Category: Detergents

No Foam Face Wash

Hello Everyone!

I tried a sample of a face wash a while back and I liked it so much that I decided to remake it keeping most of the ingredients. The result is an extremely delicate face wash that makes close to no foam (but still does cleanse 😉 ).

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I find this kind of formula to work great with my face cleansing brush or sponge. The consistency is quite thick, a little less than syrup, but it is absolutely not sticky: on the contrary, it has a soft, velvety and cushion-like feel 😉 and the fact that it makes close to no foam for me is absolutely a plus!

[On a totally different note: for this formula I have finally decided to use the fragrance oil Osmanthus from Sensory Perfection and IT IS AMAZING! From the bottle it had a very strong scent and I couldn’t really understand if I liked it or not… well, now I know that I definitely do!!!]

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How to Formulate a Solid Shampoo

Hello everyone! 🙂

Today I talk about how to formulate a Solid Shampoo.

Solid Shampoo (10)

This is NOT a natural soap, it is a Syndet (synthetic detergent) made with powder surfactants and other ingredients. A normal soap won’t work well as a shampoo, no matter how many expensive oils you add to it or how much love you put into soap-making.
If you want to make a decent solid shampoo, it must be a syndet. 😉

The advantages of a shampoo bar are that it is compact, it doesn’t weight much, it is easy to use, easy to carry around (on a plane for example)… Yet, it is not at all common to find one in the stores.

The reasons for this are many but here are the main ones:
A Solid Shampoo is made with an extremely high percentage of surfactant matter (55%-85%) and this makes the production costs fly very high as well.
But this is not all: a shampoo bar looks extremely similar to a simple and cheap soap and therefore people don’t give to it even the same value they give to, let’s say, a fancy bottle of liquid shampoo (even if the liquid shampoo costs way less, to produce, than the solid one).
These two things, combined, already don’t make for a winning product…

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Pearl Sensation – Face Wash Recipe

So here is a new recipe for a face wash with a mild scrubbing effect.

Pearl Sensation Face Wash DIY

I must admit I am not a great fan of scrubs: I find that sometimes (I am talking about the commercial scrubs) they are too harsh for my skin and when I want a smooth skin I simply use a good konjac sponge which gives me good results without irritation.
HOWEVER, I found these blue jojoba “pearls” on a website and I thought it would be a great “poetic” ingredient for a face wash.
I say “poetic” because these pearls don’t really scrub that much, at least not at the concentration I use them and not in a detergent (perhaps in a face mask they would scrub more)… but they look great in the detergent and they give it an extra texture.
Therefore these jojoba “pearls” are far from being essential but they seemed fun to me! 🙂

Enough blabbering I guess! 😀

Here is THE RECIPE:

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No-Drandruff Shampoo DIY

Hello there!
I am back, finally, with a brand new recipe of a No-Dandruff Shampoo! 🙂
I wanted to try a new – to me, that is – ingredient: the SCLEROTIUM GUM! 🙂
I lowered the SLES to 23% because I needed a milder shampoo, but if you suffer of dandruff I think you should rise the SLES to 30% as we normally use it 🙂

No-dandruff Shampoo 8

That said, here a little explanation about the ingredients of this shampoo.
The ingredients which make this shampoo a “no-dandruff” one are two: Piroctone Olamine and Salicylic Acid.

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No SLES Shampoo DIY

Hello there! 🙂

I am back with a new, simple recipe for a shampoo without SLES (sodium laureth sulfate).

No Sles Shampoo

Just to make it clear: I am NOT against SLES in general (HERE you find a recipe of a SLES shampoo I posted a while ago). I still believe that the best shampoos include SLES (these shampoos have the best wetting ability, the best spreading ability, they feel great, they wash great: overall they give a satisfactory experience)… However this ingredient is not suitable for everyone, here the reasons why:

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Fructose Face Wash

Hello there! 😀
I am not sure if I ever told you that there is a way to preserve our detergents with SUGAR 😀
Well, this is a recipe for a very very delicate face wash 😉

fructose8

Why sugar?
Sugar at low concentration is very loved by bacteria, BUT at very high concentration (around 35%) it is definitely too much for them.
I use FRUCTOSE in this recipe simply because it feels the best on the skin (it makes the detergent feel very silky and smooth), while other kinds of sugars don’t make the same effect.
Another good news about using sugar in the detergent is that it actually makes the detergent much milder and thicker! 😀

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Can you recognize a good Shampoo pt.4

Hello there! 😀

This is finally the last chapter of our “Recognizing a good Shampoo” topic.
We have learnt the basics of shampoo surfactants in the part 1 and part 2 and in the last post (which you can find here) we talked about the most common “extra ingredients”.
I know I haven’t covered all the possible things but I did what I could 😀

Can you recognize a good Shampoo pt 4

Today I just want to briefly talk about those “useful” ingredients which we find in our shampoos, meaning those ingredients which should (at least theoretically) make a difference! 😉

– Panthenol – It derives from Vitamin B5. A famous shampoo brand made a huge campaign on their shampoos because they contain this vitamin. Yes, it is supposed to have good effect on hair and scalp, it is an humectant and it helps retain the water. It also creates a light “film” on the hair protecting them from damage. 
However, in a product like a shampoo, which we wash off after few seconds from having applied it, it might not be that effective and therefore if you find it in a shampoo it is very probably in minimal amount, just to look good in the ingredient’s list. 😉

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