Hoover Shampooer

In a previous article (see link below), I discussed some of the basic chemistry involved in the magic of beauty care products and pointed out that many of the basic ingredients are readily available and that you can make a lot of beauty products yourself.

Shampoo is one of many beauty care products that you can make yourself if you have the time and inclination to save money and experiment until you find the perfect formula for your hair's unique properties. Shampoo is a fancy formulation of detergent (such as ammonium lauryl sulfate) with added ingredients to improve the cleaning function (wetting and foaming enhancers such as tetrasodium EDTA and PEG-5 cocamide) and a long list of optional ingrendients to enhance the experience of using the product.

The experience-enhancing ingredients include fragrances (essential oils), thickening and texturing ingredients (such as glycol distearate to provide perlescence), conditioners (such as dimethicone, cyclomethicone and cetyl alcohol) and preservatives. All of these types of ingredients can be purchased online for both hobby and commercial purposes. It is easy to get started making your own beauty care products by playing around with some of the simpler recipes, and then moving on to more complex and custom designed products. Expensive, complicated equipment is not required to make very high quality beauty care products at home.

Before listing a few sources of ingredients and lots of formulas, let's review a few tips for formulating a great beauty care product. First, you can control the viscosity, or thickness, of the product by adjusting the amount of salt (sodium chloride) in the mix, or by modifying the pH. You can measure pH very simply with litmus paper. If you need to lower the pH (make it more acidic), you can do that with a very small amount of a natural acid like citric acid, and many formulations include sodium citrate as a buffer. Remember to add the essential oil you have selected for fragrance to the mix before you add the water. This will help to make a smooth, creamy mix by allowing the fragrant oil to completely dissolve.

So, where do you buy the ingredients to make your own shampoo, bubble bath and other beauty care products? One very good source is The Chemistry Store.com. This site has a very good selection of ingredients, and also lists some free formulas that are relatively easy to mix up. The Chemistry Store.com sells all the ingredients required to make the beauty care products listed in the formula section of their website.

For a very good range of formulas for a variety of beauty care products other than shampoo, check out this website: . This website provides good information on how to make soaps, creams, bubble bath, lotion bars, bath oils, scrubs, and many other beauty care products.

You can save a lot of money by making your own beauty care products. With a little patience and experimentation, you might even find a formula for shampoo, bubble bath soap, or facial cleanser that works better for you than any commercial beauty care product you can find on your supermarket shelf.



For my previous article titled "Beauty Care Products: Reality and Hype" visit and for more information on a variety of interesting topics, visit today.