How can you find a delicate shampoo that used naturally derived ingredients and that is suitable for all hair types? A difficult thing that I have been working on for ages. As a soap maker I have always been so disappointed by Hydroxide based, saponified soaps, they just don’t work on my hair. It always feels lank, lifeless and has no natural shine and bounce. When I had long hair I just could not use it at all, I couldn’t even get a hair brush through it. I HAD to find an alternative. Shampoo and conditioner products are one of the worst for plastic consumption in a household too and, as Im trying to remove as many plastics from our everyday use that I can, that also needed addressing.

So it seemed logical that I should try and formulate a solid shampoo bar and a solid conditioner bar to match.

The science is a bit mind blowing and complicated so Im going to try and attempt to make it easy to understand here.

WHAT IS A SHAMPOO BAR?

A shampoo bar is a solid cleaner that is used to clean hair. Benefits are many -

• SUSTAINABILITY - As they are a solid-type product no plastic bottle is needed for storing the bars. When you make them yourselves there is absolutely no need for any sort of packaging whatsoever. So they make huge inroads in your attempts to reduce waste and eliminate single-use plastics.

• TRAVEL FRIENDLY - With all the new restrictions on traveling with liquids, shampoo bars are great, fly with your hair products in your carry on luggage, no worries!

• ECONOMIC - These shampoo and conditioner bars last for ages! Typically the shampoo bar will last you 80 washes. These bars can also be used on your body as the surfactants used are nice and gentle and the pH is also skin-friendly. Makes travelling even easier as you only need to pack one bar for all over cleansing.

SOAP BASED SHAMPOO BARS VS. SURFACTANT BASED (SYNDET) SHAMPOO BARS

SOAP BASED SHAMPOO BARS These are considered the most “natural” however they aren’t the best choice for our hair mainly because of the hight pH. Soap bars are just that, soap made with lye and oils just like the soap bars I teach you to make in my Beginners Natural Soap Making Course. Homemade natural liquid soap is the same too. It is possible to try and lower the pH of natural soap but it can only ever be reduced very slightly or you will end up ruining it. Soap has a high pH which makes it self preserving too. Most peoples skin can easily recover from using soap with a high pH, but your hair cant. Most of our hair (other than the growing end inside the follicle) is dead, for that reason it cant as easily recover from harsh conditions in the way that our skin can. While you can condition your hair and smooth the outer part to make it look shiny and healthy, prolonged use of soap bars will actually damage your hair. When using these soap bars on your hair you are usually told to do a final rinse with vinegar. The high pH of the soap lifts up the outer cuticles of your hair, making it look dull and dry, because vinegar is an acid it is meant to help to close the cuticles and make your hair look healthier again. SURFACTANT BASED (SYNDET) SHAMPOO BARS While using a synthetic detergent shampoo bar sounds like it would be harsher on your hair this is not the case. Many of us have been told that soap is good and natural but “detergents” (non-soap surfactants) are harsh and bad for us.

This misconception probably stems from the fact that most shampoos for sale commercially use sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), a popular (yet harsher) anionic surfactant. SLS is often used because it cleans very well and is quite inexpensive, but it also can irritate skin and strip skin and hair of their natural oils. (Yes, it actually cleans too well, in a sense.) Fortunately for us, there are many types of milder, naturally made surfactants available. As the demand rises for more natural, safer alternatives, the variety of available surfactants is increasing.

The advantage of using these more natural surfactants is that the pH can be adjusted to better suit our hair and keep it looking healthy. Soap, at the lower pH’s that we’re aiming for in hair care products (between pH=4-6) just isn’t soap anymore. Trying to lower the pH of soap that much would break it down. It’s impossible to make a soap-based shampoo bar in the ideal pH range for our hair.

MY SOLID SHAMPOO BAR

The recipe I have come up with uses a mixture of mild, liquid and solid surfactants. I find this shampoo bar is perfect for use here in Portugal. The key is to keep it dry after use. I pat my bar dry with a flannel after use and take it out of the bathroom, stand it on its edge so the whole surface dries evenly, once dry I store it in a soap box.

