Syndopour shampoo syndet base testing

[Quilter99755]

Don’t out the syndet bars in the fridge. It can take three days for them to harden and it feels more like a lotion bar instead of MP which I work with every day.

I only put the syndet bars in the fridge overnight because the temps here were over 100 and probably more in my garage where I put the bars to solidify before taking them out of the mold. They went into my soaping storage after they were unmolded and have been there for at least a couple of weeks. One of the other members suggested putting in the freezer to get them harder...which did not work. They are still very soft, which I already know the feeling since I worked with Stephenson's Melt and Pour soap years ago.

I am now using the bars but have weighed the current one so I can compare it's decrease in weight with the other syndet bars I have made. I'm not all that sold on the product at this time but want to give it a fair test before I make a decision because the ease of making has to go into this decision, along with my daughter's result with her cochlear implant.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I’m still happy with how the Syndopour is working for my hair, but curiosity got the better of me and I broke down and watched a Humblebee YT video on making a shampoo bar. The recipe included something like 75% ingredients that are solid at room temperature and the rest was liquid. I think she said the water content was 11%. Stephenson gives % ranges for the ingredients in the base, which is kind of annoying, but at a minimum the propylene glycol, water and glycerin add up to 50%. I thought about buying a few shampoo bars to try, but they’re fairly expensive, so now I’m thinking about buying shampoo bar ingredients. We need a rabbit hole emoji…

 

[AliOop]

 

[AliOop]

 

[Jersey Girl]

View attachment 68182

You can’t see me , but I’m right behind you!

 

[Carly B]

 

[SoapSisters]

I’m still happy with how the Syndopour is working for my hair, but curiosity got the better of me and I broke down and watched a Humblebee YT video on making a shampoo bar. . . . I thought about buying a few shampoo bars to try, but they’re fairly expensive, so now I’m thinking about buying shampoo bar ingredients. We need a rabbit hole emoji…

Do it! I bought the DIY Pourable Shampoo bar recipe, and I was so imtimidated by the ingredient list - what each ingredient did and how I would source each one - that I just stared at it for a few months. Then I at myself down and made an excel sheet of each ingredient, how much it cost, where to buy it, etc. This helped me finally make the leap and purchase the items for the above recipe and Humblebee's rice shampoo bar.

I'm so happy I did! I really love both of them and I really love comparing the two of them. My family members were reluctant to try them at first, but I just recently got enthusiastic reviews from my daughter, who has long, thick hair, and her husband. They especially loved the scent, which is rosemary EO (used as my "extract") and litsea EO.

 

[earlene]

I’m still happy with how the Syndopour is working for my hair, but curiosity got the better of me and I broke down and watched a Humblebee YT video on making a shampoo bar. The recipe included something like 75% ingredients that are solid at room temperature and the rest was liquid. I think she said the water content was 11%. Stephenson gives % ranges for the ingredients in the base, which is kind of annoying, but at a minimum the propylene glycol, water and glycerin add up to 50%. I thought about buying a few shampoo bars to try, but they’re fairly expensive, so now I’m thinking about buying shampoo bar ingredients. We need a rabbit hole emoji…

Me, too. I washed my hair for the third time now using my Syndopour Purple Shampoo bar (with violet #2 colorant). After the initial first use where it felt so extremely soft, I did as suggested by Susan at SwiftCraftyMonkey & did put it in the freezer overnight, which did apparently do the trick to make it feel less soft so that will be my practice going forward, I think. I have only washed my hair with the syndapour shampoo bar since starting on our roadtrip 3 weeks ago, and no conditioner. My hair looks & feels good; I am very pleased. At this point trying to compare how much I use as related to my usual liquid L'Oreal Elvive seems unnecessary to me. Perhaps I will feel the need to do so in the future, but since I have plenty of both to last my very short hair a very long time, I will just keep on using the Syndopour Shampoo bar soap to evaluate the long-term use on my hair. It is the very first time ever using a shampoo bar, so I cannot compare it to others.

