[Link to original] (https://old.reddit.com/r/BeardTalk/comments/me1dzg/pine_tar_soap_vs_beard_wash/)
EVERYTHING I make I learned how to make myself. Beard balm and butter, basically anything wax based is easy.
Melt it, combine it, stir it, pour it. Super simple. That's why every company has wax/oil based products and they don't have much else. They don't want to take the time because once you start combining water and oil, it's a whole new game.
For me, I wanted to learn how make water based pomade, or unorthodox pomade. I've always been curious how it was made. I knew that if I was going to stand out in the crowded field of beard products, I needed to make stuff nobody else was making. Plus, I knew barbershops would be more likely to carry my products if I had a full line.
It took me about 4 months, staying up til 1 or 2 am every night learning about pomades. I'd take my favorite pomades and research literally every ingredient. I looked up literally every ingredient in 5 different salon quality pomades and researched every single ingredient to understand what it did.
Then I joined a chemistry forum and researched those same ingredients there and other related posts.
Then I joined a forum of people who make and design these products for companies and read numerous posts on there. I wrote down about 20 different pomade formulas that people had issues with. Like maybe someone was making a pomade and it was too sticky. Or maybe their pomade was too runny or not enough hold. They'd post their recipe and percentages of each ingredient and ask for advice. I compared ingredients and percentages and trouble shot what was wrong and what was suggested to fix it. I compared those notes and came up with a formula I was convinced would work.
I ordered the ingredients I needed.
Made a batch, it didn't stay together. I tweaked it, made a 2nd batch, and it worked. In fact, my most popular hair pomade is almost identical to my first formula.
https://kuhnproducts.com/collections/hair-products-1/products/haarcreme-unorthodox-pomade
Honestly though, it sounds more complicated than it is. Once you know how to combine oil and water and how to use preservatives, everything else its not that difficult. It's all based on certain principles. Once you understand that principal, that's really the most important thing.
3 basic principles to know.
1. How to combine oil and water
2. Emollients and humectants. (Ingredients that moisturize and soften skin and hair)
3. Preservatives. (How to prevent oil and water products from getting moldy)
Once you understand those 3 principles, you can make anything for hair and skin. Literally.
After having learned all of that, I can usually tell by looking at the ingredients if they're made by a third party or if they're made by the small batch company themselves. The ingredients tell you a lot because some ingredients aren't available to the general public.
This is also why I stand by everything I sell. I know what's in it because I bought it myself, had it shipped to my house, and that ingredient is in there for a reason and it was made in my kitchen. . I also know what's in my competitors products and when they're using cheap crap to save money and also when a "premium" brand is doing the same thing. Its quite eye opening. Plus, it's not always the most advantageous to use natural ingredients, sometimes a not so natural ingredient just works better, sometimes it doesn't.
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