Shampoo Bar - Thanks Lindy!!

[ngian]

Ok after one day reading all the posts here, I have made an evernote note with the specific shampoo recipe, along with what many did alter so as to have specific effect.

The next big project for me will be this shampoo bar for my wife and daughter.

As a remark I'm thinking that under our names we must somehow write down how hard the water is where we live or we test the soaps, so as to have a more liable feedback upon our recipe testing, if someone forgets to post it along with the feedback, because in most posts on this thread it wasn't mentioned.

 

[Nikko]

Well I've read every page of this thread and thanks to all those that contributed to it. Read it all over as my wife had used a few commercially/or small artisan made shampoo bars but never gotten good results from them. Even the 'artisan' made ones were, with the gift of my relatively new soaping knowledge - relatively poorly made having the majority of their ingredients made up of PO+CO.

Cut a long story short made a small (1lb) batch last night which was done in hopes of adjusting to my wife's irritable scalp and also oily hair plus working with the ingredients I had on hand or could access easily here in regional Australia.

Ended up going with:
OO 40%, AvO 20%, Castor 10%, CO (Copha which has advantage of lecithin, which some think helps hair shine) 5%, RBO 19%, PO 5%, Neem Oil 1% (so low as my wife HATES it's smell but it works very well on her scalp)
SF@3%
1/2 the water was made into a tea of fresh parsley, rosemary, camomile + green tea, fresh Aloe Vera and Manuka Honey. Strained and added at light trace. And also 1tsp of Bentonite clay.

The other half I made the lye solution in (think I could have just added all together to simplify things!)

Scented with Rosemary + Tea Tree EO at 2:1 ratio with just a dash of Lavender.

Took a tad longer to trace (than my whopping 3 previous batches of experience! ;-) but surprisingly very firm this morning. Will zap test and cut pending this @24hr mark.

Thanks again for the great thread.

 

[happyshopper]

Hi all

I am looking to make a shampoo bar that I can actually use (this is one of my main reasons for starting soap making). I live in a very hard water area which makes using shampoo bars difficult, it is nothing to do with the rinse, its the reaction with the hard water which makes the soap stick to the hair (its almost impossible to get out). There must be a solution to this which I am looking to find. The only shampoo bars I can use are those from Lush, which contain SLS this might be the reason they work? I will try adding citirc acid as a starting point

Anyway to my question, please can someone help with an oil suggestion to replace the avocado oil for my test soaps (i suspect I will need a few which will get thrown away I can't afford to use avocado oil in them). The cheap oils that I can get hold of here are rapeseed (canola) / sunflower / lard, which would be best as a substitute? or are there any other cheap oils that would make a good temporary replacement. I am not so interested at this stage of what is good for my hair more of an alternative that means the finished bar will act the same as if it had avocado oil in it iyswim.

thanks

 

[Obsidian]

Sunflower or canola would both be good subs. I would personally go the sunflower. If you have really hard water, don't use lard. In my experience, it makes more soap scum then other kinds of fats. If you need to replace the shea, use palm.

Citric acid will help with the scum, as will using a lower SF, try 3%. Always use a vinegar rinse, it helps break up and rinse away hard water gunk.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I second the citric acid or sodium citrate. If you use citric acid, it reacts with the lye to create sodium citrate. Personally, I do this as I can get citric acid in the cash and carry.

I'm on the app, but if you search for "citric acid DeeAnna site:soapmakingforum.com" in google there will be a few results with a really good guide for how much extra lye to add to take care of the citric acid

 

[SozoArtisanSoaps]

Sorry it took me so long to reply! I got busy with the business!

Right now I rinse with ACV because I am using a bar that is pretty close to the same recipe that I created, but I add ACV and it has CO and PO in small amounts (5%). I wanted to make the switch right away to a shampoo bar and so did this while mine is curing.

I have no idea how mine made with 100% ACV will be yet. I test on Tues. If it is not as good as the one I am using now, then I won't do the ACV with it. I had seen others make theirs with ACV so I wanted to try it. The ACV rinse on my hair is wonderful. So I don't mind if I have to ¨double up¨ ACV actually lays down the cuticle of the hair making it softer in appearance and feel. I have looked at my hair under a miroscope before ACV rinse and after. I can attest that the cuticle is flaked out before and lays down after.

