Today we’re mashing up a beautiful Ice Palace Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar. You don’t need to melt anything and you don’t need a press (you don’t even need a mould!). Just mix and mash everything together until you have a smooth, workable dough, shape that into some sort of shampoo-bar-ish shape, leave it to dry, and you’re done! The lather is really lovely—dense, rich, and plentiful—and my hair feels fantastic after washing with this Ice Palace Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bars (and then conditioning with last month’s Cocoa Coconut Simple Conditioner). You can also use this shampoo bar as a body wash bar to further reduce the number of bottles in your shower. Enjoy!
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The surfactant blend features two different anionic surfactants, a non-ionic surfactant, and an amphoteric surfactant. The anionic surfactants are both solid—a blend of Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) and Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa). Together they comprise 57% of this formulation and go a long way to making it a solid shampoo. I chose these two surfactants because they’re gentle and downright lovely together.
I selected decyl glucoside for the non-ionic surfactant because I am really in love with its rich, pillowy lather right now. Because decyl glucoside is fairly basic, with a pH around 11–12, I ended up working some citric acid into the formulation in order to bring the pH down into the mildly acidic range. The version without citric acid was around 6.4, while adjusting the formulation to include 0.25% citric acid brings the pH down to ~5.25, which is a good pH for shampoo. Gentle and amphoteric cocamidopropyl betaine rounds out the surfactant blend.
In addition to the two solid anionic surfactants, I’ve also included some cornstarch and kaolin clay for more solid-ness in this formulation. I first shared a syndet bar using starch in the Gentle Clay Facial Cleansing Bar after seeing it done in a sample formulation from Colonial Chemical. When formulating a syndet bar we’re aiming to create something solid, so it needs to contain mostly solid things (or some seriously potent solidifying ingredients). Solid surfactants are, of course, solid, but we generally don’t want the bar to be comprised almost entirely of solid surfactants as that can be too harsh (and potentially exceed maximum usage levels). So, we need some sort of diluting ingredients that are also solid. Butters and fatty thickeners like stearic acid can do some of this work, but fat diminishes lather and can soften/melt in warm climates, turning your supposed-to-be solid bar into a sudsy, squishy lump. Starch and clay don’t soften or melt when heated, and they don’t diminish lather. The starch is mostly invisible in the bar, while I find clay makes lather extra creamy—I love both of them in syndet bars!
The last of the ingredients are pretty simple. There’s some liquid oil—I used moringa oil, but you could feel free to choose any liquid oil that you have and your hair loves. I think argan oil or jojoba oil would be lovely! I’ve included a small amount of fragrance in this version, but I also made some fragrance-free variations as I was honing the formulation, and that worked beautifully, too. Optiphen Plus preserves the bar, and that’s that.
I use a microplane zester to shred the bar (after it’s dried) for pH testing. The little wisps readily dissolve in water to create a 10% dilution for testing!
Once the wet and dry are all smooshed and mashed together you’ll end up with a stiff dough that can be easily hand-shaped into a puckish lump of shampoo and left to dry. Between the decyl glucoside and cocamidopropyl betaine, this formulation contains approximately 11.5% water, and we want to give some of that a chance to evaporate off before using the bar so it hardens up and stays hard throughout use. I’d recommend leaving it to dry for at least 3 days for ~1% weight loss, but if you can wait a week, that’ll double to ~2%.
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Ice Palace Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar
Dry phase
29.6g | 37% Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) (USA / Canada)
16g | 20% Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa) (USA / Canada)
8.8g | 11% corn starch
4g | 5% white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
0.2g | 0.25% citric acid (USA / Canada)Wet phase
3.6g | 4.5% moringa oil (USA / Canada)
0.4g | 0.5% wintery fragrance or essential oil of choice
5.4g | 6.75% Cocamidopropyl Betaine (USA / Canada)
11.2g | 14% decyl glucoside (USA / Canada)
0.8g | 1% Optiphen™ Plus (USA / Canada)Put on your dust mask and weigh the dry phase into a bowl. Stir until uniform.
Add the wet phase to the dry phase. Put on a pair of nitrile gloves and blend thoroughly with your hands. Once the mixture is uniform, you’ll be left with a stiff, easily-mouldable paste. Please watch the video for an idea of what it should look like, and how to adjust if needed.
If your dough is too sticky, you’ll need to add more clay. This is likely to happen if you used a larger grain Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) than I did, as it has less surface area to absorb moisture.
