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.
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.
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).
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:
- 1 tbsp peppermint botanical extract
- 1 tbsp French green clay
- 20g | 0.7oz peppermint essential oil (USA / Canada)
- ½ tsp green chromium oxide
Follow my standard soap making instructions (calculate for a 6% superfat), allowing the oils and lye water a good 6–8 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.
This sounds nice and refreshing, love it! I used Spirulina in my shampoo bar and you’re right my swirl faded as my soap cured.
Have you ever tried various green clays (or other colours, for that matter) to colour your soaps? I think they are my favourite natural soap colourant 🙂
Do you sell any of these products?
I don’t, sorry Pamela! I might someday, but with a full time job and trying to keep this blog up and running, I don’t have time to make heaps of everything and go to the Post Office all the time as well 🙁 I need 10 day weeks!
I don’t know how it works in Canada, but we run a small business and we have carrier pick up for free via USPS here in the US. We order the boxes for free, all we pay for is whatever we use to cushion the inside of the contents, and then we can place an order for the courier to pick up the boxes from our front door step for shipping–no trip to the post office needed.
Even a small shop set up like Etsy where you could place obvious inventory counts on products you create and easy to use shipping charges–it might be an easy way for you to make money off of the excess of products you are already making in your free time.
/trying to convince you to sell products online. XD
Krys—I looked into this, and it looks like it could be a viable option, provided they’ll pick up outside of the time I’m at work 😛 As it is, though… I still don’t have time to make the stuff to put in the packages (I’ve gotten pretty good at only making 1 or 2 of things). I need another day or two in my weeks!
I would love the info on small business shipping. I just started a homemade product company and am very small time but would love to save money anyway that I can. I live in the US, do I just look up USPS and how do I get started?
BTW, Marie, I love your blog and insight. You have amazing ideas and recipes and I have been following you for quite sometime and think you are just fabulous!
I’d recommend doing the research on USPS yourself, Dani, as Krys left this comment back in July & there’s no guarantee they’ll be coming back here anytime soon 😛 I’m afraid I can’t be of much use up in Canada. Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!
Krys – USPS provides you with free boxes? You mean other than the flat fee priority ones?
I have a small handcrafted soap business and I only ship USPS. You can create an account online with USPS, order non flat rate shipping boxes for free and best of all the lettercarrier will deliver them to your door.
Any suggestions for making this as a liquid shampoo?
No, sorry—I’ve never made liquid shampoo before, but it’s on my list!
hai provato a diluire 250g di sapone grattugiato 450g di acqua e 2 cucchiai di glicerina , per il sapone per le mani funziona! comunque complimenti per il blog è fantastico prima o poi proverò una delle ricette di saponi
TRANSLATED: I’ve tried to dilute 250g of grated soap 450g of water and 2 tablespoons of glycerin, for the hand soap works! anyway congratulations for the blog is fantastic sooner or later I’ll try one of the recipes of soaps.
I’ve tried this as well, but find it results in an icky, snotty texture 🙁 It works, but I’m just not all that keen on scrubbing up with a big bowl of boogers, lol.
I have to say… all your soaps and shampoo bars sound amazing and are going to become a personal household product in the very near future… I can’t wait! Thank you for being so creative and letting us in on it too!
Thanks, Stacey! Let me know when you do make some, I’d love to hear how they go and maybe see some photos 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Hi, is there any other oil to replace the castor oil?:)
Not really, Sherry. Castor oil is a really special oil in soap making and is responsible for lots of luscious, luxurious lather and added moisturizing. That is why pretty much every soap recipe you’ll ever see calls for it. It is super cheap, though ($6.55/L), and plant based (some people think it is from beavers… it definitely is not…). You can usually pick it up at the pharmacy as it is also a remedy for constipation.
You speak of a botanical extract .. do you mean a decoct? (= boiling hot water over plantparts and have it steep for a little while) if not, what’s a botanical extract?
Peppermint extract isn’t a herbal infusion (like tea), it’s a powder derived from peppermint plants. I got mine from NDA 🙂
Hi Marie, I love this post and I am so looking forward to making this product. NDA no longer stock the peppermint extract, any idea maybe where else we could find it. I have looked a couple of places but cant seem to find it anywhere. I crave the tingling effect of peppermint in soaps lotions and scrubs but have never managed to quite achieve it and menthol can be overwhelming.
