Third try at shampoo - rhubarb!

I was down to one little blob of my sandalwood shampoo, plus I had just received a new shipment of ingredients, so it was time to make another batch! My new ingredients included some different surfactants and (insert singing angels here) proper surfactant thickener!

My last two shampoo attempts saw steady improvement directly correlated with a steady increase in the concentration of surfactants. I was not totally happy with the cleaning ability of the last one as it took some work to get it onto my scalp and into any kind of lather there, so I increased the surfactant concentration again. I also decided to include one of my new suractants, sodium C14-16 olefin sulfonate, which, according to Susan, is a gentle but effective degreaser, along with my regular cocamidopropyl betaine and sodium laureth sulfate. I was aiming for 50% surfactants, but a pouring mishap meant I ended up with 55%. I included a bit of glycerin, though I have reduced it a bit from last time because my hair tends toward frizziness. My formula also included water, of course, cyclomethicone and dimethicone, hydrolyzed oats, panthenol, and a preservative. I needed only half a percent of thickener (Crothix, INCI PEG-150 pentaerythrityl tetrastearate (and) PEG-6 caprylic/capric trigylcerides (and) water), and it is perfect shampoo consistency. Hooray!

It is fragranced with a fragrance oil called ruby rhubarb. So good! Rhubarb is one of my favourite things ever. I want to be a rhubarb farmer. I received some colourants in my shipment too, so I coloured it a pinky red. I considered trying to somehow make a rhubarb-esque red-to-green gradient, but realized it would just end up brown as it mixed.

I've used it once so far, and it's pretty great. I don't need to use much because it has a high surfactant concentration. It lathers really well and leaves my hair and scalp (yay) feeling clean. It is definitely not very conditioning, and I don't think I'd dare trying to run my fingers through my hair as I rinse it out for fear of tightening knots and breaking hairs. Running my fingers through as I rinse shampoo is a habit I've gotten into over the last couple of years and I'm trying to stop, since I think it is contributing to my split ends and breakage. Once I applied conditioner, my hair felt great and easily untangled with my fingers.

24 hours after using this shampoo, my hair was abnormally grease-free, to the point where I actually debated washing it again. That never happens, and certainly not on a 30° day. I think this formula might be a winner!