My hair and my shampoo

Hi all,

this post is just to show you what I've been trying to demonstrate in the past posts. Here's a picture I took right after washing my hair with one of my solid CP shampoo bars, rinsing it with vinegar and leaving it to dry naturally without hair-dryer:

my hair washed with handmade CP shampoo

looking good?

Egg yolk shampoo

Hello folks,

in spite of all the negative comments I've read about CP shampoo, as I already discussed I simply love it, so I've been trying to make different recipes to feel the difference and choose which one is best for my hair.

The one I present today is taken from this amazing book, and modified as usual to suit my needs and the ingredients I had at hand. I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know if it's going to be any good (even though I've read many people who use it and love it), but so far it's still curing but it smells wonderful, plus it is becoming nice and hard, so I have high expectations for it. ;)

Here we go:

EGGCELLENT

egg yolk solid shampoo

74,4% olive oil                  372g
13,6% creamed coconut   100g (of which 68g of fats and 32g of water)
7% shea butter                  35g
5% wheatgerm oil             25g (at trace)
67g lye (5% discount)
118g water

at trace I added: one egg yolk mixed well and whisked with the wheat germ oil (I made it into some kind of creamy mixture), lemon, tea tree and rosemary EOs.

It took about 12 hours to become solid, but it needed a little freezer to come out of the mould. It went through gel, and it become kind of greenish after 24 hours, but in a couple of days it turned back to while-yellowish as you can see it in the picture above.

I will keep you posted on the result as soon as I try it.

Another shampoo recipe

Hello everyone,

first of all I would like to thank all the lovely people who passed by to read some of this blog, I didn't expect so many of you to read about my soapmaking experiments, so I have been very pleasantly surprised. I hope you like what you read, and that it makes you want to come back and read more. ;)

A part from this, today I've made another batch of shampoo, this time it's egg yolk CP solid shampoo. I took a recipe from a very useful book I own, and changed it for practical reasons (the original recipe includes bees wax, which I don't have, and plus I wanted to customize it a little, which is where most of the fun lies in soapmaking!). I will be posting the recipe and results probably in a few weeks, that is when the shampoo is cured and ready to be tested.

In the meanwhile, I wanted to share with you another shampoo recipe I found  on the same book mentioned above. Once again, I customized the recipe - which came out quite good but a little too soft. Even so, the friend I gave it to, who has pretty greasy and thick hair, loved it, and now wants more, so here's the recipe as I modified it (or you can try the original version from the book if you wish, it might be even better).

NATURAL WONDERBAR

65% olive oil

15% sweet almond oil

9% coconut oil

6% castor oil

3% linseed oil

2% wheatgerm oil (at trace)

lye (5% discount, but fore greasy hair I would recommend even 3%)

water infused with stingy nettles (fresh or dried) and rosemary

at trace I added the wheatgerm oil plus some tea tree and rosemary essential oils, previously mixed with a tablespoon (for 1 kg of basic fats) of rice flour as fixative.

Sorry, I don't have pictures for this one, but as I said it came out quite soft but very cleansing and gentle with the hair. Probably playing around a little with the percentages, or using less water - or again the HP method - maybe you could get a harder, better soap. I am going to try this one again in the future, maybe with less water and see how it comes out.

In the meanwhile, I've given a a birthday present some of my soaps to friends, so I'm really impatient to hear their feedback on it, especially on the beer soap I've very happily made and use myself. Fingers crossed!

My experience with shampoo bars

Hello folks,

today I'd like to share with you my own experience with another "controversial" topic on soapmaking: CP shampoo bars.

Now, I've read a lot on the internet before deciding to make a shampoo bar. Some people say they can't use CP soap as shampoo, others swear they've been using it for a while and they love it, and some other want you to believe that even thinking about CP shampoo is crazy.

I have also read a lot of different opinions on how to properly make it, what lye discount to use and what oils are best for the hair. One common opinion seems to be that olive oil is the best for it's gentle conditioning qualities, and that some coconut and castor oils are a must since a shampoo is expected to make a lot of creamy and frothy bubbles. I suppose there are so many different opinions because, with hair even more so than with skin, the final effect depends not only on the soap itself, but on the type of hair, of weather and of final result we have and want. So I am here to add a bit more to this debate by bringing my own personal experience.

I have always been intrigued by the possibility of making my own shampoo and stop putting all those awful chemicals on my poor, thin, dry hair. So as soon as I came across a shampoo recipe that seemed feasible and logical (I found it on this book, which I strongly recommend to anyone making CP soap because it contains so much useful information!), and didn't even include coconut oil, so I tried it!

The book suggests to use beer for thin and dry hair, because it naturally strengthen the hair and makes it nice and shiny, so here's the beer shampoo recipe I tried (as usual, slightly changed from the one on the book):
 

DRUNKEN MASTER

the drunken master beer shampoo

55% olive oil

15% rice bran oil

10% sweetcorn oil (to add at trace)

10% castor oil

5% linseed oil

lye (7% discount, but this depends on your hair type)

2/3 distilled or rain water and 1/3 "condensed" beer

at trace I added: the sweetcorn oil, rosemary and eucalyptus e.o. and a teaspoon of henna powder (which I've read is another natural conditioner).

As regards the "condensed" beer, that's how I did it: I took about double the amount of beer I needed, put it in a small pot and let it sit for a while to get rid of all the gas it contains. Then I added 1/2 teaspoon of table salt and put it at a low heat for about 10 minutes, or anyway until I could feel it had halved the volume (and it starts getting a little thick). Then I let it cool down and added it to the soap right after the lye and water mixture - or you could add it at trace if you wish.

The result is a pretty soft soap that takes a while to become un-mouldable, and about 6-8 weeks to cure. I used it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and have been washing my hair with it ever since. I have to say that the feeling with chemical shampoos is very different, and that - as I've read in many different places - since the CP soap pH value is pretty high, it is best to use an acid rinse after the CP soap on hair. So I prepared a bottle with one cup of vinegar and about 3-4 cups of water, plus 3-4 drops of rosemary e.o. that I shake and use  to rinse my hair every time I wash them with my beer shampoo.

The result so far is stunning. I have to say my hair get greasy quite easily now compared to normal (as when I use a lot of conditioner or when I have my hair washed by the hairdresser!), so I have to wash them every 2 days or so, but that's probably because I need a lower lye discount (I'll try with 5% on the next batch), but other that that they feel SO AMAZING!!! They are so shiny and strong, I never had such beautiful hair with any chemical shampoo, ever. My partner even noticed it, and some of my friends too, asked me what I'm doing to my hair that they look so nice and different.

After this first experiment, I think I'll stick to CP shampoo bars, and will try experimenting a bit more with them. I've read of someone who doesn't discount lye at all, and then adds 3% jojoba oil at trace, so that the only "free" oil in the final soap is jojoba, which is really similar to the skin natural oil. I'll try that too, I think.

Other great ingredients for you shampoos could be egg yolks (I've read they are a miracle for thin and weak hair, so I'm gonna try that one too), chamomile (for fair or blonde hair), rosemary (for dark hair), stingy nettle for the scalp and tea tree e.o. for an antiseptic and cleansing shampoo or for dandruff.

I can't wait to try all of these things, and I think I'll get some of my friends to try it too, even though I fear they are too used to chemical shampoos to appreciate the initially weird feel of natural hair. We'll see.