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Hi everyone,
I’ve been using for a while now the body wash from Pacifica as a shampoo, and my hair LOVED it. It didn’t dry it out and my curls were very bouncy. Now I wanted to repurchase and saw that they discontinued it 😭 I’ve never made shampoo, and I’m not sure if I should just find a new store bought one or if I should make my own, cost wise. I don’t use a ton of shampoo (maybe 16-20oz per year), but I need one that I love. I don’t want to spend $100 getting the ingredients I would need. Does anyone have ideas on how this ingredient list could be simplified without losing effectiveness?
Aqua (purified water), sodium methyl-2-sulfolaurate (coconut source), disodium 2-sulfolaurate (coconut source), sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (coconut source), cocamidopropyl betaine (coconut source), aloe barbadensis leaf juice, polysorbate-20, glycol monostearate (vegetable source), glycerin (vegetable source), hydrolyzed soy protein, chamomile extract, calendula extract, tea extract, grape seed extract, pomegranate seed extract, cucumber extract, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, ethyl hexyl glycerin (vegetable source preservative), parfum (Pacifica’s own fragrance blend with natural and essential oils).
I would keep the protein for my hair, but would drop the extracts. But what about the surfactants?
Some extracts help. Hmm have you looked at Point Of Interest to see if Susan has made anything similar. Some of these look like basic gentle surfactants (like slsa is listed for example) and the coco betaine you can get from chemistry store easy. SLSA as well. That can cut your surfactants down to two…the glycerin, the poly 20 are humectants and the extracts help with healthy hair and shine. Aloe helps the hair, you’ll need it with distilled water.
Hmmm, TWIN! Whatcha think?
None of those extracts are expensive and likely all contribute to what you want in a shampoo. Really you are looking at infused water, surfactant, some kind of protein, glycerin poly, and fragrance. hmmm, this looks fun….I’m going to look further…
Joyful, I would recommend going to the Point of Interest blog and read up on making shampoos and surfactant blends. The basic ingredients are easy to find and I’m sure you could create something you like. Surfactants come in both liquids and solids, but it might be easier to start with liquids. I would also suggest getting the liquid versions of extracts and proteins. The powder extracts I have are “difficult” to incorporate, I think, but I’ve just started working with them so am still learning the best way to incorporate into a recipe. Powdered silk incorporates easily, but I think it stinks and the smell is hard to mask. Just looked on Voyager’s website, and they don’t have liquid extracts, just the powdered ones, so your call on whether or not you want to include. An easier way to get the benefit of extracts would be to use hydrosols as part of the water amount, if you like. Voyager also doesn’t have SLSA, so if you don’t already have it, I’d just drop it unless you can source it elsewhere.
Here’s what my recipe for a dupe would look like…
15-40% surfactants (I’d use a combination of LSB blend OR BSB blend OR Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate, SLSA if you can find it, and Amphosol CG, which is cocamidopropyl betaine) I would probably start at a lower percentage since this is a for curly hair
10% Aloe Vera Juice
3% glycerin
2% hydrolyzed protein
Up to 3% Crothix (to thicken to taste)
1-2% fragrance, if you want
.5-1% preservative, depending on which one you use
One to two extracts at .5% each, I’d try rosemary and grapeseed, OR use rosemary/chamomile/rose/lavender hydrosol(s), whichever ones you like (and would smell nice together) as part of water percentage, and drop extracts
Water at whatever percentage you need to bring recipe total up to 100%Does this help?
Yes, thank you! Last night I spent some time reading the shampoo recipes on Point of Interest. Voyageur does sell SLSA under the name Lanthanol LAL and under the name Stephan Mild LSB which includes disodium laureth sulfosuccinate. Is the powder much harder to work with? I was thinking of taking both ingredients seperately so that I can control the ratio and since SLSA alone is a powder, I can make shampoo bars maybe. Disodium laureth sulfosuccinate alone is a liquid. But if only cocobetaine and SLSA would work, then I would prefer not to buy an extra ingredient. Also, if I have EZ pearl, do I need crothix? On point of interest she used it alone, but elsewhere it said that you might still need crothix. Ez pearl is cheaper, but I don’t want to buy it and it not working.
If I place an order, I think this is what I would order. I’m still hesitating about if it’s worth it.