My main motivation was to find out if it would work for me and my hair. Plus the fact that I travel so much I thought it worth my while to evaluate ease of use while traveling, knowing that packing bar soap is much more convenient that re-filling tiny little bottles with liquid for packing into my ditty bag.

edit: spelling correction

 

[dibbles]

put it in the freezer overnight, which did apparently do the trick to make it feel less soft so that will be my practice going forward

Do you mean you just put it in the freezer overnight when it is made, or keep it in the freezer when not in use? I'm glad to hear it's working for you - thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[earlene]

Do you mean you just put it in the freezer overnight when it is made, or keep it in the freezer when not in use? I'm glad to hear it's working for you - thanks for sharing your experience.

I don't keep it in the freezer between uses, but after the first use I was commenting in another earlier in this thread about how I wished it didn't feel so soft and was reminded of Susan's experience and her recommendation to freeze overnight after making. Thanks to @AliOop for reminding me. So I put it in the freezer overnight (probably more like 12-16 hours) and it really has made a difference. It no longer feels 'too soft' after using it to wash my hair. As I recall Susan did not speculate on the how or why it makes a difference, but the fact that it did for me is enough evidence for me to repeat the process next time I make this shampoo bar.

 

[artemis]

I'm visiting my crafty friend this week. She travels almost every year and has used syndet bars for her hair. So, we decided this would be the perfect project for us!

We ordered from Candle Science, along with several fragrance samples to play with. Our liquid color came from the M&P section of Michael's. The molds came from Amazon.

The only tip from our experiment is to melt more base than you think you need-- it will solidify on the sides of your container as you pour into your mold.

We're going to test them out over the next few days to see what we think. I have never used a shampoo bar before.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I made another small batch of Syndopour yesterday for a couple of testers. I inadvertently heated it to almost 200F (in under 30 sec) and the bars are quite firm this morning. At this point I recommend heating the base to 185F before pouring. That’s the maximum temperature I’ve seen recommended in Stephenson’s product information.

As for personal perceptions, I am still loving this product. After two months of testing with the original bar made with allantoin and provitamin B5, my hair is as smooth and shiny as it has ever been and my scalp feels good. As a bit of a reality test, I recently decided to try my former shampoo product again, but then immediately rewashed with the shampoo bar because my hair felt heavy and not clean. That’s a shifting baseline if ever there was one. I do wish the Syndopour made more bubbles and had a little more glide on my hair, but right now that’s not enough to send me down the shampoo bar rabbit hole. One more thing to mention is that I’m not having issues with my hair getting frizzy on rainy days. I thought that might be an issue due to the high-ish glycerin content of this product.

 

[earlene]

I had ordered a pillar mold for a candle that I thought would make a nice shape for a shampoo bar to use with Synodpour Shampoo base. It came a couple of days ago. It will mean cutting it to size since it is a pillar, but it's not very tall. Depending on how thick I cut them, it will probably make 3 or 4 bars. I hope it will work to cut as I do recall this being softer than I wanted, but I am going to give it a go sometime within the next week or two. Not that I need to replace the bars I already made, but because I want to test out the mold ad because I want to try some fragrance. I have not considered any other additives except the Violet #2, because other than the scent of Syndopour alone, I am very happy with it as is.

One other update is that my hair was more style-manageable without product when I just let it dry using my fingers to assist. Normally my hair lays flat and unflattering if I don't use gel or powder, but this time, I let it dry & just using my fingers while it was drying got it to go in the direction I normally do when I use the powder or the gel, only it was just still wet from the shampoo bar and my fingers were doing the lifting. I cannot say it was as good as when I use product, but the result was better than when I would try this with my regular shampoo. So it seems it provides more than clean hair.

 

[Quilter99755]

I have been testing both the Syndapour bars and my old recipe for syndet bars that have to be molded rather than poured. I tested each one 5 times with 2-4 days between shampooing. I have fairly curly fine thin OLD hair.

With the Syndapour bars the process couldn't be easier. That is the biggest plus in my books. The first day of the shampoo my hair felt great, quite a bit of body which is nice. The second day it just didn't feel as clean and sometimes by the second evening I would have shampooed my hair if I were going out for the evening. Bed head is definitely a problem with this bar. Most days require a lot of moisture to "fix" the bed head syndrome.