My hair is just sooo much nicer now. I have had several compliments on it. But, I also use my own hair mask before washing and then use my hair serum on my dry straightened hair.

 

[SA-Soaper]

Hi everyone - also tried this recipe today, but had to change a bit because only had small amount of avocado oil and no soybean. Replaced with some grapeseed oil, sweet almond, canola and jojoba oils. Also did 50/40/10 with camomile and rooibos tea/aloe juice and coconut milk. Added bentonite, honey and sugar. Hp so sf with shea butter and jojoba oil. Must say it is a real "poo" bar as it turned brown even with added td. Did a test on hands and lathers up greatand do feel moisturing. Will wait to sea how it is on hair. Btw have hard water and my hair is long, very thick, curly and tend to frizz easily. Tried a shampoobar before was not impressed. Will let u guys know when its cured. Thanks to everyones input.

 

[Nikko]

RE: the ACV or CA rinse - whats the recommended dilution folks are finding best for this (my wife has long hair, a tad on the dense side, normal thickness)

Also any best/easiest methodology? I made the mistake last yr of premixing a dilution rinse and as this was cold she understandably hated using it. So I guess a dilute on demand with the hot shower water is better. Leave in for a few mins/work through or immediate rinse out?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Obsidian]

I use about 1/2 tsp per 1 cup water. I keep a small bottle of vinegar and a small plastic cup in the shower so I can mix it as needed. For my thick shoulder length hair, one cup is usually enough. Better to mix up more then needed then not enough, the hair needs to be saturated.

I usually leave it in but if I accidentally make the mix a little strong, I rinse it out. If the hair ever feels oily after using vinegar, then she has used too much and needs to try a weaker mix.

 

[SozoArtisanSoaps]

Tested out my shampoo bar with changes of subtracting out the soy and adding in instead 5% coconut oil and 5% palm oil and using ACV for the water. It is great! My hair dries soft and shiny. I only need to wash my hair twice a week! So glad Genny posted this recipe and I was able to make a successful shampoo bar!
I also rinsed with ACV like always (2T acv to 12 oz water). I don't mind the extra step so I am not sure how it would be without the rinse. My husband used it without the rinse and his hair was soft, too.

 

[biarine]

I will try Genny's shampoo bar recipe but I replace the soy oil with sweet almond oil and shea butter with mango butter and I will use marjoram, Rosemary and oregano EO the same ratio as Genny's.

 

[misera]

I made a version of this a little over 3 weeks back hot processed but it is still kind of soft. pH good, no zap, seems to do well and lather well in my hands but I haven't tried shampooing with it.

Water as percent of oil weight: 34%
Superfat: 6% (saved just 2.5% of jojoba + avocado to SF at end, afraid to make it too oily. Rest of it was used in the cook.)
Avocado Oil: 30%
Castor Oil: 9.7%
Olive Oil: 38.79%
Shea Butter: 9.7%
Hemp Oil: 5.45%
Coconut Oil: 4.85%
Jojoba Oil: 1.52%
Beer instead of water
1 oz tea tree oil
.5 oz peppermint oil
Cooked for 2+ hours on low in crockpot after full trace. It wasn't folding in on itself possibly from the beer so I had to stir it a couple times. It smelled horrid, but now it's good. Are shampoo bars supposed to be soft? My percentages are weird b/c I slightly overpoured/underpoured in some and rechecked the percentages after everything was over. These are the actual percentage numbers.

 

[SozoArtisanSoaps]

I was finally brave enough to use my tweaked shampoo bar of Genny's without an ACV rinse afterwards since it is made with ACV. It worked! I did not need to rinse. After my hair dried, it was very soft and manageable and more of my waves were more defined.

 

[Dahila]

You said PH good, what does it mean> Can you give us the PH reading? Soap will be somewhere from 9.5 to 11 . What is good PH)?

