Chamomile Tea & Honey Shampoo Bar Recipe

This shampoo bar recipe combines the simple goodness of chamomile tea with nourishing honey to create a wonderful lathering experience for your hair.

While I made the batch shown using the hot process (crock pot) method, I’ve also included directions for those who’d like to make a cold process version.

Ingredients Needed

Measurements of oils, lye and distilled water/tea are by weight. An accurate scale is required make soap.

10 oz (283 g) olive oil
8 oz (227 g) coconut oil
4 oz (113 g) castor oil
2 oz (57 g) avocado oil
2 oz (57 g) shea butter
2 oz (57 g) sweet almond oil
10 oz (283 g) cooled chamomile tea (*See NOTE For Cold Process amount)
3.93 oz (111 g) lye (sodium hydroxide)
1 tbsp (15 ml) honey mixed with 1 tbsp (15 ml) distilled water

*NOTE: Use the full amount of chamomile tea (10 oz/283 g) for hot process (crock pot) soap. If making cold process, you can reduce the amount of tea to 8 oz (227 g) so that the soap ends up firmer and releases from the mold a lot faster. Reducing the water also shortens the amount of time needed to reach trace.

Yield: 7 to 9 bars, depending on mold size and type

(28 oz oils 10 oz water almost 4 oz lye = 42 oz = 2 lbs, 10 oz)

Ingredient Sources I Used

(*Links to Bramble Berry, Amazon & Mountain Rose Herbs in this post are affiliate links)

Soaper’s Choice – olive oil
Bramble Berry – avocado oil, shea butter, sweet almond oil
Local – coconut oil, castor oil, distilled water, chamomile flowers, honey
Essential Depot/Amazon – food grade lye

To Make the Chamomile Tea

Boil 10 oz (283 g) of distilled water and pour over 1 cup fresh chamomile flowers. If you don’t have fresh chamomile flowers, you can use 1/2 cup dried flowers instead.

My friend Anna sells her organic hand-picked herbs HERE or you can find dried chamomile HERE at Mountain Rose Herbs.

You could also probably use chamomile tea bags from the grocery store.

Allow the flowers to steep for 30 minutes to a few hours before straining. Herbal tea should be room temperature or colder before using in a soap recipe. Never use warm or hot tea, or your lye may overheat.

Before You Begin

If you’ve never made soap before, be sure you’re completely familiar with the process before proceeding. (Check out my Soap Making 101 post for more in-depth details.)

You may also find my Natural Soap Making package helpful – it includes:

my Natural Soap Making ebook
companion guides on Milk Soap Making and Shampoo Bars
a printable Soap Making Checklist
a Guide to Lining Molds
plus a small private Facebook group where you can ask me soap making questions and share photos of your projects!

Make the Lye Solution

Wearing gloves, goggles and long sleeves, weigh the water into a stainless steel or heavy duty plastic pitcher. I use an old Tupperware or Pampered Chef pitcher. Next, weigh the lye into a small cup or container.

Sprinkle the lye into the water (not the other way around or you might get a lye volcano) and gently stir with a heavy duty plastic or silicone spatula or spoon until the lye is completely dissolved. The temperature will get really hot & the tea may turn a strange color, but that’s perfectly normal for herbal teas.

Work near an open window, outside or under an exhaust fan. Avoid breathing in the resulting strong fumes that linger for a few moments. (If you have sensitive lungs, breathing problems, or are concerned about the fumes, consider wearing a mask such as THIS ONE.)

Set the lye solution aside in a safe place where it won’t get disturbed. If you’re making hot process soap in your crock pot, then it will only need to be set aside for about ten minutes while you work with the oils. If making cold process, let the lye cool down around 30 to 40 minutes before mixing with the oils.

Weigh and Heat the Oils & Butters

Weigh out the solid ingredients – coconut oil and shea butter – and melt them in a double boiler or over low heat until melted.

While those melt, weigh out the other liquid oils and place them in your crock pot (for hot process) or soap making pot/container (for cold process).

Pour the hot melted butter and coconut oil into the other oils. That should bring the temperature up to somewhere around 90 to 100°F (32 to 38° C).

