Shampoo Bar - Thanks Lindy!!

The Efficacious Gentleman said:

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?

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I gave one bar of my shampoo to my friend last Sunday and she said that it made her hair very smooth and silky without any transition at all. I really surprised because when I start last year it take 4 washes before became ok but that's different recipe.

Here is the recipe of my shampoo bar that I made may be three months ago with lot of herbs,45% OO, 40% SAO, 10% CO and 5 castor and added 5% herbal infused EVCO after the cook. I also put in CA with additional lye,along with sugar. Citric acid helps with the build up. It works well for me, I also have thick Asian hair that I oil up before wash. The bar cleans it out in two times, lathers easily. I used vinegar rinse for few weeks but now I don't need to do it anymore. The one extra step I do is, scrunch exactly 5 drops of olive oil into my damp hair, mainly the ends and my hair is healthier and shinier these days. I also loose less hairs.
I'm so grateful that this thread exists. It's from here that I got my inspiration to try something like that, I have forever been looking to eliminate chemicals in my hair. And this thread made it possible, my hair thanks Lindy and Genny.

Vkumudini said:

Here is the recipe of my shampoo bar that I made may be three months ago with lot of herbs,45% OO, 40% SAO, 10% CO and 5 castor and added 5% herbal infused EVCO after the cook. I also put in CA with additional lye,along with sugar. Citric acid helps with the build up. It works well for me, I also have thick Asian hair that I oil up before wash. The bar cleans it out in two times, lathers easily. I used vinegar rinse for few weeks but now I don't need to do it anymore. The one extra step I do is, scrunch exactly 5 drops of olive oil into my damp hair, mainly the ends and my hair is healthier and shinier these days. I also loose less hairs.
I'm so grateful that this thread exists. It's from here that I got my inspiration to try something like that, I have forever been looking to eliminate chemicals in my hair. And this thread made it possible, my hair thanks Lindy and Genny.

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Maybe I need to drop the butters from mine too then. And get citric acid..

:eh:I really need to make mine own shampoo bar, not sure what to use cp or hp though.

I started making a shampoo bar cp soap a few years' ago, mainly for my husband who has a flaky scalp and was using very strong commercial shampoos. His hair is absolutely brilliant after using it - it lathers up like a huge helmet! I started to use it and found that I could leave off the conditioner; I loved the ease of having just one bar of soap when we travelled.

A while ago I coloured my hair using a new brand of colorant and found that I could no longer use the shampoo bar - it made my hair really greasy. (I use green tea and soap nuts in the bar.) I left it a while and tried again; same result.

I did a bit of research on this, which was hard for me to find...it seems that cp shampoo bars can have this effect, which varies for the length of time needed before hair is 'normal' again. From what I read the hair shaft needs to get rid of its previous chemical treatments before responding properly to the soap. For some it takes a week and for others a month. Like most people I cannot have 'yukky' hair for a month so have yet to get back to a state where I can use my soap again.

A friend has been testing my dog soap and this happened to her with a dog, in that the first few she washed were absolutely fine and she was really pleased with the soap. Then she had a dog to wash and the hair was really greasy afterwards and she had to use a proprietary shampoo to get rid of the grease. This is obviously not good from a commercial point of view. I have not read of this on websites which advertise dog (or human) shampoo bars. Has anyone else come across this?

soapysarah said:

I started making a shampoo bar cp soap a few years' ago, mainly for my husband who has a flaky scalp and was using very strong commercial shampoos. His hair is absolutely brilliant after using it - it lathers up like a huge helmet! I started to use it and found that I could leave off the conditioner; I loved the ease of having just one bar of soap when we travelled.

A while ago I coloured my hair using a new brand of colorant and found that I could no longer use the shampoo bar - it made my hair really greasy. (I use green tea and soap nuts in the bar.) I left it a while and tried again; same result.

I did a bit of research on this, which was hard for me to find...it seems that cp shampoo bars can have this effect, which varies for the length of time needed before hair is 'normal' again. From what I read the hair shaft needs to get rid of its previous chemical treatments before responding properly to the soap. For some it takes a week and for others a month. Like most people I cannot have 'yukky' hair for a month so have yet to get back to a state where I can use my soap again.

A friend has been testing my dog soap and this happened to her with a dog, in that the first few she washed were absolutely fine and she was really pleased with the soap. Then she had a dog to wash and the hair was really greasy afterwards and she had to use a proprietary shampoo to get rid of the grease. This is obviously not good from a commercial point of view. I have not read of this on websites which advertise dog (or human) shampoo bars. Has anyone else come across this?

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No matter what you do to good ol' lye soap the ph is still to high for hair. You take the chance of eventually damaging your hair enough that it will need to be cut. Soap because of the high ph will cause the hair cuticle to raise up thus causing abrasion to the hair strand under the cuticle. The cuticle protects our hair stands and using a vinegar rinse will help but with thick especially long and/or curly hair you cannot even guarantee the vinegar will get on every stand completely. Superfatting soap only leaves a possible layer of oil and dirt buildup over time. This is a simpilified example of why you should stick to mild surfactant shampoo bars (syndet) which are not hard to make. Susan at Swift Crafty Monkey has some good formulas for syndet shampoo bars on her blog

I've been using my variation of Genny's shampoo bar for a little while now, and I just wanted to say how much I love it. I used macadamia nut oil instead of soybean. It leaves my normally very limp and dry hair beautifully soft and bouncy, and feels clean. I also really like using it as a facial bar as it's so gentle on my sensitive skin. I've used other shampoo bars in the past, and they always left my hair feeling parched and impossible to manage - I could not get a brush through my hair no matter how hard I tried, and I've always had to use copious amounts of conditioner no matter what shampoo I use, just so I don't end up with chunks of tangled hair that's impossible to comb through. With this shampoo bar, I can actually run my fingers through my hair to untangle and only need to use a little conditioner on my ends. Even my boyfriend has commented that my hair is looking much healthier and nicer - so that's quite impressive!

