After making and testing my Cream of Earl Grey Cleansing Conditioner I fell in love with the concept and the product. I found it left my hair incredibly soft and manageable, and I loved the single step in the shower. Working palmfuls of creamy conditioner through my hair felt positively decadent, and my hair was always super easy to comb through. I did, however, run out of the stuff incredibly fast. It turns I go through an awful lot of the stuff with my thick, but not all that long hair. In my world running out of stuff is a plus, though, because that means I get to make more and try new things (woo!).
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
There are a few key differences between this formula and the Earl Grey Cleansing Conditioner. First off; it uses twice as much cocamidopropyl betaine, from 2% to 4%. I’ve also dropped the silicone, opting for a silica-rich bamboo-based extract instead. For a slightly richer, thicker product I increased the amount of cetearyl alcohol a wee bit. I also made a bigger batch so I could get more than two hair washes out of a single making session!
In the water phase you’ll find some rose hydrosol for fantastic rose scent, and some plant-sourced keratin for some shine and bounce. Panthenol (vitamin B5) helps add lustre and shine, and cocamidopropyl betaine gives us the gentle cleansing and easy rinse-out that makes this conditioner a cleansing conditioner.
Our oil phase is small in order to ensure this conditioner leaves our hair cleaner than it found it. We’re using BTMS-50 as our emulsifying wax as it is conditioning—its cationic (positive) charge makes it different from other emulsifying waxes like Polawax or Emulsifying Wax NF. We need this conditioning goodness to make this a cleansing conditioner and not a cleansing hair lotion. The amazing conditioned feel that you get from using this product is thanks to the BTMS, so please don’t swap it out!
For oils, we’ve got a blend of coconut and jojoba, with some rich cetearyl alcohol to give the conditioner body. With an oil phase as small as this one (12%), a thickener really is necessary to ensure the end product isn’t a very runny, drooly affair.
Given this is basically a lotion, it’s very simple to make. Warm the two heated phases separately, combine, blend, add your cool down ingredients, and you’re done! You’ll be rewarded with a richly fragrant cleansing conditioner that leaves your hair wonderfully soft and manageable. Enjoy!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
Rose Cardamom Cleansing Conditioner
Heated water phase
103.88g | 51.94% distilled water
40g | 20% rose hydrosol
4g | 2% plant-derived keratin (USA / Canada) (look for products with names like phytokeratin or vegekeratin)
8g | 4% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
6g | 3% panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)
8g | 4% Cocamidopropyl Betaine (USA / Canada)Heated oil phase
8g | 4% BTMS-50 (USA / Canada)
6g | 3% virgin coconut oil or refined refined coconut oil (USA / Canada)
4g | 2% jojoba oil (USA / Canada)
6g | 3% cetearyl alcohol (USA / Canada)Cool down phase
4g | 2% bamboo bioferment
0.12g | 0.06% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
1g | 0.50% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)
1g | 0.50% cardamom essential oilPrepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a wide, flat-bottomed sauté pan.
Weigh the heated water phase into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Weigh the entire lot (measuring cup + ingredients) and note that weight for use later. Weigh the heated oil phase into a second heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Place both measuring cups in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
After about 20–30 minutes the oil part should be completely melted and the water part should be thoroughly dissolved. Remove the water bath from the heat and weigh it. Add enough hot distilled water to bring the weight back up to what it was before heat and hold, and then pour the water part into the oil part. Stir with a flexible silicone spatula to incorporate.
Grab your immersion blender and begin blending the conditioner, starting with short bursts so the still-very-liquid conditioner doesn’t whirl up and spray everywhere. Blend for about a minute, leave to cool for ten, blend for another minute or two, and repeat this blend-cool-blend cycle until the outside of the glass measuring cup is barely warm to the touch and the conditioner is thick and creamy.
When the conditioner is cool it’s time to incorporate our cool down ingredients. Because cool down ingredients are typically present at very low amounts you’ll need to use an accurate scale—preferably one accurate to 0.01g. As these more accurate scales tend to have fairly low (100–200g) maximum weights you won’t be able to put the entire batch of lotion on that scale without blowing it out. So—grab a smaller dish. Add a scoop or two of lotion, and then weigh the cool down ingredients into that, using the more accurate scale. Stir to thoroughly incorporate, and then stir all of that back into the master batch of lotion. Doing it this way minimizes the amount of cool down ingredients lost to the secondary container.
