Using Neem Oil: Making Neem Shampoo, Lotion And Cream
To make your own neem shampoo, neem lotion or neem cream from scratch would be quite an undertaking. Making your own cosmetics requires a lot of skill and knowledge.
But you need not do it from scratch!
It can be so simple...
To make your own neem products just add some 100% pure, organic neem oil to your favourite shampoo or lotion, and voila! You have neem shampoo or neem lotion.
(Making neem soap is similarly easy if using the melt and pour recipe on this page.)
Here are the amounts you use, and how to use them:
Neem oil mixes readily with shampoos, lotions or creams.
- Use 1 to 5 ml of neem oil for every 100 ml of shampoo or lotion/cream. (That's about one half to one teaspoon to 4 ounces).
- Adjust the amount according to the intended use. For every day use a lower concentration is good enough. If you are battling some skin disorder, dandruff, parasite or similar, you may want to use more.
- Be aware of the unpleasant smell of neem oil! (It is said to smell of sulfur and garlic.) So be careful with the amount you use.
- Only mix a small batch at any one time, ideally only as much as you will use. (The active ingredients of neem oil are not necessarily stable when mixed with other substances, especially water.)
- You can keep a flask of neem oil with an eye dropper in the bathroom. Just mix the shampoo or lotion with a few drops of oil in the palm of your hand.
Neem oil can also be mixed with other carrier oils, for example olive or almond oil.
- The amounts to use are the same: 2 to 5 ml of neem oil for every 100 ml of oil mixture, or one half to one teaspoon to 4 ounces.
- Mask the horrible neem oil smell with a few drops of essential oil, like lavender or sandalwood.
- Some people prefer to use tea tree oil. It gives the blend a more medicinal smell, plus tea tree oil is a wonderful medicinal oil as well.
- For use as neem hair oil: massage into scalp and leave for at least one hour or over night.
- For skin problems: apply directly onto the skin two or three times a day.
You should not use undiluted neem oil on your skin. If using it as a lotion or cream I also suggest that you always try out a very small amount, on a small area, and see if your skin reacts in any way.
Some people are sensitive to neem oil (though not usually at this low concentration). Depending on how the neem oil was processed there could also be traces of other ingredients and solvents that cause allergies. It's simple common sense to test it first.
For very sensitive skin you may want to use neem leaf extract rather than neem oil. You can read more about neem leaf here.
There is no need to be that careful with your homemade neem shampoo because the shampoo is rinsed out and not left on the skin.
