Putting science in home made shampoo to avoid disaster

There are just too much info on the net that good articles are well hidden. Firstly, people avoid off the shelf shampoo for various reasons, animal testing, environmental, harmful substances, customization, money saving.

I read a few disasters all because many 'recipe' are worse than cooking receipts, no quantity, no how, and no steps.

Reasons for no 'poo

The strongest reason was to avoid SLS, which is almost universal in cleaning products. The reason was that a toxic trace substance was detected in SLS, not SLS itself is proven harmful. FDA didn't set a limit on that toxic thing, relying on manufacturers to self regulate.  I think the reason is that the toxic substance shouldn't be there at all. It's either the chemical process generates the substance unknowingly, or the plants are contaminated.

I think the problem is eliminated now as this is under so many watchful eyes. But obviously all the contaminated SLS bottles were sold because the FDA must be thinking that short term exposure to the toxic substance is not critical. And that how do you recall all cleaning products?

The funny thing is that some people when they sport the word L on a shampoo bottle, they call the manufacturer and ask why it is still there. In the chemical world, if the compound is slightly differently named, the process to produce it is different, and that the batch will not be the same as the contaminated SLS batch.

Know your hair type

The best hair 'conditioner' is natural 'oil' produced at roots in the scalp, with the theory of evolution to back it up. It's is very light and makes your hair shiny. The problem is, with any detergent or soap, every very mild, the oil is stripped off. You may feel dry and lack of conditioning. So you apply artificial conditioner that makes you feel good, if only for a later part of the day. Then you feel dirty and sticky, and have to wash your hair the next day.

I have oily hair but thought I has dry hair because that's what I feel after shampoo. I always use conditioner until when I went no 'poo for a while (to save money) my fingers feel so perfect running through my hair.

If you have oily, the danger is that if you stop using a strong shampoo, you may develop dandruff, the kind caused by high bacteria activity feeding on scalp oil. If you have dry hair, some innocent ingredients could be a very strong oil stripper if you use it incorrectly, eg, baking soda.

Castile Soap

The other definition of oily hair is: if you use pure liquid Castile soap such as Dr Bronner's, no matter how much clean you feel after you shampoo everyday, your hair will smell in no time! I though it was due to something else, but it happened to me again and again, even with twice lathering and rinsing. You can add this to the one of the disasters. This is even worse as you cannot smell your head, everybody knows except you.

Other than the big problem, my hair feels great with daily shampoo.

The other misconception is that soap is bad. Real soap is good as you make moisturizer when making soap - glycerin, which has healing properties as reported on research papers. But manufacturers take out the glycerin, sell the soap and sell the glycerin to make cosmetics or moisturizing shampoo or body wash.

Baking soda

Baking soda emulsifies oil, or may be absorb/dissolve oil. There is no way detergent can deal with the grease under microwave hood filters, no matter how much you pour on it, but baking soda remove all the grease just by gentle rubbing baking soda powder on it. Dissolved in water, baking soda does nothing. And baking soda is highly soluble.

So, when people copy baking soda rinse, it can be anything and disaster can happen.

Some clever girl use BS for deep cleansing after oil treatment. She got a mess on her head of course. Like when I wash oil filter with BS. You have a paste of BS and oil on your head. It's worse with coconut oil as it is solid or semi-solid in room temperature.

If you have oily hair, it's rather difficult to get the BS onto your scalp. Also, any powder can be bad for the lung system. I tried to saturate water with BS so there is a lot of white powder left in the water. Then I shake the bottle and pour and massage onto my scalp. I would think this is a case of not enough cleaning on the scalp and too much on the shaft.

But I think other than it is slightly alkaline, my skin doesn't seem to like it. I always rinse thoroughly. That bring out another potential disaster. If you don't rinse enough, or you think it will be more effective by leaving in your hair for a while, it could be dangerous. pH I think is log scale. So you have to dilute with a lot of water to move down the scale to neutral. The same is true if you think leaving your hair acidic will help to maintain the natural pH of hair. Did you measure the pH?

Acidic rinse

I think a vinegar rinse (dilute) after baking soda make sense. BS do not decompose so you have to neutralize it. But vinegar is organic (from living things) so excess of it may decompose to harmless materials.

Also, after acidic rinse, my hair feel fluffy immediately. I have to say it works. But it just too much work and that I can't explain to kids why my hair stinks after shampoo.

I was trying to be clever to use lemon juice, the crystal version of it is cheap and convenient. I knew it would lighten hair under the sun so I use little, 1/8 teaspoon per cup. But still the hair lightens. I have dark hair so it's a disaster if I didn't notice it until later.

Another author claimed that her hair is damaged after 3 years and have pictures to show for it. I think a likely cause is she neutralize the BS on her head without enough rinsing and with neat vinegar. I wash my carpet that way - sprinkle on carpet BS and replace carpet shampoo on a steamer (carpet washer) with vinegar. It's very effective that way but I can't explain it chemically.

I think just the dissolving of BS in water is a non-insignificant reaction. The neutralizing of BS is not just releasing carbon dioxide but something else in the transient state. Anyhow, the lesson is, it should take 3 days or 3 weeks to discover any disaster, and watch carefully.

I might try other fruit juice that do not belong to the citric family. Aloe or guava. Some of them contain the other organic acid that is used for treating dandruff. The cost isn't much higher than citric crystals but it is inconvenient if you do that day in day out. And that part of my body skin don't seem to like baking soda.

Flour and starch

Then I discovered somebody using flour to wash hair. That make a lot of sense as cooks have been emulsifying oil since the dawn of time, making sauces. Immediately I thought of one of my fav ingredients - tapioca starch, which is commonly used in several continents.

It's a teen movie star recipe to treat acne and pores. Let it dry on the skin and absorbs all the grease around the pores. It's dry and bacteria can't survive on it.

But then I'm not original. Many uses corn starch. Flour is sticky, starch is less and tapioca starch is least. It is also finer than corn starch I think. It is also used in dry shampoo!

I don't want to breath powder. And to deliver starch powder to the scalp, I use a bottle to shake water with a lot of starch in it. Before it settle I pour it onto dry scalp, so I know where the starch went. After leaving it for a while on the scalp, I rinse and then finish with some castile soap. In contrast to using soap alone daily, my scalp doesn't smell (so far) and my dandruff seems to be almost invisible.

Next time will be my experiments on conditioner.