And you’re done! All that’s left to do is bottle it up—I like a tottle (tube/bottle combo thing) for this sort of project. A 240mL/8oz tottle is a good choice.
To use: in the shower, dispense a solid amount of cleansing conditioner into your palm and work it through wet hair, roots to tips—you’ll need quite a lot if your hair is thick and/or long. Pay special attention to massaging the conditioner into your scalp. Rinse thoroughly. That’s it! No need for individual shampoo or conditioner.
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this conditioner contains water, you must include a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. This is non-optional. Even with a preservative this project is likely to eventually spoil as our kitchens are not sterile laboratories, so in the event you notice any change in colour, scent, or texture, chuck it out and make a fresh batch.
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 200g.
- You can try a different hydrolyzed protein, like hydrolyzed oat protein or hydrolyzed silk (USA / Canada) in place of the plant-sourced keratin
- You can replace the Cocamidopropyl Betaine with more water, but this will decrease the wash-off of the end product and it will no longer be a cleansing conditioner. You can increase the cleansing strength by increasing it to 4%, removing that extra 2% from the distilled water. You could use a different amphoteric surfactant for the Cocamidopropyl Betaine, but I haven’t had much luck finding any that are available to homecrafters. Les Âmes Fleurs sells babassuamidopropyl betaine, which should be a good alternative.
- Do not swap the BTMS-50 for a non-cationic emulsifying wax; if you do you’re no longer making hair conditioner
- You can try babassu oil in place of the coconut oil. You can also use refined coconut oil instead of virgin.
- You can use another liquid oil your hair loves in place of jojoba oil; meadowfoam seed oil, argan oil (USA / Canada), and broccoli seed oil would all be good options.
- You can use cetyl alcohol (USA / Canada) instead of cetearyl alcohol.
- Dimethicone 350 or silicone ester copolymer will work instead of the bamboo bioferment. You can also try using a bamboo extract, though I’ve found the usage rates for those are typically higher, so you would want to adjust the recipe to make room for more extract. You can also replace it with more water (lighter) or liquid oil (heavier).
- You can use a different essential oil blend or fragrance oil if you prefer.
Woohoo! 😀 off to make this now, I think I might stick to the orange blossom hydrosol and a few drops of blood orange EO that I used in the previous one, it smells so look good. Thanks Marie, I was wondering about using a little more cocomidopropyl betaine in the earl grey version. Off to weigh up ingredients 🙂 Have a great day.
OOoh, I think I need to get myself some proper orange blossom hydrosol. Canada needs more hydrosol availability!
Before I attempt to make this, Do you still recommend this recipe? Is there a cleansing shampoo or cleansing conditioner you have put out since this one that you think is better than this one?
This one is still good 🙂
Hi, Marie! I have a bunch of sea kelp bioferment leftover from another recipe…turns out I’m not a huge fan of it on my face, lol. Could I use it in the place of the bamboo?
It’s definitely worth a try! I can’t see why it wouldn’t work 🙂
I have just made two batches, one rose and cardamom and one orange and sandalwood. They are thick and creamy and both smell amazing 🙂 I can’t wait to wash my hair again, thank you for great recipes Marie. Just made another batch of face lotion with hylauronic acid too. I loved it the first time around and was almost out, as I had the water bath on and scales out I thought I may as well make it again 🙂
YAY! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the things you’re making, and I’m stoked I’m part of it 😀
Hi Marie, love the looks of this! I was just wondering, do you think this would mess with my color-treated hair? I’m not sure if you have any info on any possible effects, but I’m sure you know much more than I do haha. Thanks so much for sharing all your awesome creations!
I use the earl grey one on mine Katie and it leaves my hair lovely and soft. I coloured my hair a few weeks ago and it felt like a brillo pad,(steel wool if you don’t have brillo pads lol) I used the earl grey conditioner over a few days, and it sorted it out for me. I have just made a double batch of this one.
Haha thanks Pauline, that’s good to know! I’m sooo looking forward to trying this out, it looks so luxurious (and I’m always looking for a way to pamper my hair without spending an arm and a leg, or using products with weird ingredients).
I’ve had other readers use my cleansing conditioners with their colour treated hair and have said it’s been wonderful! This is a very gentle cleanser so it should not strip dye 🙂
I thought that by doing diy products we’re not using all the toxic chemicals used by manufactures.
What is toxic in this recipe Tammy? It’s lovely and gentle, leaves hair silky soft.
What’s in here that is toxic at the amounts used? Water is obviously toxic under the right circumstances, but the amounts I’ve used here are perfectly safe.
