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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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Kathy
Thank you for the wonderful information and recipes.
How do you measure the PH in your finished products?
Thank you again.
Tracy Ariza, DDS
I generally just use the test strips because they’re cheap and easy to use and good enough for home use. I write more about it in my post about the importance of pH in cosmetics.
Amy
This is absolutely the best shampoo I have used, store bought or homemade. I am so grateful that you shared this recipe.
Cathy
Hi! Couple questions… I’d like to make a rosemary & lavender shampoo for thinning hair & hair loss, so I intend on using 1/2 distilled water and the other 1/2 of the water infused with rosemary & rice… so 44g plain distilled & 44g infused. 1. Can I use only decyl glycoside or do I need to include the other surfactants? 2. Can I use cornstarch or flaxseed instead of xanthan gum? Or can I use salt water to thicken? 3. If I need to adjust the ph, can I use lemon juice or something else? Thank you!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Cathy,
Keep in mind that any time you use food type ingredients, like rice, that your final product will be more difficult to preserve. Strain as best as you can to get the longest possible shelf life, keeping in mind that it will still be reduced so keep an eye on it!
You can use only decyl glucoside, but the shampoo won’t be as cleansing. I have purposely used a variety of surfactants with different properties that work together for cleansing, foaming, etc.
I think it would be difficult to thicken it with cornstarch. You need to cook it and I’m not sure what you’d end up with…
Same goes for flax seeds. In both cases, you also have the problem of a reduced shelf life because of adding food type ingredients.
Salt water only works with certain surfactants for thickening. (It worked in my laundry detergent, but not here.)
You can try adjusting down with lemon juice, but you’d probably need a lot more as it’s not as concentrated, and, again, it may reduce the shelf life if you get bits of the lemon in the mixture.
Simon
Hi,
Thank you so much for posting this recipe. I suffer from psoriasis and dandruff and for many years the only shampoo that worked every single time it was an head and shoulder shampoo. Unfortunately a few months ago they’ve stopped making it, is there anyway we could replicate that or is there anyway I could add powder (root powder) to this shampoo to cure dandruff? Sorry I’m pretty desperate 🙁
Thank you so much for your help
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Simon,
I think certain essential oils can help. Dandruff can often be due to the growth of certain microbes, so antimicrobials can help.
I can look into it more and try to formulate a recipe for the blog. I’m not sure how effective it would be, but I can give it a shot.
Mikaela
Hello. I’m really new to this, but I’m so interested to make shampoos on my own. I just want to know. Are there any fumes? Thank you
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Mikaela,
No, no fumes, just the scent of the various surfactants. (And as there is no need to even heat them, they don’t really give off much scent at all.)
Jackie
Could I use just coco Glucoside as I don’t have decal?
Thanks
Jackie
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Jackie,
Yes, it should be fine. They are both very similar.
Kiki
Hi Tracy thank you for your very informative post. Can I us capryl glucoside instead?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Kiki,
Yes, you could use it instead of the coco and/or the decyl glucoside. I haven’t used it, so I’m not sure how much it would change things, but they are supposed to be very similar.
Neal
Could you please recommend a substitute for glycerin. I’m reactive to it.
Thank you.
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Neal,
You can just leave it out and more water to take its place. (Another option, if you want to add a different humectant, is to use propylene glycol instead.)
Cassandra
Will the glycerin damage or dry my hair? Will the shampoo have the same effect if I left it out? And if I leave out things like the glycerin or essential oils should I change the measurements for everything else or is that not effected? Lastly I’m planning on making the conditioner as well and I’m using the Spectrastat G2-N preservative. Would that work for this too? Thanks!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Cassandra,
The problem I foresee with the Spectrastat G2-N preservative is that it is oil-soluble. It may separate out of the shampoo and not be effective. You’d probably have to use a solubilizer with it for it to be completely incorporated.
As for the glycerin. It’s a humectant and should help draw moisture into the hair rather than dry it. The only cases where it could end up being drying is if you are in very extreme environments. (For an example, in an extremely dry environment, it could draw moisture from the hair rather than the air.)
That said, if you want to leave it out, that’s completely fine. Just add more water to make up for the glycerin (and/or essential oils).
Nikita
Hi, what is your opinion on potassium sorbate as preservative? I am also confused on what to make of the percentages recommended by the supplier. What does it mean?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Nikita,
Potassium sorbate alone isn’t a full-spectrum preservative. You’d have to combine it with other ingredients to make a full spectrum preservative. I’m not sure what microbes it covers and what other ingredients you need, which is why I stick with already combined preservatives that are already known to be full spectrum.
(Without proper testing, it’s otherwise impossible to know if you are making a full-spectrum preservative.)
I have a guide to natural preservatives which covers some options.
Ada
Hi. Does it works on all hair types? Thank you
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Ada,
Yes, this is a very gentle shampoo and should work well on all hair types.
Victoria
I‘ve tried it a few times and it works great now!
Besides the fact that I don‘t have access to Coco Betain only Cocamidopropyl Betaine, and the retailer says one should use it up to 3% so it‘s only around 6g in the recipe and I feel like that‘s not enough and my hair gets oily very quickly! Do you have any ideas I could solve this problem? Shall I not use it at all or just change the percentage?
Thank you in Advance!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Victoria,
Which supplier has said that? It’s very unusual, as I’ve always seen it recommended for use up to 40%, which makes a lot more sense. Even in the formulation classes I’ve taken, they never said anything about needing to use such a low percentage. That doesn’t make any sense.
Could they have meant up to 30%? 3% is even low for a starting point. I wouldn’t use less than 5%.
In any case, you could substitute it for more of one of the other surfactants, but I like using it because it’s a different type of surfactant and adds different properties than the glucosides.
Victoria
I know I find it very weird!
The supplier website is dragonspice.
Cocamidopropyl Betaine up to 3% in Shampoos they say.
I think I‘ll stick to your percentage still! I feel like such a low amount does make my hair oily and when I used your percentages before my hair was fine.
Tracy Ariza, DDS
I think you should be fine. My guess is that they made a typo because 3% doesn’t make sense at all.
Unless… I just looked them up- and saw they have betaine, but I don’t see Cocamidopropyl betaine from them. Do you have the regular betaine? It’s not a surfactant and isn’t the same thing!
Are you using this?
If you’re using that, it would make sense that it isn’t cleaning very well as that isn’t a surfactant.