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Cleanse your hair gently with this DIY clarifying shampoo that uses natural surfactants to remove dirt and leave your hair clean and soft.
Because many of you have found me through my soap recipes (like my liquid Castile soap or my easy beginner soap), I often get requests for a soap-based shampoo. While I love making soap, I never use soap for my hair because it leaves my hair dry and unmanageable. Some people are able to cleanse their hair with Castile soap and are quite happy with it, but I’m not one of those people.
Why not use liquid Castile soap?
I’m not alone, though. Castile soap isn’t an ideal shampoo for hair because the pH of soap is high yet our hair and scalp have a more acidic pH. Not only can an alkaline shampoo increase the negative charge in the hair making the hair more prone to friction and damage, but it can also be irritating to your scalp.
In an attempt to remedy this issue, most people who wash their hair with soap or soap-based “shampoos” will follow it up with a vinegar rinse to lower the pH again. Not everybody reacts well to vinegar rinses either. I, again, am one of those people and I don’t like the feel of my hair after a vinegar rinse.
Choose natural surfactants
You want a “natural” alternative, but soap may not be the best option. So what’s left?
Natural surfactants, of course!
Surfactants have a bit of a bad rap. It’s partly because harsher surfactants like SLS Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Sodium Laureth Sulfate can be found in just about every conventional product at the supermarket. It can be found in everything from household cleaners to shampoos, shower gels, and even toothpaste! (You can make your own toothpaste sans SLS, too!)
I’m actually not even an SLS hater, to be honest. (Shocked?) I use it in my homemade version of Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds just like they do (I’ll share my recipe soon!), but I reserve it for general cleaning around the house. For my skin and hair, I choose milder, more natural surfactants instead!
With time, more natural surfactants are being developed to meet consumer demands! I wrote more about them and shared a list of some of my favorites in my post about working with natural surfactants! (If you aren’t familiar with natural surfactants, I recommend reading that post as a great starting point for making your own homemade products!)
Who is this shampoo best for?
Because this is a fairly gentle shampoo, it should work well with most, if not all, hair types.
Those who follow the curly girl method for developing waves or curls and keeping their hair hydrated can use this shampoo as a “low poo” alternative. (No, I didn’t come up with that term.) It makes a good starting point for beginning the process and for occasional washings when normally using co-wash.
You can use it as often as works best for your hair. I have been developing my natural waviness over the last few years by rarely using shampoos and sticking to very gentle ones when I do. I usually use this shampoo around once a week and for my other “washing,” I either co-wash with my homemade conditioner or I use a DIY conditioning shampoo. (Yet another recipe that I’ll be sharing with you shortly!)
Why make your own clarifying shampoo?
It’s very difficult these days to find shampoos free of harsher surfactants like SLS. When you make your own shampoo, you can control which surfactants you use.
Many shampoos also have other ingredients that may not be right for your hair. They may contain non-water soluble silicones, harsh preservatives, and artificial fragrances.
Customizing your DIY clarifying shampoo
What it comes down to, though, is that when you make a product, you can control the ingredients and customize the recipe to suit your needs. While most of us aren’t that in tune to our hair and will use just about any shampoo that doesn’t have harmful ingredients, those that are doing processes like the curly girl method to maintain perfectly hydrated curls and waves are often very in tune to what their hair needs in terms of vitamins and proteins. Your hair may show more need for protein, for example, so you can adjust the amount you add to your hair care products. Looking for a shampoo without protein, you can make it without too! Making your own shampoo allows you to fine tune it to perfectly suit your hair from batch to batch.
Vitamins and Proteins
In this shampoo, I chose to use d-panthenol (provitamin B5) to help nourish the hair, but you could also add some hydrolyzed wheat protein or silk protein to give your hair extra nutrients. (Just use the suggested range for each particular ingredients, as suggested by the supplier, and exchange any water-soluble additions for part of the water in the recipe.)
Distilled water or floral waters
In the shampoo in the photos, I actually used an infusion of peppermint leaves in distilled water as the water component of the recipe. I like mint for shampoos because it leaves your scalp feeling nice and refreshed, and just feels clean to me. That refreshing feeling is said to help stimulate the circulation in the scalp and may help stimulate hair growth.
Prefer to use a floral water or some other infusion? Go for it. It’s your shampoo. Nettle tea would also make a good base as nettle is also said to be great to help fight hair loss. You could have the best of both worlds by using a nettle infusion and some peppermint essential oils.