I’ve also written an entire FAQ on this.
Thank you so much for posting cowash recipes! I had hoping you would do so and I couldn’t wait to try it! My idea was to use soapnut decoction instead of the hydrosol, to add some cleansing properties. It worked well for me and my curls. I will try to add some other herb- like hibiscus, rosmary or chamomile next time!
Interesting! I’d be interested to hear how it works for you as written, too 🙂 Happy making!
Hi Marie! Is there a reason to use a kitchen immersion blender over one of the smaller milk frother type blenders? I’ve noticed you’ve used different ones for different recipes and was just wondering if the extra power has an effect on the emulsifying…
A kitchen immersion blender will definitely be powerful enough—most milk frothers aren’t. They’re typically fine for low viscosity things, but struggle with anything much thicker than water. The one I use is amazeballs (it uses four AA batteries and has a ton of kick to it!), but has sadly been discontinued by Lotion Crafter because of quality control issues 🙁
Hi Marie!
I’m quite new to the world of DIY products, but I’ve been thoroughly enjoying your site and have made (and love!) your beginner recipes. I’m excited to make more things, but as far as natural hair care products, I’m kind of unsure where to start.
I’ve seen recipes floating around the internet for making castile soap shampoo and have seen your shampoo bar recipes, but then reading about caring for our skin’s acid mantle makes me wonder if the big leaps from alkaline to acidic would be damaging to our hair too? I’ve never used anything but store-bought shampoos and conditioners on my very (very, very) thick hair (that’s so heavy that it’s straight when long and pretty darn curly when short) so I’m not sure about making the jump straight from there to cleansing conditioners like this one that sounds amazing, and I’m also trying to walk before I run in terms of buying ingredients to play around with.
To shorten a post that’s already quite long, where would you recommend newbies like me start? Any reading or recipes you could recommend would be fantastic and greatly appreciated!!
So I’ve continued (freakishly?) reading your blog after trying a castile soap and acv rinse (apparently my hair isn’t as easy-going as it used to be after 3 babies… greasies galore!) and found your recommendation to use more ph balanced things like the snowflake shampoo bar and your cleansing conditioners… so I’m going to try this one out, and hope I don’t make a big mess! 🙂
Panthenol seems to be sold out everywhere I look – any substitution, or should I just add more of something else (if so, which ingredient?) Thanks Marie!
Yeah, there’s a worldwide shortage of panthenol right now 🙁 Sigh. I think another hydrolyzed protein would probably be your best bet—something like hydrolyzed silk or oat protein. Otherwise, you could try another humectant, like sodium PCA or sodium lactate, or just replace it with more water 🙂 Happy making and best of luck! I hope your hair likes this a whole lot more than soap + vinegar 🙂
Hi Samantha,
If your hair are on the oily side, you could try using rosemary in this recipe (either as an hydrosol, or simply an infusion instead of water, or add a few drops of EO). As you probably know, you must avoid stripping your hair from their natural oil by washing them too often or with a too agressive product. Cleansing conditioners are definitely great for their gentleness oh hair!
Hey! You’re very right about the pH of the hair + soap—you can read more here 🙂 (That blog is also a great place to learn more about hair in general) Some people’s hair does well with soap (I used it for years to no ill effects), but the science doesn’t back that up.
Honestly, a cleansing conditioner like this is probably the best place to get started. Everything but the surfactant can be used to make lotion, and the surfactant is easily the one I use the most whenever I’m making anything with surfactants. It goes in every surfactant blend I make as it’s pretty much the only amphoteric surfactant available to home crafters, and it helps make surfactant blends more gentle.
Happy making!
I made this “no/low poo” recipe for my curl, natural hair (do you know about the Natural Curly Method? Lorraine Massey was his inventor and the first cleansing conditioner is the one of Diva Curl, her company!),I really like it the first time I used, but after the second time I need to clarify my scalp because my hair feel so heavy and with very little volume (build up), but in any case it’s a game changer for frizz and dryness.
I will continue to use it every 1 or 2 washes and in between I will clarify, but in the meantime I want to experiment with the formula, probably I will try to add some more betaine and to decrease the oil and the BTMS (not so sure about this last one, because I still want the conditioning effect…murble murble!) because I’d like to use it more often (my hair doesn’t like shampoo, they freeze up when I use it and became dry).
None have the same experience with this kind of product? No build up?
