And why is mens and womens shampoo so different.
In: Chemistry
Shampoo is gentler than soap/shower gel. It also usually has ingredients to do some conditioning, and slip agents to help with tangles.
Unless you have pretty short hair, do not use bar soap/body wash on hair.
(and if you are bald, use your face wash on your scalp for better skin and less shine)
The core part of most cleaners (from body wash to soap to hand soap to shampoo to many household cleaners) is a “surfactant”. These are often identical between soap, body wash, and shampoo, particularly “Sodium Laureth Sulfate” and others with similar names. Sodium Laureth Sulfate is [even in Tide Pods](https://tide.com/en-us/ingredients/tide-detergent-ingredients-a-to-z), but this does not mean you should wash with Tide Pods. Most products have >1 surfactant.
Cleaners usually differ by the following:
1. Concentration. More concentrated things are stronger; the less something is intended to touch skin, the stronger it’s likely to be. Shampoos are generally slightly stronger but not dangerous for skin or anything.
2. Some surfactants are bad for the skin or hair. If something is expected to touch your skin or hair, they won’t include these ingredients, but detergents for machines, and strong cleaners to be used with gloves are likely to be unsafe here. (This is why you should not wash by dumping a tide pod in your bath).
3. Solutions can be “Acidic” or “Basic”. Acidic means something has extra Hydrogen; Basic means it doesn’t have enough. This can help clean (vinegar works by being acidic) as they try to balance out their hydrogen with their environment, which creates water as a byproduct. “Soaps” – Things specifically *named* Soap and not “Body Wash” or “Beauty Bar” or “Detergent” – must have the only surfactants be “alkali salts of fatty acids”, at least in US regulation; this is a mouthful, but it means in practice the surfactant is mildly basic. This is fine for the skin – nothing used for the body is strongly acidic or basic – but there is evidence it can be bad for the hair in the long run, if a mild acidic [hair](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Acidic+Hair+Rinse) [rinse](https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Bronners-Hair-Conditioner-Rinse/dp/B0017QT5UM) (or even just diluted vinegar) is not used to rinse the hair after. Shampoos (or 2/3-in-1 body washes) are generally neutral, neither acidic nor basic.
4. Some ingredients are targeted specifically for hair or skin or dishes, such as moisturizing ingredients, or ingredients to make your hair feel smooth after washing, or a many low-concentration ingredients intended to strengthen or repair hair or skin. They don’t necessarily interfere with using the product for different purposes and are generally low concentration. They don’t always have strong science behind them.
5. Men and Women’s shampoos are generally just marketing, but often have different fragrances and shampoos targeted at women are probably more likely to include the ingredients in (4).
The differences here amongst things used for the body are pretty minor, and you could use them fairly interchangeably (apart from using acidic rinse with Soaps used on hair). That’s one reason Dr. Bronner’s markets as 18-1 Soap; it’s a vegetable oil based soap with no specialized ingredients, so you can use it pretty widely, but it’s not necessarily unique on reusability.
Middle aged bald guy here…Dove moisturizing body soap head to toe. Shampoo, conditioner and combs need not apply.
I started dying my hair during covid. First time ever for me. I noticed immediately why women’s hair products are so different. The bleaching process really destroys the hair and it feels and acts different after bleaching. It becomes very dry and clumps together and feels wet hay or something. The dyes I’ve been using wash out VERY easily. So I started using real women’s shampoo which is designed to moisturize the hair and specially formulated to try to make the dye last longer in your hair. I also started using conditioner because it makes a very big difference in the look and feel of the hair that has been bleached. Without conditioner, my hair looks whispy and it just doesn’t feel good.
Protip – and I have no idea if this is good/bad. I use a facial lotion after showering. I always have extra lotion all over my hands after trying to get it all over my face, so I run my hands through my wet hair to try and get as much off as I can. It seems to really make my hair softer and feel thicker. It is a close to it’s natural look and feel from before bleaching it.
Y’all should probably take what I wrote as nonsense from a newbie because I have nothing to base my info off of. This is all new to me.
Shampoo also has stronger fragrance and several ingredients to take care of hair, like keratin, arginine, biotin, it depends on the shampoo.
Chiming in just to say there is no difference between men & women’s besides possibly fragrances. It’s all marketing.
While soaps & shampoo do share much of the same ingredients, that doesn’t tell the whole story.
* Soaps naturally tend to be *alkaline* ([basic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH)). Most common brands, like Coast, Ivory, Dial, Camay and Nivea, are very strongly alkaline (pH >= 9).
* Shampoos are made to be low or neutral pH (pH < 7). That’s because [high pH can damage the hair](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4158629/).
Hence it’s probably ok to use shampoo as soap (e.g., body wash); but probably not ok to use soap as shampoo.
Shampoo has a mix of ingredients that are better at removing oils. In short, it’s a bit more aggressive than soap intended for skin.
I work on my car, and if I have grease or oil spot on my arm or leg, soap won’t remove it, but shampoo usually will.
I was also wondering if someone can explain difference between hand wash soap and soap for body / shower gel ? Because there doesnt seem to be any to me at the moment
Soap is basically a salt of various fatty acids. If you mix acid and base, you will get salt. You can only use sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide as a base. They say you can use another strong bases but you can’t get useful soap with them. You get different soap salts as you mix the base with different oils. For example, if you mix NaOH with coconut oil, you get sodium cocoate, if you mix NaOH with olive oil, you get sodium oliveate. Every soap salt has different properties. For example, if you add sodium oliveate, your soap will be conditioning. But if you want your soap cleaning, you should add coconut oil, palm kernel oil, or tallow. If you don’t have these in your soap, your soap won’t clean your body. Fabrication soaps usually use sodium palm kernelate for cleansing, and sodium palmate for conditioning and creamy bubbles.
You will say why we need other detergents. That’s simple. If you try to make your soap acidic(like adding citric acid), you will notice your soap won’t lather anymore. That’s why we may need other detergents. Human skin pH is between 4.5 and 5.5, and soap pH is between 8 and 10. So, technically, when you rub your skin with the soap, you hurt your body. Your skin may be itchy, and turn red over time(it doesn’t happen to me except my hair, by the way). If you can’t make the soaps acidic, you need another detergent. That’s why sodium lauryl sulfate came out.
Sodium lauryl sulfate has very detergent-like odor, and it comes with pellets. You can easily change its pH with various acids and bases(I use citric acid). You can make the pH of product around 4 or 5, and you can use it without any damage to the skin. But sodium lauryl sulfate has very high cleaning properties(like you are using a hundred percent of sodium cocoate in a soap), so it needs some oils and humectants like glycerin. Shower gels, liquid soaps and shampoo all share this ingredient. There are mild surfectants, but since I have oily skin, I hate all of them. Long live sodium lauryl sulfate.
Men’s and women’s shampoo is different, because usually women have more fragile hair. So men easily use their shower gel as shampoo, but women may have a hard time. Women’s shampoo should contain more silicone and humectants.
You can make the soap more mild by adding high amounts of glycerin, and your soap will be translucent, but the soap will be little bit soft and meltable.
Also you don’t need a preservative in a soap, because bad microorganisms can’t live in high pH. But you need a preservative like methylparaben in a shower gel or shampoo, because pH is now acidic(because you added citric acid to it). My favorite preservative is sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate, but they are highly reactive. Using parabens like methylparaben would extend the shelf life of the product big amount. That’s why they quit using parabens. They should sell you more products. Also methylchloroisothiazolinone is effective, but it’s only usable in wash-off products like shower gels. You can’t use them in lotions. You can also use high amounts of propylene glycol to preserve the product. Lush uses that.
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