Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Hair Shampoo inclusions

  • Shampoo inclusions

    Posted by belassi on November 15, 2017 at 10:39 pm

    As part of my continuing experiments into including natural materials in shampoo (coffee, licorice, coconut milk, beer) I liked the beer one so much that I want to design a product. However, I have been experiencing some difficulty, primarily with the fragrance.
    Unlike the coffee shampoo, I found that even making the shampoo entirely out of beer (rather expensive!) resulted in an OK-ish aroma at first, but the aroma didn’t persist very well until the end of the bottle. And I can’t find beer fragrance here in Mexico, bringing it in from the USA is x5 the price. Not viable.
    I have an idea for a novel product that might solve the problem. Rather like the process of dry-hopping beer, suppose I add an actual hops pellet to each shampoo? Marketing it of course, as “contains genuine beer and hops”, “not genuine without the hops pellet”, you get the idea.
    Anyone see any downside?

    DRBOB@VERDIENT.BIZ replied 6 years, 5 months ago 7 Members · 12 Replies
  • 12 Replies
  • DAS

    Member
    November 16, 2017 at 12:49 am

    Contamination and shelf life comes to mind. And the fact that nobody wants beer smelling hair. Why don’t you try a wine version instead?. I think it would have more acceptance commercially, there are many grapeseed oils available and you can cover up the smell easily. And if you want to add a solid for the looks just chop some cork :P

  • luiscuevasii

    Member
    November 16, 2017 at 1:20 am

    hi @Belassi , un placer saludarte.

    Im a big fan of your post about coffee in shampoo, i would like to know what results are you expecting ussing beer in a shampoo, i have seen a lot of claims in beer shampoo like antidranduff, straigthen hair, brighten hair, anti scalp and more.

    besides that, DAS have a good point, i dont think that anyone would like to smell like beer

  • belassi

    Member
    November 16, 2017 at 5:28 am

    Hola Luis, que hubo, compañero? Estoy viendo “Pablo Escobar: El Patron de Mal” pero no puedo seguir el español, es bien barbaro.

    I made a batch of beer shampoo using the same formula as the coffee shampoo. Basically, the percolated coffee was replaced by Indio, a local dark beer.
    It made a really nice shampoo. The smell of beer was not very strong but definitely there. It didn’t really persist in the hair; it rinses out. The hair seemed to be conditioned as a result. It’s not quite as good as the coffee shampoo, but there was a definite improvement in shine and flexibility and slip.
    Wine. The problem is that beer is $6 a bottle and wine $60 :(

  • luiscuevasii

    Member
    November 17, 2017 at 12:54 am

    todo muy bien por aqui, es dificil, el acento y los terminos coloquiales son todo un reto para entender series o peliculas como la de Pablo Escobar.

    well 6$ per bottle is a lot, you could buy like 18 bottles for 6$ in my country, and what about ussing hop or barley extracts?, assuming that beer is mostly water.

  • belassi

    Member
    November 17, 2017 at 12:56 am

    By $6 I meant 6 pesos! The peso is at 17 to the dollar. Yes, I’ve ordered some hop pellets. It occurs to me that I can try using the hops instead of actual beer, make a hop shampoo instead. I’ll see how it comes out.

  • beautynerd

    Member
    November 17, 2017 at 2:05 am

    Hops CO2 extract is available to beermakers and has a lovely, almost fruity floral aroma. 

  • Microformulation

    Member
    November 17, 2017 at 4:02 am

    I went down this road years ago with a product that is still in Whole Foods in the US. We did end up using a Hops CO2 Extract which we got from a distributor in New Mexico. We used a water soluble malt extract. This was all done since the product was not economical if we shipped whole wort (the unfermented but hopped malt which has been heated and the solid matter drained out).
    The Marketing story comes from both an old product (Body on Tap) and the fact that in certain European countries they will rinse their hair occasionally with flat beer.

  • Silvie

    Member
    November 17, 2017 at 7:09 pm

    Hi Belassi, I love all your ideas and I hope you can develope a good product. If you like the beer for this purpose, why don’t you make it? I know you will find it very easy and the materials aren’t very expensive, i have just made a course with a brewmaster to learn how to make homemade beer and if I find it simple, I imagine that it will be very very easy for you, I don’t know if you want it, but I can send you my hand notes if you think they can be useful for you. Anyway you’ll find some information on the web.
    Last September I learned how to make wine and it is also very simple, I also learned that wine can be made from any fruit, and it does not come out expensive! 
    It is only an idea if you want to give it a try!
    Cheers. Silvie.

  • belassi

    Member
    November 17, 2017 at 8:05 pm

    Thanks Silvie. I have made beer and wine in my youth. I also constructed an ethanol distillation machine when I was in Saudi, the less said about that the better I suppose! As usual here my problem is in sourcing the more ‘exotic’ components - hops, or hop extract.

  • belassi

    Member
    November 18, 2017 at 4:20 pm

    I’ve put the beer one on hold at the moment because of the difficulty in obtaining hops / fragrances.
    So I’ve decided to try chocolate!

  • belassi

    Member
    November 19, 2017 at 12:53 am

    Here’s another candidate. There’s this very popular ointment sold everywhere here. It’s called Peyote Cream. I don’t think there is really any cactus in it. I hope not. It is a protected species.
    Anyway. I noticed that now you can buy bags of hemp seed in the supermarket in the breakfast cereal area. So, “Marijuana Shampoo”  B)

  • DRBOB@VERDIENT.BIZ

    Member
    November 19, 2017 at 6:08 pm

     Now you need a marijuana odor neutralizing conditioner. As a side point, while stationed in Germany in mid 1950, it was fairly common practice to wash the hair with beer.So dig up some Lowenbrau and distill it as the alcohol azeotrope may be interesting.

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