If your dough is too dry, you’ll need to add more water. This is likely to happen if you used a finer grain Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) than I did, as it has more surface area and will absorb more moisture.
Now it’s time to shape/mould the bar. I chose to do this by hand as the dough is very well suited to hand forming. You could also press it or hand-smoosh it into a mould of your choosing. I more or less rolled the dough into a ball, and then squished it down into a bit of a puck.
After shaping, leave the bar to dry for at least 3 days before using.
To use, massage the bar into wet hair (or a wet loofah, for body washing) to work up a rich lather. From there on out it’s just like using any other shampoo or body wash. Enjoy!
When made as written, the pH of these shampoo bars comes out to around 5.25, which is great.
Shelf Life & Storage
Because these shampoo bars will regularly come into contact with water, I recommend including a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth.
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 80g (one palm-sized bar).
- To learn more about the ingredients used in this recipe, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
- I don’t recommend swapping out the Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) or Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa), including the formats.
- If you do use different formats of the surfactants, you will likely need to adjust either the water content or clay content to get the desired end consistency.
- If you use a finer version (meaning more surfactant surface area), you’ll need more water.
- If you use a chunkier version (meaning less surfactant surface area), you’ll need more clay.
- You could use a different starch, like arrowroot starch, instead of cornstarch.
- For the clay: I’d recommend choosing a different soft, creamy clay, like other Australian clays or a French clay. I do not recommend bentonite or rhassoul. If you want a bar using rhassoul, check out this one!
- I would choose a different glucoside (coco, caprylyl/capryl, lauryl) instead of decyl glucoside if you need an alternative.
- If you’d like to learn more about the surfactants used and compare them to ones you might already have so you can make substitutions, check out this page.
- If you change the surfactants you’ll also likely need to adjust the pH of these bars.
- You could use a different liquid oil your hair loves instead of moringa oil.
- If you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this page.
- For scent:
- I used a “Salty Sea Air” fragrance for one version and that was lovely.
- I used peppermint essential oil for another version, and that was also lovely.
- You can use a different fragrance or essential oil.
Hi Marie!
Thank you so much for your great recipes!
I have seen all your shampoo bar recipes and I am trying to get my hair “ideal” formula. I know it takes time but… Still in It…
I noticed some DIY makers tend to drop the surfactants and change It for powder botanicals Is that correct?
I don’t think changing the amount of cornstach for lavender powder os going to make a huge difference…
Am I wrong?
Best wishes from Madrid
I think the biggest difference you might encounter would be shelf life. Try it and see!
Hi Marie, in the first paragraph you write “You can also use this shampoo bar as a body butter bar”, which confuses me as it’s mostly surfactants with a tiny amount of oil, and no plant butters. Where you referring to the conditioner bar? Anyhow the recipe looks great! Can’t wait to try it out!
It says ‘body wash bar’ Hana, unless Marie has already been back to change it lol
Thanks Pauline! I copied and pasted directly from the paragraph, so Marie must have changed it.
D’oh! My brain must’ve taken the idea of “body” and “bar” and decided “butter” made more sense than “wash” LOL. Thank you for catching that!
Hi Marie,
Thank you so much for your recipes,the effort that goes and the time you take to formulate and share these recipes with us.
I tried this bar as per the recipe, except I used SCI noodles instead of powder because that’s what is available to me here. It’s been two days and my shampoo bar is curing. But I noticed that the surface exposed to air has become soft and sticky. It’s like its attracting moisture from the air (Something like a glycerine sweat on bar soap if you will). I live in southern India, a coastal city and its very humid here for most of the year. Right now its monsoon rains and its been raining past one week. I’m guessing its something to do with the increased humidity or something. Please do help me how this can be solved if I’m planning to gift these bars. I don’t want to gift a sticky mushy bar of shampoo.
Any advice would be great.
Thanks and love from India
Could I use all coco betaine instead of Decyl glucoside?
You can certainly try it, but please read through the Substitutions section for further notes on this 🙂
Hello,
Thank you very much for this formulation. I enjoyed reading it I will try to make it as I already have all the ingredients.
Could you check the % and grams. It seems there are some mistakes as the ratio is not always the same.
Thank you for all your great work .
It looks like the first “2” got changed to a “1” (fixed! Not sure how that happened…), but everything else looks fine 🙂 Happy making!
Hi Marie
I was wondering if it would be a straight swap with the caprylyl/capryl glucoside for the decyl glucoside gram wise? Also since caprylyl/capryl has a lower ph would I still need the citric acid? Thank you so much! I love all your creations!
