Creamy French Shampoo Bar - Humblebee & Me (2025)

I think these might be the prettiest shampoo bars I’ve made yet They’re not only pretty, but they kick out loads of luscious lather and leave your hair feeling fabulous. Let’s dive in!

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This shampoo bar is an update on a formulation I first developed and shared in 2020; my French Green Clay Sulphate-Free Shampoo Bar. That shampoo bar grew out of a couple experiments. At the time I was continuing to play with including clay (a harder-to-preserve ingredient) in syndet bars, so this bar gets it colour from some French Green Clay. And more specifically to this formulation, I was experimenting with using a non-ionic surfactant as a secondary surfactant instead of an amphoteric one (the classic choice being Cocamidopropyl Betaine).

In the years since I originally shared this formulation a combination of shifting ingredient availability and my continued sudsy learning has left me wanting to update it for 2025. So here we are! The changes aren’t huge (I do still stand by the original formula), but this updated bar is a bit easier to make.

I’ve left the surfactant blend the same; a blend of powderedSodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) andSodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa) form the bulk of the bar, while liquid Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside rounds out the blend.

The bar is coloured with some silky, creamy French green clay. I was thrilled to discover back in 2019 that you absolutely can use clay in shampoo bars without the bar turning into a mouldy mess. Clays are such a fun way to colour syndet bars, boost creaminess, and help create a smooth, workable dough that’s easy to shape.

The last ingredient in the dry phase is the first one I’ve updated. Back in 2019/2020 I experimented with including carrageenan in sydnet bars as LUSH used “Irish Moss Gel” (aka Carrageenan Extract) in their Seanik shampoo bar. I didn’t have any “Carrageenan Extract”, but I did have some iota carrageenan—so I chucked that into a few bars and liked the result. In the years since then, I’ve found carrageenan to be a tricky ingredient to use in formulations designed to share with a wide audience because it can vary so much.

There are several different varieties of carrageenan that perform quite different from one another (iota/kappa/lambda), and on top of that there are quite a few possible degrees of refinement. When I ran out of the iota carrageenan I’d been using and went to buy more, I found it had been discontinued at my original supplier. So, I turned to Amazon with my fingers crossed. I ended up with sachets of very sea-weedy smelling powder that didn’t work anything like the iota carrageenan I’d been using. Boo. So, for this updated version of the formulation I switched to guar gum. It offers similar slip and structure to the bar but is a lot easier to purchase!

One of the first changes I made to the wet phase was swappingLiquid Germall™ Plus forOptiphen™ Plus. I still like Liquid Germall™ Plus a lot, but it’s not as widely available as Optiphen™ Plus. In the years since 2020 I’ve worked with Optiphen™ Plus a lot more and have started reaching for it a lot more often. Something I really like about Optiphen™ Plusis that it nudges the pH of formulations down a bit thanks to the sorbic acid content. It’s not always enough to lower the pH to where we want all by itself, but it usually helps, and that’s nice.

Speaking of pH; this formulation also includes 1% citric acid, while the original didn’t include any. The 2020 post says the pH was “between 5–6 when made as written”. After changing several ingredients, my updated version was falling slightly above 6. I wanted it to be closer to 5 (the middle of the recommended range for wash-off haircare products), so I needed to introduce some acid to the formulation.

Learn more: pH and Your Hair. A little redox to make you happy. from Science-y Hair Blog

This ended up taking a couple tries and I made three versions before the pH landed around 5.2. One of the more annoying things about making shampoo bars is that you really do need to build the pH adjusting in from the start. This is because it’s impossible to thoroughly mix a teesnsy weensy of acid (or base) into the dough once everything has been mixed together. Imagine you were making a batch of cookies and realized right before you started rolling them into balls for baking that you’d forgotten the baking soda. There’s no way you’d be able to knead that tiny bit of baking soda evenly through the entire batch of cookie dough! It’s the same thing with shampoo bars. I was surprised I needed 1%, but 0.4% only bumped the pH down to ~5.9.

This time I used jojoba oil to re-fat the bars a bit; I usedAbyssinian Oil in the version I shared in 2020. You can definitely use a different oil; I used apricot kernel oil in my initial experiments back in 2020. Honestly, you can’t got too far wrong here—just choose something your hair likes that’s liquid and isn’t too expensive (unless you’ve got an expensive oil that’s getting old and needs to be used up, in which case have at it!).

Back in 2020 I scented the bars with a blend of lavender and rosemary essential oils. You could absolutely do that again (or use a different essential oil blend/fragrance oil that’s approved for use at 1% in IFRA category 7A products), but I decided to do something a wee bit different. Late last year Stock Fragrance gifted me a selection of their beautiful fragrance oils, and one of the ones I chose was their plant-based Provençal. It’s part of their line of fragrances that are made from 100% plant-based ingredients. I am loving watching the natural fragrance oil market grow; it gives naturally-minded makers a lot more options and it’s also just super cool to see what perfumers can do with plant-based ingredients. Provençal is very lavender-forward, but it also has notes of honey, sunshine, wood, and an overall complexity that’s really beguiling. I definitely think it’s worth a try if you love lavender (or even if you don’t, honestly—several reviewers shared that they usually don’t care for lavender but love Provençal).