Soap at trace.

Combine and Mix Until Trace

Pour the lye solution into the warm oils. Using a stick or immersion blender (looks like THIS and is not a handheld mixer) stir the solution with the motor off for around 30 seconds. Turn the motor on and blend for a minute or so. Stir for another 30 or so seconds with the motor off, then again with the motor on and so forth. Don’t run the stick blender continuously so you don’t risk burning out the motor and/or causing excessive air bubbles in your finished soap.

Alternate with this method until trace is reached. “Trace” is when your soap batter gets thick enough to leave an imprint or tracing, when you drizzle some of it across the surface. Above is a picture of my soap at trace.

This is how the hot process version looked after being cooked for 1 hour and stirred.

Choose Cold Process or Hot Process

Up until this point, you make cold process and hot process pretty much the same. Weigh, melt/heat and stir to trace. Now though, you have to decide if you’re going to cook your soap (hot process) or pour it straight into a mold (cold process).

With cold process, you just stir to trace, add essential oil and any other extras, pour the soap batter into the mold, let it sit for 24 to 48 hours, remove from the mold and cure the bars in the open air for 4 to 6 weeks before using. It’s one step shorter than hot process and your bars will usually end up looking nicer and smoother. However, there’s that 4 to 6 week wait time for the bar to cure.

With hot process, you stir to trace, cook your soap for around an hour, add essential oil and any other extras, then scoop it into a mold, let it sit for 24 hours, remove it from the mold and you can use it right away. However, hot process still does best and will last longer if you let it cure at least a few weeks.

The choice is completely personal. No one way is better than the other, so choose as you wish!

Cold Process Instructions

Once trace is reached, you can stir in any extras. In this case, I just have honey diluted with an equal portion of water. Stir that into the soap batter and pour the soap into a prepared mold.

Because this soap has honey in it – the natural sugars will heat things up more than soap without – you probably won’t need to insulate the mold. Just cover it lightly with a sheet of wax paper and let it sit for 24 to 48 hours. Peek at your soap a few times during the first several hours to make sure it’s not overheating. If you see a crack developing, move it to a cooler area.

Once the soap has firmed up in the mold for a few days, remove and slice into bars. Let the bars cure on sheets of wax paper or coated cooling racks for around 4 weeks before using.

Hot Process Instructions

Once trace is reached, turn your crock pot on low. (If you have a really old crock pot that heats slowly, you might need to preheat it sooner.)

Cook the soap batter for 1 hour, checking every 15 minutes and stirring if needed. (Sometimes, I faithfully stir every 15 minutes. Sometimes, I completely forget to. It all works out in the end though!)

After the soap has finished cooking, let it cool for a couple of minutes before stirring in the honey/water mixture.

If you add the honey while the soap is too hot, it could turn brown and start to smell and look scorched.

Spoon the hot soap into your molds and smooth the tops as best as you can.

I bought the mold shown in the photo above HERE from Bramble Berry. This recipe fills 9 of the 12 cavities.

You don’t have to cover or insulate hot process soap. Let the soap sit in the molds overnight then remove the next day. I usually cut shampoo bars in half again, to make “shampoo sticks”.

You can use this soap right away, though the bars benefit from curing a few weeks too.

And that’s it – you’re done!

Using Shampoo Bars

When using a shampoo bar, it’s best to followup with a vinegar hair rinse to help restore pH and remove any soap residue. This is especially important if you have hard water.

Any type will do, but here are a few pretty infused vinegars you might want to consider for your hair:

Rose Petal Vinegar | Lavender Vinegar | Violet Vinegar

I usually dilute the vinegar with equal parts water to make a rinse or, for more convenience and less waste, keep a spray bottle of vinegar in the shower and spritz it over scalp and hair after shampooing. Follow with a rinse of plain water.

If you enjoyed this tutorial on making Chamomile Tea & Honey Shampoo Bars, sign up for my newsletter HERE to get my best herbal projects, soap ideas, and DIY body care recipes sent straight to your inbox, once per month. (No spam ever, unsubscribe at any time.)

Jan