Here’s how to make DIY shower gel, you can whip this up at home and use it in minutes. I’m using mild, natural, and easy-to-use surfactants, that are suitable for even the most sensitive of skins.
I love liquid soap. I recently rediscovered how much fun it is to make! However, there is one problem, it takes so long to make! It’s a lot like a traditional soap-making method in that way. But surely there’s an easier way to whip up a bottle of my favorite smelling liquid soap? There is, using natural surfactants!
While I know surfactants have earned a bit of a dirty name over the last few decades, stay with me here. Natural surfactants are readily available nowadays. No need to use that awful SLSA powder anymore!
This recipe makes a perfect homemade shower gel and can be adapted to suit your own needs. However, if this is your first time making soap with surfactants I’d advise sticking to the recipe below. No need to fix what isn’t broken, you know? Experimentation can come later.
Watch How To Make Shower Gel
Ingredients I’ll be Using For This DIY Shower Gel
Most of the ingredients I’ve chosen for my shower gel recipe are simple, fairly inexpensive, and easy to source. I’m using distilled water rather than a hydrosol (floral water) and reasonably priced essential oils. The essential oils can, of course, be substituted for another blend or even a fragrance oil if your budget is really tight.
Funny thing is, most store-bought shampoos, shower gels, and bubble baths are made using this method. Manufacturing traditional lye-based liquid soap is expensive and time-consuming, so it makes sense. Until the synthetic ingredients in them start to irritate your skin!
So I say enough of the store-bought stuff. We can save time and money by mimicking what the big players in skincare do, but spend a little more time making sure our skin gets the tender love and care it really needs. Let’s take back control of our skincare! But first, let’s chat about the ingredients we’re using today.
Surfactants
There are tons of reasons why you may prefer to use a surfactant to create your liquid soap. Chief among these is that it only takes around 20 minutes to knock up a fantastic cleansing shower gel. It also cuts out the risk of handling the lye (potassium hydroxide).
Lye is a super-strong alkali, but it is necessary if you want to make liquid soap from scratch the old fashioned way. But it can be an intimidating ingredient for an inexperienced formulator. Surfactants allow us to bypass this ingredient and this method entirely.
I like to think of surfactants in the same way you would a melt and pour soap base, only you need to add things to them to be able to use it. A bit of distilled water, a sprinkle of a thickening cosmetic gum, and a dash of a humectant are all you’ll need to do this.
The surfactant I’m using in my pink grapefruit shower gel is coco glucoside. It’s totally accepted in natural skincare formulation, is one of the mildest and easiest to work with and gives a good lather. So basically, it ticks all my boxes. If you are unable to get hold of it you can substitute it for Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside or Plantapon TF. Any of these will work well.
Cosmetic Gum
A cosmetic gum, in this case xanthan Gum, is used to thicken our shower gel. It can be a bit tricky to use and needs to be blended into the glycerine thoroughly, otherwise you may end up with white specks floating in the gel.
Humectant
A humectant is an ingredient used in skincare that draws moisture to a product once it’s applied to the skin, leading to lovely skin-softening benefits.
I’m using glycerine in this recipe. It’s readily available and probably the easiest to use. I add it to lots of my products, as it really helps to plump out the skin and make it appear and feel much more supple.
Apart from all the obvious benefits to the skin, the glycerine keeps everything nice and slick, helping the gel to glide easily and evenly across the skin. It also has a way of helping the xanthan gum dissolve quicker, making the whole process a little easier.
Essential Oils
This diy shower gel has a lovely aroma that smells fresh and citrusy. It really smells amazing in the shower! The grapefruit and bergamot essential oils also have great cleansing and antibacterial properties. Both are excellent stress-relieving oils that can help to balance your mood and energize the mind. Great for your morning shower!
Preservative
As this is a water-based product, it absolutely needs a preservative. A simple broad-spectrum preservative at around 0.05-1% should do the job. If you are using an oil-based preservative it will need to be added to the surfactant after incorporating the essential oils (see step 2).
A water-based one should be added later in step 5. If you are not sure you can test your preservative by stirring a little into some water to see if it floats around the top (oil-based) or disburses into the water (water-based)
Something To Note
Okay, one more thing to keep in mind (I promise) before we make a start. The essential oils must be added to the Coco-Glucoside first.
The surfactant works as a solubilizer to absorb the essential oils so that they can be mixed with the remaining water-based ingredients.
If you were to add them at the end, they will separate and float around the top just as they would if you were to drop them into water.
How To Make Shower Gel At Home Without Lye
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Print Comment Pin ShareIngredients
- 150 grams Distilled Water
- 20 grams Glycerine
- 2 grams Xanthan Gum
- 25 grams Coco Glucoside
- 0.5 grams Grapefruit Essential Oil
- 0.5 grams Bergamot Essential Oil
- 2 grams Preservative
- Liquid Soap Dye (optional, as desired)
- PH Modifier ((Lactic Acid, or a dilution of Citric Acid ))
- 1 Pump Bottle
Instructions
- Place the glycerine into a jug or beaker, then add the xanthan gum to it. Mix well until the xanthan gum has completely dissolved into the glycerine.20 grams Glycerine, 2 grams Xanthan Gum
- Weigh the coco glucoside into a small beaker and add the essential oils. You will need to stir the coco glucoside to fully disperse the essential oils within it. This needs to be done carefully so to prevent unwanted foaming.If you are using an oil-based preservative you will also need to add and blend this in now. A water-based preservative should be added later in step 5.25 grams Coco Glucoside, 0.5 grams Grapefruit Essential Oil, 0.5 grams Bergamot Essential Oil
- Pour the coco glucoside into the glycerine and gum mixture. Once again you will need to make sure you combine this well, whilst being careful not to foam up the surfactant too much.
