Make 3 Easy Fall Shampoo Bar Recipes

Are you ready to create some amazing Fall shampoo bar recipes that will scent your hair, bathroom, and home?

I only use natural ingredients in my soap and shampoo bar recipes. There are no preservatives needed to make them last for 4-6 months. They smell amazing and are moisturizing while cleansing. Win-Win!

Diving into the Ingredients

Shampoo bars need to be formulated so that there aren’t too many leftover oils. You don’t want hair to be greasy or feel like straw. You need a good cleanse but also need to trap in moisture so that your hair doesn’t fly away. Creating beautifully cleansed and conditioned hair happens when you add the right ingredients to balance pH, cleanse, and moisturize. The fabulous trio in a shampoo bar.

These bars do just that!

It’s important to make your own shampoo bars so that you are in control of the ingredients. If you don’t think you’re ready to dive into a cold process recipe yet, start with melt and pour.

Sadly, I haven’t found ANY melt and pour with good ingredients. Oh, there’s some to lure you in, but then they add iffy and even cancerous ingredients! My melt and pour blocks are nothing but pure oils and butters. You can get some here.

In these shampoo bar recipes:

• shea butter – adds creaminess to the bar for small bubbles.
• cocoa butter – adds moisture and is also a good conditioner.
• olive oil – doesn’t cleanse much, but is really conditioning, helping to close hair shafts.
• coconut oil – added for cleansing properties but also adds hardness and large stable bubbles.
• apricot kernel oil – full of vitamins and great moisturizer.
• avocado oil – added for conditioning properties but also adds a stable lather.
• mango butter – adds hardness and creamy lather.
• castor oil – usually added primarily for lather it creates, but it is also moisturizing and conditioning.

And of course, lye is used. You cannot make soap or shampoo bars without using sodium or potassium hydroxide. It literally cannot be done. You can take shampoo block that someone else has made (like mine here) and then melt it to add your own scent and small amounts of other ingredients, but you cannot make soap with the saponification process. The saponification process cannot take effect without lye.

Is there lye left in the shampoo bar?

No.

Recipes are made with a superfat content. This is the amount of oils left over after the saponification process has used up ALL of the lye.

The lye is a salt with an extremely basic pH level.

During the soap making process, it’s broken down and then bonds to the oils in a way to make glycerin chains and create soap. It’s a really cool chemistry process! And it results in ZERO lye being left in the soap or shampoo bars.

What’s crazy is that the same people who don’t want to use lye to make soap are the ones who use exfoliating lotions and other creams that have sodium hydroxide as a live ingredient! If you didn’t know it was used to literally burn off the top layer of your skin in creams like that, then make sure to read the ingredient list! I would never use a cream that listed sodium hydroxide as an ingredient, but I will use a handmade soap made with sodium hydroxide every single day. And all because of that wonderful process of soap making that leaves no lye left in the bar, only soap and 5-10% of oils from the recipe.

Other Special Ingredients

Don’t forget the essential oils.

You can make theses bars without the essential oils. They’ll be great shampoo bars with minimal scent (just a fresh clean bar). I do not recommend using fragrance oils. They are lab made and toxic. I think it’s a waste to spend the money on pure ingredients and then ruin it all by adding a fragrance oil anyway.

I use a few different brands, depending on the essential oil. I’m even more particular when it comes to oils used medicinally. But even when it comes to adding to soap you have to remember that your skin is the largest organ on your body and deserves to be treated as such.

Another ingredient that makes these bars special is pumpkin puree. It really makes that bar great for frizzy and out of control hair. It’s a good balancing bar, so anyone can use it, but definitely choose that one if you feel your hair is brittle or dry.

Making Fall Shampoo Bar Recipes

So, what makes these fabulous shampoo bars Fall?

The Fall main ingredients AND the Fall scents (made with essential oils of course)!

I love soft scents like vanilla in the Fall, along with cedar and rich, deeper scents like cinnamon and nutmeg.

That’s why I chose the combinations that I did for the recipes below, but you can definitely change them up without hurting the recipe. If you have another essential oil combination, you can substitute that for what’s in the recipe without creating a problem.

If you are new to cold process soap making and need to take a crash course, check out my soap making 101 here. You can also buy my book for a very thorough step by step tutorial with over 40 recipes. Get Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners here.

Fall Shampoo Bar Recipes

These 3 shampoo bars are great for all hair types, but if you have a specific need, I’ve made a note of which may suit you better.

