Is there a way to make shampoo at home?

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Elysium82

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Hey lovely people,

Can one make shampoo at home from, say, liquid castile soap and essential oils?

I think I have heard somewhere that castile soap dries the scalp too much and it shouldnt be used due to its Ph.

Anyway, I would like to hear from someone experienced who has gone from commercial shampooing to something friendlier. I am losing hair at an unprecedented rate and I would like to do my best to preserve my hair. :)
 
Hey lovely people,

Can one make shampoo at home from, say, liquid castile soap and essential oils?

I think I have heard somewhere that castile soap dries the scalp too much and it shouldnt be used due to its Ph.

Anyway, I would like to hear from someone experienced who has gone from commercial shampooing to something friendlier. I am losing hair at an unprecedented rate and I would like to do my best to preserve my hair. :)
If you’re already losing hair I wouldn’t recommend using soap on it. The PH is too high. Many of us here had our hair ruined using soap. DeeAnna gave you a good place to start.
 
If that's you with wavy, brunette locks in the picture, any alkaline mixture will make what's left matte and crispy over time. If you had super fine hair you might maybe get away with it, because fine and thick hair strands are structurally different, but mostly-straight brunette is the generally the opposite of that. Success stories exist for hair with soap, but not for our hair type.
 
In case this is of any use:

I make soap bars according to a recipe I want for shampoo. Then I dissolve the bar in water and use it as shampoo.

I rinse my hair with apple cider vinegar.

Easy.
 
Agree to DeeAnna, there is probably a thread asking about shampoo soap every month or so.
I have more hair than I care for but I will never use soap on my hair. There was one time I run out of shampoo and figured why not, grabbed my facial soap and washed my hair with that. It was a very gentle avocado soap with luxury oils but my hair dried to a tangled mess. I pulled out so much hair just trying to brush it out and it still bad afterwards, heavy and weird feeling. Never again.
Everyone has different but I still tend to warn people against it. Better safe than sorry, especially you are already losing hair. It's better if you can research a little on surfactants and find gentler shampoo. Gentle surfactants tend to be more environment-friendly as well.
 
Hair loss can be caused by many reasons -- hormones and heredity (testosterone related hair loss), stress, diet, illness or medications, the way the hair is cared for, etc.

If your hair loss is genetic and/or related to hormones, no shampoo will solve this problem. I think products like Rogaine (sold in the US) can help, but I know nothing about these products so can't say much more than that.

If your hair loss is due to stress, diet, or illness, then the solution is an internal one -- becoming less stressed, better diet, overcoming the illness, or perhaps changing the medications.

If the hair loss is due to breakage from the way the hair is cared for, then changing how you care for your hair or changing hair care products might help. I will say that a high pH soap won't do much to reduce hair breakage. You're probably better off using cleansers that are slightly acidic. Just because something sounds like it should be "friendlier" doesn't mean it really is.

You say nothing about the reasons for your hair loss, so take these thoughts for what it's worth.
 
I am one of "those people" who use a shampoo soap bar and have no issues. I YD was braiding my hair last week and remarked that she can see where I started to use my own shampoo bars. My hair is coming in very thick. It is most likely due to my genetic heredity as well as the soap. My hair was thinning prior to this.
 
I am also one of the weirdos who successfully used hair soap for years. My hair is very thick, coarse, long, and curly, and it grows pretty fast. Which is even stranger, because I've read that those most likely to be successful with hair soap tend to have thinner, finer, shorter hair.

Now my husband - not so much. His hair became very dry and started breaking after about a year or so of using hair soap. He went back to liquid shampoo at that point. He feels like his hair has never fully returned to its prior thickness.

Dunno... for whatever reason, my hair loved HP soap, followed by a very substantial ACV rinse. It was always shiny and very strong. I only went back to using shampoo when I started coloring my hair, and only because the hair soap strips the color right out in one wash.
 
You can totally make shampoo at home, but it’s different than making soap, and it may be less trouble to just buy it from a maker. My hair does fine with shampoo bars, usually they look like round pucks full of rice. You can look up syndet bar for more info. It’s better if it’s not made with SLS, a lot of makers now are using gentler, coconut based detergents instead.
 
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