Stink Away: DIY Non-Toxic Dog Shampoo With Essential Oils

I don’t know about you but I like the winter when my dog stays much cleaner because he’s indoors more! Since we live in a place that gets snow, he doesn’t tend to roll around in the grass or jump in the lakes during that time so generally, we have a much cleaner dog during that time of the year.

However, it’s important that during the dirtier months of the year, which are pretty much 9 months out of 12, we like our sweet family companion to stay clean as much as possible.

Store-Bought Dog Shampoo Dangers

Unfortunately, just as with human shampoos and toiletries, dangerous chemicals can be lurking in the products that can be harmful to our pets health.

Common ingredients that need to be avoided due to their carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting natures are:

• Dyes and Lakes (artificial colors). These would be labeled like yellow 5, D&C, FD&C.
• Formaldehyde Releasers –  companies aren’t stupid enough to put this word on their label so it often hides under words like these: Diazolidinyl Urea, imidazolidinyl urea or quaternium-15.
• Parabens
• Phthalates
• Mineral Oil (petroleum derived)
• PEG
• Polysorbate 80 & 20
• Anything ending with “glycol”
• Sulfates and Sulfites
• SD40 & Isopropanol, 2-propanol, and propyl
• Fragrance
• Cocamidopropyl Betaine (environmental toxin)

Even if it says “Natural” which is a misnomer these days, don’t be fooled. That word has so many loopholes now that it literally means nothing.

This is a pretty long list, right?

Sadly, there are actually more ingredients I didn’t put on the list! Rather than spending your time at the store looking on an ingredient label for a half hour trying to figure out whether the dog shampoo is safe, why not spend 5 minutes making your own dog shampoo that has 5 pronounceable ingredients in it?

Important Ingredients to Use on Your Pampered Pooch

For our Goldendoodle, we only use safe ingredients. Actually, these are ones we could ingest and, in small amounts, so could he. Though we don’t recommend ingesting this shampoo, it is nice to know that it is so safe that should that happen, it’s ok.

Are Essential Oils Safe for My Dog?

When I coach people and teach people all about essential oils, this is a question I get a lot. It’s a very smart question and important to understand.

The answer to the question is, “It depends!”

There are lots of questions to ask before determining the answer.

• Does the dog have a healthy digestive system, liver, and renal system?
• How is it being applied? Aromatically, Topically, or Internally. In this case, with shampoo, we are talking about topically.
• The type (species) of essential oil matters as there are certain ones that are not to be used on dogs. These are Melaleuca, Birch, Camphor, & Wintergreen. Eucalyptus is a questionable one too.
• It depends on the dilution amount when applying to dogs as well. Small dogs need less oil and more dilution. Big dogs need small amounts of EO with dilution as well but not as much dilution is necessary for bigger dogs.

*Cat’s are very different from dogs so don’t apply this information to cats as they have different sensitivities we will get into in another post. For now, this one’s about dogs.

Since this post is about DIY dog shampoo with these certain essential oils the answer in regards to this recipe is, “Yes, essential oils are safe for your dog.”

The dilution in this shampoo is safe for healthy, small dogs and big dogs alike.

Stink Away: DIY Non-Toxic Dog Shampoo With Essential Oils

Out of convenience don’t go buy your dog shampoo from the store

Honestly, it’s much more convenient to make your own. Like I mentioned, it really only takes 5 minutes to make! Don’t buy into the hype of the word “natural.” Whether it’s human shampoo or dog shampoo, that literally means nothing. To keep your doggy clean, make this Stink Away DIY Non-Toxic Dog Shampoo with Essential Oils and your pooch will thank you for it!