I’ve continued playing with cleansing conditioners—you might like this recent version better as it has less oils and more surfactant 🙂
I’ve heard of the curly girl method, but never really looked into it. And no, I didn’t have any build-up issues 🙂
I am really enjoying this recipe. I used baobab protein for the protein, sea kelp bioferment, as that is what I had. Then I used Chamomile hydrosol because that’s what I had 🙂 I didn’t scent as I figured I should try it first. I think I might continue that way. Even my husband is liking the result.
Lovely! I just picked up some baobab protein from Windy Point, I can’t wait to play with it 😀
Hi Marie thanks for another great recepie before I try making it I had 2 questions for you. First Can I use dimethicone 500 instead of 350 because that’s what I can get on amazon, and to my understanding it’s going in a cool down phase ? Second If I don’t add Amphosol CG then I can use this recepie as a conditioner/hair mask after shampooing my hair .
Yup, the Dimethicone 500 should work! It’ll be a bit thicker than the 350, but I doubt you’ll notice any difference in the end product.
You can use it as a conditioner/hair mask with or without the Amphosol CG 🙂
I have a question for you : I read that polysorbate 80 was used in shampoo to stop hair loss. Since it is also an emulsifyer, do you think we could add some to the formula? Would it act like the BTMS-50? Thanks in advance (for your response, and for provinding us with amazing recipes and ideas through your awesome website!)
Hmm, I have never read that before, and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me that it would decrease hair loss. I’d love to see the source of that claim 🙂 You could include some; it would help increase rinse-off but would not offer any conditioning.
This leaves a lot of buildup in my hair and makes it feel as though it hasn’t been washed. It’s very difficult to wash out and, even after doing numerous squeak tests, I still dry off to feel oily & dirty.
The only alterations I made were:
Hydrolyzed Oat Protein
Fractionated Coconut Oil
Bamboo Extract
Any ideas?
I typically use OGX shampoo & conditioner (currently using the Marula Oil version, but the Moroccan Argan one is great, too).
I suspect this is probably just a your hair + this conditioner don’t get along well. It is totally possible it’s just too rich for your hair, and with not enough cleansing power. I’d rotate it to the conditioner portion of your hair care routine and look at a cleanser with more kick—it won’t take much, this one is quite gentle! This shampoo bar might be more up your alley 🙂 Happy making and thanks for DIYing with me!
Is there anyway I could substitute cocomidolpropyl betaine for coco glucoside?
You could, but please test the pH and adjust if necessary as the pH of coco glucoside is much higher 🙂 You’ll also want to use less as coco glucoside is more active than cocomidolpropyl betaine (55% vs. 30%).
I live in South Africa, and BTMS is not available.
What can I use as a substitute ingredient?
Thank you for your generosity, in sharing so freely .
Rachmah Wolf
You’ll find heaps of substitution information in the Humblebee & Me DIY Encyclopedia (https://www.humblebeeandme.com/diy-encyclopedia/) 🙂
Can I use Cyclomethicone instead of the bamboo bio? Or could I just do without it
Or Sea Kelp Bioferment??
Yup, that would work as well 🙂
Yes! Happy making 🙂
Hi! I’ve made the Mango mango conditioner and it’s working very well! My hair and scalp love it, and it’s great to have only one thing to rinse out of the kids’ hair (my kids hate to wash their hair but are determined to let it grow long).
Now I want to try this but can’t find BTMS50, only BTMS25. My idea is to replace both the BTMS50 and the cetearyl alcohol with BTMS25. Is there any reason this might be a bad idea?
I also want to add dimethicone but have only been able to find dimethicone 1000, will that be much too heavy?
Thank you so much for all your gorgeous recipes! This site and your YT channel has really made DIY skincare accessible for me – I had only made soap before and now I feel like I can make *anything*!
That sounds like a good way to use BTMS-25 instead, just be sure to watch maximum usage rates 🙂 And I think 2% Dimethicone 1000 would probably be fine here. Happy making!
I made this yesterday for my 11 year old who has thick thick thick hair and she used it last night. Her hair today is amazing! thank you.
Hooray, I’m so thrilled to hear it! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂
I made this recipe last week and it turned out beautifully!! I did use half rose hydrosol and half lemon verbena and I used hydrolyzed silk instead of the bamboo bioferent as I didn’t have any and I am totally in love with it! My hair tends to be pretty dry and brittle these days so I am gonna keep making until I can find something that offers a bit more conditioning but I love the idea of using this as my shampoo since it is just so lovely!! Thank you!
I am so thrilled you are enjoying this! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