The surfactants
You can experiment by changing up some of the surfactants in this shampoo. I used a mix of non-ionic surfactants (coco glucoside and decyl glucoside) as well as an amphoteric surfactant (coco betaine) to help boost the foaming. Because my husband likes a lot of lather to his shampoo, and I’m not using any of the harsher anionic surfactants like SLS, I’m using a relatively high percentage of surfactants in this recipe. You can reduce the percentage of surfactants added to make for an even gentler shampoo, but you will probably find that it will also lather a bit less.
Natural DIY Clarifying Shampoo
DIY Clarifying Shampoo
Materials
- 88 g distilled water (or infusion, or floral water)
- 40 g coco betaine
- 25 g coco glucoside
- 25 g decyl glucoside
- 10 g glycerin
- 4 g xanthan gum
- 4 g d-panthenol
- 2 g peppermint essential oil or other essential oils of choice
- 2 g sharomix or other natural preservative in percentage necessary for your chosen preservative
Instructions
- Mix together the glycerin and xanthan gum until the xanthan gum is fully incorporated into the glycerin. Pre-mixing the xanthan gum into the glycerin will help ensure that you don’t get lumps in your shampoo as xanthan gum can be tricky to mix into water.
- Once you’ve incorporated the xanthan gum into the glycerin, you can begin to add the other ingredients. Slowly stir in each ingredient keeping in mind that vigorous stirring can cause foam production, making it more difficult to work with the shampoo.
- Once you’ve finished mixing together all of the ingredients, check the pH of the shampoo with a pH test strip. You want your shampoo to fall in a slightly acidic range. (A pH of 4-5.5 is an ideal range to aim for.) You also want to make sure that the pH is suitable for the preservative that you are using.
- If you need to adjust the pH, you can bring it down with the addition of a few drops of lactic acid or can raise the pH with either baking soda or sodium hydroxide (aka. lye). Otherwise, you are ready to bottle and use your natural homemade clarifying shampoo.
A Beginner’s Guide to Working with Natural Surfactants
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Edyta
Hi Tracy. I would be happy to try this recipe. Ot looks great, congratulations! Anywat I have no xanthan gum at home but I have guar gum. Can I use this one instead of xanthan?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Edyta,
Yes, that should work too. The consistency may be slightly different, and you may have to play with the amount of guar added. (That’s actually true of xanthan gum too, though, as I’ve found that it varies from supplier to supplier. You may need to add more or less than what I added to get the same consistency.)
Tammy
I appreciate that you provide theses recipes and all the info. Can you please tell me , do you know of a coconut free surfactant? That is on toxic of course. Thanks!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Tammy,
This is a difficult question because it seems that even when talking about the same surfactant, it can vary from supplier to supplier. So, even if you found a surfactant that is coconut-free, it may not always be completely coconut-free from every supplier. (I asked this question in various groups of professional cosmetic formulators and that’s basically the answer I got.)
You’d have to talk with a local supplier that sells surfactants and ask them directly if they have any coconut-free surfactants.
I’ve actually gotten this question a lot lately, so maybe suppliers will start to listen up and find an alternative for those who are avoiding coconut.
Kinsey
Hi, Tracy,
I like your recipe very much and would like to give it a try. I am just wondering if I can use this shampoo as a body and face wash. Look forward to your answer and thanks in advance.
Best,
Kinsey
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Kinsey,
Yes, that’s totally fine! (And we often do that.)
The main difference between body washes and shampoos is that shampoos need to be gentle and should conform to a certain pH range so as not to damage hair. The pH of shampoos is generally a bit lower than that of body washes, but it’s not something that you really need to worry about here. Your skin is very resilient and can adapt to a wider range of pHs. (I have more information about pH in my post about the importance of pH in cosmetics.)
Francoise
Can I use Agar Agar instead of Xanthan ? I use it as a thickener. Thank you!
PS I love your recipes. They are the only ones that work every time
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Francoise,
I have never tried it, but I have my doubts about it working. First of all, you’d need to be able to boil all of the ingredients to get the agar to gel. I’m not sure that the ingredients would hold up well to that much heat. Maybe you could boil it with some water and then which that in with the other ingredients so you wouldn’t have to boil them. I’ve used agar agar to make a gelatin-type consistency, but I’ve never used it to thicken. I’m not sure what sort of consistency you could get with a small amount of agar. You probably have a better idea if you’ve used it to thicken in the past. I guess you’d have to experiment and see how much is needed and if it actually gives a nice consistency or not. I’m sorry I don’t really know.
Victoria
Hi Tracy!
Just found this recipe and love it!
My question is … I would like to add Green Tea and Aloe Vera Water to this recipe. Any idea on the percentages for these ingredients?
