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Making your own homemade shampoo recipe is so easy. This recipe is made with just three ingredients and can be made in minutes. I love that I can make my own shampoo and cut down on toxins in the process.
I have been making this particular shampoo for years, and it is still my go-to shampoo recipe. I have since created several other shampoo recipes, like my DIY clarifying shampoo to match various hair types, but this one continues to be my favorite for regular use.
I guess that may be in part because it’s made with simple ingredients. This recipe is perfect whether you have curly hair, oily hair, or anything in between!
Before making this recipe, I tried a few different natural shampoos, but after a few months of outrageously priced shampoos, I decided to make my own because it is a whole lot cheaper.
Sure, you can definitely find plenty of natural shampoos, but not without a hefty price tag. I’ve even made shampoo bars, which are a great option for traveling. They are very moisturizing, which is great for dry, damaged hair.
Ready to get toxins out of your home? Grab my ebook with my favorite DIY all-natural products.
Ingredients Needed
- Water: I like to use distilled water, but you can also substitute it for coconut milk with a preservative.
- Castile soap: My favorite is Dr. Bronner’s unscented castile soap, especially if you are going to be adding fragrance later on.
- Jojoba oil: This is totally optional, and I suggest only using it if you have dry hair.
- Essential oils: I have my favorite blends listed below, or you can leave this shampoo fragrance-free! The choice is yours.
How to Make Natural Shampoo
Step 1: Add the water, castile soap, and jojoba oil to a glass container. (Use an old shampoo bottle, foaming soap dispenser, or a mason jar)
Step 2: Add in essential oils. (I use orange, lime, bergamot, and peppermint)
Step 3: Secure the dispenser top and shake well to mix the ingredients thoroughly.
Step 4: Use just like you would any shampoo!
Expert Tips
- This shampoo is thinner than typical shampoo, but it does lather up a ton! Be sure to follow up with an all-natural homemade conditioner. You can also check out my tips on thickening this shampoo below.
- This shampoo will last up to a month when stored in an airtight container.
Best Essential Oil Blends for Shampoo
Citrus mint refresh
- 6 drops wild orange essential oil
- 5 drops lime essential oil
- 4 drops bergamot essential oil
- 2 drops peppermint essential oil
Floral bliss
- 6 drops rosemary essential oil
- 5 drops lavender essential oil
- 4 drops thyme essential oil
- 2 drops peppermint essential oil
The manly blend
- 6 drops lemongrass essential oil
- 4 drops sandalwood essential oil
- 4 drops melaleuca essential oil
- 2 drops bergamot essential oil
Get my homemade beard oil recipe here.
Citrus bloom
- 5 drops lavender essential oil
- 3 drops roman chamomile essential oil
- 2 drops wild orange essential oil
Get my baby shampoo and body wash recipe here.
Why make your own shampoo?
Traditional shampoos are made up of a number of ingredients you will want to avoid.
They generally contain ingredients known to contain endocrine disruptors, parabens, and carcinogens.
Plus, a lot of the ingredients in this shampoo can be used in a number of different DIYs.
The essential oils can be used to strengthen and help with hair growth, or you can use them in your homemade hair serums, DIY hair masks, and even homemade hair growth sprays and DIY hair styling sprays.
What are the best ingredients for DIY shampoo?
Castile soap
Castile soap is a very concentrated, vegetable-based soap. It is typically made out of olive oil or coconut oil.
In this article on Dr. Bronner’s website, they outline several benefits of using castile soap in your DIYs.
Castile soap is a gentle soap that can be used on sensitive skin, and it is very beneficial for the face. You can buy it scented or unscented; I prefer unscented because I will be adding essential oils to this recipe.
Jojoba oil
Jojoba oil is very moisturizing and can be used on the scalp to help with dry or flaky skin.
However, If you have naturally greasy hair, you can leave this out of the recipe.
Essential oils
Probably one of the main reasons people add essential oils to their DIYs, such as this homemade shampoo, is for the fragrance!
But did you know certain essential oils actually have benefits for the hair? According to one article, lavender and rosemary essential oil can be used to thicken, strengthen, and lengthen hair.
Other oils like sandalwood and cedarwood add a warm, earthy aroma, creating a rich and grounding scent in hair care products.
Adding essential oils to your homemade shampoo will also add a scent without synthetic fragrances.