Hey Janine! Honestly, if I were to do this again, I would make it a syndet bar. Not only is the pH more appropriate for the hair, but because it doesn’t go through saponification you can use less peppermint-y things (you really don’t need the extract for the tingle—that’s all menthol!) to get the tingle. I’d start with something like this and try 1% or so peppermint essential oil. Happy making!
I have just started using a shampoo bar in the last month. It has been a bit of an adjustment, mostly from finding a bar recipe that works for me. I think I’m on to it now. I would love to try your recipe, but perhaps I will substitute avocado butter for the shea.
I’m really enjoying your blog. You have good, practical advice, without going over the top. Thanks for sharing.
Nice! I love my shampoo bars, but you are very right, it does take a bit of adjustment. For me it was all about learning how to actually wash all my hair. I didn’t realize I’d been relying on the strength of my detergent like store bought shampoo to keep the length of my hair clean until I didn’t have that strength anymore.
If you’ve never used a shampoo bar made with shea butter I can’t recommend it enough 🙂 However, if you’d rather avocado, the oil is an equally as good (and cheaper) option at $7.25/473ml vs. $8.25/100g.
HI, I have a question,
How do you distinguish body soap, hand soap and shampoo?
I just start making soap, and very confused about this.
Thank you
When it comes to lovely, homemade soap, you generally don’t, really. The idea that all these things are drastically different is basically a marketing ploy to convince you to buy 35 different body products when one or two will do. The only differences are shampoo (generally has 10–20% castor oil for extra lather, and a slightly higher superfat), and shaving bars (which generally have 20% castor oil for more lather and added clay for slip for the razor). I developed an all purpose bar that I use for everything and I love it!
I am sure I will try it out soon and later.
thank you for sharing this with me.
No problem! Let me know how it works for you 🙂
Hi, I can’t wait to try this recipe! What do you suggest as a vegetarian alternative to the lard? I don’t use palm oil either.
Thanks!
Hey April—I wrote an entire blog on this that should help 🙂 I’m vegetarian as well and I’ve decided lard is the best option—read it over and see what you think.
Hey Marie,
Yes, it’s me again from the cinnamon swirl soap post. Just a couple of questtions please.. yes, I’m full of them suddenly!
1. Could you substitute menthol crystals instead of peppermint oil in soaps?
2. Would vanilla/peppermint or cinnamon peppermint be dreadful combinations??
I’m dying to experient but my bank account is rapidly dwindling and I wouldn’t want to make these, only to have them wasted!
Plesae let me know your thoughts.
Jess xx
Ok! For the menthol/peppermint EO. You should be able to, but I haven’t tried it, so I’m not sure how it would turn out. You would want less crystals than the EO as the crystals are pure menthol, but the EO is not. Also, the menthol crystals really don’t have the depth of scent that peppermint does, so you’d be losing out there.
Vanilla & peppermint is lovely (think candy cane), and my only worries about cinnamon + peppermint is that it may be irritating as both are quite strong EOs on the skin—one cooling, and one warming. I think it’d smell great, though! You can always test it by putting a drop of each in a jar and wafting & sniffing 🙂
Have fun! And don’t be too afraid to mess up 🙂
I don’t use lard can it be substituted for something else?
I’ve written an article about why I use lard and tallow in my soaps, and the substitutes here. If tallow (from cows or goats) is ok but lard isn’t, feel free to make that swap as well.
Do you know where I can buy this soap but without the lard in it? I never made this and I don’t think I can even try it. Please let me know thanks.
That’s sort of like asking if you know where you can buy something made from your great-grandma’s custom recipe. That is, this is my recipe, I developed it, and I kind of hope there’s nobody out there making money off my hard work & time and money investment. So, no. Not a clue—sorry! But, I bet you can make soap. It is quite simple, sort of like making cake 🙂 I’ve got two articles on it, here and here. Give ’em a read and think about giving it a try!
Finally got around to making a version of this shampoo bar. I have made other bars with considerably less coconut oil, but always ended up with greasy and straw-like hair (despite raves for these other recipes). I decided to throw caution to the wind and give your recipe a try. I made a few minor tweaks (I did not have clay, color or botanical extract). I used the basic oil percentages, hot processed them, then added 3% Jojoba and slightly less peppermint EO after the cook was done.