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The making part is identical; stir together the wet and dry ingredients separately, and then work them together to create a smooth dough. Shape that dough into bars that are a shape and size that makes you happy, and leave those to dry for at least 3 or 4 days before using. These bars can be hand shaped, smooshed into a cavity mould, or pressed with a hand press or a fancy powered press.

I hope you enjoy these bars as much as I do!

Relevant links & further reading

• Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI)in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa)in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• French Green Clayin the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Guar Gumin the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Jojoba Oilin the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Tocopherol (Vitamin E)in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Caprylyl/Capryl Glucosidein the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Citric Acidin the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Optiphen™ Plusin the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• How long do you have to age a shampoo bar?
• How long will ______ last? What is its shelf life?in the Humblebee & Me FAQ
• Can I use a different preservative than the one you’ve used?in the Humblebee & Me FAQ
• pH
  • pH meter in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
  • pH measurement in cosmetic lab: why we dilute samples? fromSkin Chakra
  • How to adjust the pH of your cosmetic products fromSkin Chakra
  • Why do you create a 10% dilution of a formulation before measuring the pH?in the Humblebee & Me FAQ
• More free shampoo bar formulas:
  • Champagne Shampoo Bars
  • Simple Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar
  • Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar with Rice Starch
  • White Chocolate Peppermint Shampoo Bars

Creamy French Shampoo Bar

Dry phase
147g | 49% Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) (USA / Canada)
60g | 20% Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa) (USA / Canada)
10.5g | 3.5% guar gum (regular) (USA / Canada / UK / Germany / NZ / Nigeria)
15g | 5% French green clay (USA / Canada)

Wet phase (water soluble)
12.75g | 4.25% distilled water
30g | 10% Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside (USA / Canada)
3g | 1% citric acid (USA / Canada)

Wet phase (oil soluble)
15g | 5% jojoba oil (USA / Canada)
0.75g | 0.25% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
3g | 1% fragrance oil
3g | 1% Optiphen™ Plus (USA / Canada)

To decorate: Purple mica (optional)

Put on your dust mask (USA / Canada) and weigh the dry phase into a bowl. Stir until uniform.

Add the wet phase to the dry phase. Put on a pair of nitrile gloves and blend thoroughly with your hands. Once the mixture is uniform, you’ll be left with a stiff, easily-mouldable dough.

If your dough is too sticky, you’ll need to add more clay. If your dough is too dry, you’ll need to add a little bit more distilled water.

Now it’s time to shape or press the bar! I used a small hand mould from YellowBee, lining the top and bottom with rounds of parchment paper. I sprinkled the top and bottom of the mould with a bit of purple mica before pressing, and then gently stamped the top of each bar with a lavender soap stamp. Please watch the video to see this in action.

You can also use a powered press like The Bath Bomb Press, a hard-sided cavity mould (a measuring cup works nicely!), or simply hand shape the bars.

Carefully un-mold the bars, tidy them up if needed, and leave them to dry for at least 3–5 days before using.

To use, massage the bar into soaking wet hair (or a wet loofah, for body washing) to work up a rich lather. From there on out it’s just like using any other shampoo or body wash. Enjoy!

When made as written, the pH of these shampoo bars comes out to around 5–5.2, which is great.

Shelf Life & Storage

Because these shampoo bars will regularly come into contact with water, I recommend including a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. These bars should easily last 6 months in the shower; I’ve never had a shampoo bar spoil on me, and I’ve had several live in my shower for over a year.

Substitutions

As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the formulation, you will get a different final product than I did.

• As I’ve provided this formulation in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams, this formulation will make 300g. You can divide this into as many bars as you want; I made five 60g bars.
• To learn more about the ingredients used in this formulation, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the . It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
• The wet/dry balance of this formula is really important; if you change anything (especially any of the three ingredients in the dry phase) you may need to re-develop the formulation to get a workable dough.
• If you change any of the ingredients—though especially the surfactants—this will change the pH of the bar. This means you should start with a 20g batch. Test the pH, see where it lands, incorporate more (or less) citric acid, and make a new 20g batch. Once the pH is right you can scale the formulation up and make a larger batch.
• You can try a different smooth, creamy clay (NOT bentonite or rhassoul—those are not creamy or smooth!), but you will likely have to re-work the formulation to get the liquid-to-dry ratio just right.
• If you’d like to learn more about the surfactants used and compare them to ones you might already have so you can make substitutions, check out this page and read this FAQ.
  • I’d recommendSodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonate (Bio-Terge® AS-90)instead of theSodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa).Sodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonateis a solid surfactant; do not confuse it forSodium (C14-16) alpha olefin sulfonate (Bio-Terge AS40), which is a liquid.
  • Remember that the maximum usage level for Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) is 50% for rinse-off products, so you cannot use just Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) in this formulation.
• You can substitute the jojoba oil with a different liquid oil your hair loves.
• You can use a different liquid non-ionic surfactant instead ofCaprylyl/Capryl Glucoside;Decyl Glucoside or Coco Glucoside would be my first choice (lauryl glucoside is a paste).
• If you’re like to use a different preservative, please reviewthis FAQandthis chart. This bar is pretty easy to preserve, so I’d feel pretty comfortable using a different preservative assuming it doesn’t have any direct conflicts with the formulation.
• If you’d like to incorporate an essential oil,please read this.
• You can use a different fragrance oil or essential oil if you want to, just be sure its usage rate for IFRA category 7A formulations is 1% (the amount used in this formulation) or higher.

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