When I began my journey to give my family a chemical-free lifestyle I adapted pretty easily to natural cleaners like homemade laundry soap and natural all-purpose cleaners. I drew the line, however, with my own personal hygiene routine.
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I have always had oily hair and skin and I was not willing to give up my store-purchased shampoos and face-washes for fear that natural cleaners would not be able to keep my oily hair in check. But as I began to see more information on the chemicals in conventional shampoos, I decided it was time to make the switch.
I also learned that when chemical shampoos strip the natural oils from your hair (which is what I thought I needed) they cause your scalp to overproduce in an attempt to compensate being stripped in the first place. This shocked me. By stripping the oil out of my hair I was actually making it worse!
I first experimented with the no-poo method, but I had disastrous results! I was jealous of people who had success with this method, but I was certainly not one of them. So I went back to my “regular” shampoo and went on the hunt for another option. That is when I stumbled upon solid shampoo. I would have never thought I could use a bar of soap on my hair, but I was excited about the possibility of actually using a soap with a lather to clean my hair.
Benefits of Solid Shampoo
I was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked. It took a while for my hair to fully adjust, but I never felt like I was walking around with unclean hair the way I did when I was trying “no-poo.” And because I was no longer stripping my hair of all it’s natural oils I was able to shampoo less, which was great news for me since I previously would not leave home without washing my hair.
Another perk I experienced was quicker showers. As a mother of 5, this was very important to me. Actually shampooing my hair took the same amount of time, but because I was using an apple cider vinegar rinse as my “conditioner,” it eliminated the lengthy process of letting the conditioner set and then the time it took to rinse it out.
Finally, because the shampoo bar is basically a bar of soap, it can be used on the whole body. This also makes it easy to travel with because all you need is your bar of soap and a small bottle of rinse and you are good to go!
How to Make Solid Shampoo
Soap is made by combining a lye (sodium hydroxide) and water mixture with various oils. A chemical reaction occurs and the oils are saponified giving you soap (no lye remains.) Each oil used in soap making has a different saponification value which means that each oil requires a different ratio of lye to water depending on the amount and type of each oil used.
A soap calculator can help you to figure this out by allowing you to enter the amounts and types of oils you will be using and telling you how much water and lye to use.
Different oils also have different benefits when making soap. For example, coconut oil makes a hard bar that has good cleaning properties while olive oil makes a soft bar with moisturizing benefits. The trick to soap making is to find the right combination of oils to give you a perfect balance for your needs. For our shampoo bar we are going to use:
- olive oil
- coconut oil
- castor oil
- tallow (You can get it here) -Palm oil can be substituted for the tallow for a purely vegetable soap.
Coconut oil-makes a nice hard bar that cleans and lathers well, but it can be drying so it is recommended to use no more than 30%.
Olive oil-makes a softer bar that has wonderful moisturizing properties, but does not give much of a lather. Up to 50% is recommended.
Castor oil-helps stabilize the lather created by the other oils. While it is recommended to use no more than 10% because too much castor oil can make your bar feel sticky, we are going to use slightly more in this recipe because the lathering properties really help when working the soap through your hair. I have never had a problem with my shampoo bar feeling sticky.
Tallow-makes a hard bar with great cleansing properties. Use up to 50%. (I rendered the beef fat from a cow we had butchered to make tallow. You can substitute palm oil in this recipe which has the same benefits as beef tallow. Just be sure to recalculate your ingredients to be sure your lye/water ratio is accurate.)
Essential oils also make a wonderful addition to shampoo bars, but are not necessary. I have used a combination of tea tree, rosemary, and peppermint and also peppermint and orange. Both were lovely.
Shampoo Bar Supplies
I have bowls/spoons designated only for soap making because we are working with lye and I don‘t feeling comfortable using these bowls for food.
- Glass or high quality plastic mixing bowl for mixing lye and water (I use a qt. mason jar)
- Non-reactive pot or crockpot for warming oils
- Candy thermometer (I have two, one for the lye mixture and one for the oils)
- A soap mold (I use a silicone bread mold)
- Digital scale for precise measuring
- Stick blender
- Wooden spoon
- Gloves and protective eyewear
- White Vinegar (good to have on hand to neutralize lye in case of spills)

DIY Shampoo Bar Recipe
Notes
See the section above for more information on equipment. No time to DIY? My (Katie's) Wellnesse Cleansing Shampoo is another great option!
How to Use Solid Shampoo
Solid shampoo is used much like any bar of soap. Get your hair wet and begin to rub the bar over your hair until you have a nice lather. Now you can massage and lather your hair as if you were using “real” shampoo. Rinse with water.
Most people need to follow with an acidic rinse such as apple cider vinegar or lemon juice mixed with water. People with drier hair may try up to a 50/50 mix.
