DIY Conditioners/Shampoos

I am currently looking into shampoo and conditioner bars, but not liquids/creams.  Personally, I don't want to deal with all the preservation of water based products for safety reasons and lazy ones as well.  So here is some brief info to get you started on formulating your own conditioners/shampoos...

Conditioners/shampoos......How do you formulate conditioners/shampoos? 

If you want to keep it simple you can use all oil mixtures and do hot oil treatments, but that's more of a deep conditioner. 

If you want a daily/rinse out conditioner, like what we find generally in stores it will be a mixture of oils, extracts, hydrosols/AQUA, basically emuslions of stuff.

You can also get really specific and use ingredients like Sodium lactate, GuarSilk, or  Raspberry Dimethicone, Cetearyl Alcohol. etc.  It all really depend on what your looking for; simplicity and/or cosmetic chemistry. 

Here are a few questions you need to answer before you start formulating:

The first question you need to answer is, Is this for personal use or for sell?   If this is for sell, you obviously don't want to include food ingredients, right?  If your making only enough for one time usage, bananas, eggs, avocado, etc are ok.  You also want to consider shelf life and preservation. 

What am I looking for in this conditioner?  Do you want it to be light, thick and rich, rinse ability, anti-frizz, shine, silky, etc.

Some ingredient idea;

• Shea butter
• Hibiscus extract
• Coconut Oil
• DL Panthenol
• Essential Oils
• Hydrosols(water phase)
• Guar Silk
• Jojoba Oil

Also you need to get a preservative that will work for the combination of ingredients chosen, so do your research.

What form do you want the conditioner/shampoo?  Bars (solid), creams, liquid....

Another simple method of making your own conditioners and soaps, is to find a company that makes a base that meets your specifications and allows for customization, i.e. herbs, oils, extracts. I think many companies actually do this and then sell.  Refer to my post about using bases.

Take a moment to peruse the blog to find more posts on conditioners and shampoo info and a little research never hurts either!

Conditioner Bar How To-  these are light conditioners, so may not work for dry hair like mine, but nothing beats a failure but a try.  I also would remove some unnatrual ingredients, but you get the general point of formulation from here

Hope this helps!!