Learning how to make your own shampoo is not a new idea. In fact, people have been making shampoo from home for literally thousands of years. Follow in the steps of your ancestors to learn how to make shampoo from home using all natural ingredients. These simple DIY shampoo recipes work for various hair types.

The History of Shampoo

The ides of strongly scented shampoos in a rainbow of different colors is rather new. When looking at it, hairstyling came around 4000 BC, but the actual notion of washing hair with scents did not come around until about 1500 BC with the ancient Egyptians because they used to plant and animal oils scented with flowers and essential oils. Before scented oils were common, the Babylonians had ashes boiled in animal fat for their shampoo in the 3000s BC.

As time went on, bathing became a status symbol. If you were clean on the outside then you were also pure on the inside. Some places in the Middle Ages even had Saturday night open bathing where a lot of people would gather together to bathe.

Shampoos with water, olive oil, lye, and sweet bay oil were made first in the 800s in Aleppo, Syria. Castile soap comes from the Muslims and spread all over Europe through trade in the 1200s.

The word shampoo comes the Indian word ‘champo’ which was a body and hair massage in India that the colonial traders found out about in the 1800s. The liquid shampoo that we all know was made in 1927 by a man named Hans Schwarzkopf. Before that, going back to the early 1900s, people applied Castile soap to their hair with a heavy duty brush followed by four rinsings. The crazy thing about that is that people were told to only wash their hair every six weeks or once a month (if you had healthy hair).

 

5 Simple DIY Shampoo Recipes

This article is structured in such a way in that the shampoo name will be listed first, followed by the shampoo ingredients, and then the instructions. Follow the instructions carefully and make sure to use the number of ingredients listed to get the perfect shampoo.

To get more information on any of the DIY shampoo recipes in this article, check out our sources at the bottom of the article to see where we found these wonderful recipes.

Cedar and Silk

This DIY shampoo recipe is one of the easiest recipes in this article. If you are a beginner to making shampoo, this recipe is a good place to start.

Ingredients

• 1.5 tsp of broccoli or camellia seed oil
• 3.5 oz.  softened liquid soap paste
• 1 tsp phytokeratin
• Essential oils
  • 20 drops of cedar wood
  • 10 drops of rosemary
  • 6 drops of geranium

Instructions

To soften the soap paste, just add in some water. It is suggested that you start with 2.5 ounces of water and add more until you get the desired consistency. Once you have the soap paste where you want it, add in the other ingredients and stir it well. When you are completely done, all you have to do is pour the shampoo into an eight-ounce pump bottle. Just use this like a normal shampoo you buy from the store.

 

Fragrant Castile Soap

This shampoo is extremely easy to make and can double as normal hand and/or body soap.

Ingredients

• Castile soap (solid)
• Essential oil (of your choosing)

Instructions

When the Castile soap is grated, you need just enough water to cover or float the soap. Cover the bowl with a towel overnight. When you uncover it in the morning, the soap will have dissolved and all you have to do is stir it a little. You can add more water if you want to change the consistency.

You can leave the mixture as just water and Castile soap or you can add whatever essential oils you wish to scent. Lavender, rosemary, and tea tree are all suggested, as well as peppermint. Add about one drop of essential oil per tablespoon of liquid soap.

 

Simple Lather

It should be noted that this very basic shampoo is runnier than most shampoos you can buy in the store, but people that use it have found that they get an impressive lather nonetheless.

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp of grapeseed OR jojoba oil
• 1/4 cup of distilled water
• 1/4 cup of Castile soap (liquid)

Instructions

Some people use unscented, but other get scented. Just mix the ingredients and pour them into the bottle. You just need to tip the bottle to get the soap out of it. Make sure you mix the shampoo before every use so that nothing is settled at the bottom of the bottle.

 

Coconut and Vanilla

This is another shampoo that you just have to mix the components. No gloves or goggles. You just need a bottle to store the shampoo in once it’s mixed together.

Ingredients

• 2 tps of jojoba oil
• 10 drops coconut fragrance oil
• 10 drops vanilla essential oil
• 1/4 cup of Castile soap (liquid)
• 1/4 cup distilled water

Instructions

As mentioned above, this is a pretty simple DIY shampoo recipe. All you need to do is combine all of the ingredients in a shampoo bottle and shake it up! As with many of the other DIY shampoo recipes on this list, make sure to shake the bottle before you use the shampoo to make sure some of the ingredients haven’t settled.

Five Minute Shampoo

You need six things and five minutes to make this shampoo.That’s it!

Ingredients

• 1/2 Castile soap
• 2 tbs coconut oil
• 2 tsp table salt
• 20 drops of coconut fragrance oil
• 3/4 cups of water
• 2 tsps of jojoba soil

Instructions

Microwave the water for about 30 seconds before pouring the Castile soap into it and stirring it a little, but not enough for there to be lots of suds. Next you want to stir in the salt. Lastly, stir in the oils as best you can. When everything is all mixed together, just put it in a bottle and you can use the shampoo like you would any other.

 

Which of these simple DIY shampoo recipes are you most likely to try? Comment below!

  

Sources

https://www.remediesforme.com/make-natural-homemade-shampoo-best-recipes/

https://www.littlehouseliving.com/make-your-own-shampoo.html

http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2011/10/super-easy-liquid-soap-or-shampoo.html

https://www.humblebeeandme.com/silk-cedar-liquid-shampoo/

  

Castile soap picture by Kim Becker