Shampoo Recipe

[beedale862003]

Care to share your shampoo recipes? My hair is slightly on the oily side so I don't want anything that will leave my hair feeling greasy. Thanks for sharing.

 

[debbism]

This is just a basic guideline here....this is what I use on my dry fine hair which gets weighed down easy...

28% coconut oil
28% castor

then split the remainder between any two or more of the following:
sunflower (high oleic only)
rice bran
grapeseed
meadowfoam

Superfat at 4-5%

Allow 2 days in mold (do not skip gel phase) and 4-5 weeks cure time. You CAN use it in 3 weeks but I think it is much cleaner in 5 weeks.

If you are not comfortable with so much castor, you can drop it to 10-15% and see what you get but I have no problem with it.

 

[Yooper]

Here's my favorite shampoo bar recipe:

4 ounces castor oil
2 ounces jojoba oil
4 ounces olive oil (pomace quality)
3 ounces palm oil
1 ounce cocoa butter
6 ounces of coconut oil

7.6 ounces water
2.617 ounces lye

(8% superfat)

I used lavender, cedarwood, and rosemany essential oils. (not much, you can barely smell anything).

This is a very nice bar that works well for everyone in our family. My husband has oily hair, while mine is dry. This works well for both of us- cleans well without stripping my dry hair. It's got nice creamy bubbly lather, and is very mild.

 

[raynedanser]

Showing my noob-ness again - What is pomace quality??? Annnnd- 8% superfat? Can you explain? I'm still learning to read all this stuff. ;-)

Thanks!

 

[fiddletree]

pomace is a type of olive oil. It's the last bit of oil they can get out of the olives, and is usually extracted with heat and solvents. Not good for eating (in my opinion, but I'm an OO snob), but great for soap making. Makes a whiter soap, has more unsaponifiables, and traces faster than normal olive oil.

Superfat....there is a lot on this forum you can find using the search function. Some people call it a lye discount (I think that is a more accurate term). Depends on how you want to think about it.... either you have X% of fat MORE than the lye will saponify (superfat), or you have X% LESS lye than will saponify all your oils (lye discount). I'm crazy tired so I hope I explained that right. Surefatting is good so that you have a margin for error so that your soap won't be lye heavy, and so that you can hopefully get some extra properties of your oils into your soap.

 

[raynedanser]

Ok, that makes sense, thank you. There may be lots to read, but it's also incredibly overwhelming to try and dig through (maybe someone experienced could make a "primer" sticky post for newbies?), so I asked.

But in the above recipe, does that mean the recipe as it stands has 8% superfat or is there 8% more to be added to it?

 

[debbism]

When you try out a recipe, run it through a lye calculator and you will be able to specify a %superfat - then the recipe will be calculated to the exact measurements you will need.

I love this one
http://summerbeemeadow.com/content/lye- ... pe-resizer

BUT I always run that one through the sage just to make sure it is right.
http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

 

[raynedanser]

Here's my favorite shampoo bar recipe:

4 ounces castor oil
2 ounces jojoba oil
4 ounces olive oil (pomace quality)
3 ounces palm oil
1 ounce cocoa butter
7.6 ounces water
2.617 ounces lye

(8% superfat)

Hm. I would have to order the palm oil. I can not find it anywhere local and I'd love to try this soon - is there a suitable substitute that might be more readily available?

 

[fiddletree]

I use 20% CO, as I don't use palm oil. At that level and with a nice superfat, I don't find it at all drying. I also have a little bit of sweet almond oil in my recipe.

 

[raynedanser]

I use 20% CO, as I don't use palm oil. At that level and with a nice superfat, I don't find it at all drying. I also have a little bit of sweet almond oil in my recipe.

But the second recipe listed is already using 30% CO to begin with. If I eliminate the PO, should I just increase the other oils equally? Or substitute it with something else or is there one oil that would be better to increase on its own?

 

[ToniD]

Here's my favorite shampoo bar recipe:

4 ounces castor oil
2 ounces jojoba oil
4 ounces olive oil (pomace quality)
3 ounces palm oil
1 ounce cocoa butter
7.6 ounces water
2.617 ounces lye

(8% superfat)

Hm. I would have to order the palm oil. I can not find it anywhere local and I'd love to try this soon - is there a suitable substitute that might be more readily available?

You can use lard, similar properties. Also, a lot of health food stores, and some grocery, carry spectrum shorterning, which is palm oil.

 

[raynedanser]

So if looking for spectrum shortening, then I would look... with the baking stuff at the natural store?

 

[ToniD]

At the store I use, I think they keep it in the cooler....so either that, near butter, lard, etc, or with the oils.

 

[raynedanser]

Awesome. I'll check after the holiday. Thank you for all your help!

 

[HenleyNatural]

Here's my favorite shampoo bar recipe:

4 ounces castor oil
2 ounces jojoba oil
4 ounces olive oil (pomace quality)
3 ounces palm oil
1 ounce cocoa butter
7.6 ounces water
2.617 ounces lye

(8% superfat)

I used lavender, cedarwood, and rosemany essential oils. (not much, you can barely smell anything).

This is a very nice bar that works well for everyone in our family. My husband has oily hair, while mine is dry. This works well for both of us- cleans well without stripping my dry hair. It's got nice creamy bubbly lather, and is very mild.

Yooper, I ran your recipe through the Soap Calc at 8% superfat and the suggested lye amount was 1.61 oz.

Which lye calculator are you using to determine the amount of lye for your shampoo bar?

I am interested in making your recipe, but I want to feel confident the formula is safe.

 

[Yooper]

I also used soapcalc! Let me check it again, with my recipe. Maybe I made a typo, and I need to check it!

Edit- Yowzaa!

My original post left out the 6 ounces of coconut oil!!!!!!!!

It should be:

4 ounces castor oil
2 ounces jojoba oil
4 ounces pomace olive oil
3 ounces palm oil
1 ounce cocoa butter
6 ounces coconut oil

The last line just "dropped off" and I am deeply sorry! I will edit my post so that no one makes the shampoo bar that lye heavy. Thank you for catching my mistake!

 

[HenleyNatural]

I also used soapcalc! Let me check it again, with my recipe. Maybe I made a typo, and I need to check it!

Edit- Yowzaa!

My original post left out the 6 ounces of coconut oil!!!!!!!!

It should be:

4 ounces castor oil
2 ounces jojoba oil
4 ounces pomace olive oil
3 ounces palm oil
1 ounce cocoa butter
6 ounces coconut oil

The last line just "dropped off" and I am deeply sorry! I will edit my post so that no one makes the shampoo bar that lye heavy. Thank you for catching my mistake!

Hi Yooper, thank you for making the correction. I entered the updated recipe into SoapCalc and everything looks fine. I'm looking forward to making my first shampoo bar batch.

I will probably do the essential oils you recommended (Lavender, Cedarwood, Rosemary) at a ratio of 1:1:1 at a littles less than 3% of oils. That comes to 5 grams for each EO for a total of 15 grams EO's.

 

[raynedanser]

Oh no! I made this without the coconut oil! I hadn't seen this update. Do I need to throw it out or can I melt it down and add the CO?

 

[HenleyNatural]

Oh no! I made this without the coconut oil! I hadn't seen this update. Do I need to throw it out or can I melt it down and add the CO?

I tried to melt a bar of CP once and did not have any luck. Give melting the the shampoo bar a try. If you're not able to melt it and add the additional coconut oil my thought is to throw out the batch. It will be lye heavy and not safe to use.

 

[raynedanser]

It will be lye heavy and not safe to use.

That was what I thought. I have company on the way, so it will have to wait a day or so before I try again or throw it out.

Thank you!