Ok, I have a serious love hate relationship with silicone. Mostly love. I love them in my skin products, I love them in my conditioner, and even love a little bit in my shampoo. One place I do not love them is in leave-in treatments. Yet they seem ubiquitous in all smoothing, glossing and detangling post-wash leave-ins. I had been using a light detangler (Ouidad's Botanical Boost Moisture Infusing & Refreshing Spray) and about 5 drops of fractionated coconut oil rubbed through the ends. This was working fine and dandy until winter hit and we didn't have our humidifier set up. While at the salon I expressed my crispy static prone problems and was suggested a silicone "oil" treatment. I had previously used this same silicone treatment so thought, 'what the hey I'll try it', and shelled out.
Skip ahead a couple weeks from my hair being baby soft to a heavy grease ball a few hours after washing. Ugh! I quit with the treatment and lo and behold the treatment did not quit with me. After several days of washing I was super surprised that I still wasn't degreased. I know some people say silicone stays on your hair forever and some say that it only takes a normal wash to remove. I think I'm in a midway camp. I couldn't get it off with my gentle normal shampoo so I concocted something that would. It worked.
This shampoo would not be an affordable alternative to purchasing if you didn't have these products amassed already. Unfortunately it's hard to get every surfactant you'd like from one supplier*. Sad face. But I'm sharing this anyway so maybe you can spy with your little eye some of these goodies in purchasable formulations. OR, if you do have the stuff or just want to say what the hell, come play along!
I used the bones of this formulation from Point of Interest! for my shampoo. I added
Cetrimonium chloride for the water soluble slip it adds to hair (anything we can do to make it less breakable while wet!) and Susan mentions that it helps remove silicones.
I added SLSa because of the awesome bubbles it makes. Bubbles aren't necessary for clean hair, but they sure feel nice!
Unlike the other surfactants, SLSa is a powder. This means we will need to heat this shampoo. If you are using all liquid surfactants you could actually mix them all together and viola.
First I measured out my water and panthenol powder. If using a panthenol liquid you can add it later.
With gentle but consistent stirring I was able to slowly incorporate it. It incorporates faster in heated water.
Next I added my SLSa to the panthenol/water mixture.
You can see here that no amount of stirring will completely de-grit this mixture now.
I added the rest of the surfactants to the mixture along with the glycerin, lactic acid (because my hair likes this! But you could leave it out if you wanted) and Cetrimonium chloride.
Very gritty, but starting to resemble shampoo more!
I put this in a double boiler and heated until everything was incorporated. You don't want to heat too quickly or stir too much. This mixture won't be clear because of the SLSa but if you pull the spoon out and see grit, it's not finished.
I went with an orange, ylang ylang and vanilla scent mix! Very herbal and sweet.
While the surfactant mix is on the stove you can mix up your scent!
Ahh nice and smooth!
You want to wait to add your silk amino acids when the mixture has cooled down. The cool down stage is where you add your fragrance mix and preservative (which is not optional!). I use Liquid Germall Plus because it's easy to use, works in nearly all environments and you barely have to use any!
The fragrance and silk amino acids give the shampoo a yellowish-tan color.
I didn't bother to add any thickeners because I have had some bad experience with Crothix (hello Jello) and I think this consistency is just fine! Not too watery at all. One application of this followed by my normal conditioner and old routine of detangling spray and FCO and I was back on track. It made my hair squeaky clean which is awesome for weekly or less, but this would probably be too drying for all the time. Ahhh clean clean hair again finally!
*I got my DLS Mild and Cocamidopropyl Betaine from The Herbarie, the C14-16 olefin sulfonate from The Personal Formulator, and Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate from Ingredients to Die For,
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