How to make your own herbal shampoos from cooking oils and foods--for humans, dogs, and cats

May 23, 3:16 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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Human Shampoo - Mix four ounces of glycerin with ¼ cup of olive oil. Add to four ounces of castile soap. Add herbs of your choice. For example, the eZine articles site shows an article titled, Make Your Own Shampoo . The site's recipe suggests herbs such as rosemary, sage, nettles, lavender, and also, MSM to provide organic sulfur to your scalp.

See the Make Your Own Shampoo  site for the full recipe that you can use as a base to make a wide variety of home-made shampoos for people. Add your favorite oils, herbs, gentle or home-made soaps, fragrances, and nutritional supplements proven to be useful with your scalp regimen.

Be careful, though what you put on your scalp. It's quickly absorbed. Not all food supplements are useful in shampoos. Check out the safety issues. Test yourself for allergies.

Dog Shampoo – Mix a 1/4 cup of gentle castile soap with a pint of water and a 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. Add four ounces of glycerin sold in most discount store pharmacies. Mix all ingredients. Put it in an airtight bottle or jar and label it “Dog Shampoo.”

You also can use distilled water and store the generic dog shampoo in your freezer until the next shampoo so it won’t get full of bacteria. Don’t put this mixture inside your dog’s ears. Use veterinary ear wash such as OtiCalm to wash your dog’s ears.  

Keep the shampoo away from the dog’s eyes as vinegar stings the eyes and nostrils or private parts. Rinse with water. For fragrance, you can use rose water extract or edible, non-toxic and non-burning essential oils, such as olive, sesame seed oil, or almond oil, about four drops. But dogs usually don’t want the scents humans like. One exception is sesame seed oil.

Cat Shampoo – Dry – Mix on a large baking pan a cup of dry raw oat bran or cornmeal. Dry oatmeal also can be used. Bring in a towel and your cat brush.

Put the baking pan spread out with the meal or bran in your oven and bake it only until it is warm. Test on your own inner wrist to make sure it is not too hot for the cat’s skin or yours.

Apply the warmed meal to the cat’s fur from the back of the head to the tail. Gently massage your cat with the meal. Rub the meal down to the skin. Don’t leave the mixture only on the fur.

You want the meal and bran to absorb the dirt on the cat’s skin. Rub the cat gently massaging with a bath towel. The meal will absorb the dirt and oil. Brush out the remaining debris and meal until the cat’s skin and fur is clean and no meal or bran remains on the cat.

Cat Litter Box Cleaner – Wash with baking soda and water. Rinse with vinegar and salt. Rinse with water. Wipe dry. Never use chlorine bleach to clean a cat litter box. The chlorine fumes mix with the ammonia fumes in the cat urine collected in the litter from what is left after scooping and forms a deadly gas that can be fatal.

Dandruff – Olive or coconut oil may be smoothed onto the scalp and let set there for 40 minutes. Then shampoo twice. Also mink oil soap can be used. Make your own mink oil soap. See the site titled, How to Make Mink Oil Soap .

Deodorant – Lemon wedge or half a lemon rubbed in the armpit. If you don’t shave frequently, rubbing alcohol also can be used from time to time on the skin, but never near the gums, nose, or private part as it burns and damages skin other than on the unshaved armpits or on the feet or hands. Cornstarch doesn’t burn the skin and has been used as a deodorant a century ago. A lemon wedge was used as an armpit deodorant in the early 1800s by those who didn’t shave. An excellent deodorant may be made by mixing two tablespoons of warm, melted coconut oil with a tablespoon of powdered coconut milk and a tablespoon of baking soda.

Baking soda, cornstarch, and green tea at times have been used as underarm deodorants. In the past century a mixture of equal parts of baking soda and cornstarch was used as a deodorant for arm pits or sprinkled on pads used for external feminine hygiene on long travels.

In the 1940s an equal mixture of cornstarch and baking soda was mixed with a bit of petroleum jelly and rubbed like a crème in the arm pits as a deodorant. During the nineties, green tea was added to some stick-type “natural” product deodorants.

A 1940s-style deodorant formula is basic to make about a cup of deodorant. Mix the following dry ingredients and add four drops of essential oils such as rose or orange.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup cornstarch
4 drops of antibacterial essential oils such as rose, olive oil, sweet almond oil, orange blossom oil, or your favorite scent if that oil is safe to dab on your skin. Check out the Aromatherapy Web site which lists and describes essential oils and tells you which are safe for the skin.

One example would be as sweet almond oil used by massage therapists, and other oils which you can consume in small amounts such as grape seed oil, often added to vegetarian mayonnaise containing grape seed oil found in many health food stores and some supermarkets. See the Aromatherapy site.

Place the baking soda and cornstarch in a glass jar. Add the essential oils; stir and cover. Dampen cotton ball and sprinkle the mixture on so you don’t get bacteria in the jar with a contaminated cloth or sponge. Pat the mixture under your arms. Buy essential oils in most health food stores or order online from herbalists, aromatherapists, or various natural food stores. Look in your search engine under key words “essential oils.”

Choose edible oils. A few drops of edible oils can be added to your home-made mouth wash. To make mouth wash, mix four drops of clove oil, 2 drops of myrrh essential oils, a folic acid vitamin tablet dissolved in water, and a zinc mineral tablet dissolved in water. You can purchase all these ingredients at a health food store.

Mix oils and tablets in a pint of distilled water until the folic acid and zinc tablets are dissolved. Use as a mouthwash. Don’t swallow any. Store your mouthwash in a covered glass jar in your refrigerator for up to a week.

Various oils such as cinnamon, rose, orange, or lemon are described as being suitable to put on the skin—for external use. Other oils are for scent/aromatherapy and are not to be put on the skin. Check out the Web sites to see which essential oils are anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and safe to use on your skin or in a mouthwash.

You can use a paste of green tea, cornstarch, baking soda, and olive oil or petroleum jelly as an external deodorant. Don’t put it on areas that might burn from the baking soda. You might consider using a half lemon kept in a waterproof bag as an underarm deodorant to be applied three times a day if you need to freshen at work.

Check to see how your skin reacts to putting food externally on your arm pits. Anything you put on your skin is absorbed. So you could be allergic to any of these ingredients or break out from baking soda on your skin.

If so, remove the baking soda and keep trying until one combination works well for you. Again, you could react badly to any food ingredient rubbed externally on your skin at any time. Don’t take any of these items internally, ever, especially baking soda and vinegar that could cause acid or salt poisoning to your sensitive system.

The best advice is to try different foods on your skin externally to see what works as a deodorant. Remember that your skin absorbs anything you put on it, and you never know what you’re allergic to at any time. You can make a basic shampoo by adding edible oils and herbs to baby shampoo.

To make shampoo for people from scratch, start with the most organic and simplest types of soaps such as pure castile soap. Then you add your herbs and oils or scents from water extracts of flower petals such as lemon, orange, or rose.

Helpful sites include: ConsumerLab.com: Evaluates the quality of dietary supplement and herbal products and  Herbal Medicine, 3rd edition. Excellent reference book.

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