I will start this off by saying that I have long, stick-straight hair that is very oily. This is the first bar that I have used that gave me a luxurious lather, clean hair, and only required a lemon rinse (I don’t like ACV. Makes me smell like a salad bar). My hair feels clean and silky. No more matting or greasy feel. And I don’t have to use a conditioner. AMAZING!
Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe. Now I think I will give it a go with some other EO’s. What do you think of Lemongrass and Bergamot?
Fantastic! I’m so thrilled that my ‘poo bar was your breakthrough in DIY shampoo 😀 Yay! As for lemongrass and bergamot… I think they’d go nicely together, but that’s really up to you 😉 Try putting a drop of each in a cup with a bit of carrier oil and seeing what you think. And do try the bar with the clay—I love it and find it boosts the cleansing powder. Plus, you can use it to shave your legs with, too!
I’d like to try this, do you think I’d have any problems replacing the olive oil with neem oil? And also how long does it take to harden?
I can’t think of any troubles beyond potential scent conflicts. As for aging, the general rule is a minimum of three weeks unless otherwise noted.
Thank you lol, one more question. Ok I got interested in soap making because I wanted to make shampoo bars. I just think they are so cool. I’ve heard tons of good things about them and I loved the idea of being able to put whatever I wanted in them. So I got all my supplies and I’m ready to make one. Then I stumbled across an article saying why not to use shampoo bars. After reading it I’m hesitant to use home made soap. Especial because the ph. I had no idea what the ph of soap was and it never really crossed my mind until I read that article. If the ph of soap is around 10 ph, and hair is around 4ph, that is going to lift the cuticle which can really cause some damage. My hair is already damaged and frizzy I don’t want to do anything that can make it worse. So I was wondering is there anything you can do to change the ph of the soap?
Haha, no worries 🙂 You are totally right, shampoo bars are awesome. I especially love my all-in-one/all purpose bars—they are amazing for traveling!
The thing about all soaps is they are alkaline… it’s pretty much part of the definition of soap (lye being such a strong base and all). That’s where the ACV rinse comes in—it closes the cuticle down again. You can really tell as you apply the rinse, because your hair instantly feels slick and slippery—almost like you forgot to rinse out your shampoo. So, as long as you do an acidic rinse to get the pH back to where you’re started, you’re good. I certainly haven’t noticed any damage or frizz, and I’ve been store-bought shampoo free since June 2011 🙂
I’m interested in making this soap. I have been doing some research on some of the ingredients within the recipe. I am intrigued by the benefits of Spirulina, however I cannot find it in New Directions Aromatics or Saffire Blue. Is this something I would chop from the supplement pill? I love the color the green oxide provides but also the benefits of Spirulina. So I’m torn between which provides the better benefit; color (green oxide) for aesthetics or vitamins (spiraling) for skin benefits?
When I’ve bought spirulina I’ve found it in the bulk section of my local health food store. If you want to use it here I’d mix it with a bit of the green oxide as the spirulina fades much faster than the oxide 🙂
I have heard that peppermint oil etc is good for shampoo for those with brunette…or “darker” hair…and that you shouldn’t use it for shampoos for blondes.
DO you know if that is true or not?
I’ve never heard or read this, and I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t use the EO on lighter hair. You may want to ditch the powder, though, since it’s a darker colour and might stain light hair.
Hi Marie,
I have very blonde hair that will retain colors from just about everything… Would this recipe impart color to my hair?
Thanks!
It just might, but it is easy enough to modify 🙂 Just use kaolin clay (which is white) instead of the French green, and drop the oxide and peppermint extract/powder. That will make a bar that’s a nice creamy beige colour, which should be perfectly safe for your blonde hair. Enjoy!
Hi Marie,
Luv your site to bits and want to make every recipe I see! The idea of shampoo bars fascinate me. I wish I was a chemist then I wouldn’t have to ask the following question: do shampoo bars end up with sodium laureth sulfate (SLS) in them or is that an additive that’s used in store bought shampoo? My hair goes really frizzy & wiry when I use SLS and don’t want to risk using a shampoo bar if that might happen. I do remember trying a store bought soap bar on my hair ages ago when I ran out of shampoo and it wasn’t pretty – had to get a $500 keratin straightening treatment to avoid shaving it all off.
