Making a liquid shampoo with the correct formulation is quite challenging. Before you can make the right formulation, it would take some mistakes. But the good thing about making mistakes is that it leads you to understand the formulation well and realize the appropriate way of doing things. It enables you to identify the error and how to resolve it. This post was conceived from my mistakes in making a formulation, and the adjustment realizations I have.
Tips, mistakes, and remedies are featured in this post. Read on to see more.
Interpreting ingredient’s reaction to make the right formulations
Making a hair cleanser seemed easy, but actually, it can be challenging. If you’re thinking that you just need to have all the ingredients required, and that’s enough, well, that’s just part of the whole process. You need the right ingredients indeed, but you also need to understand how each ingredient would react to other ingredients. You have to see the correlation of each ingredient to get an accurate ‘formulation’. Each ‘ingredient’ could have a certain effect on the ‘formulation’. Seeing how each ingredient contributes and reacts as a whole will influence the way you will understand formulation.
Ingredient’s ‘name’
Following instructional material is crucial when making a liquid shampoo. It enables you to continue doing your liquid shampoo. Your recipe contains details on how to make liquid shampoo but sometimes it can be confusing to understand.
seeing the ingredients INCI or any technical/jargon words listed in the recipe, can be overwhelming. Ergo, sometimes, you might think things like, ‘this sound so foreign to me’ or ‘what does this ingredient or word means?’ The raw materials that you use in liquid shampoo are not the ingredients that you normally hear or see in the kitchen. Hence they can be confusing and overwhelming to understand at times. However, reading other articles enables you to comprehend what those ingredients mean. You eventually realize that they are the ingredients that you are familiar with. So be grateful that there are articles that you can read online that can help you to understand those ingredients’ names. Thank you very much lovely articles. ❤❤❤
Ingredient’s measurement
Though I have an instruction guide on making shampoo, I was not able to follow the exact measurement, and I’ve also adjusted some ingredients. To avoid making the same mistakes, I realize that it’s better to contemplate the ingredients well first. Maybe it’s okay to delay ‘making’ the mixture a bit, if you need time to learn more. When ‘you’ are already certain about the ‘ingredients,’ then ‘craft’ your ‘liquid shampoo’. That way you can be sure that you understand more about the ingredients and how it will affect the formulation.
Essential ingredients and formulation improvement
since this is my pioneer liquid shampoo, I want to learn how to make a liquid shampoo base. That’s why I choose the Essentials ingredients only.
30 grams coco glucoside
33 grams decyl glucoside
25 grams Cocamidopropyl betaine
6 grams glycerine
4 grams of xantham gum
99 grams of distilled water
25 drops coco oil
11 drops of argan oil
These are just the basic ingredients, but this liquid shampoo can even be better. Vitamins and more hair-loving ingredients can be added to make this liquid shampoo irresistibly delightful Even more. 🤭
The proper way of adding ingredients
The way you add each ingredient also matters. This will affect the texture of your formulation. If you do not follow the correct instructions, it will result in a jumbled ‘texture’.
In the instructional material I have, it says “slowly pour the surfactant into the gum and glycerine mixture” but because I just looked at the obvious details, I thought I already understood the entire instruction. But I soon realized that what I understood is just a part of it. I missed out the ‘main point that I should understand. I was not lazy to read the instruction but what happened to me was that I magnified the obvious details or the ‘concrete words,’ and the subtle details were unnoticed and missed out. Only to realize that these subtle details are the ones that make sense because they can affect ‘your’ formulation.
Assuming that I understood the entire instruction, I dived to a conclusion and have done the opposite of the instruction. Instead of pouring the surfactant into the gum, I poured the gum into the surfactant mixture, hence it was hard to blend the gum mixture into the surfactant mixture.