THE SOLID SURFACTANTS

SODIUM COCOYL ISETHIONATE (SCI) or SODIUM COCO SULFATE (SCS) - These surfactants are also sometimes called “baby foam” and are the gold standard of mild surfactants. Strong in cleansing and degreasing, they are gentle and mild enough for use in baby products and are derived from coconuts. They work well with both soft and hard water and produce a creamy lasting lather that is also biodegradable.

SODIUM LAURYL SULFOACETATE (SLSA) - this is an ECOCERT certified vegetable origin surfactant that gives off a lot of rich, long lasting, mild foam. Because it can be derived from both coconut and palm oils its a good idea to look for providers that either derive it from only coconut oil or uses only sustainable palm oil. The SLSA used in our recipe is made from coconut oil only and is biodegradable. PLEASE NOTE this is NOT the same thing as the more irritating Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.

THE LIQUID SURFACTANTS

COCO GLUCOSIDE - its a natural, gentle surfactant made from coconut oil and sugar. it is gentle and mild and has good skin compatibility so it does not irritate.

COCO BETAINE - Another coconut oil derived natural surfactant that is often combined with coco glucoside because they work well together to form a good foam and together have been shown to have better cleansing properties. Betaines are effective cleansers, they are also foam boosters and thickeners. This acts as a skin and hair conditioner in the shampoo bar, leading a moisturised feeling after rinsing.

CONDITIONING AGENTS

Even though the surfactants in this recipe are mild it is still a good idea to add some emollients or other conditioning agents. In our bar I have chosen to use shea butter as well. BTMS-25 - BEHENTRIMONIUM METHOSULFATE - This is a cationic (positively charged) emulsifying wax made using a plant seed oil. Because its Cationic it is also “conditioning”, it creates a very fine coating on the skin and hair giving an amazing finish (making the hair feel stunning) that is unique to cationic ingredients. It also helps to make the bar firmer. It functions as a completely emulsifying wax giving your hair a real conditioned feeling with added body and thickness. SHEA BUTTER - A wonderful butter (Butyrospermum Parkii) which has a high oleic acid content and is an excellent oil for normal and dry skin, dry and brittle hair care products or hair masks. It absorbs easily and has very little odor.

VITAMINS

These ingredients are really optional but are always a welcome addition to your shampoo bar.

VITAMIN E - This is a wonderful antioxidant and when used at .5 - .1% of a recipe it helps to keep any other oils used from going rancid.

B-PANTHENOL- Also known as provitamin B5, an ingredient used in all the best (and most expensive) shampoos and skin care products!!. It acts as a humectant helping to attract moisture into the hair as well as helping to nourish it.

PRESERVATIVE

I would always suggest that you use a preservative in your solid shampoo bar because it will be used in a warm, humid environment and you are likely to be getting it wet quite often. This recipe uses Sharomix 705 which is an ECOCERT certified natural preservative that can be used around 1% of the recipe by weight so only a tiny amount is needed. It is free of parabens, formaldehyde diners, halogens and isothiazolinones and can be safely used in the preservation of creams, lotions, shampoo, liquid soap, shower gels and hair conditioners. For it to work effectively the final pH of the product must be less than 5.5.

RULES FOR FINDING A GENUINELY “MILD” SHAMPOO PRODUCT

My solid shampoo bar recipe fulfils this but if you want to know what to look out for when choosing your own shampoo products be they solid shampoo bars or liquid shampoo here are some simple tips for you:

Four tips to pick a mild shampoo

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Avoid anything with “sulfate” Look for Isethionate or Glucoside as the first ingredient after water

Finally keep in mind that fragrance can be irritating and that no matter how hard you look for a mild product “fragrance” can be an issue that you can’t screen for by looking at the ingredients. If its inclusion falls under a certain percentage of the overall ingredients list it does not have to be broken down into its chemical parts. Usually fragrance is an undisclosed mixture of chemicals that are often associated with allergies, dermatitis and respiratory distress.