Pumpkin Spice Shampoo Bar

This first recipe is made with pumpkin puree. Adding fruits to soap recipes is easy. Simply remove the same weight in water as the puree that you’re adding. You’ll notice the recipe below has less water than usual. That’s why!

This bar is wonderful for dry, winter hair.

Makes: 2lbs or 8 four ounce bars.

Superfat content: 10%

Ingredients:

• 5 ounces olive oil
• 5 ounces coconut oil
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 5 ounces sweet amond oil
• 3 ounces cocoa butter
• 2 ounces shea butter
• 4 ounces pumpkin puree
• 4 ounces water
• 3.2 ounces lye
• 0.25 clove essential oil
• 0.20 cinnamon essential oil
• 0.25 nutmeg essential oil

Directions:

1. Combine olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil, sweet almond oil, cocoa butter, and shea butter in a large stainless-steel pot. Heat over medium heat until fully melted. Remove from heat and cool to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Weigh the water into a plastic or glass container. Weigh the lye into a plastic zip close bag. Take both outside where no pets or children can come near them (I use a closed garage by an open window.) While wearing gloves and a full charcoal mask, pour the lye into the water and stir until dissolved. Do not breathe in the fumes that come off of it for about a minute. Let the lye water cool until 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. When lye water and oils are cooled to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, take the lye water inside and pour into the oils. Blend with a stick blender until light trace forms.
4. Add pumpkin puree and essential oils and blend.
5. Pour into a prepared mold (lined if needed).
6. Cover and let sit for 24 hours.
7. Remove from the mold and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks.

Cedarwood Nettle Shampoo Bar

This next shampoo bar is fantastic for oily hair, but it’s a great all-around bar because nettle helps balance your scalp’s production of oils.

I’ve added cedarwood and rosemary for a wonderful woody scent. The nettle will give it a light green scent, making it an uplifting Fall shampoo bar.

Makes: 2lbs or 8 four ounce bars.

Superfat content: 10%

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces olive oil
• 6 ounces coconut oil
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 4 ounces cocoa butter
• 7.4 ounces water
• 3.2 ounces lye
• 0.50 ounces cedarwood essential oil
• 0.25 ounces rosemary essential oil
• 1 tablespoon powdered nettle

Directions:

1. Combine olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil, and cocoa butter in a large stainless-steel pot. Heat over medium heat until fully melted. Remove from heat and cool to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Weigh the water into a plastic or glass container. Weigh the lye into a plastic zip close bag. Take both outside where no pets or children can come near them (I use a closed garage by an open window.) While wearing gloves and a full charcoal mask, pour the lye into the water and stir until dissolved. Do not breathe in the fumes that come off of it for about a minute. Let the lye water cool until 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. When lye water and oils are cooled to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, take the lye water inside and pour into the oils. Blend with a stick blender until light trace forms.
4. Add nettle and essential oils and blend.
5. Pour into a prepared mold (lined if needed).
6. Cover and let sit for 24 hours.
7. Remove from the mold and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks.

Vanilla Nutmeg Shampoo

This is one of my favorite shampoo bar recipes. It has the calming scent of vanilla combined with the nutty nutmeg scent. It’s a great combination. The mango butter and avocado oil make a hard bar with a great lather.

Makes: 2lbs or 8 four ounce bars.

Superfat content: 10%

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces coconut oil
• 5 ounces castor oil
• 5 ounces avocado oil
• 4 ounces mango butter
• 4 ounces olive oil
• 7.7 ounces water
• 3.1 ounces lye
• 0.50 vanilla essential oil
• 0.25 nutmeg essential oil

Directions:

1. Combine coconut oil, castor oil, avocado oil, mango butter, and olive oil in a large stainless-steel pot. Heat over medium heat until fully melted. Remove from heat and cool to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Weigh the water into a plastic or glass container. Weigh the lye into a plastic zip close bag. Take both outside where no pets or children can come near them (I use a closed garage by an open window.) While wearing gloves and a full charcoal mask, pour the lye into the water and stir until dissolved. Do not breathe in the fumes that come off of it for about a minute. Let the lye water cool until 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. When lye water and oils are cooled to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, take the lye water inside and pour into the oils. Blend with a stick blender until light trace forms.
4. Add essential oils and blend.
5. Pour into a prepared mold (lined if needed).
6. Cover and let sit for 24 hours.
7. Remove from the mold and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks.

I hope you enjoy the recipes!

What’s your favorite essential oil scent to use in soaps and shampoos?