Shampoo bar! (Recipe plus guide of sorts)

[Nymeria]

Okay so here is my shampoo bar I made this week. It is scented strawberry shortcake, but the strawberry scent is so light I think I'm imagining it's there, lol. The fresh baked bread scent is very nice, but not what I had intended. The strawberry DID discolor beige, which makes this look kind of like homemade strawberry preserves or something...

This is an all-time favorite of mine and people go bananas over it. Enjoy! (this is NOT the best picture and I will explain WHY later in post...)



Giving credit where it is (most likely) due: This recipe is dog-earred and tattered in my soap journal so I cannot be certain from where I got it, but I think it may have been Susan Miller Cavitch. It was so many years ago!!

First off, what is a shampoo bar? Quite simply it's a bar of soap specially formulated for your hair. IMHO, you may use a shampoo bar on your body (I don't because I like to make it last longer using it just on my hair), but you should not use a body bar on your hair. The reason is that shampoo bars are not only supposed to clean your hair, but also moisturize and condition your scalp. With a good shampoo bar (*cough* yes, I throw this in that category, *cough*) you should not need a conditioner. Though for people who have really, really, really dry hair, or chemically abused hair, a conditioner will probably still be necessary. But for normal-oily folks, this is all you need!

A note about this recipe: This recipe creates what is initially a VERY soft soap. Looking at the recipe you're probably thinking "Holy cow, that's soft!" and it is true in the initial stages. The secret to making this shampoo bar is patience. Considering that I am inherently impatient, I figure if I can make this bar, ANYONE can make this bar!!

Recipe:

6.9oz. lye*
19oz. distilled water

3oz. avocado oil
4oz. wheat germ oil
9oz. castor oil
2oz. jojoba oil
16oz. coconut oil
14oz. vegetable shortening (or palm oil or beef tallow)
1oz. mango butter
2oz. cocoa butter

For detailed instructions on the cold process method, please see Ohhappyday's lovely tutorial. Follow all of the instructions up until it comes time to unmold.

Leave the soap in the mold for at least 48 hours. If you are using a traditional loaf or slab mold, lift the soap liner (with the soap) out of the mold and allow to sit for another 48 hours before you attempt to cut it. For the above batch I used my new Kelsei mold and was not pleased with the results. Because it is so soft, pulling out the dividers was a bear and because the soap is so darn soft, well... you can see in the above picture the bars are not as pretty as they could be. But I digress... Once you cut the bars, carefully move them to a curing rack. What do I mean by careful? If you put too much pressure you will squish them with your fingers. I had to throw one bar away because it was too smooshed.

Do NOT be alarmed or turned off by how soft this bar is. I've shared this recipe with others in the past had had people call me saying that it failed because it was so soft. Once the water begins to evaporate over the next month, the bar will get hard. As mentioned, it just takes some patience!

*Yes this does put this bar of soap in the 8% excess fat range which is higher than I usually like to soap. But because this bar needs to pull double duty of cleansing and really moisturizing, I find this works best.

[smittenheart]

girl..I love it..I HAVE to try it..

awesome..

I have tried so many shampoo bars but I havent found one that makes me happy

[JadedMoonlight]

xD I've been using shampoo bars for the last 6+ months now - they're what got me interested in soapmaking in the first place. Really cool stuff, it just might take some getting used to.

Strawberry shortcake sounds divine. Mmm....

Weird! I just realized you wrote 8% superfat... yet many of the other shampoo bar makers that I've talked to told me they did a 3%.  Then again, my scalp tends to run super-oily, so it's probably for the better? I'll have to try a higher superfatted bar sometime.

[MareMare]

Yummy! Sounds so good. I hate when you cut it when it's too soft (or pull the dividers out evidently) and it gets that weird pulling stickiness on the sides instead of a clean cut

Weird! I just realized you wrote 8% superfat... yet many of the other shampoo bar makers that I've talked to told me they did a 3%.  Then again, my scalp tends to run super-oily, so it's probably for the better? I'll have to try a higher superfatted bar sometime.

I think a very typical lye discount is 5-8%....personally I think 3% is going to be super drying and potentially unsafe (if the measurements are the tiniest bit off you could have a lye heavy bar)  and wouldn't buy or use soap that was at that level...the soap calculator that I usually use actually gives a warning about using less than 4% excess fat.

[Miss Ireen]

thanks for sharing recipe!

[carmencrafter]

This sounds so good and I know it probably makes your hair feel good.  I've always heard bad things about lye though.  Is it safe for hair??

[smittenheart]

carmencrafter..what 'bad' things have you heard about lye?? just wondering??

you need lye to make ALL soaps..once the chemical reaction of making soap happens(saponification) there is NO active lye left in the soap...

so a properly made recipe is certainly awesome in hair..

[Nymeria]

As a chemical, plain, raw lye is bad. (See: Fight Club)

Lye is what makes soap, soap! The reaction that takes place between the base (lye) and the acids (oils & fats) is called saponification and it makes soap. As Smitten said, if a recipe is done properly, there is no lye in the actual soap. Isn't chemistry cool?

ETA: Most of the bad things you hear about lye are urban legends born from misunderstanding. When people talk about old fashion country soaps that "took your skin off," they were probably talking about old fashioned cleaning products that people made and called soap. My husband's grandmother's mother often made a soap-like concoction involving Comet & Borax. That WOULD take your skin off!

But anything about lye soaps is just hogwash.

[carmencrafter]

Thanks for the clarification nymeria and smittenheart. 

[JadedMoonlight]

Oh... hahaha. Maybe I heard that there was a 3% difference between the bars, hahaha. Total possibility, because I'm too often busy sniffing the soaps instead of actually listening to the people. ^^"

Interesting recipe, nonetheless. What's mango butter like? And why cocoa butter (aka, isn't that fairly heavy-ish?)? Or at least, it's much too heavy for much of my body.