Making the transition to natural shampoo
If you are used to conventional shampoo, you may not like this homemade shampoo in the beginning. It takes some getting used to for you and your hair.
When you first start using a natural shampoo, you may notice your hair seems greasy, flat, fluffy, or just not quite right.
Regular shampoos and over-washing of your hair will alter the natural oil balance and pH levels in your scalp. Your scalp produces oils; this is a good thing.
The oils help your hair to remain smooth, as well as keep your hair from drying out and breaking off.
When you wash your hair, you remove these oils, and your scalp produces more oils. So, the more you wash, the more oils your scalp will produce.
The less you wash your hair, and as your hair gets used to the new homemade shampoo, your oil levels will balance out. Promise!
I used to wash my hair daily, and by the end of the day, it was already looking greasy. Now, I only wash my hair twice a week, and it never gets greasy. It’s amazing!
While you are “training” your hair, dry shampoo can be your best friend! You can make your own dry shampoo powder or DIY dry shampoo spray to help you during this transition.
Tips for Thickening This Shampoo
- Add in arrowroot powder or cornstarch to naturally thicken your shampoo. Start with 1/2 of a teaspoon and add more until the desired thickness is reached. Note: cornstarch is the main ingredient in my DIY cornstarch dry shampoo.
- Oat flour can be used to thicken homemade shampoo. Make your own oat flour by blending up oatmeal in a blender until it has the consistency of flour. Add a small amount to your shampoo and shake well to incorporate.
- Add one tablespoon of baking soda to the shampoo and mix well.
- Vegetable glycerin can help to thicken shampoo and add lather. Start with 1 teaspoon and add more until the desired texture is met.
Please note: If you make any changes to the recipe, you will absolutely need to add a preservative to it.
Recipe FAQs
The ingredients found in this shampoo recipe are safe to use on all hair types. If you notice your hair is tangly, try making the recipe with coconut milk instead of water. Again, you’ll need to add a preservative. Some hair types do better with a homemade rosemary shampoo with coconut milk.
After washing your hair, try rinsing with a DIY apple cider vinegar hair rinse to increase its shine. The mixture can be made with two parts water and one part ACV. This is a great way to cleanse the hair and balance pH levels, too!
This shampoo will last for up to one month. You can add a preservative such as linatural cosmetic preservative or Geogard 221 to extend the shelf life.
Since we’re using Dr. Bronner’s castile soap, it’s fine to use within a few weeks, about a month, without needing an added preservative, even though it’s diluted with water. Just be sure to store it in a clean bottle and use it up within that timeframe.
Related DIYs
- Homemade Conditioner Treatment
- Homemade Hair Toner
- DIY Conditioner Bars
- DIY Heat Protective Spray
- Diy Leave-In Conditioner
If you tried this Homemade Shampoo Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
How to Make All Natural Shampoo
Equipment
- bottle dispenser or old foaming soap dispenser
Ingredients
- 2 oz water, (¼ cup)
- 2 oz castile soap, (¼ cup)
- 0.17 oz jojoba oil, (½ tsp) for dry hair
- 10-15 drops essential oils, optional
Instructions
- Add the water, castile soap and jojoba oil to a glass container. (Use an old shampoo bottle, foaming soap dispenser, or a mason jar)
- Stir well.
- Add in essential oils. (I used 6 drops of orange, 5 drops lime, 4 drops of bergamot and 2 drops of peppermint)
- Secure the lid and shake well.
I have been using a diy cowash: 2pts conditioner, 1pt shampoo. Just realized, I can use shampoo safely, since I only use it every other day. Still dislike some of the ickies in commercially sold shampoo, found this. Used coconut oil soap liquid instead of Castile soap, to avoid hair color stripping. Looking forward to trying this, after I make a good natural conditioner for my fine=thinning hair.Thanks for sharing your recipe. I think it yielded about 8oz of shampoo, when I made it.
Is it safe to leave the diy shampoo sit in shower? What is your suggestion as to how long the shampoo becomes bad? I was reading somewhere that the diy shampoo can go bad & be bad for hair & scalp.
It will last about a month.
See the notes section on adding in a preservative.
A few questions:
Would replacing the water with coconut milk make it not lather as much? Will using the coconut milk make the hair softer/less tangly?