Many thanx & keep up the good work, luv your posts & recipes!
Hi Kris! You are in luck, there is absolutely no SLS in anything homemade (soap or otherwise) unless you add it yourself, just like high fructose corn syrup won’t appear in a homemade cake 🙂 The formula for soap is basically CH3(CH2)nCOOH + NaOH –> CH3(CH2)nCOONa + H2O, and you’ll see there’s no NaC12H25SO4 (SLS) in there at all. Now, some companies will add SLS to bar soaps, likely to compensate for using cheap, low-lather oils to form the bar, but that’s not something you’d ever do at home. So feel free to go for making your own shampoo bars 🙂 Be sure to pair them with an ACV rinse to help your hair smooth down afterwards as well.
Have fun & thanks for reading!
Thanx so much Marie, you’ve answered a question I’ve had for a very long time. One guess what I’ve washing my hair with tonight! And big YAY for ACV, it works absolute wonders on my hair. I’ve made up my own hair spray using dlute ACV, water, argan oil, buriti oil, keratin amino acid, & quaternium 80. I use this every day and it tames my unruly frizz like you wouldn’t believe, leaves my hair SUPER shiny and doesn’t build up at all!
Isn’t it amazing!? ACV, that is 😉 I recently took a break from my rinse as I was traveling for a short while and figured I’d be fine without it. WRONG. My hair was so coarse and unmanageable for the entire time—I seriously regretted leaving it out of my suitcase. I just love how happy and smooth my hair is with it, and it’s so darn cheap & easy to boot! I’m glad you’ve had the same revolution, it’ll make your natural haircare journey 100x better.
Do you think this is OK to use just as “soap” (as well as shampoo)?
Definitely! I base all my soap recipes around my all in one soap, which is great for soaping, shampooing, and shaving 🙂
hi Marie!
Great blog!
if I don’t want a ‘hard’ shampoo, just a liquid one, can i just leave out the lard?
what is your suggestion? does the hardness make it easier to apply or make it last longer?
thanks
liz
Hi Liz! Liquid soap is actually an entirely different process, using a different type of lye, than bar soap. If you leave out the lard you’ll just end up with a softer bar that’s semi solid, and will likely end up being so soft it’ll leave schmears/lumps of shampoo in your hair when you use it. I will have a liquid soap recipe/process coming out soon, though, so stay tuned 🙂
But, in my opinion, I do prefer the shampoo bars. I’ve been playing around with my new homemade liquid shampoo and I find it quite hard to use compared to the solid bars. Because homemade shampoo isn’t detergent like the storebought stuff, it’s not as strong, which means you have to be super thorough with your application or your hair will only be half clean. I found it really hard to ensure I’d worked all the liquid soap through my hair, but with the shampoo bar it’s super easy as you never lose track of the source of the shampoo like you do with a puddle of liquid in your hand 😛
Hi Marie,
Thanks for the response – fair comment and I think I’ll try the hard soap!
thanks again for sharing.
liz
Have fun with it! And don’t forget your ACV rinse 😉
My sister and I are interested in duping Wen Conditioning shampoo. The original “organic recipe” ingredients are:
Water, Aloe Vera Gel, Glycerin, Chamomile Extract, Cherry Bark Extract, Calendula Extract, Rosemary Extract, Behentrimonium Chloride, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Cetyl Alcohol, Emulsifying Wax, Panthenol, Trimethylsilylamodimethicone, Hydrolyzed Whole Wheat Protein, PEG-60, Almond Glycerides, Menthol, Essential Oils, Citric Acid, Methylchoroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Fragrance
From what I gather, DIY ingredients would be something like: Water, Aloe Vera Gel, Glycerin, Extracts, Emulsifying Wax, Citric Acid, Stearic Acid, and a preservative like Phenonip, Optiphen or Germaben.
I found some recipes for liquid soap, which are quite intriguing and I’m looking forward to trying it out (along with trying out Castille soap): http://chickensintheroad.com/house/crafts/how-to-make-liquid-soap/
Marie, you’re so good with sussing out the ingredients, I’m interested in your thoughts on the Wen DIY.
Thanks!
