Pine Tar soap recipe, need advice please

Castor Oil 10%
Cocoa Butter 10%
Coconut Oil, 76 deg 26%
EVOO 44%
Pine Tar 10%

I run it though the soap calc for 5% SF and has this as result:

Hardness 29 - 54 34
Cleansing 12 - 22 17
Conditioning 44 - 69 52
Bubbly 14 - 46 26
Creamy 16 - 48 26
Iodine 41 - 70 52
INS 136 - 165 138

Lauric 12
Myristic 5
Palmitic 11
Stearic 5
Ricinoleic 9
Oleic 36
Linoleic 7
Linolenic 0

I have read a lot of thread and watch a lot of videos about the pine tar and the oils used in this recipe, but I still have a lot of questions:

1. I saw some people made their pine tar bar with around 5-7% SF, but I also saw that some made them with as high as 10% SF because pine tar is drying on skin. Which SF should I use, I'm really confused about this.
2. All the numbers looks ok in the soapcalc, but can you see anything that I should change?
3. How much water should I use? I saw some people use water discount with success, but I also saw some where it was a complete disaster. If I use 2.2 : 1 instead of the full amount, would it be okay?
4. Should I add sugar to add bubble and salt to make the soap harder in the water? Will it affect trace time?
5. BTW, I also want to use this as shampoo bar because I have a little scalp problem. Should I use citric acid to lower the pH?

I'm planning on adding the pine tar in the oil before the lye and soap at room temperature to make things easier because it will trace very quickly.

1. I'm not a fan of high superfat -- it cuts lather, adds softness, and IMO increases the tendency for rancidity.

2. It isn't the pine tar that will be drying in your recipe -- it's the 36% coconut oil that will be the culprit. If you want a mild soap without a lot of free fat, drop the CO percentage and thus your cleansing number. Your soap recipe as written will make a soap that will be reasonably firm at first, but it won't last very long, again due to the high % of CO which makes a hard but highly soluble soap. Your recipe needs more firm fat -- cocoa butter, lard, palm, tallow -- to last a long time AND be reasonably firm, especially with the added PT.

3. You'll see stories where "full water" was a disaster too. Use whatever lye solution concentration you are used to using. I normally use 33% NaOH solution (this is NOT the water discount!), but many other soapers use the standard 28% solution concentration. Regardless of the amount of water used, any PT recipe is very likely to trace fast, so just plan on that and it won't be a disaster ... just business as usual.

4. I personally do not add anything to a PT recipe that will increase the tendency for the soap to heat up -- and sugar will do that. The PT itself adds a lot of bubbles to the lather, so don't worry about it.

5. There are recent SMF threads about adding citric acid and other acids to soap -- too long to repeat here -- and I advise studying this subject more since you are misinformed on this point. Short answer -- Soap is a "buffered system". Adding acid does NOT reduce the pH of lye soap. It just increases the superfat.

If you use this as a shampoo bar, it will dry your scalp/hair out very bad. Your cleansing number is pretty high. If you lower your coconut to 15-20% and make up the difference with either OO or lard, you will have a milder bar. It still will be too cleansing for shampoo though.

I really recommend making separate shampoo bars as they need a cleansing number of 5 or under so your scalp isn't stripped of oils which will only irritate any skin condition you already have.

Adding salt will be ok but nothing else.

Oops, I made a mistake with the CO percentage, it was supposed to be 26%, not 36%. I fixed it. But I guess I should substitute some with other oils. Will tweak around and see how it goes. I'd love to use lard, sadly I don't think I can find it easily in my country as most of the people here can't use it due to religious belief.

Larger amounts of coconut oil tend to speed trace, which you DO NOT want with pine tar soap.

I am not sure how you are calculator your water. I use soap calc, and I bump up the water percentage from 38% to 40%.

I would also be very hesitant to use the cocoa butter, again b/c it speeds trace. Lard is really idea for Pine Tar soap b/c it is slower tracing but makes a hard bar of soap.

If you don't have access to lard, do you have access to sheep fat or cow fat?

If you don't have access to sheep or cow fat, I would eliminate the cocoa butter entirely, drop the coconut percentage to 20%, then 10% castor and 70% olive. Yes, it will take a long time to firm up - pine tar manages to hit that magic point of speeding trace yet also making a soap that takes a long time to get hard. Use a mold that you won't need for a while - it will be occupied. Maybe for a week or more. I like to use cardboard orange juice containers.

Do you have access to ostrich tallow?
Or try babassu oil.

I added some sugar to my tar soap.
It heated up like hell :twisted:

But I'm not sure whether it was the sugar or something else.

The soap is still curing - outdoors...

Hmm, I might use palm to subtitute some of the Cocoa butter and CO.

Sadly, I don't know where I can buy a good quality sheep fat, cow fat, tallow or babassu. I usually soap with ingredient that I could get with reasonable price locally.

I finally decided to add beewax, palm and coconut milk to the recipe. I made the cleansing number go down to 5 and the cocoa butter as the SF. Will post the detail later. I also hot process this so that I don't have to deal with the fast trace.





Can't wait to cut it. Thanks for all the help and tips :-D.

I cut it more of a block shape. This is the final recipe that I use:
Beewax 8 gr
Cocoa Butter 30 gr (20 gr separated and then used as SF)
Coconut Oil 32 gr
Castor Oil 52 gr
Olive Oil 140 gr
Palm Oil 190 gr
Pine Tar 50 gr
plus 60gr of coconut milk as subtitute of some of the water

I didn't managed to get all the air bubble out, but I don't really mind. I still need to master the skill of putting soap into the mold .

It's hard now, but I'll wait for a few more week before I use it. I also added lavender fo, but the pine tar smell is too strong now. Maybe it'll mellow out in a few weeks and I can smell the lavender then.