Thank you so much in advance!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
You could make an infusion of green tea. If you do that, be extra careful to filter out the leaves as plant material can make it harder to preserve your products. They also sell green tea extract, which is perfect for cosmetics.
With the aloe, I like to keep the percentage relatively low. Perhaps around 20-25% maximum. The reason is that aloe is generally hard to preserve. Too much could cause our product to go bad more quickly. Since we aren’t generally doing microbial testing on homemade products, I like to err on the side of caution.
Victoria
Hey Tracy!
I‘m just a little confused about the aloe. I‘ve ordered the aloe powder and it‘s supposed to be used at 0,1%.
I don‘t know how much gram or mg that‘s gonna be with this recipe. Is it 0,1% of the final weight of the product (200g) or 0,1% of the water weight? (88g)
Or how would much aloe powder would you use in this recipe?
Thanks so much!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Victoria,
I’ve never worked with the powders before, but I think that you’re generally supposed to hydrate them before using them in the recipe. So, when they say to use at 0.1%, I think that you’re supposed to use .1g for every 99.9g of water to make an aloe juice. With that juice, you can make recipes such as this one. (Unless they are referring to the final dosage- to use up to 0.1% of the recipe- in which case, you could hydrate at a higher concentration (using a bit less water) and use it that way. Do they have instructions for hydrating it?
Victoria
Hey Tracy,
I bought it off dragonspice, do you know the website? I‘m not really sure about their instructions. They say 0,1% of 100mg water.
Also I just tried the recipe with distilled water, and it really didn‘t work out. The glycerin and the xanthan (xanthan gum powder) were mixed well, but as soon as I added the other ingredients it got clumpy and also the final amount was about 100ml (I’ve used your 200g recipe)
What have I done wrong? I’ve used a very fine scale. Thank you!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Victoria,
I wasn’t familiar with them, but just checked their website. It says the following “should be used in a dosage of 0.1-0.5%. With 100ml of water or hydrosol, this results in a dosage of 100mg to 500mg. At 100mg you get a 20% aloe vera gel (in this case gel does not mean that it is gel-like, but refers to the active ingredient content), at 500mg you get a 100% aloe vera gel.” So, for every 100ml of water, you’d use 0,1g-0,5g. (I find it less confusing to write it all in grams vs. mg.)
I’d mix up the 100ml of aloe (Or make less if you don’t want to use it for other projects) and then add as much as you’d like to the shampoo. If you want to add it directly, I’d use 0,1g or less.
As for the 100ml, that surprises me. Just the water alone should be close to 100ml. (Well, 88ml) 😏
The other ingredients probably weigh more, so that means they wouldn’t add as much volume for their weight as water, but I’d still expect it to make more than 100ml.
The problem is that I don’t really check the finished volume of whatever I make. I just pour it into the various containers I have ready- and I’m not even sure the volume of my containers. I have a pretty fresh batch of shampoo right now, but I can definitely take a look at the final volume next time I make it!
Mikayla Cree
Hi Tracy! I notice both this recipe and your baby shampoo/wash recipe have a water base, but your shampoo bar is oil based. In theory, could you switch the water based ingredients for carrier oils in this recipe to make something like an oil cleanser? When I first became interested in making my own products, I stumbled upon folks mixing carrier oils and emulsifiers like Polysorbate 80 and a surfactant to do this. At the time, I gave it a try, but had a hard time getting it to rinse clean. I read your basic surfactant guide, but still not sure whether surfactants mixed with oils and surfactants mixed with water should work differently. Perhaps the oil/surfactant combo needs an emulsifier like the BTMS in your shampoo bar?
Lots to learn! Thank you!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Mikayla,
Generally, adding oils to a shampoo will need either some sort of solubilizer or an emulsifier. In the case of a solubilizer, there are still limits as to how much can be added. You should also keep in mind that the oils do tend to interfere somewhat in how well a shampoo will cleanse.
In the case of the shampoo bar, you can get away with mixing together some ingredients that don’t necessarily normally mix well, but, yes, the emulsifier helps. Some surfactants have some solubilizing tendencies of their own, but generally, they are very weak. So, you can usually get away with adding some essential oils for fragrance, but you’d need to add another solubilizer to add more oils to it.
You can also make 2-in-1 conditioning shampoos, but, again, would need to add an emulsifier. You should also keep in mind that they don’t generally cleanse as well.
Kelly J Verkoulen
Hi Tracy! Im so happy I found you, I’ve been losing my hair due to hard water and castille soap! Lots to learn! I have a few questions. I appreciate you taking the time to answer everyone?
Can I dilute my castille soap with water to lower the pH for my hair? This seems easier than less expensive than making shampoo.
