Advice on this CP beer soap recipe?

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spenny92

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I'm trying to formulate a new recipe which doesn't contain palm oil, and preferably avoiding animal fats too. I do use lard in my goat's milk soaps, since I'm already using animal products with the milk. But for the rest of my soaps, I'd like them to be vegan friendly. If I have to, I can use beef/sheep dripping for this one but I have no idea if it's suitable or soaping or how it would behave.

I'm really struggling to get the numbers right in SoapCalc. I do have shea butter and cocoa butter ordered, but I'd like to test a batch of beer soap today and the only ingredients I have to hand are: olive oil pomace, coconut oil, rice bran oil, castor oil and sweet almond oil. If I can't get the recipe to look right, then I'll just wait until the butters arrive... But, I'm impatient! :thumbdown:

Every time I try and up the RBO, the iodine number shoots up and I'm worried it might cause DOS or rancidity. I can't up the olive too much as I actually don't have a lot of it, whereas I have a litre of RBO.

I've played around on SoapCalc and this is the recipe I'm considering. Tweaks and feedback much appreciated. I'm a new soaper and have made around 8-9 batches now, primarily with lard/goat's milk. This is my first time using RBO.

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Have you considered a 100% CO, SF at 20%?
I also like a salt bar with 90% CO, 10% Castor, SF at 15% with full coconut milk. That's a nice one after a couple of months.
I just tried out a salt bar with 85% CO, 10% Shea and 5% Castor. It looks promising, but is still a baby.
Then you've got the patience-required castille... just OO at 100%, and cure for a year.
You could also look into doing a bastille. You've got a lot of options there.

The main thing I watch out for on SoapCalc is to keep the sum of Linoleic and Linolenic under 15 as a DOS preventative measure. I live in a relatively dry place though...
 
I would drop the CO to 20% max, drop the castor to 5% (unless you have used it a lot and are comfortable w/higher percentages), keep the SAO and OO where they are. That gets you to 65%, I think? And then use RBO for the rest of it. I don't think it will increase the risk of DOS, it has a pretty long shelf life, SAO is actually worse in that respect.
 
Have you considered a 100% CO, SF at 20%?
I also like a salt bar with 90% CO, 10% Castor, SF at 15% with full coconut milk. That's a nice one after a couple of months.
I just tried out a salt bar with 85% CO, 10% Shea and 5% Castor. It looks promising, but is still a baby.
Then you've got the patience-required castille... just OO at 100%, and cure for a year.
You could also look into doing a bastille. You've got a lot of options there.

The main thing I watch out for on SoapCalc is to keep the sum of Linoleic and Linolenic under 15 as a DOS preventative measure. I live in a relatively dry place though...

I would definitely like to make a salt bar soon, but I don't have a huge amount of salt in the pantry. I'll pick some up this week I think. Just regular salt, or should I be buying a certain type?

Thanks for that, really helpful. :) I think I'm holding off on my recipe today, I want to let the beer sit for a while anyway. I've already boiled it and reduced it down a little bit. I think I'll wait until I have more supplies so I can stick to my standard vegan recipe. Soap-making is really teaching me to have more patience, which can only be a good thing!
 
I would drop the CO to 20% max, drop the castor to 5% (unless you have used it a lot and are comfortable w/higher percentages), keep the SAO and OO where they are. That gets you to 65%, I think? And then use RBO for the rest of it. I don't think it will increase the risk of DOS, it has a pretty long shelf life, SAO is actually worse in that respect.

I've been using 10% castor in my other recipes, but they haven't cured long enough to know exactly what they're like yet. Is there a reason why it's best to keep it lower than 10%?

I tried punching in those new numbers, but it doesn't seem to help with keeping the values within the recommended ranges for iodine and INS - are these particularly important, or can I flex them a little bit do you think? Thanks for your help. :)
 
Sea salt, canning salt, and denderic salts all work great for salt bars. You'll just want to avoid: Dead Sea salt (does bad things to your batter), iodized salt, and any salt with a coarse grain (can cut during usage). Don't try to grind a coarse grained salt down; it makes it even sharper.

You can pickup canning salt at most grocery stores. I get my sea salt at Costco and some folks have found it at dollar stores!
 
Supposedly castor at or above 10%-ish percent will make the soap stickier/gummier. I keep mine at about 8%, but some people here definitely go higher w/great success. Maybe post a new thread and ask if there are any tricks to it? I would guess that part of it is the oil balance, ie; you can get away w/more castor if you use lots of hard oils, adding it to a mix high in soft oils will exacerbate any negative characteristics.

The soap calc numbers are interesting but most experienced soapers here tell you to take them with a pinch of salt. There are a bunch of threads on why they do not tell the whole story, you might want to use this link to search for them:

http://sitecomber.com/search.php?do...www.soapmakingforum.com&sa=Search&safe=active
 
And as was mentioned in the dripping thread, your beer (and dripping!) might make this non-vegan anyway

I don't have that many vegan friends that I need to think about a specific recipe, especially non-palm, so I am not much help. I make soap primarily for me and my family, so I make soap that I want to use rather than a soap that someone else wants - if they don't like it, they don't have to use it and can go to the shop and buy a syndet!
 
I haven't found 10% castor to be an issue during soaping, but perhaps I'll experiment with a lower % and see what the difference is in the cured bars.

I'm using locally made craft beer from a restaurant/brewery that I sometimes work at, and it's all vegan-friendly so no worries there. I'm going to try the dripping out in place of lard in one of my "regular" soaps. I'm soaping with an aim to sell, so I'm trying to formulate recipes to suit the market where I live, which is a rural community with a high population of lovely planet-loving hippies. They're great, but hard to soap for! Anyway, I have plenty of time to figure it out. :)

Thanks for the help everyone!
 

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