Sustainable and travel-friendly, a conditioner bar is a convenient way to keep your hair healthy, conditioned, and tangle-free. Learn how and why to make your own conditioner bar.
Over the last months, I’ve been a bit absent and busy with summertime activities. Between having my son home from school, the town fiestas, and a family vacation, I feel like I’ve left you all a bit abandoned. I’m now home and finished with most of it, and ready to share some of what I’ve been making lately.
One of the handy products that I made was a homemade conditioner bar.
Let me begin by admitting that I wasn’t even sure I would like using a solid conditioner. I really like the slip and feel of how easy it is to use my “normal” homemade conditioner. It glides easily and I can effortlessly comb through to spread it evenly throughout my hair.
Over the last year or two, though, shampoo and conditioner bars have gained a lot of popularity.
Why make a conditioner bar?
There are a few great reasons to consider making a solid conditioner.
A conditioner bar is a sustainable option
For those who are trying to go “no waste” or who wish to contribute as little waste as possible, making your own shampoo bars and conditioner bars is about as no waste as you can get. I can’t promise you’ll have zero waste unless you can get your hands upon a supplier that allows you to recycle packaging or will fill containers you bring to them, but the products that you are making themselves don’t need any sort of packaging.
Because you aren’t using any packaging for your homemade conditioner bar, you don’t have to worry about if the packaging that you are using is safe or not. (Are toxins from plastic packaging leaching into your products?) You also save yourself the hassle of having to properly clean and sanitize your containers before using them.
Conditioner bars are travel-friendly
With all of the new regulations regarding liquids that can be taken aboard airplanes, having a solid option means less hassle when traveling. You don’t have to worry about separating your shampoo and conditioner in a plastic baggy when passing through security nor will you have to worry about a TSA agent taking your homemade conditioner away from you for not following regulations regarding liquids.
Even if you aren’t flying, there are advantages to traveling with shampoo and conditioner bars versus their liquid counterparts. You don’t have to worry about your homemade shampoo and conditioner spilling all over your other luggage, potentially ruining your clothes and your trip.
Concerned about preservatives?
Just as with the shampoo bar, I recommend that you use a preservative when making your conditioner bar. This product is going to be stored in a humid environment and will be used with water often. It is very possible for mold or other microbes to form on the exterior of your bars, especially if you aren’t careful about drying the product properly between uses.
That said, if you are set against using a preservative, this is the safest way to go.
I personally don’t recommend making a liquid conditioner and keeping it in the fridge. Some people try doing that to avoid using a preservative. Even in the fridge, though, you should really only keep homemade emulsions for around the same amount of time as you would keep homemade food-based emulsions like homemade dressing or mayonnaise. (Seven to ten days is the absolute maximum amount of time that I would recommend.)
Conditioner bars, on the other hand, technically don’t need a preservative themselves. They don’t use any water-based ingredients, so there is no need to preserve the bars themselves. You are really only using them because of the way the bars are used. These bars have fats and are quite solid which keeps them more protected from water than the shampoo bars. They tend to repel water quite well. So, if you are careful about getting them dry between uses, yes, you could probably be fine not-using a true preservative. (Yes, I still recommend it.)
Very frugal!
With conditioner bars, you use a lot less product on your hair than what you would use when using a liquid conditioner. So, not only are you wasting less, which is, again, more environmentally friendly, but they are also great for saving money. I’ve been using the same conditioner bar for months now, and I’m not sure I can appreciate much of a difference in size from when I first started using it!
Watch how to make a homemade conditioner bar
How well do conditioner bars work?
If you’re used to applying a large amount of conditioner to your hair, you may find it frustrating to adapt to a conditioner bar at first. The hard, solid quality of the conditioner bar needs to glide over your hair. It rubs off and onto the hair as you rub the bar against it.