I have made this recipe and I have been using it for a couple of weeks. I was quite surprised at how well my hair took to it! I usually only wash my hair twice a week anyway so maybe that has given my hair a little advantage in switching from conventional shampoo. The top of my head always comes out so soft and clean…but the bottom half of my hair is really grimy/tangly. I will say that I do put regular/conventional conditioner on the bottom half of my hair to try and use up the rest of it (it was expensive) and I’m wondering if it just doesn’t play nice with the natural shampoo and that’s why the bottom half of my hair is yucky? Or is this my hair just adjusting?
Hello Laura,
I love your site, and make many of my own soap products I use at home. I think you are amazing to help people learn how to do this. There are so much harmful substances in purchased products, and the good ones are expensive. your foaming hand soap is the best I have ever used. I also use your moisturizing body wash, and again, the best I have ever used. The essential oils are so pleasant. I like your links for buying ingredients. Can you develop a rice water bar shampoo, such as VIORI? Last question, I HATE those ads that pop up all the time. It interferes with my ability to focus on the information you give us. Very distracting. How can I get rid of the pop up ads. I have ried several things on my computer, and went to links at the bottom of your page. Please tell me how to stop the ads. Be blessed Sara Weslow
Thank you so much for following and I am so glad you are enjoying my recipes! The ads are the way that I get paid and can keep the blog going. I appreciate all of my readers so much and this blog wouldn’t be possible without you!
What size jar do we need to make the shampoo?
8 oz jar
Hey yall! So I am 18 and started my transition into natural living a few months ago. And this website was the very first thing I stumbled upon. I made the shampoo, conditioner, bodywash, and whipped Lotion. My thoughts on the shampoo is very iffy. All the ingredients r very healthy for your hair and my hair has grown a lot since using. But, it has some problems. So first thing I notices was what everyone else is saying, and that is abut the waxy film residue left after washing. I first thought it was my hair transitioning …but yall it shouldn’t take 2 months. Not to mention it dosnt make sense for your whole head to be “transitioning”. Bc your hair is dead skin it has no life lol. So the only part that should be transitioning is your roots. The hair closest to your scalp…this is where the hair oils and all that builds up hence the reasoning for using shampoo. Now, this recipe is very hard to rinse out. I used the arrowroot powder to thicken and it didn’t rly thicken. And I also tried the vegetable Glycerin and that made the waxy film worse. But my problem wasn’t my roots, it was the rest of my hair. The film wld not come off. And using the conditioner made it worse. The only thing tht helped with the film was adding in a Lil baking soda, and ACV rinse. I had to make sure I drenched my whole head. I parted my hair in layers and drenched each layer. And that seemed to help counteract the film. If I didn’t drench enough it wld still b waxy and unbrushable. Also I would sleep in heatless Curls and that seemed to make it less noticeable. Straight and flat hair textures seem to be affected most. But even after the changes it didn’t help much and still left my brush covered in the disgusting residue. Then I tried just using the castile soap, and found where the problem was. It’s the castile soap that causes the film…as well as the Glycerin. So if ur wanting to use castile soap tht is the price to b paid for healthy hair. Also the conditioner is great, but I would only use on ends of hair and use very little amount…this conditioner is very moisturizing, and i think it would probably be great for extremely dry or curly hair. But I don’t have either of those so I don’t use it. I will be getting a Perm soon so I will try that since I will b frying my hair. The bodywash is great…I love it. And the Lotion is also a bit iffy. I made the whipped version…and it’s the only Lotion tht helps with my Ecxema. But it also has a price to pay, it leaves your skin feeling kind of oily ish. I put it on at night and when I wake up the oiliness is gone. But I am probably not gonna use that anymore bc it only helps the ecxema…the rest of my skin still stays dry which I found out is because it is more like a body butter…which locks in moisture. But my skin is dry and has no moisture. So I need a Lotion that puts in moisture and then follow up with this to lock it in. Overall…these r good recipes if your looking to make ur hair healthier…and I am but this dosnt work for my hair type and I will be trying out organic and natural shampoo and conditioner bars instead. I feel it would work best for me. But this recipe is very good for hair growth. For now I am using just main and tail shampoo and the ACV rinse along with some jojoba oil and essential oils raked through the ends…my hair is very soft. Hope this helps…love this website and the recipes!! My skin and hair has thanked me for it! But I do have to b in public daily and need my hair to b lookin a bit more presentable. But if you want hair growth then this is it!!
Can you share the link for your favorite pump container for your shampoo and conditioners?
The pump I use is discontinued, but I have a similar one linked in the post.