My old recipe is a combo of SCI and SLSa plus other ingredients. It has to be molded in a moon cake or similar type mold. At this time I am grinding SCI noodles into powder as it is easier to mold. I get along with this recipe quite well other than it's a pain in the tushes to do the molding. The first day of the shampoo is great, lots of body but the second day is quite a big difference in how my hair feels and reacts. And there is almost no bedhead. Third day gets a little bedhead and needs more moisture to fix it into my usual style.

If I were choosing between the two for ease of making...Syndapour hands down. For how my hair feels and reacts, it has to go to my old recipe. I also weighed both of the bars prior to using them. The Syndapour lost 50% of the bar after using it five times, where my old bar only lost 21% of the bar. And the usage definitely goes to the old bar.

My daughter who has the cochlear implant says both are about the same for her, although she feels like the Syndapour gives her bedhead a little more than my old recipe. Since her hair stays clipped at about a half inch, it's not an issue. And there is something about the old recipe that if she brushes her hand across her hair it will leave just a bit of dandruff? or something that comes out of her hair. I have tried it on my hair and do not get that at all.

So, I plan on trying out another pourable recipe before I call it quits, just in case we can figure out what is making the dandruff in her hair. But it is great knowing that the Syndapour is available and works on her implant. She confirmed that if I were unable to make the molded syndet bars, she would not bother and would find an outlet for the Syndapour. So that is a plus.

Hope this helps others in some way. Remember that this is just the results from two people and for sure everyone has different results.

 

[artemis]

@Quilter99755

After seeing your post in the "hair" thread, I wondered how your daughter was liking the syndopour bars?

 

[Quilter99755]

See the post above this one. If I can't find an easy pourable recipe she will use the Syndapour after I can no longer supply anything better. LOL But overall it is still giving her the feeling that it is not clean after a day. I even notice it on the days that she doesn't shampoo. That's okay in the summer since she usually showers daily, but not so much in the winter when she doesn't. Like she says, it's better than the others that have irritated her implant.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I finally started using a second syndopour bar. The first one wasn’t completely gone, but I wanted to bring a new one with me on my trip to California. It’s making a bit more lather in the soft water at my son’s house and also has more of a glide on my hair here than it does in the harder water at my house.

updated usage calculation - the first bar weighed 70 g at the start and I used it for 3 months and an estimated 36 washes, which brings the usage down to 2g per wash from my initial estimate of 4g per wash.

 

[JenniB]

I jumped in an bought some Syndopour. I was ready to try a new pourable recipe but the ingredients cost over $70, so decided the Syndopour was a better deal even with the high shipping.

I'm just doing no color or scent since it is mainly for my daughter and how it gets along with her cochlear implant.

My impression after the pour and after they came out of the molds was icky. It definitely felt like a Melt and Pour soap. I think it is definitely a soapy smell right out of the container. They felt wet but were NOT sweating. After about two days it didn't feel as wet but they are soft. I made them on Saturday and this morning I checked again...no wetness, firmer but even without pressure, my fingernail will put a mark of the bar. This is the 4th day.

I did notice in the clean up process that there was not as much suds as my other syndet recipes. I am going to wait for about a week before I try it.

I did find with my other syndet bars, that because most of them broke or at least chipped off a bit that I put them in the little organza gift bags to hold all the parts together. I put the bag under the shower water for a second or two, then rub that between my hands to start the sudsing action. Then I rub it on my hair. I find that it doesn't tug as much on my hair and distributes the suds a lot better. May end up using that method even if these don't break or chip.

I have been making 3oz bars and they don’t last as long as I think they should because they break into pieces. They have stayed pretty soft too.

 

[Quilter99755]

I think they last longer when I put them in the bags rather than direct pressure on my hair/scalp.

 

[AliOop]

I think they last longer when I put them in the bags rather than direct pressure on my hair/scalp.

I was just noticing that last night! Our little bag of scraps is lasting forever.

ETA: To clarify, I haven't made any using the Syndapour base, only the ones from the DIY B&B recipe. But I am definitely noticing that using the bag increases the number of uses from the bars.