It's a low bar to beat Hi-Bar
Liquid vs. Bar
Curley vs. Straight
Treated vs. Natural
There is a lot of shampoo in the world, but what makes them different? Liquid vs bar, curly vs straight, treated vs natural… So many choices We’ve learned a lot researching and making our own shampoo bar so we’ll share a few secrets. You probably did not know but liquid shampoos commonly include silicone to fill in the cracks and pores that are caused by coloring, treating, and using harsh temperatures and products.
Silicones go by the names of:
- Amodimethicone
- Cetyl Dimethicone
- Cyclopentasiloxane
- Dimethicone
- Dimethiconol
While silicones do make your hair feel soft and smooth they don’t treat the root of the problem. 😉Each wash the silicones are removed and replaced.
Natural ingredients can soften your hair by conditioning and letting your body’s natural oils do what God intended.
- Apple cider vinegar is a mild cleanser
- Sodium Lactate (food-grade salt from fermented vegetables) is a humectant to draw in moisture from the other ingredients
- Cocoa Butter is crazy good at conditioning and repairing hair over the first few uses.
Intuitively oil in your hair sounds like a bad idea, but the minuscule amount imparted by the shampoo, in combination with sodium lactate, is what does the repair.
What about a conditioner?
Our recipe has a lye-to-oil ratio (0% of the lye remains in the finished bar) to make it so that a small portion of the oils do not turn into shampoo (this is called a superfat in soaper's lingo". The ‘superfat’ is a conditioner in the same way that our other soap makes your skin feel soft after using it. That is what conditioning is!
Some brands of bar shampoo combine lower-cost ingredients to create similar effects as a high-quality shampoo bar.
Ingredients like:
- “Cetearyl Alcohol” is a fatty acid used for moisturizing
- “Stearic Acid” is a waxy emulsifier used to coat and ‘protect’ the hair shaft like silicone in liquid soap
- “Rice Protein” is used for volumizing.
Ingredients like these are not necessary if you start with quality ingredients. Cocoa butter and canola oil are already amazing natural ingredients that moisturize. You do not need a coating to “protect” your hair if it is healthy, and you don’t need a ‘volumizer’ if your hair isn’t weighed down by other heavier coatings!
Check out common questions at Cocoa & Fresh Mint Shampoo/Conditioner
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