Overstirring
One wrong step would lead to another mistake. Because I did not understand the instruction well and added ingredients incorrectly, it led me to making another mistake – adding more water on the mixture. I want to blend the gum into the mixture, but because I can’t understand why it’s not incorporating well into the mixture, I kept on stirring it. I have tried figuring out the ‘remedy’ several times but I was still wondering why it’s not blending well. Hence I ‘overstirred’ it. And this has resulted in viscosity concerns. My liquid shampoo became frothy, foamy, and thick. It looks like 🤔… a melted bubbly ice cream. 🙄 The kind of ice cream that’s not been stored in the fridge. That’s how the texture was like. 🤭
So I tried to correct this by adding more aqua. Initially, I added 31 grams of water, then 10 grams. Afterward, the succeeding amount of water I added was 11 grams, 30g, 20g, 50g, 50g, 52g, and 40g. The reason why I kept on adding water in different amounts was because I don’t want to pour much water instantly. I want to add water little by little so I would know the effect until I poured the right amount of water to achieve the ideal viscosity of liquid shampoo. I was trying to prevent adding excessive aqua because it might become watery.
I kept on pouring water into the mixture until the total amount of water added reached 294 grams. The cited amount of aqua in the instruction guide is only 98 grams of water. On top of that, I added 99 grams of water when it should be 98 grams only. So my mixture has 3 times more water in it.
The remedy I made was somehow effective. It did thin out the viscosity, but it has bubbles in it. 🤭 So it looked like a foamy body wash. 😀 Plus it looks like it’s already used even before consuming it. 🤭 It has instant bubbles 🤭 when in fact bubbles should only be there when you use it and rub it with your hands. 🤭 So my liquid shampoo is so advanced. 🤭🤦.It has bubbles even before you made some bubbles with it. 🤭😃
Bottling
To bottle the liquid shampoo, I need to use a funnel to make sure it’s properly poured. It’s hard to ‘transfer’ it into the bottle because it’s frothy. If I don’t do it correctly, it will be messy. I like to avoid being messy so I need to be careful pouring it. Since I am limited at that moment because I don’t have a ‘funnel’ someOne close to me helped me to understand how I can pour the liquid shampoo. she ‘improvised’ a ‘funnel’ for me! And that’s so wonderful. 🤭🤗❤ I reeeeerally appreciate it. 🤭🤗❤ she rescued me from my confusion and limitation… Wohooo!!!! 🤭🤗❤
I also realized that I should use a clear bottle so I can observe the texture. I want to make sure that the Liquid shampoo’s texture and viscosity are good and in a stable state. Storing it in a clear bottle will enable me to keep on observing it well. I know I have to continue observing it.
Bonus tip: One thing that might Inspire you
Five Gentle Bubbles Liquid shampoo History
Naming each of my products is very important to me. I like it when I personalize its name based on its characteristics and history.
I named this liquid shampoo Five Gentle Bubbles because of its ingredients, how it’s made and my inspiration to Create it too.
To know more about the inspiration behind Each word, Continue reading.
Five
To know how I got the word five please read this Instagram post.
Gentle
This Liquid shampoo is mild. It reminds me of a person that’s always been gentle to me, so I like the word gentle. Also, all the ingredients here are carefully chosen. I made sure they are all safe, and gentle to the body.
Bubbles
As mentioned earlier, while making this liquid shampoo it produced many little bubbles, and still has some bubbles. Plus I love bubbles so much. So I added Bubbles in its name 🤭😃
Ergo, giving names to Each of my products makes it special for me that’s why I love naming them. It sounds lovely to me, and it’s my happiness too. 🤭🤗❤
Ps. I have already posted about this liquid shampoo on our IG. But I apologize for the late post of this article. I wasn’t able to ‘do’ it right away because I was reading and interpreting other research articles. Maybe it’s better to contemplate well about my current ‘project’ before I make another ‘post’. This way of responding to my tasks would delay writing another post, but enables me to make sure that I’ll write appropriate content and post it on time. Again, my apologies for this late post.
Elucidate directions
Oil Therapy 