Dissolving a shampoobar in water?

[floraflowerpowe]

I was thinking about dissolving a shampoobar in water, to make it easier to use. So I started searching around and I couldn't find anything really, that's why I thought I would turn here. Has anyone ever done this, how and why? Is it really easier to use or am I just crazy ;)?

*Not sure if this belongs here or somewhere else, so feel free to move this post if it's the wrong location :)*

[lapushka]

If you're ready to dunk your head in a bucket with the dissolved soap, in order to wash your hair, go ahead... ;)

[Nique1202]

You'd want to be REALLY careful with this, because shampoo bars often don't have any preservatives in them (they don't need them, if they don't have any water) so a dissolved shampoo bar mixture could go moldy or get very bacteria-filled quickly, even if you use distilled water and stuff, even just from the bacteria on your hands and yeasts/funguses in the air.

[meteor]

I think it's a great idea right before you shampoo, i.e. enough for one application - this will allow you not to scrub the soap a lot all over your scalp or hands and probably will help dilute the surfactants more and also avoid using too much product. :)

Obviously, the more water you add, the more you are diluting the preservatives, so dissolve enough (just a tiny piece) for one application, to be safe.

But I don't see any point in dissolving the whole soap... after all, dry compact form is one of the big selling points of using soap in the first place (great for travel, for example). :)

[lapushka]

Yes, you'd have to be dissolving a tiny sliver of soap.

[yahirwaO.o]

I thinlk its ok right before washing your hair. The whole thing may get impractical and mold- bacteria grow posibility!

[missrandie]

One way to make this more feasible is if you just grated off the amount you needed, then mixed it in with the appropriate amount of water.

[Aderyn]

Have you tried getting the shampoo bar wet, then run it over your wet scalp once or twice (in the direction of hair), then working up a lather and repeating as necessary to get it all over your scalp? I found that to be the easiest way to use a shampoo bar. And the bar still lasts very, very long.

Some shampoo bar users build up a lather in their hand immediately before washing their hair, so you could try that. If you want to dissolve the shampoo bar entirely, I don't really see the point in using a shampoo bar, I'd just use a regular shampoo/soap/whathaveyou.

You can find soaps made with potassium hydroxide rather than sodium hydroxide (both are lye), I suppose. Sodium hydroxide is typically used in solid soap (bars), while potassium hydroxide gives a liquid or a much softer soap.

[floraflowerpowe]

Thanks everyone for the great input :). I was wondering about it, as it takes some time to wash my hair using a shampoobar and I thought maybe dissolving some of it in water could speed up the washing. But I love shampoobars way too much to switch to anything else like regular shampoo :rolleyes:.

[ravenreed]

I have a beauty bar that I occasionally use on my scalp. It sits in a soap dish. At shower time I fill it up with water, let it sit a minute or so, and pour the liquid over my head. In between showers it dries out completely. My bar is pretty soft so I don't know how this would work with a true shampoo bar.

[Panth]

The old-fashioned way of washing your hair with soap (pre-shampoo invention) was to shave slivers of soap off the bar using a knife, mix/dissolve those slivers in water and then use the solution to wash the hair. I don't see why you couldn't use shampoo bars in the same way. I agree with others, though, that you'd want to do one application worth at a time rather than dissolving the whole bar due to contamination/bacteria growth issues.

[flickm]

I find rubbing over my very wet scalp is enough to get a good lather, even in hard water.