Thank you, Genny!

I understand your comment Carolyn Z, but how is that there are so many hair shampoo bars for sale? Also, my hair was wonderful for about a year, until I coloured it. My husband's hair is absolutely fine using my shampoo soap and he has been using it for over a year. Anecdote from other soap shampoo users is positive on the internet fora.

soapysarah said:

I understand your comment Carolyn Z, but how is that there are so many hair shampoo bars for sale? Also, my hair was wonderful for about a year, until I coloured it. My husband's hair is absolutely fine using my shampoo soap and he has been using it for over a year. Anecdote from other soap shampoo users is positive on the internet fora.

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As an on-and-off user of shampoo bars (and, yes, I used them exclusively for months at a time, so I was over "detox"), and a member of a rather large hair care forum, I'm going to throw my two cents in. People tend to rave about the things that work for them. Those who go out of their way to make negative comments about things they've tried often are the type who complain about everything, and often get dismissed as cranks or trolls. Most of us heed the "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" school of thought. So that's probably why the internet has more good reviews of all kinds of hair care than bad.

As for why there are good reviews at all if soap is supposed to be this nasty, damaging thing? Well, different people have different hair. Some people have very delicate hair, either naturally or due to chemical processing, and can't use anything that ruffles the hair's cuticle without ending up frizzy. Others (myself included) have very sturdy hair. When I was in high school, I once dyed my hair twice in the same day with traditional, ammonia/peroxide hair dye and suffered no ill cosmetic effects. My hair was just as glossy and healthy looking. So even though I found shampoo bars didn't clean my hair adequately, I never felt like they made my hair appear more damaged. But that doesn't mean they weren't doing something below a level I could perceive.

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that if shampoo bars work for you, great! But true soap is high-pH and is doing something to hair on a microscopic level that will damage it, even if you don't perceive it on the timescale of your hair's life cycle. So it is important to bring that point up to those who are either having trouble with soap-based shampoo, or those with delicate hair who are considering it. Particularly since most of the reasonable-sounding reviews one sees online are positive.

I used shampoo bars for well over a year and told everyone how wonderful they were. I truly loved them and how they made my hair/scalp feel then suddenly, my hair started breaking, got crispy and basically turned into a hot mess. It was so severely damaged, I had to cut it off into a pixie a couple months ago.

I wish I could still use shampoo bars but for me, it just isn't going to happen unless I keep my hair short which I don't want to do. I went to a sulfate free shampoo and really like it.

I love the shampoo bars but they really fade my hair colour quickly. Seriously considering giving them up for this reason.

I recently had my hair colored so had to switch from my shampoo bar to a color safe over the counter shampoo/conditioner instead. Before that I had received lots of compliments from hair dressers at the health of my hair so for me they work but I want to keep my pretty colors so I can't use them when I dye.

I'm pretty sure just about everything you do will cause some damage so I agree with the above to just do what works for you.

I used shampoo bar for over 1 year now and I coloured my hair too. But I never any problem the colour is ok and my straight hair become more wavy and look thicker than I used a shampoo. I damaged my hair 2 years with bleach then j cut it short then I use my shampoo bar and my oil serum helps a lot to repair the damage.

I had all kinds of trouble using shampoo bars in my hair. I was trying to make something gentle and not very cleansing because my hair is fine. It left my hair feeling like oily straw. I realized that I wasn't getting enough of the oils out of my hair, and then just putting more on because of the SF.
This month I tried a few of my different soaps on my hair. The one with a cleansing value of 10 and a SF of 5% has been the best. My hair doesn't feel funky at all and isn't weighed down by the oils left behind. It remains to be seen how long this will continue to work for me. I didn't use any conditioner or rinse afterwards. My hair is soft and shiny. I do have color in it that I re-do monthly. So far there is no change to the color.

soapysarah said:

I understand your comment Carolyn Z, but how is that there are so many hair shampoo bars for sale? Also, my hair was wonderful for about a year, until I coloured it. My husband's hair is absolutely fine using my shampoo soap and he has been using it for over a year. Anecdote from other soap shampoo users is positive on the internet fora.

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Because of a lot of hype about anything made in a lab is bad. Many soapmakers, especially new soapmakers, think handmade soap for perfect for everyone and everything. Which is very far from the truth

These comments are very useful, thank you. I had not picked up any negatives on other posts on the internet vis a vis shampoo bars. For me, the cp soap shampoo is out of the frame for the moment; a pity, but hey ho. I'll still make it for my husband and give another go from time to time.

I used a some hair colour before but I don't have any problem yesterday I decided to use a Schwarzkopf live color xxl. When I washed this my hair today it turn really bad like straw and feel like plastic as well as oily.

My husband uses any and all of my soaps to wash his hair. I however had awful luck with a bar made for this purpose.. I color my hair and it made my hair color fade and made my hair feel like straw. It certainly works for some and that's great. You just need to try and see what happens.

I had trouble finding a formula that worked for me. I have very fine but thick hair, and I was going about it the wrong way. I thought that I needed a low cleansing formula to be gentle to my hair. As it turned out I needed a higher cleansing value (at least 8 ), and SF not more than 8%(lighter and drier oils). I was not getting enough of the oil out of my hair initially so the SF oils were making it greasy.
My husband loves my salt bars for his body and hair. There's no way those would work for me at 20% SF. I just figured it out through trial and error with the bars that I have that are cured. Good luck, I hope you find your formula.

Can we use this recipe for liquid soap shampoo?