I cant find coco betaine on Amazon or the preservative you mentioned. Will glycerin suffice as a preservative on its own? What does coco betaine do in comparison to the other surfactants? Will I be ok without it? Or is this the most mild one? I saw someone else mentioning decyl caused itchy scalp.
Thank you again ?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Kelly,
I’m afraid that water is neutral, so you won’t really change the pH of soap by mixing it with water. If you try to lower the pH too much with an acid, soap will just fall apart and won’t be useful anyway. I don’t see any way to make soap something that is usable for hair, other than in emergency situations. (And even then, I’d probably just wash my hair with only water before resorting to using soap on my hair.)
All of the surfactants are on the mild side. It’s impossible to find any ingredient that some people won’t have a reaction to. Even the most “hypoallergenic” ingredients are going to cause some sort of reaction in some people.
You can definitely try without the coco betaine and see how it goes. The coco betaine is an amphoteric surfactant. The glucosides are non-ionic.
Amphoteric surfactants tend to boost foam and are usually tolerant of hard water, so it helps the shampoo lather better. (You don’t necessarily need lather for cleaning, but it may feel strange to you without much, especially if you are used to using soap, a stronger, anionic surfactant.)
It’s all about experimentation, though, to find what works best for you.
Kate
I was wondering if Cocamidopropyl Betaine Coco Betaine is the same as coco betaine?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Kate,
They aren’t the same, but are very similar. Cocamidopropyl Betaine is synthetically obtained. You should be able to sub the coco betaine with cocamidopropyl betaine if that’s what you can find locally.
Kate
Thank you! You are awesome, and I love this site!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Thanks, Kate!
Kelly Verkoulen
I just saw this!! Thank you for your timely reply 🙂 I’ve been using diluted Dr. Bronner’s on my hair and now that I’ve read your comment, I’m like oh shit :p
Thank you so much for your help!!! You are so kind and I appreciate all that you do for us DIY-ers! I’m getting a water softener for my shower soon, so I’m grateful that you included info about hard water/ionic surfactants. I’m excited to experiment!!! 🙂
Tracy Ariza, DDS
🙂 You’re so welcome! I’m happy to share what I know. I’m working on a post about pH now.
Kate
Hi Tracy,
Thanks for your research and sharing. My hair texture sounds a lot like yours, so I’m optimistic.
I am probably going to go ahead and buy the ingredients to make your recipe, and I wonder if it is possible to skip the decyl glucoside, as I think it makes my scalp itchy…I tried a more natural shampoo whose ingredients are water, decyl glucoside, veg glycerin, acv, xanthan gum, rose hip seed oil and citric acid. Though I like the way my hair texture feels with it, my scalp is quite itchy 1-3 days after washing. Upon looking into surfactants, I found that EWG says decyl glucoside causes dermatitis in many people and is rated 3, while your other two surfactants are rated 1. Your thoughts?
Kate
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Kate,
If you have issues with it, definitely try without it. I would probably sub it out with more coco glucoside as long as you have that one. They are actually very similar, although I think that decal glucoside may boost foam a bit more and may be slightly more cleansing than the coco glucoside (although that may just be my perception). 😉
This is really just a baseline recipe, and you definitely can play with the ingredients a bit. If you want a shampoo to use daily, you can just reduce the amount of surfactants (and raise the water content) too.
zeina
Hi Tracy! Thanks for posting this recipe.
Is it really important to measure the ph? In case it is not around 4.5-5 how can I adjust it. Thank you.
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Zeina,
I add that because using certain preservatives or changing up other ingredients (or adding new ones) could throw off the pH (although in most cases, it won’t be enough to be a big deal). The range of 4.5-5 is the ideal range for your hair, but if it’s a little bit off, it’s not a problem. You ideally don’t want an alkaline pH, though, like you’d have with soap.
The preservative is used in a very small amount, so it’s unlikely to make that much of a difference. It’s just something to keep in mind- and something you could check if you were having issues with the shampoo not feeling right on your hair (which, again, is unlikely- but something that could potentially be an issue).
I hope that makes sense.
Lucia
Hi Tracy! I’ve been gathering the ingredientes to make this shampoo at home, but I can’t seem to find decyl or lauryl glucoside here in my country, only coco, is it ok if I use only the coco glucoside? Ir do you recommend finding something else?
Thank you!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Lucia,
Yes, that should be fine. They’re pretty similar. It may have slightly less foam, but it’s probably not something you’d notice. You could also slightly increase the amount of one or both of the surfactants if you feel it’s not cleaning deeply enough. I’d try it with the substitution first, though, and go from there.