With shampoo bars, you can tell that something is happening immediately. You get a lot of lather when you rub water over them, and you can use the abundant lather on your hair with or without the bar in hand. When you run water over the conditioner bar, though, nothing appears to happen. In fact, the water will be repelled by it. You have to patiently run the bar over your hair.
I’m not an especially patient person. I can be patient with people and with formulating weird DIY experiments, but have little patience for slow technology and don’t like wasting my time on certain tasks that I think should be quick. That’s why I didn’t expect to like using a conditioner bar (and why the first time I used it, I wasn’t completely convinced). In the end, though, the conditioner bar has definitely grown on me.
With either type of conditioner, I use my comb to spread the product through my hair. For those who are having a hard time using a conditioner bar, just that small tip may make all the difference for you. With the conditioner bar, not much product is needed. You just need enough to easily get your hair untangled. I run the bar over my hair, comb through, and then rub the bar again over the areas where my comb appears to stick.
DIY Conditioner Bar Recipe
Homemade conditioner bar
Materials
- 70 g BTMS
- 10 g cetyl alcohol
- 5 g cocoa butter
- 5 g coconut oil
- 2 g d-panthenol
- 2 g lavender essential oil or other essential oils or a combination of oils
- 1 g Sharomix or another natural preservative at the correct percentage for the recipe
- .5 g vitamin E
Instructions
- Weigh out the BTMS, cetyl alcohol, cocoa butter, and coconut oil in a double boiler insert or a stainless steel bowl that can be used over a pan of water.
- Gently heat (over a double boiler) until all of the ingredients have melted. Stir them well to combine them.
- Remove the pan from the heat source.
- Weigh out the other ingredients (preservative, essential oils, etc.) and add them to the melted oil-phase ingredients. Mix together all ingredients.
- Immediately pour into bar sized mold. (I used a silicone mold meant for soaps or mini loaf-shaped muffins.) You can find something similar here: https://amzn.to/2SAxYMj
- Allow the bar(s) to cool completely.
- Remove the conditioner bars from the molds.
- You can now immediately use your homemade conditioner bar.
Mikayla
Hi Tracy! Do you suppose this conditioner bar would work for co-wash?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Mikayla,
Well, yes and no.
I think that with patience, it would work. I find, though, that people usually use a larger amount of conditioner to really cleanse when using conditioner as a co-wash. When using a bar, it’s harder to use large amounts of conditioner to fully coat the hair.
I think you could try it, though, concentrating on the scalp. You may also consider making the bar slightly softer by increasing the liquid ingredients or lowering the amount of the hardest ingredients.
Deborah Traylor
Hi, I can’t find d-panthenol anywhere. Can I substitute with dL-panthenol?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
I have to admit that I had to look it up as I wasn’t familiar with dl-panthenol. I found this on the Making Cosmetics site: “Only D-panthenol (dexpanthenol) is biologically active, however both forms have moisturizing properties.” and then “Only D-Panthenol is converted to Vitamin B5 and not the L-Panthenol. So the racemic dl-Panthenol has only half of the physiological activity of D-Panthenol in skin care.”
So, it’s fine to use. It may be slightly less beneficial. But, let’s be honest. These are rinse off products where these ingredients aren’t in contact with your hair that long anyway. I add them because they are potentially beneficial, and I can find the d-panthenol easily and inexpensively. So, I tend to add it to pretty much all of my skin and hair products. In the end, I’m not sure how much added benefit it’s really providing. 😉
Holly Sharp
Is this a leave-in or rinse out conditioner? Sorry, not sure if missed that. Also is there somewhere to learn about PH? I noticed in the bar shampoo recipe to check the PH but is there a number or a color to look for on the strip? Love your site..I enjoy everything. Can’t wait to try Bubble tea too! Thank you!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Holly,
This is really a rinse-out conditioner, but, depending on your hair type, you could probably get away with rubbing some on the hair and leaving it in.
