An interesting discussion came up on Nature's Nexus forum. There was a lot of valuable input from members. It started with the idea that soap is the best thing for your hair. But there were problems using soap as it proved hard to rinse out if hard water is used. Rain water is suggested to help with rinsing.

Then a member, Helen, of Zen Soaps who has done extensive research into the subject and has in the past formulated a dog shampoo added her thoughts and basically her experience put everybody straight.

Here is what she said "I wanted to note that the pH of hair is about 5.5... and the pH of handmade soaps are 10.5 on average. Hair, unlike skin, is not alive and cannot 'heal' or adjust its own pH.

Over time, each hair will get slowly distroyed by the alkalinity of handmade soap, resulting in dull, frizzy, lifeless hair with split ends. In the case of very fine or thin hair... it can look like baldness is setting in.

The initial impact would be extra volume, because the alkalinity would force each hair shaft to stay open (think cat with hair standing on end)... but the shaft staying open (which causes dullness) means allowing dirt and debris to contact the structural shaft of the hair, forcing the shaft to stay open, allowing damage to the core of each hair.

Hair is structured sort of like a pine cone, with 'scales' that lay down flat against a central core. Imagine brushing against the 'nape' of velvet, and you get the effect of alkalinity on hair. Shiny hair comes from the scales laying flat very smoothly (that's why silicone, cyclomethicone and dimethecone, is so often used in conditioner and shampoos... it sort of 'glues' the scales down to the shaft, making hair shiny and healthy looking, with 'bounce'. The scales laying down also make each hair shaft individually stronger. Think frayed rope vs smooth rope of the same thickness.

The ONLY way to frequently use handmade soaps on hair is to immediately condition/rinse with vinegar to offset the alkali. There are no blood vessels in hair to readjust the pH, the damage just compounds.

For men, because their hair is often so short, using soap is not as big a deal. But it's a very bad idea for most women.

I'm a soaper, believe me, I would make shampoo bars if I thought they were safe. They absolutely are a VERY bad idea unless you're a man who gets a haircut at least once a month."

Then she adds :" A lot of people, especially with short curly hair, do not have a problem with handmade soap and actually prefer it.... this because when you have short hair, you cut it fairly often, and with curly hair, it will rarely 'shine' anyway due to the waves breaking up light reflection off the hair.

However, soap is VERY good for the scalp itself, as that is skin, and the lowered drying is beneficial. Humans want to produce oils to protect our skin. It's the same type of mechanism as temperature regulation (you sweat because you are hot... so reduce sweating by cooling yourself better).

We can't stop oil production and the more we try to remove it, the more we produce. In being overly obsessed with removing body oils, we create skin problems, because we are fighting our own body. We reduce the condition by NOT removing so much oil, either less at a time using handmade soaps, or bathe slightly less frequently. This would reduce and sometimes prevent acne, for one thing (my kids have NO pimples, and both are teenagers. My husband and I both had bad acne problems as kids, so they should be genetically predisposed to it). Bacteria grows in water, not oils:).

If you have long straighter shiny hair, you are in trouble. The longer the hair grows, the more times it's been subjected to alkali, and the more microscopic particles that can be trapped under the 'scales'. This leads to split ends, not only at the bottom, but along the body of the shaft itself, which would lead to color changes, dullness, brittleness, and finally breakage.

Now, you know I'm basically a naturalist, but the fact is, that hair is not 'alive' the way skin is. Handmade soap is THE BEST for skin, because your body will adjust that alkalinity within a few minutes after rinsing off... but a lot of germs are quickly killed with the initial pH shock. This is a good thing.

In addition to the fact that real oils are far less drying, can provide real skin benefits from their specific properties, and you are not absorbing chemicals into skin, nor are you removing excess oils. So for short curly/wavy hair, frequently trimmed and growing fast, it's FINE. Particularly if you always use an acidic rinse (if you do this, you can use handmade soap to wash long hair too, because you are auto-adjusting the pH, and closing the 'scales' before they can get clogged).

Hair doesn't absorb ANYTHING, it's dead protein. It can't heal, cannot change itself in any way. It's the scalp that does. Yet the scalp only comprises roughly 10% of our skin surface area. What is good for the scalp may not be good for the hair and vice versa.

I haven't tried any other hair products, my hair is naturally very thick and shiny, and I don't blow dry, I don't color, I don't do ANYTHING to it other than wash it. So I don't know anything about conditioners, because I've never needed any. I shake my head and it falls into place, it looks like the Pantene commercials, I don't even brush it. I use my own shampoo, and alternate with a regular commercial shampoo to get that silicone coating periodically (silicone is inert, and the molecules are too large to penetrate skin).

I make my own shampoo... but it's a sort of strange story:P. I developed it as a dog shampoo (less regulation and I had a distribution market), but I really formulated it as a human shampoo, with the pH adjusted up to 7 (neutral) for dogs.

It is made of commercial surfactants, but not regular ones, they are VERY expensive surfactants which are made of extracted alcohols and glucose from corn and potatoes. I use EO for scenting (except for ONE scent that contains FO, which is Oatmeal Milk and Honey), and it is natural in every other way (plant extracts, starches for conditioning). I have since sold the dog shampoo formula, but you can still see my old site for it at: http://petcare.zensoaps.com

I have enough cases of it left for myself for years stored, and a bit left to sell, but I will not wholesale. I do offer this on my zensoaps website retail, but I don't want a following.

The members here probably know more about making shampoos from other naturals like yucca and soapwort than I do, so I hope I'm not being just ornery with my comments:P. "