Because I have oily hair I use less ACV. I mix about 1/3 cup ACV in a 20 oz spray bottle and fill the rest of the way with water. It is roughly a 1/5 ratio. You can also add essential oils to make it smell wonderful. I use 10 drops each of rosemary and peppermint.
After you are done shampooing, just spray this all over your hair and leave it in. The vinegar smell dissipates as it dries and you are left with the lovely smell of essential oils.
Update from Katie: My personal care products line Wellnesse doesn’t have shampoo bars (yet), but if you want a non-DIY option try the 100% all natural, biodegradable shampoo bar from Morrocco Method.
Ever tried natural shampoo? What worked for you?
Would it be okay to cook this so it saponifies right away. I do hot process for my soaps.
Thank you.
It might, let us know if you try it!
Hi Katie!
Thank you so much for posting this soap recipe! This is the first soap product that I’ve made, so I’m very new to this whole thing! I live in the Philippines, and checked on the soap after 24 hours. It looks and smells wonderful (had to substitute because I didn’t have certain oils: 20oz coconut oil, 13oz olive oil, 3oz Castor oil), however it looks like my skin on a hot summer day. I tilted the soap, and it “sweated profusely “. Is this “sweat” dangerous, meaning unprocessed lye? Is it OK to still cut it? I’m thinking about leaving it for another 24 hours to see if it changes before I cut the soap bars. Thank you in advance for your advice and cheers to your health, happiness, and success!
Much love,
Jessica
The glycerin that’s a natural by-product of making soap can attract moisture in the air and cause the soap to “sweat”. This is often because of high humidity in the air or the right amount of lye to oils wasn’t used. Did you run the new ingredients you used through a soap calculator first? Many skincare recipes do fine with substitutes, but when making soap each oil used reacts a little differently in the recipe so simply changing them out before recalculating the lye doesn’t usually work. The bars you have should be safe to use but they may not work quite as well.
I hope you’re doing well. I am going to make soap for the first time with this recipe. Thank you for sharing!
This is not shampoo. Real shampoo involves surfactants.
This is an excellent soap though!
PS. anyone concerned about palm oil, I use cocoa and shea butters.
I came to ask what I could substitute for Tallow and Palm. I don’t want to use either. What can be substituted?
i am not sure what type of lye to buy. the amazon link is broken.
This is a super recipe …. however a hot process way with coconut oil taught on this very website i love to make Can i make this the hp way?
Hey ,
I thought this post was great but saying “Palm oil can be substituted for the tallow for a purely vegetable soap.” is disastrous considering supporting palm oil poses many environmental problems. It’s the largest driver of Indonesian deforestation, which destroys habitat and contributes to climate change.
I would definitely only ever use or recommend sustainably sourced and rainforest safe palm oil.
Do you think that I could make this soap, let it completely saponify and then melt it together with your conditioner bar to make a co-wash? I’m dreaming of a good co-wash for my curly hair and don’t like that the one lush sells contains sulfates.
What can I use if I dont have tallow or palm oil?
Thanks
I can’t wait to try this. I recently fell in love with the idea of shampoo bars when i began reducing my plastic use. I have fine hair that gets very oily after about 24 hours.
This is my favorite shampoo bar! I’ve been using it for about two months with the ACV rinse sprayed in just as in the article, but I still find my hair to be really greasy on the underside of my hair. Trying to limit my shampooing, so I only wash 2 times a week. I have to use baby powder and cocoa powder every day as a dry shampoo to fight the greasiness which is really annoying. Am I doing anything wrong?
Is there anything else I can substitute for the tallow other than palm oil? Animal rainforest habitat is being wiped out to grow palm all over the world and it’s unsustainable.
I was wondering if you could post the amount of palm oil to use for this recipe if I wanted to substitute? Or is it the same as the tallow, 10 oz? Thanks!
I do love this soap. I had been using an expensive organic shampoo for years, so the transition to the bar was smooth. But, It seems to come to trace awfully quickly and when I add my essential oils (tea tree, peppermint and argan oils) it just be comes a gloppy mess. It’s very difficult to pour in to the mold(s) without a bunch of air holes. We can use these soaps for us, but it’s not acceptable for selling at Farmers Markets. Any advice? Thanks!!
You might want to edit this to make it clear that you understand that EVERYTHING is made up of chemicals, literally everything, so saying “chemical free” makes you sound like you don’t understand the most basic of science facts. It’s really distracting.
Thank you! I have been trying for some and didn’t know why I was not getting good results, I love your research, much appreciated.
Hi! Yes, using a shampoo bar is very environmentally friendly because it cuts down on packaging, but conventional palm oil is a major threat to our environment. Be sure to use certified sustainable!
I would love to make my own soap, but I’m nervous about using Lye with two young children. How do you ensure the safety of the area during and after? Thanks!