymoody]

CP soap ended up not working well for my hair so I switched to solid syndet bars. But in my CP experiments I used a lot of castor (like Genny recommends - 20%+) and a good % of cocoa butter.

If you are interested in experimenting with syndets down the line, I highly recommend this blog:

http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/

There are many gentle (and less gentle!) syndets out there and Swift is really good at explaining their properties in terms the average human being can understand.

 

[melstan775]

I was posting from my iPhone before and now I am home. I just want to make it clear I wasn't telling anyone they should use a surfacant. It's just my personal opinion that washing your hair with non-surfacant shampoos are worse then with surfacants. I see a lot of people who want to get away from surfacants and it's really for the wrong reasons, or misinformed reasons. Ultimately your hair type, hair goals, and soaping fun will determine your recipe. Looking toward what you come up with!

 

[Lindy]

Surfactants are not a problem. Even rubbing alcohol on m&p soap to break surface tension is a surfactant. I'm a hairdresser and it is my personal opinion that the dangers of surfactants are overrated. Without them, your shampoo won't lather and you will use tons more product trying to work up enough suds to cleanse your scalp. In the end that much work at the root will cause a lot of break damage because your hair is weakest when it is fully water saturated. Surfacants make the shampoo process gentler and faster to lift oils away quickly and efficiantly. If the idea of a surfactant bothers you that much, I suggest adding a high sudsing oil to your formula.

Not true unless you are talking a liquid shampoo then yes, you do need it. But in a shampoo bar that is properly formulated lather is not an issue. You rub the bar directly onto your hair then put it down and massage into scalp and through the hair.

Gryfonmoon - yes you would use those to make up the rest of the ingredients.

I'm not saying my way is the only way and I keep mentioning that you need to be looking at other ingredients (non surfactants) as additives. If you do some research into even what the non-surfactant ingredients are in a syndet shampoo and start playing you might really surprise yourself. The first thing you need to remember is you are making shampoo not soap. There are some subtle differences, but those differences are what put my shampoo bars into Save-On Foods.

 

[sagehill]

Edit: Wow, that screengrab is really tiny. Let me just post the numbers instead:

Can I go off topic and ask how you did that screen grab??

thanks!

 

[Gryfonmoon]

Can I go off topic and ask how you did that screen grab??

thanks!

I did it pretty ghetto- just did a print screen of the SoapCalc recipe, pasted it into Paint and cropped it there. That's how I keep track of what batches I do and when.

 

[Gryfonmoon]

Not true unless you are talking a liquid shampoo then yes, you do need it. But in a shampoo bar that is properly formulated lather is not an issue. You rub the bar directly onto your hair then put it down and massage into scalp and through the hair.

Gryfonmoon - yes you would use those to make up the rest of the ingredients.

I'm not saying my way is the only way and I keep mentioning that you need to be looking at other ingredients (non surfactants) as additives. If you do some research into even what the non-surfactant ingredients are in a syndet shampoo and start playing you might really surprise yourself. The first thing you need to remember is you are making shampoo not soap. There are some subtle differences, but those differences are what put my shampoo bars into Save-On Foods.

Excellent. I was thinking of doing a percentage of:

20% Castor
40% Palm
30% Olive
10% Shea Butter


Would this be better?

 

[Lindy]

Yup I think it will be nice...