Dog Shampoo Bar Recipe with Cedarwood

I’ve had a lot of people buy handmade soap bars from my shop over the past few years to use as a dog shampoo bar. Handmade body or shampoo bars are actually great as shampoo bars for dogs.

I’ve used some of my shampoo bars and body bars as dog shampoo bars for years. I don’t use a lot of expensive oils, though you could if you want to. I haven’t found that necessary. I make a basic shampoo bar recipe and use essential oils that are good for dogs and leave a nice, fresh, clean scent.

Essential Oils and Dog Shampoo

You do need to be careful about what essential oil you use around dogs. Dogs are extremely sensitive to scents. While we have around 6 million receptors, dogs have closer to 300 million! That means their sense of smell is 50 times greater than ours. While a scent may be please to you, it can be disturbing to them.

On top of that, we absorb ingredients through our skin and essential oils, like everything else, are processed by the liver. Some animals, like cats, cannot process them very well. Each essential oil is made up of various elements. Some are easily processed, while others are not. There are certain oils that have been studied and determined to be safe for dogs.

Essential oils safe for dogs:

• Lavender
• Cedarwood
• Geranium – great as a tick repellent
• Chamomile
• Frankincense
• And Many more

I now have a cedarwood dog shampoo bar in my shop. You can find it here.

The shampoo bar recipe I have below uses cedarwood, but you can substitute some of the other oils listed above to make a scent combination.

Dog Shampoo Bar Ingredients

You can keep the ingredients simple, just make sure that the superfat content is high enough so that the soap is not drying. Normally, a 5% superfat amount is wonderful for the skin, but I’ve found that 10% is better for most dogs.

I’ve added a little bit of castor oil as well to add more bubbles during the washing process. This isn’t necessary for animals or people, but it’s a nice indicator of where you’ve cleaned and put soap and where you haven’t gotten to yet.

As I mentioned above, I’ve also added cedarwood essential oil. You can leave that out if you want to, but I like to add a scent for a nice smelling puppy. If you’d like to combine lavender and cedarwood, that’s nice. Geranium can be a strong tick deterrent, so if you want to combine geranium with cedarwood in the same total amount that the recipe calls for, then that will work wonderfully.

Dog Shampoo Bar with Cedarwood

This recipes has a 10% superfat content (amount of oils leftover after saponification).

It makes 3 pounds of soap.

If you need to learn more about soap making you can learn more here. If you’d like to learn more about essential oil use and safety, you can learn more about that here.

Materials Needed:

• large stainless steel pot
• large stainless steel spoon
• scale
• large glass bowl to weigh oils
• small glass bowl to weigh essential oil
• plastic container for lye water
• rubber spatula
• 3lb mold
• immersion blender
• wax paper to line mold if necessary
• towels to insulate mold

Ingredients:

• 13 ounces tallow (can be substituted with lard)
• 8 ounces olive oil
• 7 ounces coconut oil
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 4.4 ounces lye
• 11.3 ounces water
• 1 ounce cedarwood essential oil

Directions:

1. Prepare your 3lb mold. Some molds need a wax paper liner so that you can remove the soap more easily. Make that preparation if needed.
2. Combine olive oil, tallow (or lard), coconut oil, and castor oil in a large pot. Melt oils and remove from burner, allowing to cool until around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Weigh the lye into a plastic zip close bag and set aside. Weigh the water into a plastic container and take it outside where no pets or children have access to it. Wearing gloves, a charcoal mask, and goggles, pour the lye into the water and stir until dissolved. Do not breathe out the gas made from the chemical reaction that is given off for a few minutes. Allow the lye water to cool to around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. When lye water and oils are cooled, carefully bring the lye water inside and pour it into the oils. Using a stick blender (immersion blender), blend the soap on and off until light trace is reached. The soap will have begun to thicken where a light trace is seen when the soap is drizzled over the surface.
5. Add essential oils and combine well.
6. Pour the soap into a prepared 3lb mold. Insulate with towels to keep it warm. If your house is very hot during summer months, then skip the insulation.
7. Allow soap to sit for 24 hours. It should then be hard enough to remove from the mold. If you need to let it set for a few more hours to harden so you can get it out easier, then do so.
8. Cut the soap if necessary and allow to cure for 3-6 weeks. This is a hardening process where water evaporates so that the soap lasts longer when used.

I now have a cedarwood dog shampoo bar in my shop. You can find it here.

I’ve also put together an easily printed recipe card with the recipe for you! You can pin it, share it, or print it to save for later.

Enjoy!

Let me know your experience in the comments below.