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Shampoo Bar Formula Help
I have been experimenting with making shampoo bars. Here is my shampoo bar formula:
Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (powder) - 35%
Sodium coco-sulfate (powder) - 20%
Decyl glucoside - 15%
Coconut butter - 7%
Stearic Acid - 3%
Behentrimonium Methosulfate - 7%
Cocoa Butter - 5%
Coconut oil - 3%
Cetyl Alcohol - 2%
Fragrance - 2 %
Preservative - .5%
Lactic acid - .5%
I heated in a double boiler the Decyl glucoside, Coconut butter, BTMS, Cocoa butter, and coconut oil together and mixed well. Then added the dry ingredients: SCI, SCS, Stearic acid and Cetyl Alcohol. At the very end I added the essential oil fragrance, preservative and lactic acid.Starting even from the first phase of melting all the first ingredients together, the consistency is very much a thick paste. Then adding the dry ingredients doesn’t help. I have been trying to heat it up to decrease the viscosity, but that only seems to help so much. This formula is the tweaked version, I upped the oil, butters, BTMS and decyl glucoside to have more liquid ingredients. It definitely helped a little (didn’t solve the problem though, the bar still looks glob-y and unattractive) but also made it oily to the touch. Which makes sense because I increased the oil and butters. I know I don’t need oil and butter in a shampoo bar, but I’d like to have some to help hydrate the scalp.
This version also came out with a slightly high pH of 6, which I am planning on adding a little more lactic acid to lower it.
They perform pretty well, actually, and are very hard which is great. But it is oily to the touch, inconsistent and rough in shape.
I would really love it to have a smooth consistency and low viscosity when heated, and something that I can easily pour into a mold. Right now I am scooping and glopping it in. Obviously I will want to decrease the oil/butters to get rid of the oily surface, but I’m still not sure how to create a more pour-able shampoo bar. Should I increase my decyl glucoside and decrease some of the powder surfactants?
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3 Replies
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But SCI is anionic and BTMS is cationic…
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I have seen cetearyl alcohol used at around 30% to create hot pour shampoo bars. Perhaps you could replace some of your oils with cetearyl alcohol.For exampleor this Shampoo Bar formulation from InnospecSodium Cocoyl Isethionate (Pureact I-85EC (Innospec)) 38.50Sodium Lauroyl Methyl Isethionate (Iselux®(Innospec)) 10.00Sodium Methyl Lauroyl Taurate (Pureact TR-L90 (Innospec)) 10.00Cetearyl Alcohol (Laurex®CS (Innospec)) 30.00Behentrimonium Chloride (BTAC 228KC (KCI)) 5.00Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride (Activsoft CD (Innospec)) 0.50Argan Oil 1.00Aqua 3.00Activated Charcoal 1.00Fragrance 1.00Also I have seen glycerin added to dissolve the surfactant portion but these type of bars dissolve quickly during use. For exampleI personally think that you should leave the oils for your conditioner bar.
@Belassi cationics and anionics are commonly seen together in solid shampoo bar formulations.
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@ozgirl This is great information, thank you so much! I have ordered some cetearyl alcohol and will definitely be experimenting with it.
@Belassi You’re right they are, but I have read that for solid shampoo bars since there is no water in the formula it is ok to combine anionic and cationic surfactants.
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