I was wondering the same thing since I have caprylyl/capryl and was thinking of making that switch !
Yes—unless otherwise noted, all substitutions are gram-for-gram (things would get very hectic otherwise!). And as per the substitutions list, if you change the surfactants you’ll also likely need to adjust the pH of these bars. I haven’t tried these bars with Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside instead of decyl so I cannot say if it would be no citric acid or less. You will have to make, test, and see 🙂
Hi Marie! In the past you’ve suggested hydrolysed wheat and panthenol in your bars, to make them fortifying. Would they work in this one and if so, what percentage would you suggest would fit in well?
Probably ~0.5% panthenol and 2–4% protein. Check out this FAQ to learn more 🙂
Thanks Marie!
Hello Marie,
I replaced the cornstarch in this recipe with powdered banana chips. I was inspired by a shampoo from Lush with banana. Works fine!
lots of love.
Oh my goodness, how interesting! And SO cool! Can you please report back on how it does shelf-life wise in a few months? I’m super curious 🙂 Thank you so much!
Hello Marie,
I’ll keep you informed!
In this shampoo I replaced some of the clay with finely ground dried banana. Well, two months have passed and there is still no trace of mold to be found. The shampoo cleans very well, but a little less intensively than the version with the clay. Anyway, it works very gently. So I think we can actually speak of a success.
Hooray! Thank you so much for sharing your results ❤️ That sounds fantastic!
Just made it with geogard cosgard 221 and peppermint and it looks so pretty and smells fresh and clean. Nice lather! I used a bit extra citric acid accidentally but pH is a okay (more than 4,5). You have certainly managed to make this feel gentle without too many ingredients (blending different ionic charges is way to go!). Green clay bar is amazing though and my hair loves the *gummyness* in it. But yeah, I think I like this more than white chocolate peppermint bar so I’m keeping this myself. Simply because my hair loves clay! 😛
YAY! I’m so dang thrilled to hear it 😀 And thank you for sharing process photos on IG, too!
I’ve used this a lot lately and I think my scalp is doing even better. My new favourite! It feels super gentle even during these cold winter months. I’m already planning second batch with another eo’s. Yay!
Hooray! I’m so thrilled to hear it 😀
Oh, I forgot to mention that some of my shampoo bars have way higher pH likely due to subsitutions (betaine or others) so I’m super glad that this has perfect pH for my needs!
Hooray! ❤️
Hi Marie,
I made shampoo bar follow your recipes. They work very well on my hair. But my shampoo bars usually get cracking after a few times using. Do you have any advise to keep shampoo bar from not getting cracking?
It sounds like they may be drying out too much between uses; I’d try including ~2% glycerin in the formulation 🙂
P.S. I’m going to delete the duplicate comment of this you left on YouTube to keep things tidy 🙂
Hi Marie!
Thank you for the recipe. I am a newbie here and planning to make a shampoo bar. I had a question regarding the Active surfactant matter. So what ASM % were you targeting for this recipe and what is an ideal range for shampoo bars?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Basically… it depends. Usually more than 60%; if you calculate out all the formulations I’ve shared you’ll see there is a lot of variation in what can work! I do not target specific ASM values when formulating shampoo bars—I start with creating something solid, test it, see how it works, and go from there.
Hi can I use Argan oil instead of Moringa oil?
Thanks 🙂
As per the substitutions list, you could use a different liquid oil your hair loves instead of moringa oil. 🙂
Hi Marie!
I read in your Encyclopedia that Optiphen is only good against bacteria while Pottasium Sorbate is good against yeast and mold.
Since I couldn’t find Optiphen Plus, is it okay to substitute it with Optiphen and Pottasium Sorbate?
I was thinking of putting the same amount of Optiphen (0,8 g) and 0,125% (0,1 g) of Potassium Sorbate. Do you think that would work? Or maybe even omit Optiphen and use pure Pottasium Sorbate (0,3%)?
I thought of using Phenoxyethanol and Potassium Sorbate, but I read that Phenoxyethanol can be a bit dangerous to the skin.
I’d love your thoughts on this!
The combo sounds like a good option. I wouldn’t be concerned about Phenoxyethanol at 1% or less; remember that the dose makes the poison!
Hi, Marie,
I would like to omit the oil, which does not play nicely with my scalp. What can I use instead?
