Teach Soap

Okay... I finally have my lotion products pretty much perfected. I had to remove the shea, since I seem to have a sensitivity to it, but mango butter works great.

Anyway, I was thinking about trying soaping and am interested in starting out with a shampoo bar. Wondering... are they any harder to make than any other CP soap? Should I start simpler than that?

I have a recipe for a shampoo bar that is simply delightful. It is one of the simplest recipes that you can find out there. Here it is:

30 percent coconut oil 8 oz.
30 percent palm oil 8 oz.
30 percent olive oil 8 oz.
10 percent castor oil 2 oz.
lye 3.63 oz. (use 3.74 for oily hair)
water 9.50 oz.

If you have super dry hair, try putting 1 oz. jojoba oil in after trace. You can also use sweet almond oil. I superfatted this recipe at 8 percent so you shouldn't have trouble with it being drying, though. I always use this 30/30/30/10 percent recipe with my shampoo bars and they turn out wonderful.

Here are some more shampoo bar recipes that I thought you might be interested in:

http://simplelifemom.com/2013/11/19/7-h ... r-recipes/

Hi, what is the supper fat on your shampoo bar? I soap teacher said she super fats her shampoo bars at 15%.

I mean super fat. I followed your link and none of those recipes say how much they super fatted them. It's my understanding that you want to super fat rather high for it to be moisturizing? Also, something I never see is a hair conditioning bar. Is there such thing? I need to condition my hair, it helps with tangles. Yes, I know all about the apple cider remedy but I would love to produce a conditioning bar with out the cleansing action.

I think the superfatting on the above recipe for shampoo bar is 5-7%. I have heard of people with dry skin superfatting at 15 and 20% but have never tried it for a shampoo bar. As far as conditioning goes, these little bars are great like they are. I am going to make the shampoo bars in the link that I gave in my second post so I will let you know. I ran it through the lye calculator and I think she is superfatting anywhere from 7-10%. I have really oily hair so I don't worry about a really moisturizing soap too much. Nor do I use conditioner. I like these bars in the fact that you don't get a soapy residue built up on your hair. They make your hair so shiny and manageable. I use olive oil in my shampoo bars usually because it just makes my hair feel great...in the shampoo bar link I provided there is a shampoo bar without olive oil, though. I guess to make the soap a little more conditioning, you could add extra olive oil, jojoba or sweet almond after it came to trace. I wouldn't add any more than an ounce, though. Coconut is way too drying to add any extra of that in. I suggest to stick with your soft luxury oils for that.

Here is the same recipe superfatted at 15 percent if you want your soap a little more conditioning (I ran this through the lye calculator at www.soapcalc.net for your reference):

coconut 8oz
palm 8oz
olive 8oz
castor 2oz
lye 3.35oz
water 9oz

If you have dry skin stick to bastille soaps like this one in this link:

http://www.naturesgardencandles.com/can ... ecipe.html

This could double as a shampoo bar since it has castor oil in it.

I just realized that I didn't answer your question about a conditioning bar. I have never heard of a hair conditioning bar other than a lotion bar and I don't know if that would work. Seems it would make your hair too oily. Lotion bars usually consist of coconut oil, beeswax and cocoa butter or shea butter. They are made out of pure oils. That might be much for a conditioning treatment. Stick to really superfatted soaps I guess. You can superfat up to 20 %.

I can't use a handmade soap as a shampoo bar. I have thin blonde hair and it makes my hair feel like straw, even with a vinegar rinse.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.