For pH, if you follow the recipe as such, it’s not too important to worry about the pH. I mention that because some people swap ingredients, and those changes can greatly affect the pH (especially if you change something like the surfactants). Ideally, you want something in the range of 4-5 for your hair. It’s also important to make sure that the pH is in the range for your particular preservative when making anything. Most of the recipes here will fall into an ideal range for most commonly used preservatives, but there are preservatives out there that have unusual effective ranges.
I should write a post about pH to clear some of that up. I think it would be helpful for people.
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Oh, and I forgot… Have fun with the boba! I love making them. It’s really fun. (And I recommend trying making boba with colors, if you have any of the ingredients for some of those.)
Deborah
Hi Tracy,
What a fabulous website! I’m a big fan and I’m in the process of making the conditioner soap bar. I’ve experienced a lot of hair loss over the last 5+ years or so. I don’t want to overcomplicate the process but do you know if adding in fine Dead Sea salts (pure from the Dead Sea with out any fragrance) would be okay? I hear it’s good for hair loss unless you have any other ideas? I’m having to make my own because it turns out I’m slightly allergic to many of my favorite essential oils such as peppermint, lavender and rosemary which is in all of my natural soaps and conditioners. Thank you!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Deborah,
Salt can be very drying to hair, so I probably wouldn’t add it to the conditioner. What you could do is to do Dead Sea salt rinses before using the conditioner.
I’m not sure what the salt would do to the conditioner bar itself.
Katherine
Can I use Optiphen Plus instead of Sharomix?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Katherine,
Yes, that’s fine! Just use within the recommended dosage for whichever preservative you want to use (and make sure whatever you are going to preserve with it falls within the effective pH range for that preservative). (I talk more about preservatives in my guide to natural preservatives.)
Jerri Eckart
Can I use a crockpot to melt ingredients?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Jerri,
I haven’t tried it, but I would guess that it would work fine.
Katie
Would you be able to substitute a liquid oil for the coconut oil? or would this make it too soft?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Katie,
Yes, that should be fine. This bar is quite hard so it shouldn’t be a problem. If you find it is, you can always add a bit less of the oil or add more of one of the solid ingredients to make up for it.
Riana
I am looking for a recipe for a conditioner/rinse bar to make for my dogs… do you know if this is safe for them?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Riana,
Yes, it should be safe without any problems for them as far as I know. I’ve been using my homemade liquid conditioner on my dog for several years now and it really makes brushing her hair so much easier. Plus, it leaves her hair feeling really soft. I haven’t tried the bar on her, but it uses the same main emulsifier, so it should be similar. I wrote more about it in my post for a soap-based “shampoo bar” for dogs. I really want to make a new recipe that is a non-soap bar for dogs now that I’ve been working more with other surfactants lately. I’ve used my own shampoo bar on her the last few washes and it works well for her.
Riana
Thank you so very much
Tracy Ariza
You’re welcome!
Riana
Hi there … could I substitute btms ?50? With varisoft 65 as im struggling to find btms and was offered this instead?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Riana,
Yes, they are generally fine to substitute, but I find that BTMS is much more conditioning and leaves a silkier feeling on the hair.
Katie
Would this be suitable for use as a body moisturiser bar as well as hair conditioner?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Generally, products suited for hair can also be used on skin. This one may be slightly hard to use on the skin, but if you made it a bit on the softer side, by incorporating more liquid oils, it would probably be easier to use.
(The same is not true the other way around.)
Euphemia Nelson
When using this recipe, do I use BTMS 50 or BTMS 25?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Euphemia,
I used BTMS-25, but either should work fine.
BTMS-50 may be a bit heavier, from what I understand. That may affect it as a leave-in conditioner.
Some people really prefer one over another, but I’ve only worked with BTMS-25 up until now.
Jennie
Oh snap! I just realized you had answered the question I had further up the page. I do have another one, though:
I’m allergic to coconut. Can I just sub another oil for it?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Jennie,
Yes, that’s fine! Sub away! 🙂