Teach Soap

I've seen a few charts that list properties of oils and butters and how they work on skin, but I haven't seen one for hair. I am able to get some things from forums and stuff but I am wondering if there is anything out there?

The first shampoo bar I bought had these ingredients and it turned my hair to straw unless I used an ACV rinse every other day: Saponified Organic Oils of Palm, Coconut, Olive and Palm Kernel (it had a few other things too)

Then I tried a shower gel with Saponified Organic Oils of Coconut, Olive & Jojoba. This was a bit better and brought my rinse to every other week or so.

Then I bought a Dr Woods Shea Vision liquid soap since I hadn't made my own yet. They don't have ingredients listed online but it seems to do even better.

I tried my own liquid soap for a couple of days and didn't like it. It was new though so I will try it again when I bring scents back out (all scents put away to see if my cat has allergies to them). I used mostly olive, but also some shea, coconut (10% I think) and castor.

After I did this I read a post somewhere that said that coconut is cleaning but drying - which I knew for skin - but the lightbulb went off and I said ok, I'll have to try another liquid soap with no coconut for my hair!

So this brings me back to my chart question - if there is something out there so I can research to see what ingredients would work well for hair and experiment and refine from there.

I can't use regular handmade soap for hair. I prefer to use a syndet based bar. You can find more info on Susan's blog. http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/p/hair-care.html

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

Thanks! I would like to try and see if my hair can handle non-synthetics before going that route. I have poked around on her site. Sometime last week I went through a bunch off old threads here and there were a couple that had started experimenting with shampoos within the last two years. I believe at least one of them, maybe two have found something that worked for them.
barquentine, you and someone else moved into the synthetics. I wish I could remember the second person but I was reading since I couldn't fall asleep and didn't take notes. I'll have to do it again.

Funny you feel that way about conditioner. I think I've tried just about every one known to mankind. I rarely use the in the summer because my hair has body with humidity and conditioner just flattens it, no matter how light. I normally use it in the winter otherwise it sticks straight out from static. But I haven't had to at all this year. Yet!!

I did buy a shampoo base sample from BB and that doesn't seem too bad on my hair. I really appreciate the run down on some of those synthetics! It can be pretty confusing.

Just for info, I'll list below what I put into my conditioner, and why (just the actives, I won't list preservative, water, FO, etc)

1. glycerine - for humidification
2. Quartamin-60 - this is a 'light' cationic conditioner to improve combing and smooth the hair shaft.
3. Dehyquart-60 - this is a 'heavy' cationic conditioner based on lanolin, to repair split ends.
4. cetyl alcohol - an emollient that gives 'slip' in use.
5. hydrolysed keratin - a liquid protein that helps repair damaged hair shafts.
6. extract of opuntia cladoides - a cactus extract
7. vitamin E
8. shea butter - used since historic times in Africa to produce lovely hair, it's an emollient
9. panthenol, (vitamin B5) - another humectant
10. jojoba oil - this acts to soften and dissolve hardened deposits of sebum that can clog hair follicles.
11. dimethicone - a silicone that imparts a shine to the hair
12. cyclopentasiloxane - an antistatic agent that detangles and makes the wet hair easy to comb

and 9 other ingredients that are there to stabilise, preserve, thicken, add fragrance, etc. The most expensive items are #5 and #9.

http://www.brambleberry.com/Liquid-Sham ... P4204.aspx

If this is the one you tried from Brambleberry, it looks pretty good to me, has good ingredients.

Thanks for that list, really really interesting! Yes, that's the one I bought from BB. They had it in a sampler kit as well with other soaps and that's what I got.

Were you the one making a two-in-one shampoo awhile back? (not that I feel the need to go there for a very very long time)

Yes that's right, I spent ages working on a two-in-one. I have not yet managed to make such a thing. Something causes it to separate over time.