Jan
Hmm. I’ve had a few people suggest Wen products using my Request a Recipe form, so I have looked at some of their stuff before, but I’ve never tried it. My first thoughts on your dupe ingredients is that you’re missing the shampoo part (nothing in there will really lather or clean). You’ve also got a lot of emulsifiers in there considering you aren’t actually emulsifying in any oils (other than the emulsifiers themselves). Those ingredients would make a pretty basic and inexpensive cream conditioner, basically. I didn’t have a lot of luck finding a surfactant in the list of ingredients for the original (a few things were both emulsifiers and surfactants), so I would guess that this shampoo isn’t overly cleansing, but since I’ve never used it I can’t be sure. A few thoughts, anyhow.
I have a liquid soap recipe coming out soon! And it’s pretty awesome 🙂 WAY easier than the method on the page you linked to! So stay tuned 😉
Thanks for reading & I hope that helped!
The Wen conditioning shampoos don’t suds up. I’ve been wondering where the other stuff was too. Did I miss them in the original Wen ingredients?
Some people love the Wen hair shampoos. I wanted to modify it a bit, because it leaves my hair feeling dirty and separated.
Hmm. Well, if it leaves your hair feeling dirty and separated, that sounds like classic oily hair, which I have definitely done to myself with over-enthusiastic application of oils. So, my guess would be that the use of the term “shampoo” for that product is a bit of a stretch, since shampoo doesn’t typically make your hair dirtier than it was before 😛 I just noticed that their tagline is “Say goodbye to lather”—that’d explain it! Lather isn’t strictly necessary for cleansing, but in my experience most emulsifiers have some surfactant properties. Soap & detergents clean by being emulsifying—they binds the oils on the skin/hair to the water you’re washing with so the oils can be whisked away. They also lather. I’ve also found other emulsifiers seems to foam to some degree or another (most emulsifying waxes seem to be an exception to that—or it’s just a hard effect to notice in something so thick).
All that is to say I’m not sure how Wen hair “shampoos” clean people’s hair. I mean, it’s basically conditioner. It’s water with some added extracts, emulsifiying wax, and a dimethicone-like ingredient (Trimethylsilylamodimethicone) that will coat the hair and make it feels smooth and look shiny without looking greasy. “Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine” is a surfactant, among other things, but if the conditioner doesn’t lather, there likely isn’t much in there. The only hint of a real oil is the “Almond Glycerides”, which sound as if they’ve been beaten up and broken down until there’s not much left (likely with the aim of being easily absorbed). Cetyl Alcohol will also moisturize as well as thicken and stabilize. If you peruse the Long Hair Community you’ll find that “CO washing” (conditioner only washing) is quite popular (apparently it works), though they are big advocates of being “-cone” free, which this Wen stuff isn’t.
Have you considered just taking the recognizable ingredients and turning them into a hair mist? Something based around aloe vera and infused with chamomile, calendula, cherry bark, vitamin B5 (panthenol), gluten (Hydrolyzed Whole Wheat Protein), etc.? You could then solubilize in a few drops of a light oil, like camellia seed or argan oil. That would get all the good ingredients, and leave out the ones that were born in a lab.
Hello I use WEN shampoo about every two days and it tool my hair awhile to adjust from the store bought shampoo to the WEN shampoo. I have no problem getting my hair clean with this shampoo but like I said it take a while for your hair to adjust and also you need to make sure that you have the right one for your hair type. I use the Almond peppermint one and I get a rather large bottle and it lasts me 4 months but I don’t have really long hair either. I love my WEN.
I got a chance to try a sample pump of some WEN at Sephora a couple weeks ago, and it really does feel just like lotion, so I’m super curious about how it cleans. From your testimony it obviously does eventually, but call me chemistry curious 🙂
allowing the oils and lye water a good 6–8 hours
^ is there mistakes for 6-8 hours?
Nope, I mean it 🙂 You want everything to come to room temperature first.
Hi
I made my first batch of soap today (after months of reading and research) with one of your recipies and I can’t wait to try it!
I’m just wondering what the benefit of waiting until the ingrediets are room temp? And is that something I should always do? I have read other instructions that say the oils and lye should be with in 10 degrees of each other and less than 130 deg.
Signed confused newby 😉
Thanks for your help
Hi Kandace! Congrats on your first batch of soap, that’s super exciting 🙂 I like to soap at room temperature for two reasons. #1—No babysitting the different ingredients to get them to come to more or less the same temperature, it just happens on its own. #2—The soap takes longer to trace, and since my soap recipes trace quite quickly, it’s nice to have some extra time if you want to do swirls or pour at a thinner trace.