 

[misera]

You said PH good, what does it mean> Can you give us the PH reading? Soap will be somewhere from 9.5 to 11 . What is good PH)?

If you're asking about mine, I got a 9 on it.

 

[misera]

I made a version of this a little over 3 weeks back hot processed but it is still kind of soft. pH good, no zap, seems to do well and lather well in my hands but I haven't tried shampooing with it.

Water as percent of oil weight: 34%
Superfat: 6% (saved just 2.5% of jojoba + avocado to SF at end, afraid to make it too oily. Rest of it was used in the cook.)
Avocado Oil: 30%
Castor Oil: 9.7%
Olive Oil: 38.79%
Shea Butter: 9.7%
Hemp Oil: 5.45%
Coconut Oil: 4.85%
Jojoba Oil: 1.52%
Beer instead of water
1 oz tea tree oil
.5 oz peppermint oil
Cooked for 2+ hours on low in crockpot after full trace. It wasn't folding in on itself possibly from the beer so I had to stir it a couple times. It smelled horrid, but now it's good. Are shampoo bars supposed to be soft? My percentages are weird b/c I slightly overpoured/underpoured in some and rechecked the percentages after everything was over. These are the actual percentage numbers.

So I ended up rebatching it because it was still quite soft but even the rebatch was soft though not as bad. I've been using the bar for the past week and a half hoping that it was just my hair needing to get used to it but there's forever a build up feeling. I have not used conditioner or ACV rinse after as I wanted to see how my hair would do just with the shampoo bar. I have long thick asian hair so it takes a lot of time to foam up my hands, rub it in in sections, foam up, rub more in, etc until I finally have all my hair foamed up. Then it rinses out super fast but leaves my hair super squeaky with inability to really run my fingers through them. I have to towel it dry a bit then blow dry before I can get a comb through. Just feels like I have a lot of product or wax or something in it Wonder whats causing the build up in my hair??

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

There is often a transition between syn-poos and soap-poos. For some people it can take weeks.

That said, if you're not happy with the soap on its own, try to soap and acv rinse?

 

[Saponista]

As EG suggested try an acid rinse. I use citric acid as I can't stand the smell of vinegar. The rinse really detangles. If I tried to brush my hair before the rinse then I'd go bald ripping it all out due to the tangles.

 

[biarine]

This is my latest shampoo bar. My hair is in between of dry and oily as well as very temperamental. I can't use olive oil more than 20% or my hair will oily or very flat no volume at all. My husband called my hair as flat as as pancake since I used my shampoo bar, so I decided to change my 35% of olive oil to 20% and coconut oil to 35%. I know all of you will ask why my coconut oil percentage is very high. But believe me it makes my hair very silky, soft and a lot of volume. If anyone had the same hair as me here is the recipe, this a hot process.

35% Virgin coconut oil
20% unrefined Virgin avocado oil
20% olive oil pomace
15% sweet almond
10% castor
With 2% SF
Plus 3% cocoa butter & 3% Shea butter ( I put the cocoa and shea butter at the end of my cooking )
1 oz lavender
.5 rosemary

 

[misera]

There is often a transition between syn-poos and soap-poos. For some people it can take weeks.

That said, if you're not happy with the soap on its own, try to soap and acv rinse?

As EG suggested try an acid rinse. I use citric acid as I can't stand the smell of vinegar. The rinse really detangles. If I tried to brush my hair before the rinse then I'd go bald ripping it all out due to the tangles.

I was trying to keep with it as long as possible (went a little over 2 weeks) and finally used ACV though I think too strong of a concentration. It made it non squeeky and I could finally run my hands through my hair again but it made it a little greasy feeling. Today I went back to regular liquid shampoo to see if I could "reset" but I think some of the stuff thats been building up for a while from the shampoo bar is still in my hair. I'm going to try again next week after getting it out of my hair completely and using a more diluted rinse after every wash this time. I also unfortunately got some of the ACV in my eyes >_> I thought I rinsed my face off enough with a splash but noooo that stuff stung just as much as when I got the dang shampoo bar in my eyes (tea tree+peppermint).