- Whilst stirring, slowly add the distilled water to the gum mixture. Stir gently until it has fully combined and has thickened.150 grams Distilled Water
- Once the gel is nice and thick, stir in the preservative then add a couple of drops of liquid soap coloring (if using).2 grams Preservative, Liquid Soap Dye
- Coco glucoside can have a high PH level so it's good to test your shower gel using a PH strip. This needs to fall slightly onto the acidic side with a range of between 4 and 6. If it’s a little too high, you can use a PH modifier to bring it down. You can use Lactic acid or Citic acid. To test the PH, dip one of your universal indicator strips into your body wash mixture. Compare this to the scale that comes with your strips. If it’s a little too high, you can add a couple of drops of lactic acid to bring it down. If you are using citric acid as a PH modifier, it will need to be diluted in a solution of 10% citric acid to 90% distilled water. Make sure to add small amounts at a time and then test again, repeating until you reach a reasonable PH. You don't want to risk wasting your entire batch by adding too much of your PH modifier. Because this recipe contains a surfactant, it is highly unlikely that your body wash will test lower than a 4 on the PH scale, so don’t worry too much about needing to raise it.PH Modifier
- Transfer to a PET plastic bottle with pump or screw cap lid to store. Keep out of direct sunlight, especially if your bottle is clear plastic.1 Pump Bottle
Notes
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned before, this is a great starter shower gel recipe that can help you master how to make liquid soap using simple surfactants. There are loads of surfactants on the market that all bring something valuable or new like extra foaming, creaminess, cleansing, or emulsifying. So feel free to tinker with it once you become more confident.
There are other ways to customize your shower gel. Perhaps you could use a hydrosol instead of water? Peppermint hydrosol and peppermint essential are a great combination for some much needed morning invigoration.
The bottom line is that this doesn’t have to be just ordinary when you can make it extraordinary!
Is it possible to make it into a solid bar rather than a liquid for shampoo?
Hi Heidi,
Unfortunately not with this recipe. As this one is made with surfactants, it doesn’t go through SAP (Saponification). So this is a completely different kind of soap, that aren’t really relevant to each other.
Hi Angela,
Thank you for this recipe.
Can I add a carrier oil?
Joi
Hi Joi,
Yes I’m fairly certain you can, but I haven’t tried this myself. You’d need to do a bit of experimenting. Start with a little and work from there. It’ll likely change the consistency of your shower gel. You could consider making an emulsified cream body wash, which is ultra-luxurious and made in a similar way, with just a few extra steps.
Hi,
At what stage in the process, would it be safe to add colloidal oatmeal?
Hi, I would try and dissolve it into the water first before adding it to the surfactants.
Hope this helps
Ph level for mine was around 5 (I used cocamidopropyl betaine and decyl glycoside rather than coco glucoside). Looks like this shower gel could also be used as a “basic” shampoo?
Hi Beth,
Yeah sure it can! I can’t say it would be particularly good for your hair, but it most definitely will get it clean. This is useful when you’re running out of your regular shampoo.
Thank you so much! I’m wondering if I can mess around with this a bit and perhaps add Panthenol…I know it’s a humectant, so perhaps working with that and glycerine…I like the idea of perhaps adding honey as well.
For sure! Experimenting with ingredients in a recipe is so much fun! Do let me know how you get on. I love when people update me on their experiments.
Thank you so much! Your page is EVERYTHING!!!
What would you do to make it better for your hair?
Hair and skin care products are quite different, and are formulated from the ground up. I think personally, I formulate something intended for hair and hair alone.
One more question ( I hope! 🙂 )! Would arrowroot powder work in place of xanthan gum?
Hi Beth,
No sorry, you would need to use xanthan gum for this one.
Hello Angela,
Thanks for sharing your recipe. I would like to mod ify and add tumeric and honey. At what step do I add these?
Thanks
Hi Jojo,
That’s a lovely idea! Tumeric and honey are wonderful additions to your liquid surfactant soaps.
As for how to add these, I think there’s only really one good way to go about it. Because honey and glycerine are both humectants, you should be fine substituting half (or even all) of the glycerine for your honey. A combination of both would be heavenly, so I advise using 10g honey and 10g glycerine.
Then, I would mix a couple of grams of the tumeric with your xanthan gum before adding both of our humectants (honey and glycerine). Because tumeric is neither a gelling agent nor a stabilizer like the xanthan gum, we can’t substitute. So whatever you do, don’t leave out any of the gum in exchange for the tumeric.
Hope this helps!
Hi Angela. Would sodium coco sulfate noodles work in place of the coco-glucoside?
Thank you so much!
Beth
Hi Beth,
I would not recommend substituting a liquid surfactant for a solid surfactant. You could take a look at our page on Surfactants & Their Functions to find a good liquid substitute.