Got a hold of some Stearic, first attempt is drying

The Stearic I found is 65% pure with 35% palmitic. Better than nothing I guess.

(Img not working so I uploaded it.)

I HPed the soap and it turned out really quite nice, bubbly and creamy, but now I have 2 major problems.

1. After 2-3 uses it feels drying. I really don't want to up the SF because our water is somewhat hard and that "hard to rinse off" effect is a show stopper.

Are there any SFs in particular that won't contribute to the "hard to rinse off" feeling? I have no sulfated castor or polysorbate

2. It looks like a granola bar because of the HP(probably bad technique).

Wondering if someone out there has gone through something similar

30% CO and a 5% SF? I'd find that drying, too! Each person is different, but do you use 30% at 5% often?

What is the purpose of the Stearic and Palmic acid additions?

The cleansing is high and the conditioning is low, I'm not surprised its drying. 30% coconut is really high, I never use more then 20% and SF at 8. I would do away with the steric, decrease the coconut and increase the olive oil, that will give you a milder soap that is more conditioning.

I agree with the others. CO at 30% and 5% superfat would be too drying for a lot of folks. Also, you will find 4-6 week cure with make it milder as well.

Wow guys thanks for the advice. I was expecting the problem to be much more dire!

I've been making variations of the 33/33/33 coconut/palm/olive recipe for personal use and picked up both the 1/3 coconut and the 5% sf from there.

I've done 8% sf before and not sure what to think of it. There was more of the HTRO feeling but when that feeling went away the bar still felt drying "underneath". Am I expecting the wrong things?

The stearic is there to help harden the bar and make it last lounge but it's a beast to handle. The palmitic is an unfortunate result of not having 99% stearic. It is 1 powder but for soap calc I break them up into 2.

You can also use sodium lactate to help with the hardness of the bar.

Have you tried a 15% co, with the balance spread between olive and tallow or lard?

Stearic is a pain in the butt, srsly. Try something, anything else (sodium lactate, salt, palm, tallow, beeswax, cocoa butter...). And let the soap cure a good long while.

You don't say how long you are letting these soaps cure. They will feel much more harsh at a few weeks than they will after a good long cure, I like 8 weeks.

Many people think that HP doesn't need to cure and that isn't true, it's just saponified. If anything HP just speeds it up a day or two, but it still must cure!

Harder and longer life => palm, lard, tallow
Harder and shorter life => coconut, palm kernel, babassu

Stearic is a little difficult. I made a 1lb loaf with 2% stearic, didn't have enough time to thoroughly mix in the color and fo. But, it is by far my absolute favorite soap! It's only co, palm, lard, oo, and castor, with a low cleansing and low bubbling because of low coconut. But, it lathers better than my highest coconut, lathers instantly, and it's silky, silky, silky.

Right now, my opinion is that it's the stearic acid that worked this magic. However, since I'm still a newbie I have to leave room to learn otherwise. But this recipe is so "common", and so close to many others I've made, I really think it's the stearic that did it.

At 3% stearic probably isn't the drying culprit.

Also, 99% pure stearic is industrial grade and used for rubber, apparently. Acme sells it in 50lb bags. I'm not too keen on dropping that much coin for experimental purposes. But I am curious if it's actually different.

Lee, that's quite interesting. Do you know what purity the stearic used in our soapmaking usually is?

I see brambleberry sells in small quantities, (correction which I thought were 99% but their purity is not stated.

Darth said:

Lee, that's quite interesting. Do you know what purity the stearic used in our soapmaking usually is?

I see brambleberry sells 99% in small quantities.

Click to expand...

IIRC it's 50-60%. Here's a spec sheet from one supplier. http://www.dudadiesel.com/msds/stearicacidCOA.pdf

I have not seen that on BB's website.

I've gone back to check and you're right, no-one states the purity and corrected my previous post.

This is somewhat confusing now as I thought my biggest problem was low purity stearic.

If a recipe calls for 30g stearic then do I add 30g of my powder (65% stearic 33% Palmitic) or do I increase the powder until 30g Stearic has been added.

In that case how would SAP calculations work if you dont know what the remaining 40-50% of your Stearic acid is made of?

Anyone hazard a guess?

I have re-read this entire thread and I'm not quite sure what kind of soap you are making. Shave soap? Cream soap? Regular bath soap?

"...If a recipe calls for 30g stearic then do I add 30g of my powder (65% stearic 33% Palmitic) or do I increase the powder until 30g Stearic has been added. ..."

If a recipe calls for 30 g stearic acid, you weigh out 30 g of the product sitting on your counter. The sap value in soapcalc, etc. is based on the commercial product you buy.

Yes, the commercial product you are using will be partly stearic acid and partly palmitic acid, but the fact that this is a blend of fatty acids is immaterial if you are following a recipe based on the use of the commercial product.

Keep in mind that any fat you use to make soap -- tallow, lard, olive, etc. -- is a blend of fatty acids too, so don't over think this.

***

Commercial stearic acid comes from treating a fat with heat, high pressure, and water to break it down into glycerin and fatty acids. Some fatty acids are solids at room temperature (lauric, myristic, stearic and palmitic) and some are liquid (oleic, linoleic, linolenic, ricinoleic).

To get a fatty acid blend with a high stearic acid content, fats high in stearic are used. Tallow, shea, cocoa butter, and palm are examples. The solid fatty acid blend is dried and is prilled (turned into pellets) or flaked. Any liquid fatty acids are put into containers for other uses.

FWIW, a soaper can make a fatty acid mixture by making a lye soap then adding acid until the soap "breaks". Sulfuric acid is used by the pros, but citric and acetic acids will also work. (Does this sound familar, liquid soapers?) Remove the solids -- the solid fatty acids -- from the liquid and there you are.

edit: If one wants a pure stearic acid, a process called crystallization would have to be used to separate the palmitic and stearic acids. The process is a little like putting a can of soda in the freezer. If you freeze the can too long, the water will freeze (and pop the can open!), but the sugar syrup remains liquid enough to ooze out and make a mess. You could collect just the syrup, leaving the water behind, and this would concentrate the sugars.

Darth said:

I've gone back to check and you're right, no-one states the purity and corrected my previous post.

This is somewhat confusing now as I thought my biggest problem was low purity stearic.

If a recipe calls for 30g stearic then do I add 30g of my powder (65% stearic 33% Palmitic) or do I increase the powder until 30g Stearic has been added.

In that case how would SAP calculations work if you dont know what the remaining 40-50% of your Stearic acid is made of?

Anyone hazard a guess?

Click to expand...

As Deanna said, the calcs already take that information into account. If you read the spec sheets, they also give you the average SAP value.

The rest of your "impure" stearic is made from palmitic acid if made from palm oil; if tallow based there's a 2% content of c14 or 12 (can't recall) in a spec sheet I looked at.

Honestly, no soaper uses 90% pure stearic, so why worry about the purity? We all use the commercial grade 50% pure. In addition, palmitic acid has nearly the exact same "numbers".

I definitely think everyone is different because I like soaping with coconut at 30% and I keep my SF 5%. My skin loves my soap and it feels perfect for my use. I wouldn't use that high for a facial bar though. I also use lots of olive oil, avocado and etc to balance things out. I think you need to play around with your recipe until you find something good for your skin.