I have not worked with the EZ Pearl, so I have no advice to offer on how it thickens vs Crothix. I think this ingredient is not so much necessary as more cosmetic. It adds the pearl-y look in the shampoo, and yes it thickens too, but if you don’t really care if your shampoo is all pearl-y looking, then Crothix will work just fine on its own. If you get the EZ Pearl, I would still purchase the Crothix, just in case. Thin, watery shampoo is very easy to overpour and waste. Ask my husband! Haha!
I am new at working with the powdered surfactants too, but made my husband a shampoo with SCI (powdered) and cocamidopropyl betaine and everything melted down fine. I tried, at first to melt the powder in the cocamidopropyl betaine, but since I used 10% powder and 5% CB, that was really not working. So, I went ahead and added in the water amount. Melted that, then one by one, added my other ingredients and stirred to make sure everything melted and blended together. Next time I may be more brave and just dump all the water phase ingredients together to heat, because the way I did it took forever, it seemed!
You may want to buy the Mild LSB too, because your hair may hate the SLSA. I’d rather have a couple to work with and try out, rather than have to go back and order more if one doesn’t work out. You can still use the SLSA and Mild LSB for other things, if one works better for your hair than the other. Or, who knows, blend all three for a shampoo! Go crazy! Haha!
I still need the crothix, last thing to get:) Belinda, I was thinking the same ratio and using the water part to infuse some hair goodies in like the mallow and horsetail? ohhhh rose water,yummy! I think is what I had bought. I was on the fence about what percent for the surfactants, but was toying with the idea of 20% to start and see what I get. My man is bald so he can’t be a guinea pig on this one!
EZ Pearl is great to make your shampoo look all pearlescent and it can help boost the surfactants. I bought a small amount to play with. 😁
Told you Twin would know how to dupe better than moi.
The 15% surfactant in my husband’s shampoo is on the low end since he uses it daily and his hair is clean. He says it’s very bubbly (apparently he likes the bubbles enough to comment about them! Haha!). I would think 15-20% to start for surfactant level in a shampoo for curly hair would be good. I’d rather start with too little and work upwards than have too much and it turn out to be a little too harsh for your hair.
Thank you, Twin, for the vote of confidence! I’m really just a “try it and see if it works” kinda girl! And, I rely heavily on Susan’s blog to guide me on choices and percentages for formulating with surfactants. I will add this, though. I’ve found that surfactant blends (at least the ones I’ve made) emulsify better in warmed water vs mixing cold. Susan says you can do it cold, but I’ve experienced separation when I’ve mixed shampoos this way. Just my two cents worth.
Connie, mallow and horsetail are awesome for hair! I’ve not used horsetail yet but I’ve infused marshmallow root, Slippery Elm, rosemary, chamomile, and some other herbs I can’t remember at the moment in shampoo and conditioner. I think they add some great benefits. Rose water would be lovely too, especially for your scalp, I’d think, plus the added benefit of smelling YUM!! If your kids don’t mind rosy smelling hair, they could be your guinea pigs!😜😂
wooohoooo, got a friend that wants to learn to diy too, we have a date tomorrow and shes bringing dirty hair:D lotions, sunscreens, shampoos and soap, #happydance#playmates#dirtyhairfun
I’m leaning towards maybe just buying a new already made shampoo. Like I said, I don’t use much shampoo (maybe 2 bottles a year), and it would cost around 80$ including shipping and taxes to get everything I need from Voyageur. I would need to make a lot of shampoo to cover the cost. I still have a bottle of my discountinued one, and then I will try either the shampoo that goes with my hair conditioner, or another one that smells amazing. My conditioner smells minty, which is nice, but I feel like having more sweet smells. Unfortunately, I haven’t found another conditioner that both works with my hair and doesn’t give me a headache from the strong perfume, so I’m sticking with it.
These are the ingredients of the 3 possible shampoos:
Joyful, the only thing that jumps out at me on all these shampoos is the preservative. According to Susan and a few other sites I read, the Leucidal Liquid preservative is failing challenge test after challenge test when used as a sole preservative. I would make sure there is a second preservative in those products before buying. Otherwise, you might want to find something else that doesn’t run the risk of growing nasties! Other than that, the ingredient lists look pretty good!
Another thing I noticed is that once you hit glycerin, everything after that is 1% or less. So, the ingredient list is short for the shampoo and conditioner beyond the extracts to help consign, etc. Plus Leucidal and potassium sorbate for preservatives.
So, depending on what you have on hand, you could recreate the shampoo. It’s figuring out the percentage. They do look really nice.
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