A couple months ago my friend Tanvi got in touch. She’d been reading my blog and wanted to get in on natural hair care, and she wanted my help. She says her hair is dry and brittle, and she wants to get away from commercially made hair products. So, we worked together to design this peppermint tingle shampoo for her that wouldn’t strip her hair dry every time she washed it, and impart moisture instead. This is what we came up with.

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Tanvi loves mint, so we went with peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada) for the scent, with added peppermint botanical extract for an extra cooling punch. I’d never made shampoo with peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada) before, so I wanted to be sure the cooling sensation came through, but I didn’t want any chilly shocks if the lather made its way too far south. It smells wonderfully fresh and bright, as you might expect, and it’s got some beautiful dark green swirls.

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French green clay gives the batch it’s base green colour and boosts the cleansing power as well as allows the shampoo to double as a great shave bar. Green oxide added to half the batch gives us some nice contrast for swirls. If you don’t have green chromium oxide, spirulina is also an awesome natural green colourant (though I find it fades faster).

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The resulting bar has a great, bubbly lather, and is guaranteed to wake you up in the morning. It feels cool to the touch and leaves your scalp feeling chilled and fresh. I love it after a bike ride home on a hot summer day.

Peppermint Tingle Shampoo

35% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
25% refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
15% lard
15% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
10% castor oil (USA / Canada)

Per 500g (1.1lbs) oils:

Follow my standard soap making instructions (calculate for a 6% superfat), allowing the oils and lye water a good 6โ€“8 hours to come to room temperature.

When the soap reaches a light trace, add the essential oil, botanical extract, and clay. Divide the batch in two, and stir the green chromium oxide into one half. Pour the soap into the mold, alternating between the halves, drizzling to swirl.

Let saponify in the mold for 24 hours before slicing and curing for at least 3 weeks.