Also, your instructions say that if the dough is too dry, add more water. But there is no water in the ingredient list, to add more of. Did you mean to say “add more Cocamidopropyl Betaine,” as you did in your instructions for the Gentle Clay Facial Cleansing Bar”? Or would we add water in this case?
Looking forward to your response!
There’s water in Cocamidopropyl Betaine, so that’s where the “more” comes from 🙂 You could add either if you wanted, though. You can use a different oil or emollient. Happy making!
Dear Marie,
I am so glad that you are sharing your experiments with us, ı lovw to dry the all recipies,
I now want to try and make shampoo bars but in Turkey ı couldn’t find the SLSA and ı loved that recipe with no press at all!
ı have tried a few minitüs ago the recipi just swapping Slsa and adding Coco Glucoside instead of it.
and ı had do add a lot of clay and strach as you can imagine.
As ı cleaned my hands it boobling awesomely
I would like to know if the way is okay and which surfactans can be worked in that special recepi instead of slsa
I am not good at surfactans sorry ı coulndt choose one correctly
waiting to hear from you!
Hi! Please refer to my FAQ on surfactant substitutions, the Humblebee & Me DIY Encyclopedia (https://www.humblebeeandme.com/diy-encyclopedia/), and this chart 🙂 That said, if your bar is working for you, then it’s ok! Happy making!
Hi Marie!
Making your recipes here in Brazil! Thanks for the recipe, it’s amazing! But I had a problem: my bar got cracked after use, but it didn’t break.
How can I solve this problem?
In the future you may want to incorporate a small % (1–2) of a humectant like glycerin so the bar doesn’t dry out as much 🙂
Hello Marie :),
Thank you so much for all you make, test and share with us! I did not know dry citric acid could be added to solid shampoo bars. You learn something new every day!
Thank you again
Thanks for reading & happy making!
Hey Marie. I have heard Cocamidopropyl Betaine commonly causes skin irritation. Is this so?? To play it safe…what can I replace it with? I have been making soap for many years but i am new to the world of shampoo bars. Thanks for sharing all your Know how. Im a HUGE FAN!! If you have time check out my Etsy Shop…. https://www.etsy.com/shop/EarthGrownSoapCo -Melissa
Hi Melissa! I have zero concerns about Cocamidopropyl Betaine causing skin irritation when used in a formulation like this. Would I put undiluted Cocamidopropyl Betaine in my eyes? No. But I also wouldn’t do that with chipotle peppers, and I happily eat them 🙂 Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making!
Thank you so much for the quick reply!!! I will be attending Formula Botanica in July to continue learning. -Melissa
Hooray! I’m sure you will love it ❤️
Hi Marie. I noticed there was no substitution for citric acid. I am allergic to it, but love how hard this bar is and wanted to attempt it. Do you have any recommendations for substituting out the citric acid?
Thanks!
Hi Marie. Thank you for sharing the awesome recipes. I don’t have citric acid. Can I use Salicylic acid?
Hi Hailey! You’d need to use a water-soluble acid at a bare minimum, of which salicylic acid is not. Whatever you use (lactic acid would work) you will have to be able to test the pH of the formulation and adjust if needed. Happy making!
Happy new year Marie!
Thanks for the easy and quite minimalistic recipie! My scalp doesn’t like corn starch as a filler in shampoos. I used an ayurvedic hair wash powder* instead (smells like incense sticks 😉 ) and therfore skipped the esential oils/fragrance.
I was first worried as there ist only the oil (I used broccoli seed oil) as nourishing component but my hair feels great!
My next experiment based on your recipie includes calendula extract (in winter my scalp is often itchy), cocoa powder as a filler (had good results with it in an other shampoo bar before) and probably a tiny bit urea powder (itchy scalp!).
I love your idea of mixing liquid and solid tensides and I am really excited to experiment further based on this idea with different ingredients!
Greetings from Germany
Anne
*if someone is interested, INCIs of the hair wash powder are: Solum Fullonum (Fuller’s Earth), Acacia Concinna Fruit Powder (Shikakai), Sapindus Mukorossi Shell Powder (Soap Nut), Emblica Officinalis Fruit Powder (Amla), Terminalia Bellirica Fruit Powder (Bibhitaki), Terminalia Chebula Fruit Powder (Haritaki), Aloe Barbadensis Leaf (Aloe Vera), Parfum (natural Fragrance), Linalool, Cinnamomum Camphora Linalooliferum Wood Oil (Camphor)