You definitely can soap at hotter temps, I just find I can’t be bothered anymore 😉 I’ll often melt my fats and make my lye water the night before, let them cool overnight, and then whip up the soap after breakfast. Easy as pie!
First thing that caught my eye was Tanvi.
Haha! Secondly, erm why do we use Lye? Is it necessary?
2 Tanvis! You can learn more about lye here 🙂
Ok so I got my answer on the Lye part.
But can you still make a video of you making this shampoo bar with lye?
And where can I buy lye from? Any drugstore?
And is there anyway of making my own peppermint extract? I found these peppermint crystals. Are they the same?
And can I also add cinnamon powder or EO in this bar? Will it make a good combination?
Hi Tanvi! Glad you found the lye article. I doubt I’ll be making videos anytime soon. Videos are hugely time consuming. I once shot a proper video on doing a face mask and it took about 4 hours to film something that takes about 5 minutes to do. In that time I can write quite a few blog entries, so I simply don’t have the bandwidth. Fortunately, I’m not the only person in the world who knows how to make soap, and lots of those other people make videos 🙂 This one is the one I watched when I got started.
I get my lye from Home Hardware, but it is also available online from soaping supply stores (both Saffire Blue and Canwax sell it), or at local soap stores. Since I don’t know where you live I can’t really provide any specific advice, I’d recommend finding some local soap makers and asking where they get their lye.
Peppermint crystals are probably menthol crystals, so they’re not peppermint, and not peppermint extract. I would probably just leave the peppermint extract out if you cannot find it.
If you are so keen on cinnamon, why not try one of my cinnamon shampoo bar recipes? Just don’t go overboard—ground cinnamon makes a very gritty, overly rough and scrubby bar with what seems like a fairly small amount, which is rather unpleasant to use.
I followed the same measurements as you put up here, since it’s my first time.
And I put them up in the soap calc. But.. I think I’m stupid. –.–
Where and how on that calculator do I know how much lye to put? :\
And the fragrance part? And the water part! Oh! Please help me.
The SoapCalc instructions might be helpful here 🙂
Once you calculate the recipe you need to press the button labeled “2. View or Print” recipe, and that will have weights for fragrance, lye, water, and all the oils.
Ok, so I’m back with yet another question.
Can I use my hand blender again for normal cooking purposes? If so how soon?
And when can I reuse my utensils again for cooking purposes?
As long as you clean everything, I’d feel fine about using anything straight away as long as it’s not wooden (since wood is quite porous) or your plastic lye jug (the lye can eat away at the plastic). If you want to be extra safe, give it 24 hours—that way anything on the utensils will have turned to soap, assuming it contacted the full raw soap batter, and not just the lye water 🙂
Hello! What a great soap. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
Can I make this the Hot process way?
Thanks so much!
Hi Estelle! I haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why not 🙂
I wanted to know, for adding color in any shampoo bar or soap bar, for yellow say I use tumeric, won’t my soap also smell tumeric-y?
It depends heavily on how much you use, and how fragrant the turmeric is. I haven’t tried soaps with turmeric specifically, but I have used cinnamon quite a lot and something I would warn against is how abrasive ground spices can be in soap, even in seemingly small amounts 🙂
Or can I use powdered food color? Or is it harmful? Or anything else? All this is incase I don;t find clay.
There really isn’t any replacement for clay—the clay is there mostly because it’s clay, and not so much for its colour. If you can find clay of a different colour I would just use that instead of food colouring. I also can’t predict what food colouring might do during saponification, or how it might effect the reaction.
Hi Marie. These shampoo bars sound very intriguing. I’m a newbie at this, and want to try making some. This may sound like a stupid question, but how many bars will this make, and if I don’t have a soup mould as of yet will loaf pans do or will this not fit into one?
Thanks
Robin
Hi Robin! The answer to that is a great big “it depends”. It depends on a) how much soap you make (run the formula through SoapCalc for finite amounts when you know how big you want your batch to be), and how big you cut your bars. I generally get about 8 bars the size you see from a 750g batch 🙂
And yes, you can use a loaf pan, but I would really recommend a silicone one. They’re pretty cheap at thrift shops these days because they aren’t that great for baking with, and they are great for soap. Raw soap will eat away at metal loaf pans, and will react really badly with anything aluminum, so in general I like to avoid metal loaf pans.
