How do they do this?

[pmartin]

Always curious about soap I buy and use and this one has me wondering. It is a semi hard shave soap from France, small mother and son, farm operation. They make soaps using donkey milk they raise.

Ingredient list is very simple;
Donkey milk, Stearic acid, coconut acid, potassium hydroxide, Aqua, kaolin, Parfum, glycerin.

My main question is there is this pattern that goes all the way through the soap, not just on the surface (see pic above). How is this done?

Other question is coconut acid and it’s use. If using the acid instead of the oil do you saponify it with lye and if so where do you find it’s sap value?

Thanks!

 

[lsg]

It looks like a surface design to me, probably made using a cavity mold. I googled coconut acid vs coconut oil and came up with this: https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/2441/coconut-oil-vs-coconut-acid

As far as a Sap value, I got different answers some were 235-240 min and another was 262 – 276

 

[pmartin]

That pattern which is very concentric goes all the way through the soap. I just cut the bar in half. It’s like a Mandela pattern. It looks so perfect that it seems like a machine did it. It’s not colored so to speak, just different shades of white. Could it be extruded or something?

Thank you for the info in the coconut acid!

Mystery solved... it is extruded. I found this video of their process. Very interesting... a good watch for anyone!

 

[lsg]

The video is really great, but it looks like a lot of work goes into making their soap and other products.

 

[amd]

I didn't watch the video (I will when not at work) but extruded soap was going to be my guess. I've been watching some other videos on YouTube about soap extruders so it was fresh in my mind.