Have fun!
Hi Marie!
Thank you for your inspiring blog! You opened up a whole new world to me 😉
I was wondering if it makes a difference in a soap to use refined or unrefined sheabutter?
Hi Bianca! Thanks so much for reading and DIYing with me 🙂 It doesn’t make any difference—I always use whatever is the cheapest for soap!
I’m a seasoned soaper, and I was thinking about adding some camelina oil to this recipe, as it’s notoriously good for hair! What do you think? Would it be a waste?
Hi Kat! I usually shy away from adding expensive oils to soaps as saponification is so harsh—I’d probably save it for something like a hair balm 🙂
Hi, Marie
I’ve just found your blog (yay!) and am having a wonderful time looking through all of your posts.
I’ve made my own soap for some time now – moved from a hard water area outside London to Devon, where the water is REALLY soft! My olive-oil-only Castile soap lathers like mad down here!
I have decided to try the natural hair care route – after far too many years of colouring my hair, I went ‘cold turkey’ three years ago and now have pewter-grey hair which I love. My hair is pretty normal now (it is fine but there is a lot of it) – but I wash it every day at the moment because if I don’t, it is pretty greasy and flat at the roots the next day (not a good look).
I just wondered if you had any advice for me regarding ingredients that would be good for grey hair (I imagine using white clay would be better than the french green clay, for example).
Hi Pam! Not having grey hair I’m afraid I can’t offer much advice beyond googling it and passing my results on to you, haha. You may prefer white clay to red in a dry shampoo, but I haven’t found French green clay to be pigmented enough to colour anything, even when applied straight as a face mask, so I doubt you’d have any trouble with the colours in this recipe… though then again, I don’t have pewter hair, so what do I know? 😛
Peppermint botanical extract.
Would that be the end product of soaking /marinating fresh mint plants in vodka?
I’m not getting any hits on SB or NDA… but really want to try this out.
Hmm, it looks like NDA has discontinued what I used, but it was basically powdered peppermint. I’d swap it for some dried peppermint leaves 🙂
Terrific. 🙂
I’m excited to try it out. It is so hard to wait a month to see how a soap experiment turns out!
It is… so the best thing you can do is make loads and loads of soap so you always have a new experiment to play with 😉 What could go wrong?! 😛
Hi Marie, I love your blog……truly awesome. I want to make these shampoo bars but have a few questions. Because of issues with my scalp my hairdresser suggested I use tea tree shampoo. I’ve checked a few out and some are pretty expensive which I can’t/won’t pay for. I did find a cheaper one and my daughter has used that brand, (forget the name) but I can’t squeeze the bottle the way it’s made! It actually hurts my hands (getting old ) then I saw your recipe and just have to try it. Can I use tea tree oil instead of the peppermint or a combo? Also, I have color treated hair (honey blonde highlights) and am worried if anything in this recipe, like the clay, would affect my hair. Should I use a different clay and also what about the extract? I’ve never used or even heard of using acv for a hair rinse. You just use it without conditioner? I would like to try it but again, would it affect my hair? Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
P.S. This is my second post because I don’t know where my first one went
Hey Deb! You can definitely use tea tree oil instead of peppermint 🙂 You might also want to try a white clay like kaolin instead, and perhaps drop the oxides. I have dark hair and don’t colour treat it so I’m afraid I don’t have much experience there, but it might be best to err on the side of caution.
Read this for more info on rinses and conditioners 🙂
Hi Marie,
I was just wondering, when you wash your hair with soap bar shampoo, do you use conditioner? For some reason I have in my head that the soap would be conditioning as well as cleaning…
I wrote an FAQ on this 🙂
Hi Marie, just love, love your site. One question though. Do you have a shampoo bar recipe without sheabutter. I find it hard to wash out. And it leaves my hair greasy.
This one would be a good choice 🙂
Hi 🙂 amazing blog with loads of inspiration 😀
I really want to try a shampoo bar and based on some readings, having both peppermint and tea tree is good. What would you say?
And since I have two fragrances, how do I do with the quantity of them?
thanks a lot and keep up the hard work 😉
And was also thinking of adding kaolin clay or orris powder for better scent keeping – what is your opinion?